CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 25, 2018February 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

SODAQ SARA is an Arduino Compatible Cellular IoT Board with LTE-M, NB-IoT, and GNSS (Crowdfunding)

There really seems to be a push for cellular IoT those days, with new hardware coming up every week. Following up on their NB-IoT shield for Arduino last year, SODAQ has now launched two versions of SARA boards based on u-blox SARA LTE-IoT modules, and u-blox M8Q GPS/GNSS module. Both boards are Arduino compatible thanks to a Microchip SAMD21 MCU, and while u-blox SARA board follows the Arduino form factor, u-box SARA SFF is much more compact (50×25.4 mm) and potentially easier to integrate into a project or product. Another pretty unique feature (AFAICT) is that you can power the board directly with a solar panel. u-blox SARA board specifications: Wireless module (three options) with external antenna: SARA-N211 NB-IoT, band 8 and 20, for the European and African market SARA-R410M Dual mode LTE-M and NB-IoT module for all global bands SARA-R412M Triple mode module with LTE-M, NB-IoT and 2G for […]

February 24, 2018June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon 820E Launched for the Embedded Market, DragonBoard 820c Board Selling for $199

Qualcomm Snapdragon processors are mainly used in smartphones manufactured in high volume, and in the past if you contacted the company to use their processor for your custom project with a target yearly production of a few thousands pieces, they’d just ignore you. This started to change in late 2016 with the launch of Snapdragon 410E and 600E processors based on mobile version of Snapdragon 410 and 600 processors minus the modem, but instead targeting the embedded space and the Internet of Things, which anybody could purchase easily through Arrow Electronics, and offering a 10-year life cycle. Those are good if you are satisfied with entry-level or mid-range processor, but the company has now announced the launch of Snapdragon 820E for customers requiring better performance for their application. Snapdragon 820E specifications appears to be moslty the same as Snapdragon 820 except for the lack of X12 cellular modem: CPU – 4x Qualcomm […]

February 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Imagination Releases PowerVR CLDNN Neural Network SDK and Image for Acer Chromebook R13

Last month, Imagination Technology released their PowerVR CLDNN SDK, an AI-oriented API that leverages OpenCL support in PowerVR GX6250 GPU in order to create network layers for constructing and running a neural network on PowerVR hardware. Eventually the SDK will support PowerVR Series2NX Neural Network Accelerator, but while waiting for the hardware, the company has provided a firmware that runs only on Mediatek MT8173 based Acer Chromebook R13. The SDK includes a demo taking a live camera feed to identify the object(s) the camera is pointing at, using known network models such as AlexNet, GoogLeNet, VGG-16, or SqueezeNet. All models are Caffe models trained against the ImageNet dataset, a benchmark function is included within the demo. Beside simply playing with the demos, you’ll be able to study the source code to check out various helper functions such as file loading, dynamic library initialisation and OpenCL context management, and read documentation such as the PowerVR CLDNN reference […]

February 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

STMicro STM32WB Dual Core Cortex M4/M0+ MCU Comes with Bluetooth 5 & 802.15.4 Radios

STMicro has announced yet another family part of their STM32 portfolio with STM32WB micro-controller family featuring an Arm Cortex M4 application core, a Cortex M0+ core to offload the main core of networking tasks, as well as Bluetooth 5 and 802.15.4 radios. The MCU’s 802.15.5 radio can run other wireless protocols concurrently, including OpenThread, ZigBee, or proprietary protocols used to connect devices to the Internet of Things (IoT). STM32WB MCUs share the following key specifications: Application Core – Arm Cortex-M4 CPU @ up to 64 MHz with FPU, adaptive real-time accelerator (ART Accelerator), MPU, 80 DMIPS and DSP instructions Memory – Up to 256 KB RAM, including 64 KB with hardware parity check, 20×32-bit Backup Register Storage Up to 1 MB Flash with sector protection (PCROP) against R/W operations for Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4 SW stack Quad SPI memory interface with XIP Radio 2.4 GHz RF transceiver supporting Bluetooth […]

February 23, 2018February 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Neutis N5 is a $49 Allwinner H5 SoM with WiFi and Bluetooth

Allwinner, Amlogic and Rockchip SoCs can be found in many single board computers or development boards, but contrary to processors from Texas Instruments, NXP or Atmel, there aren’t that many system-on-modules based on the low cost SoCs with companies like Pine64, Olimex, or Theobroma providing some options in that space. There soon will be more, as Emlid will launch Neutis N5 module based on Allwinner H5 processor in the next couple of months with the module also including WiFi and Bluetooth, beside the processor, memory, and storage. Neutis N5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n. BT: 4.0 dual-mode BLE with on-board antenna and U.FL connector for optional external antenna HW Security – Tamper-resistant dedicated crypto chip for storing cryptographic keys, unique ID, random number […]

February 22, 2018February 22, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Arm Kigen Puts SIM Card Functionality Right into IoT SoCs

Most cellular devices rely on SIM cards, and while with micro and nano SIM, the card has become smaller the electronics and connection remains the same. More recently, we’ve started to see boards featuring eSIM (embedded SIM), a chip soldered directly to the board that’s remotely provisioned by a local mobile network operator, so no more card needed, and the chip should not be tied to a single operator, so you can change plan whenever you want. But soon we won’t be able to find out if a board supports cellular connectivity by looking for a SIM card slot or eSIM chip – although the antenna(s) will still be there, and give a pretty obvious clue – , as Arm has now unveiled Kigen that integrates SIM identity directly into SoCs for the Internet of Things. This will enable what the company (the industry?) call integrated SIMs (iSIM) combining an […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

February 22, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Synthetic Sensors Combine Multiple Sensors and Machine Learning for General-Purpose Sensing

Sensors can be used to get specific data for example temperature & humidity or light intensity, or you can combine an array of sensors and leverage sensor fusion to combines data from the sensors to improve accuracy of measurement or detect more complex situation. Gierad Laput, Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, went a little further with what he (and the others he worked with) call Synthetic Sensors. Their USB powered hardware board includes several sensors, whose data can then be used after training through machine learning algorithms to detect specific events in a room, car, workshop, etc… List of sensors in the above board (at frequency at which data is gathered): PANASONIC GridEye AMG8833 IR thermal camera (10 Hz) TCS34725 color to digital converter (10 Hz) MAG3110F magnetometer (10 Hz) BME280 temperature & humidity sensor, barometer (10 Hz) MPU6500 accelerometer (4 kHz) RSSI data out of 2.4 GHz WiFi […]

February 22, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

3D Rendering and Video Composite Output on ESP32 Boards

A few years ago, we already saw it was possible to transmit color signals over NTSC using an ESP8266 board with the signal received on a TV with an analog tuner. CNLohr had to connect an antenna to the I2S pin of his ESP8266 module, and disable WiFi. But surely we should be able to do the same with ESP32, and potentially even better thanks to the two cores. That’s exactly what Bitluni successfully managed by connecting his LoLin32 board to the composite input of his TV with one handling the TV signal output (in grayscale) and the other core rendering 3D objects in real-time. But any ESP32 board could be use instead. The hardware connection is very easy. We just need two wires, one connected to the GND pin and outer part of the RCA connector, and the other connected to GPIO 25 (DAC1) and the inner part of […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications