While it all started in the cloud Artificial Intelligence is now moving at the very edge is ultra-low power nodes, and Microchip has launched two SAMD21 Arm Cortex-M0+ machine learning evaluation kits that now work with AI/ML solutions from Cartesiam, Edge Impulse, and Motion Gestures.
Bot machine learning evaluation kits come with SAMD21G18 Arm Cortex-M0+ 32-bit MCU, an on-board debugger (nEDBG), an ATECC608A CryptoAuthentication secure element, ATWINC1510 Wi-Fi network controller, as well as Microchip MCP9808 high accuracy temperature sensor and a light sensor. But EV45Y33A development kit is equipped with an add-on board featuring Bosch’s BMI160 low-power Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), while EV18H79A features an add-on board with TDK InvenSense ICM-42688-P 6-axis MEMS.
The photo above makes it clear both SAMD21 machine learning evaluation kits rely on the same baseboard with a MikroBus socket connected to either 6DOF IMU 2click or 6DOF IMU 14 click add-on board from MikroElektronika. Both boards are similar, but the latter was just released this year (August). Both are designed for gesture recognition, activity classification, and pedometers.
The boards can be programmed with MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) using the ML solutions from three partners:
- Cartesiam NanoEdge AI Studio allows embedded developers, without any prior knowledge of AI, to rapidly develop specialized machine learning libraries for microcontrollers.
- Edge Impulse is a developer platform for embedded machine learning with dataset collection, DSP and ML algorithms, testing, and efficient inference code generation working across a wide range of sensor, audio, and vision applications.
- Motion Gestures embedded AI-based gesture recognition software for touch, motion, and vision sensors. The solution does not require any training data collection or programming and instead, uses advanced machine learning algorithms allegedly resulting in development time and costs reduced by 10 times while being delivering twice as accurate gesture recognition.
Besides the low-cost SAMD21 devkits mentioned above, the machine learning solutions also work on SAMC21 xPlained Pro evaluation kit (ATSAMC21-XPRO) coupled with its QT8 xPlained Pro Extension Kit (AC164161)pictures above and especially suited to evaluating Motion Gestures solutions.
Microchip showcases the MPLAB X IDE ML implementations during Embedded Vision Summit 2020 virtual conference that took place on September 15-17, and sadly just ended, but some video may soon be uploaded.
SAMD21 machine learning evaluation kits can be purchased for $39.95 and $54.95 respectively on MicrochipDirect. More details may be found on the respective product pages here and there.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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