Hardware Category - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by Sayantan Nandy - No Comments

$15 Makerdiary iMX RT1011 Nano Kit runs Zephyr RTOS on 500 MHz NXP iMX RT1011 crossover MCU

Makerdiary’s iMX RT1011 Nano Kit is a prototyping board featuring the NXP iMX RT1011 Cortex-M7 Crossover MCU running Zephyr RTOS. It offers 128 KB of on-chip RAM, configurable as TCM or general-purpose memory, and supports high-speed USB, UART, SPI, I2C, SAI, PWM, GPIO, and ADC, making it suitable for a variety of embedded applications. The board also includes a 128 Mbit external QSPI flash with XIP support, flexible power management, a programmable LED and Button, and a USB-C connector. It features a dual-row 40-pin layout (DIP/SMT) with up to 33 multi-function GPIO pins, 15 of which can be used as ADC inputs, along with a Serial Wire Debug (SWD) port. Optional pre-soldered headers are available for added flexibility. We previously covered other iMX RT1011-based development boards, such as the Olimex RT1010-Py running MicroPython and Adafruit Metro M7 with CircuitPython firmware. Be sure to check them out if you’re interested. Makerdiary’s […]

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ASUS Tinker Board 3 – A credit-card sized Rockchip RK3566 SBC with 12V to 19V DC input

ASUS Tinker Board 3 is a credit card-sized SBC based on Rockchip RK3566 SoC with an HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio jack, gigabit Ethernet, an M.2 socket for WiFi and Bluetooth, four USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header with a layout similar to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. When I first wrote about the Tinker Board 3 in 2023, it was a larger (100 x 100 mm) SBC based on Rockchip RK3568 SoC that was later renamed to Tinker Board 3N, now also available as a complete rugged system (more about that in a subsequent post). The new Tinker Board 3 (2024) is a completely different design that competes against Radxa ROCK 3C and Orange Pi 3B boards also based on RK3566 and offered in a business card/credit card form factor similar to the Raspberry Pi 3B. Tinker Board 3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core […]

September 20, 2024September 19, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

NXP Trimension SR250 short-range UWB radar supports secure ranging for Smart Homes and Industrial IoT

NXP Semiconductors has recently introduced Trimension SR250 UWB radar, which NXP is calling the industry’s first single-chip solution that combines on-chip processing with short-range ultra-wideband (UWB) radar and secure UWB ranging. Operating at 6-8.5 GHz, the SR250 supports features like 3D angle-of-arrival (AoA), time difference of arrival (TDOA), and time of flight (ToF) measurements accurate to within ±5 cm. The integrated on-chip radar processing reduces power consumption, which increases efficiency and it can work with AI/ML algorithms on host processors like NXP’s i.MX, RW61x, and MCX families. The SR250 is supported by firmware, middleware, and sample applications, simplifying development and deployment. Applications for this device include smart home automation (e.g., turning devices on/off based on presence), secure access, and safety monitoring, as well as industrial uses such as worker tracking, collision avoidance, and danger zone detection. Trimension SR250 UWB radar specification 3D secure ranging Fully interoperable with IEEE 802.15.4z HRP […]

September 19, 2024September 19, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 1 Comment

SparkFun’s $125 “Indoor Air Quality Combo Sensor” combines the SCD41 and SEN55 environmental sensors

SparkFun has released a new air quality multi-sensor board, the Indoor Air Quality Combo Sensor, which integrates the SCD41 and SEN55 sensors from Sensirion for measuring carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter, relative humidity, and temperature. The air quality multi-sensor board simplifies power management for the two sensors via onboard DC voltage conversion and allows a single Qwiic connection for power and communication. It features two Qwiic connectors and a 0.1”-space through-hole header for I2C and power. The board is not a complete solution for indoor air quality monitoring. It has to be connected to a Qwiic-enabled microcontroller such as SparkFun Thing Plus Matter, DataLogger IoT, and the ESP32 Qwiic Pro Mini. Users can install the required Arduino libraries — the Arduino Core library, Sensirion I2C SEN5x, and SparkFun SCD4x — either via the Arduino library manager or directly from SparkFun. The device is open-source, with hardware files, […]

September 19, 2024 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

AAEON GENE-ASL6 – A 3.5-inch industrial Amston Lake SBC with triple display interfaces and triple 2.5GbE

AAEON GENE-ASL6 is an Intel Atom x7000RE-series Amston Lake powered 3.5-inch single board computer (SBC) featuring three 2.5GbE RJ45 ports and three independent display outputs via HDMI, LVDS, and VGA. The GENE-ASL6 can be configured with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and supports a variety of storage options including SATA, mSATA, and M.2 NVMe SSD options. There is also an M.2 2230 E-Key slot for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and the other M.2 3052 B-Key slot can be used for storage or to connect 4G or 5G modules. Other than that, this board features a variety of connectivity options including USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, serial ports, GPIO, SMBus/I2C, optional audio header, and much more. AAEON GENE-ASL6 3.5-inch industrial SBC specification Amston Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Atom x7213RE dual-core processor @ 2.0 to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD graphics; 9W TDP Intel Atom x7433RE […]

September 19, 2024September 18, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 2 Comments

The SenseCAP Watcher is a voice-controlled, physical AI agent for LLM-based space monitoring (Crowdfunding)

Seeed Studio has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the SenseCAP Watcher, a physical AI agent capable of monitoring a space and taking actions based on events within that area. Described as the “world’s first Physical LLM Agent for Smarter Spaces,” the SenseCAP Watcher leverages onboard and cloud-based technologies to “bridge the gap between digital intelligence and physical applications.” The SenseCAP Watcher is powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller coupled with a Himax WiseEye2 HX6538 chip (Cortex-M55 and Ethos-U55 microNPU) for image and vector data processing. It builds on the Grove Vision AI V2 module and comes in a form factor about one-third the size of an iPhone. Onboard features include a camera, touchscreen, microphone, and speaker, supporting voice command recognition and multimodal sensor expansion. It runs the SenseCraft software suite which integrates on-device tinyML models with powerful large language models, either running on a remote cloud server or a local computer […]

September 18, 2024September 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

STMicro STM32C071 Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU adds USB FS interface, targets inexpensive GUI implementations

STM32C071 development board graphical user interface

STMicro has just announced the availability of the STM32C071 Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller part of the STM32C0 series with 128 KB of flash and 24 KB of RAM suitable for driving a small 320 x 240 display using an SPI interface and building affordable graphical user interfaces (GUI) for appliances. The microcontroller also adds a crystal-less USB FS device interface, additional SPI and I2C interfaces, and extra GPIOs (up to 61) all of which are 5V tolerant. For evaluation and quickly get started with firmware development, STMicro also offers the NUCLEO-C071RB development board and X-NUCLEO-GFX01M2 display expansion board. STM32C071 low-cost Cortex-M0+ MCU for GUI in appliances STM32C071 specifications: MCU Core -Arm 32-bit Cortex-M0+ CPU @ up to 48 MHz Memory – Up to 24KB SRAM with HW parity check Storage – Up to 128KB flash with protection and securable area Peripheral interfaces Up to 61x fast I/Os, all 5V tolerant 5-channel […]

September 18, 2024 by Sayantan Nandy - No Comments

Vecow RAC-1000 rugged Edge AI systems feature NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, waterproof ports, GMSL2 camera connectors

Vecow RAC 1000 Jetson AGX Orin computing system

Vecow’s RAC-1000 series Edge AI systems are powered by NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 32GB or 64GB system-on-modules, offering up to 275 TOPS of AI performance. These systems are energy-efficient and come with rugged I/O options and an IP67-rated enclosure, making them suitable for AI and robotics applications such as automated agricultural machinery, construction automation, and mobile robotics in extreme outdoor conditions. The series includes two models: the RAC-1000, which supports 8 GMSL2 cameras through FAKRA-Z connectors for autonomous mobile robots, agricultural vehicles, and ADAS; and the RAC-1100, which features 6 GigE LAN ports with 4 PoE+ for vision AI applications. Both models are built for industrial environments and support various AI-driven tasks. As you may know, we’ve previously covered several Vecow AI computing systems, including EAC-5000, EVS-3000, TGS-1000 Series, SPC-9000 fanless embedded system, ECX-3200, and EPBC-1000. Feel free to explore these options if you’re interested. The Vecow RAC-1000 series specifications: […]