OASIS is a Smart Home operating system based on ROS 2 that currently implements computer vision, input streaming, and general automation features, and can be integrated into Kodi media center. The operating system was recently released by Garrett Brown (a.k.a. garbear or eigendude), who is also known for being the RetroPlayer developer from Team Kodi/XBMC, and provides a complete implementation of the Firmata protocol for communicating with Arduino boards, plus additional support for temperature and humidity sensors, I2C, servos, sonar, SPI, stepper motors, and 4-wire CPU fans. Two main use cases are computer vision and input streaming at this time. The illustration above shows the former with the Kinect 2 driver ported to ROS 2, a background subtractor on all camera feeds using bgslibrary C++ background subtraction library, and Kodi as the visual interface. The second, input streaming, can be seen below with a Lego train (including a Falcon spaceship!) […]
Portenta X8 is the first Arm Linux Arduino board
In simpler times, Raspberry Pi was making Arm Linux SBC’s, and Arduino MCU boards, but after Raspberry Pi got into the MCU business last year, it’s now time for Arduino to introduce its first Arm Linux board with the Arduino Portenta X8. The new board since comes with the same STM32H7 Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller found in the Portenta H7 boards, but add a more powerful, Linux-capable NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with four Cortex-A53 cores and a Cortex-M4 core, coupled with 2GB RAM and a 16GB eMMC flash. Arduino Portenta X8 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini Arm Cortex-A53 quad-core up to 1.8 GHz,1x Cortex-M4 real-time core up to 400MHz. Microcontroller – STMicro STM32H747AII6 Cortex-M7 @ 480 MHz + M4 @ 240 MHz MCU with 2MB dual-bank Flash memory, 1 MB RAM, Chrom-ART graphical hardware accelerator System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet interface […]
Arduino Braccio++ robotic arm is designed for high-school and university students
Arduino Education has just launched the Braccio++ robotic arm for advanced students in high school or at university in order to let them experiment with a 6 DOF, industrial, assembly line-inspired robot. The new robotic arm provides an upgrade to the Tinkerkit Braccio robot and has been designed to assist in teaching real-world manufacturing techniques,topics such as physics and robotics, and concepts like motions, forces, torque, gear ratio, stability, and weight of payload. The Arduino Braccio++ is comprised of the Braccio carrier board equipped with an Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect that controls six Arduino RS485 Smart Servo Motors with specifically four SR418D servo motors for the arm joints, and two SR312 servo motors for the claw. Four lessons and two projects are included in the kit, and it’s made for up to three students. Arduino says the new robotic arm is made of recycled and eco-friendly materials with the […]
1.51-inch transparent OLED display works over GDI or SPI interface
We’ve seen transparent, see-through displays at least since 2010 for retail applications, and over the years, these types of transparent displays or variants have made it to consumer devices like smartwatches and notch-free smartphones. But I don’t think I had ever seen transparent displays for the maker market, and DFRobot Fermion is 1.51-inch transparent OLED display with 128×64 resolution that is connected to the host MCU via SPI or GDI (General Display Interface) interface. Fermion specifications: 1.51-inch transparent OLED display with blue pixels based on SSD1309 driver Resolution – 128×64 (transparent part: 128×56) Display interface – 8-bit 68xx/80xx Parallel, 3-/4-wire SPI, I2C Adapter Interface – SPI, GDI Operating Voltage – 3.3V Dimensions Screen Size – 41.92 x 27.08mm Display Area – 35.05 x 15.32 mm Pixel Pitch – 0.274 x 0.274mm Pixel Size – 0.254 x 0.254mm Adapter Size – 18 x 28mm/0.71 x 1.10inch Temperature Range – -40~70°C There […]
LOLIN C3 Mini ESP32-C3 board is compatible with Wemos D1 Mini shields
Wemos LOLIN C3 Mini board is powered by Espressif ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V microcontroller and follows the company’s earlier Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266) and LOLIN S2 Mini (ESP32-S2) form factor for compatibility with the original stackable Wemos D1 shields. The tiny board comes with 4MB flash embedded in the ESP32-C3 chip, a USB Type-C connector, reset and user buttons, as well as sixteen through holes for GPIOs, VBUS, 3.3V, and ground signals. LOLIN C3 Mini V1.0.0 specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3FH4 single-core 32-bit RISC-V (RV32IMC) microcontroller up to 160 MHz with 400 KB SRAM, 4MB Flash Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE (in SoC) Expansion headers – 2x 8-pin headers with up to 12x GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI, UART (3.3V I/O voltage) USB – 1x Type-C USB for 5V power and programming Misc – Reset button and button 0 also used to enter Device […]
Waveshare CM4-Duino – An Arduino compatible carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4
Waveshare CM4-Duino is a carrier board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) that follows Arduino UNO R3 form factor while offering HDMI output, a MIPI CSI camera interface, a USB interface, and even an M.2 M Key socket for expansion. This allows the board to reuse most Arduino shields while offering the flexibility of a more powerful Arm Linux platform that can further be expanded with an NVMe SSD or a wireless module through the included M.2 socket. Waveshare CM4-Duino specifications: Support SoM – All variants of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Storage MicroSD card socket for Compute Module 4 Lite (without eMMC) variants Optional NVMe SSD via M.2 socket Video Output – HDMI up to 4Kp30 (not sure why 4Kp60 would not be supported) Camera I/F – 1x MIPI CSI-2 connector USB – 1x USB 2.0 Type-A header, 1x USB Type-C for power and programming Expansion M.2 M […]
Arduino Nicla Vision – A tiny STM32H7 board with 2MP camera, WiFi & Bluetooth LE, sensors
Arduino Nicla Vision is an ultra-compact (~2.3×2.3 cm) board powered by an STMicro STM32H7 dual-core Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller, and equipped with a 2MP camera, a WiFi & Bluetooth LE module, and a few sensors. Those features make the board suitable for machine vision and edge computing applications such as asset tracking, image detection, object recognition, and predictive maintenance. For instance, image detection, facial recognition, automated optical inspection, vehicle plate reading, or gesture recognition can be added to projects, either using Nicla Vision as a standalone board or in combination with Portenta or MKR boards. Arduino Nicla Vision specifications: Microcontrollers – STMicro STM32H757AII6 dual-core MCU with Arm Cortex M7 @ 480MHz, Cortex-M4 @ 240MHz, 2 MB flash, 1MB RAM Storage – 16MB QSPI flash Connectivity – 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11b/g/n up to 65 Mbps and Bluetooth 5.1 BR/EDR/LE via Murata 1DX module Camera – 2MP GC2145 color camera. USB – Micro USB port […]
ESP8285 WiFi DIP module replaces ATMega328P MCU on Arduino UNO board (Crowdfunding)
Released over 10 years ago, Arduino UNO is still the best-selling Arduino board, but lacking WiFi in the IoT era is not ideal, so Gianluca Martino, Arduino co-founder and working with the company until 2015, decided to design the Jolly DIP module based on ESP8285 WiFi chip that can replace the ATmega328P 8-bit AVR DIP-40 microcontroller. Since ESP8285 cannot provide all I/Os, notably analog inputs offered by ATmega328P, Gianluca combined it with the ATMega328PB microcontroller in a compact SMD package to offer firmware compatibility plus WiFi connectivity in the same DIP form factor. Jolly module specifications: MCU – Microchip ATMega328PB 8-bit AVR microcontroller with 32 KB ISP Flash, 1 KB EEPROM, 2 KB SRAM (Based on data from the datasheet) Wireless chip – Espressif Systems ESP8285H16 WiFi SoC with 2MB integrated flash plus ceramic antenna Communication interfaces between the two chips – SPI + UART (the latter exclusively for ESP8285 […]