Arduino
lastmod 2022-10-20created 2016-05-132 edits
Arduino refers to an open-source-based single-board microcontroller, comprising finished boards (products) and the related development tools and environment. Arduino was devised in 2005 at IDII (Interaction Design Institutelvera) in Italy so that students unfamiliar with hardware could easily control their design works. It was initially built on AVR, and Atmel AVR-family boards are currently the best-selling. Products using the ARM-family Cortex-M0 (Arduino M0 Pro) and Cortex-M3 (Arduino Due) also exist.
Arduino takes input values from multiple switches or sensors and controls external electronic devices such as LEDs and motors, letting you build things that can interact with their environment. As one kind of embedded system, it lets you control devices using an environment that makes development easy.
It provides the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE), covering software development and uploading of executable code. It can also integrate with software such as Adobe Flash, Processing, and Max/MSP.
Arduino's greatest advantage is that it makes microcontrollers easy to run. Typically, AVR programming involves a cumbersome process: compiling with a combination of AVRStudio (renamed Atmel Studio, with ARM tools added) and WinAVR (avr-gcc), or developing with IAR E.W. or CodeVision, and then uploading through a separate ISP device. By comparison, Arduino can easily upload compiled firmware over USB. Arduino is also relatively inexpensive compared with other modules and supports multiple OSes, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Because the Arduino board schematics are published under the CCL, anyone can build and modify a board themselves.
As Arduino has grown in popularity, more companies are using it in business. The toy company Lego runs robot education programs for students and adults in North America using its robot toys and Arduino. The automaker Ford also unveiled a program called OpenXC, which uses Arduino to build in-vehicle hardware and software that can interact with the vehicle.