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

March 13, 2021March 1, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Eduponics Mini is an ESP32-powered Smart Agriculture kit (crowdfunding)

Eduponics Mini ESP32 Smart Agriculture Board

One sector of the economy that should benefit the most from the Internet of Things is the agricultural sector, as environmental sensors are needed to optimize yields and also decrease costs with lower electricity and water usage. STEMinds Eduponics Mini Smart Agriculture kit is designed for this purpose. At the heart of the kit is an ESP32 board equipped with light, temperature, humidity, and barometric sensors, as well as interfaces to connect an external pump, a soil moisture sensor, a water quality sensor, and more environmental sensors. Eduponics Mini board specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROVER-B module with ESP32 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth SoC, 4MB QSPI flash, 8MB SPRAM, PCB antenna Built-in sensors BH1750 I2C light sensor BME280 I2C temperature, humidity, and barometric sensor Expansion 2-pin connector for 12V pump with built-in relay module 3-pin connector for soil moisture sensor or any other analog or digital device 4-pin connector for water quantity […]

March 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

OSD32MP1-RED full-featured STM32MP1 development board launched for $265

OSD32MP1-RED development board was first announced last year together with another board based on Octavo Systems OSD32MP1 System-in-Package (SiP). The chip packs an STMicro STM32MP1 Cortex-A7/M4 processor, up to 1GB DDR3L memory, 4KB EEPROM, a PMIC, two low-power MEMS oscillators, over 100 passive components into a single 18x18mm 302 Ball BGA package. The company has now just announced the availability of the OSD32MP1-RED development platform on DigiKey, Arrow, and Mouser for around $265 and up. There have been a few modifications to the design with, for instance, the USB header replaced by a USB Type-A connector, but the most notable difference is that OSD32MP1-RED is now using a green PCB instead of the red one showed during the first announcement… OSD32MP1-RED specifications: SiP – Octavo Systems OSD32MP157C-512M-BAA with STM32MP157C SoC with dual-core Arm Cortex-A7, Cortex-M4 real-time core, plus 512MB DDR3 memory, STPMIC1A power management chip, EEPROM, oscillator, and passive components […]

March 12, 2021March 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Chip shortage and high prices threaten supplies of SBCs and other electronics products

A few weeks ago, we started to hear news about a chip shortage for the automotive industry, but the shortage appears to be affecting all sectors now apparently due to a drought in Taiwan where a reservoir could be a risk of being depleted, and TSMC has been asked to reduce its water usage by 7 percent. I’ve also started to see several companies in the maker market warn about shortages and price increases. Pine64 announced it would only open pre-order for PinePhone, PinebookPro, PineTab, and other products once they could secure stocks of components, and while they hope to be able to do so within this month, there’s no guarantee. (1/2) [PSA] Re. availability of #PinePhone, #PinebookPro, #PineTab, etc., Due to component shortages, component price-increases & related issues, we will only open orders/pre-orders when production is securely underway. We are more cautious than usual, also for your sake (…) […]

March 11, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

THine Raspberry Pi camera extension kit works with 20-meter LAN cables

Most applications using Raspberry Pi camera are perfectly happy to rely on the FPC flat cable connecting the Pi camera to a Raspberry Pi SBC. But for some use cases, the board and camera may have to be separated by some distance, for example, if you’d like to keep the single board computer indoor, while the camera is housed in a waterproof enclosure outside. THine Solutions has designed a cable extension kit for the Raspberry Pi camera exactly for this purpose. The kit comes with Rx and Tx boards to be connected to the board and camera respectively., as well as a 2-meter CAT5e LAN cable, but the company says the solution supports up to 20-meter Ethernet cables. THine camera extension kit content and key features: Supported cameras – Raspberry Pi camera V1.3 (for certain modes only), Raspberry Pi camera V2, and Raspberry Pi HQ camera Tx Board – Transmitter […]

March 11, 2021March 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

PiccoloSDR – A Raspberry Pi Pico powered SDR working with GNU Radio

There’s a lot you can do with the tiny Raspberry Pi Pico board, but computer student and radio amateur Luigi Cruz decided to go a step further by making Raspberry Pico RP2040 board work as an SDR compatible with GNU Radio open-source toolkit. The PicoSDR PiccoloSDR project relies on one of the ADC pins from the Raspberry Pi Pico board to sample 8-bit data at around 500 ksps and makes the data available through TCP/IP (emulated via the RNDIS protocol) over the Full Speed USB interface at up to 12 Mbps. As Luis notes applications are limited due to the low bandwidth, but it’s still a fun project. You can see demos with a web-based tone generator, a PWM generator, and actual audio where we see the spectrum chart, scope plot, and FFT plot updated in real-time. He has not released the demo code “officially” just yet, but I can […]

March 11, 2021August 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Crowbits Master Kit Review – Part 1: A first look at the ESP32 based education kit

Crowbits STEM education kits comprised of magnetic modules launched on Kickstarter a couple of weeks ago. There are five kits increasing in difficulty with the Hello Kit just requiring the student to connect modules to get started, i.e. no programming required, to the Crowbits Master Kit based on a battery-powered ESP32 module suitable to create your own phone, portable game console, radar tower, etc… Elecrow sent me the latter for evaluation, and in the first part of the review, I’ll unbox the kit, see how modules mechanically fit together, and have a quick look at the user manual, before trying one or two projects from the manual in the second part. This is the second STEAM product from Elecrow that I review, as I reviewed CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop last year. Let’s open the package. We have a total of six modules with two joysticks, an ESP32 module with […]

March 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Xilinx open sources Vitis HLS FPGA tool (Front-end only)

While there are some open-source programs for FPGA development such as Symbiflow or Yosys, FPGA vendors usually only provide closed-source programs for developers wanting to work on their chips. But Xilinx has recently made a move to fulfill its “commitment to supporting open-source initiatives for developers and researchers” with the release of the source code of Vitis HLS Front-End. What is Vitis HLS exactly? Before we look at the source code release, we may want to know what Vitis HLS does exactly. The company describes it as a high-level synthesis (HLS) tool that allows C, C++, and OpenCL functions to become hardwired onto the device logic fabric and RAM/DSP blocks. It implements hardware kernels in the Vitis application acceleration development flow, and to use C/C++ code for developing RTL IP for FPGA designs in the company’s Vivado Design Suite. Vitis HLS design flow goes as follows: Compile, simulate, and debug […]

March 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Microsoft previews Azure Percept Edge AI development platform

Microsoft has recently announced the public preview of Azure Percept platform combining hardware and services to ease AI implementations at the edge through the use of Azure AI technologies and Azure cloud for device management, AI model development, and analytics. The hardware currently available includes the Azure Percept DK (Development Kit) with an NXP i.MX 8M powered WiFi & Bluetooth gateway/carrier board, the Azure Percept Vision system on module (SoM), as well as the optional Azure Percept Audio SoM with a 4-mic array. Key features and specifications: Azure Percept DK carrier board SoC – NXP iMX 8M quad-core Cortex-A53 processor System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB flash Connectivity – Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity via Realtek USB – 2x USB-A 3.0 port, 1x USB-C port Security – Nuvoton NCPT750 Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0 Power Supply – 19V/3.4A Systems-on-Module Azure Percept Vision SoM based on Intel Movidius […]