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November 30, 2023November 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

myAGV 2023 four-wheel mobile robot ships with Raspberry Pi 4 or Jetson Nano

four wheel automous guided vehicle raspberry pi 4

Elephant Robotics myAGV 2023 is a 4-wheel mobile robot available with either Raspberry Pi 4 Model B SBC or NVIDIA Jetson Nano B01 developer kit, and it supports five different types of robotic arms to cater to various use cases. Compared to the previous generation myAGV robot, the 2023 model is fitted with high-performance planetary brushless DC motors, supports vacuum placement control, can take a backup battery, handles large payloads up to 5 kg, and integrates customizable LED lighting at the rear. myAGV 2023 specifications: Control board Pi model – Raspberry Pi 4B with 2GB RAM Jetson Nano model – NVIDIA Jetson Nano B01 with 4GB RAM Wheels – 4x Mecanuum wheels Motor – Planetary brushless DC motor Maximum linear speed – 0.9m/s Maximum Payload – 5 kg Video Output Pi model – 2x micro HDMI ports Jetson Nano model – HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs Camera Pi model – […]

November 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SaraKIT – An Raspberry Pi CM4 board with ChatGPT-based voice control, motor control, and plenty of sensors (Crowdfunding)

SaraKIT is a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM4 system-on-module with BLDC motor controllers and a range of sensors for robotics, support for ChatGPT-based voice control through three microphones and a ZL38063 audio chip, and two MIPI CSI connectors for cameras. The versatile board can be used for voice-controlled products, robots, home automation systems, and interfacing with smart home or office devices. The company also developed various demos such as a Smartphone-controlled LEGO RC car, a self-balancing LEGO robot, a pan-and-tilt camera, various AI demos using MediaPipe such as face tracking and object detection, as well as audio demos using ChatGPT, Alexa, and/or Google Home. SaraKIT specifications: Support system-on-modules – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with future CM5 compatibility. MCU – Microchip dsPIC33 16-bit microcontroller with 32 KB SRAM for motor control and LSM6DS3TR sensor Audio Microchip ZL38063 (previously MicroSemi) audio processor for microphone arrays. 3x Knowles SPH0655 […]

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

Allwinner VPU gets open-source Linux driver for its H.264 hardware video encoder

Allwinner V3s open source Linux video encoding driver

Long-time readers of CNX Software may remember Bootlin’s crowdfunding campaign launched in 2018 to bring open-source Allwinner VPU drivers to take care of hardware video encoding and decoding in mainline Linux. They managed to raise enough funds (over 30,000 Euros) from small donors and several companies (Olimex, Pine64, Libre Computer, FriendlyELEC, and Orange Pi) to work on open-source VPU drivers for mainline Linux, but only for MPEG2, H264, and H265 decoding for in a range of Allwinner SoCs such as the A20 and H5, but not quite enough to cover the cost of H264 video encoding. Five years later, Bootlin took it upon themselves to complete the work without backing or support from Allwinner and have now released an open-source Linux-kernel based V4L2 driver to support the H.264 video encoder found in Allwinner V3, V3s, and S3 camera SoCs. The new driver builds upon earlier work by the company to […]

November 13, 2023November 12, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Synaptics SYN43711 WiFi 6E & Bluetooth 5.3 chipset targets IoT devices, video streaming, robotics

SYN43711 WiFi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 IoT chipset

Synaptics SYN43711 is a new WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 “SoC” designed for “IoT applications” such as high-end home appliances with video streaming capabilities, surveillance cameras, robots, and other secure smart consumer, industrial, and enterprise systems. It’s a more cost-effective version of the company’s SYN4382 SoC that supports 1,200 Mbps 2×2 MIMO Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and 802.15.4 connectivity. Designed for small form factor devices, the new SYN43711 tri-band chipset supports 600 Mbps WiFI 6E, Wi-Fi Sensing (human presence detection), and Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio for multiple concurrent Bluetooth connections and audio streams, including Auracast audio sharing. SYN43711 key features and specifications: Wireless Tri-band (2.4, 5, 6 GHz) Wi-Fi 4, 5, 6, 6E up to 600 Mbps (1×1 antenna arrangement) Bluetooth 5.3 LE with LE Audio support Integrated PAs and LNAs (external PA and LNA optional) with high transmit (Tx) power level and receive (Rx) sensitivity Synaptics Smart Co-Ex […]

November 11, 2023November 13, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 208 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 – Elecrow ESP32 Terminal with a 3.5-inch touchscreen display and OV2640 camera

If I remember correctly, Elecrow sent me an end-of-year gift with a notebook (paper style), a pen, and a 3.5-inch ESP32 terminal. I had completely forgotten about it, and while wondering what I would give for Giveaway Week 2023, and looking around in drawers and on shelves, I found an “ESP32 Terminal” package, and I was like “What the F is that and where is it coming from?”. Long story short, the 6th prize of this year’s giveaway week is Elecrow’s ESP32 Terminal with a 3.5-inch touchscreen display that also comes with a front-facing OV2640 camera and six Crowtail connectors for expansion plus a LiPo battery connector. Elecrow ESP32 terminal specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S3 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 (LE) module with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM Storage – MicroSD card slot Display – 3.5-inch TFT LCD display with 480×320 resolution (ILI9488 driver), capacitive touchscreen Camera – 2MP […]

November 2, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Alibaba T-Head TH1520 user manuals released

Further Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core RISC-V processor documentation has been released with nine user manuals covering video and audio processing, peripheral interfaces, memory interfaces, system registers, and the built-in NPU for video acceleration. We first noted the TH1520 RISC-V SoC in the expensive web3-focused ROMA laptop in October 2022, but since then there have been some very interesting developments with the release of Sipeed’s Lichee Pi 4A SBC and various other platforms based on the LM4A system-on-module plus the BeagleBoard.org’s BeagleV Ahead. Both boards also have preliminary support in mainline Linux with the Lichee Pi 4A making it to Linux 6.5, and the BeagleV Ahead was added to the just-released Linux 6.6 kernel. However I had not noticed documentation for the processor was not released publicly until now as both Sipeed and Beagleboard.org have now made available nine user manuals in English, and the Sipeed link has the Chinese versions […]

October 26, 2023October 25, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The Portenta Hat Carrier board adds Raspberry Pi HAT support to the Portenta X8 SBC

The Arduino Portenta Hat Carrier board aims to interface the Linux-capable Portenta X8 board with the vast ecosystem of Raspberry Pi HAT (Hardware on Top) expansion boards. Introduced last year, the Arduino Portenta X8 is the first Arduino Pro hardware that can run Linux thanks to its NXP i.MX 8M Mini Arm Cortex-A53 quad-core processor. But it comes in a tiny 66.04 x 25.4 mm form factor which may be great for integration into products, but for prototyping or design of products such as IoT gateways, the company has now launched the Portenta Hat Carrier that enables the board to easily connect with the Raspberry Pi HATs available today. Portenta Hat Carrier specifications: Compatible with the Portenta X8 board and future Portenta with the same high-density connectors Storage – MicroSD card slot Camera I/F – MIPI CSI camera connector (CNXSoft: Arduino does not explicitly say whether it’s compatible with the […]

October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

CanMV-K230 AI development board features Kendryte K230 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor

CanMV-K230 is a credit card-sized development board for AI and computer vision applications based on the Kendryte K230 dual-core C908 64-bit RISC-V processor with built-in KPU (Knowledge Process Unit) and various interfaces such as MIPI CSI inputs and Ethernet. The first Kendryte RISC-V AI processor was launched in 2018 with the K210 which I tested with the Grove AI HAT and Maixduino board and found fun to experiment with, but noted that performance was limited. Since then the company introduced the K510 mid-range AI processor with a more powerful 3 TOPS AI accelerator, and the K230 entry-level successor to the K210 – which was planned for 2022 in a 2021 roadmap – has now just been launched and integrated into the CanMV-K230 development board. CanMV-K230 specifications: SoC – Kendryte K230 CPU 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.6GHz with RISC-V Vector Extension 1.0, FPU 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 800MHz with support for […]