Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 8, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Arduino PLC IDE released for the Portenta Machine Control unit, and soon Opta micro PLC

The newly released Arduino PLC IDE supports the five languages defined by the IEC 61131-3 standard: Ladder Diagram, Functional Block Diagram, Structured Text, Sequential Function Chart, and Instruction List. With Arduino focusing more and more on the industrial side with its Arduino Pro family, the company unveiled the Arduino Opta Micro PLC for industrial application last month and said it could be programmed with traditional PLC languages such as Ladder and FCB as well as the Arduino 2.0.0 IDE. The company now seems to have created an all-in-one integrated development environment for such hardware with the Arduino PLC IDE supporting PLC languages with Arduino Sketches. The program now supports the Portenta Machine Control unit, but the upcoming Opta micro PLC will be added soon. The IDE integrates no-code Fieldbus configurators that allow users to manage CanOpen, Modbus RTU, and Modbus TCP communication easily, and Arduino also mentions “advanced monitoring and […]

December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Hand Gesture Recognition on ESP32-S3 with the ESP-DL library

Ali Hassan Shah has deployed a deep learning model for hand gesture recognition on the ESP32-S3-EYE board using the ESP-DL library and achieved AI-powered hand recognition with a 0.7-second latency on the ESP32-S3 camera board. Last year, Espressif released the ESP-DL library for the ESP32-S3 microcontroller with AI vector extensions, as well as ESP32 and ESP32-S2, along with a face detection demo that ran much faster on the ESP32-S3. Ali rolled out his own solution for AI gesture recognition and provided a step-by-step tutorial along the way. The main steps to deploying a custom model with the ESP-DL library include: Model Development that involves Getting or creating datasets. In this case, downloaded from Kaggle with 6 gestures namely Palm, I, Thumb, Index, Ok, and C. Testing, training, and calibrating the datasets Building a (CNN) Model Training a Model Saving a Model to the Hierarchical Data format (.h5) Converting the H.5 […]

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Add an ePaper display to Raspberry Pi Pico W with EnkPi 2.9-inch to 7.5-inch displays (Crowdfunding)

EnkPi Raspberry Pi Pico W ePaper Display

SB Components is running another crowdfunding campaign with the EnkPi ePaper display powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico W board and offered in four different sizes namely 2.9-inch, 4.2-inch 5.83-inch, and 7.5-inch. Each mainboard also comes with a USB Type-C port, a microSD card socket, an RTC with a backup battery holder, a buzzer, six user buttons, and a JST connector for expansion with GPIO, I2C, UART, and ADC signals. EnkPi specifications: MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico W with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, 2MB QSPI flash, WiFi 4 module. Storage – MicroSD card socket Display connected over SPI to the Pico W board 2.9-inch tricolor ePaper display with 296×128 resolution 4.2-inch tricolor ePaper display with 400×300 resolution 5.83-inch tricolor ePaper display with 648×480 resolution 7.5-inch tricolor ePaper display with 800×480 resolution Partial refresh support with up to 170 degrees wide viewing angle USB – 1x USB Type-C […]

December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UP Xtreme i12 Alder Lake SBC supports up to four 4K displays @ 60 Hz, Raspberry Pi HATs

AAEON has just introduced the UP Xtreme i12 single board computer (SBC) with Intel 12th generation Alder Lake-P hybrid SoC with up to 12 cores/16 threads, up to 32GB LPDDR5 memory, support for four 4Kp60 displays, and equipped with high-speed interfaces such as USB 4.0 and 2.5 GbE. The board also features four M.2 sockets for NVMe storage, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G cellular connectivity, a SATA III port, several USB 3.2/2.0 Type-A ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header and mounting thread for Raspberry Pi HATs, which should make it especially suitable for IoT, robotics, and smart retail applications, as well as smart manufacturing with a 12 to 36V wide supply voltage range. UP Xtreme i12 specifications: Alder Lake-P SoC (One or the other) Intel Core i7-1270PE 12-core/16-thread processor @ 3.30GHz / 4.50GHz (Turbo) with 96EU Intel Xe graphics – PBP: 28W, up to 64W MTP Intel Core i5-1250PE 12-core/16-thread processor […]

December 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Armbian 22.11 released with 64-bit RISC-V UEFI, ultra minimal images support

Armbian 22.11 has just been released with three new SBCs, support for 64-bit RISC-V UEFI, a new ultra-minimal image optimized for software development, and various improvements. Armbian was born as a framework to build better OS images, usually Debian or Ubuntu, for Arm-based single board computers from Orange Pi, Hardkernel (ODROID), FriendlyElec, Banana Pi, and others, but now with the release of Armbian 22.11, support for the RISC-V architecture has started since the system can now generate 64-bit RISC-V UEFI images. Some other highlights of Armbian 22.11 include: Added support for Banana Pi BPI-M5 (Amlogic S905X3), ODROID-M1 (Rockchip RK3568), and Rock Pi 4C Plus (Rockchip RK3399-T) Enabled community images with a weekly release cycle Added ultra minimal images optimized for software deployment Improved support for the Rock Pi S (Rockchip RK3308) Kernel upgrade is frozen by default to improve stability I could not find details about the new “Minimal” images, […]

December 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

$200 Swarm M138 kit enables two-way satellite connectivity for IoT projects

Sparkfun has launched a Satellite Transceiver Kit based on the Swarm M138 satellite and GNSS modem that allows low-bitrate two-way connectivity for IoT projects anywhere on earth. Remote IoT applications have benefited from LPWAN standards such as LoRaWAN and NB-IoT, but in some extreme cases coverage may still be challenging, so satellite communication may be the only practical option. It used to be really expensive, but Swarm makes this more affordable, and companies like SigFox and Semtech also have (or had?) plans to use low-earth orbit satellites for their respective LPWAN technologies. Swarm M138 kit content and specifications: Swarm M138 mini PCIe satellite modem and GNSS receiver module MCU – Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller Up to 1 Kbps data rate, up to 912 bytes packet size Frequency 137-138 MHz (downlink) 148-150 MHz (uplink) Dimensions – 51.0 x 30.0 x 5.3 mm Weight – 9.6 grams Temperature Range – -40°C to +85°C […]

December 5, 2022July 10, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

UniHiker education platform teaches STEM with Mind+ and Jupyter

DFRobot UniHiker is a STEM education platform with a 2.8-inch touchscreen display, a Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor, a GD32V RISC-V microcontroller, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as various headers for expansion, and a BBC Micro:bit compatible edge connector. The UniHiker runs Debian 10 Linux and can be used to teach programming using Mind+ visual programming IDE or Jupyter open-source interface, as well as IoT and AI basics thanks to tutorials and lessons available in Chinese only as the platform clearly targets the education market in mainland China at this point in time. Unihiker specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 Quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.2GHz without GPU MCU – Gigadevice GD32VF103C8T6 RISC-V microcontroller @ 108MHz with 64KB flash, 32KB SRAM System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Display – 2.8-inch touchscreen color display with 320×240 resolution Connectivity – 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi & […]

December 5, 2022December 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

DFI EC70A-TGU embedded computer promises long-term support until 2035 (at least)

Some industries require long-term support of hardware, and DFI’s EC70A-TGU rugged embedded computer could fit the bill as the Tiger Lake IOTG processor used in this model has a 15-Year CPU life cycle guaranteeing availability until Q3 2035. The fanless computer is equipped with 8GB RAM, supports M.2 NVMe SSD storage, also well M.2 expansion slots for 5G modules, features HDMI and VGA video output, four serial DB3 ports, and offers up to four Ethernet ports and up to six USB ports through three SKUs with a different number of USB and Ethernet ports. DFI EC70A-TGU specifications: Tiger Lake UP3 “IoTG” SoC (one or the other) @ 1.5GHz to 4.4GHz depending on SKU Embedded Intel Core i7-1185G7E quad-core processor with Iris Xe graphics; TDP: 28W Intel Core i5-1145G7E quad-core processor with Iris Xe graphics; TDP: 28W Intel Core i3-1115G4E dual-core processor with Intel UHD graphics; TDP: 28W Industrial-grade Intel Core […]