Designing an ArduMower with Atmel and Arduino

ArduMower can probably best be described as an open source robot lawn mower project powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Mega (ATmega1280 MCU). The goal of the ArduMower crew? Making a new “brain” freely available for every robot mower in the (known) universe.

“Everyone knows them, some already have one: a robotic lawn mower! You can purchase them, sometimes they are ‘intelligent’, sometimes they are simply silly. Very often, they are missing an important piece: adding your own ideas to the robot’s brain,” the ArduMower crew explained in an official mission statement posted on the project’s website.

“This [initiative] isn’t more complicated than other mid-size Arduino projects. If you like to try out new things, then this project is the right one for you. You might learn new things and you’ll see that everything is much easier than you thought.”

Key ArduMower objectives include:

• Ready-made components.
• Low-cost and replaceable (à la RC model: stick together receiver, controller, motor and servo).
• Minimal soldering, simple programming and detailed instructions.
• A DIY construction kit (‘Ardumower-kits’) with all modules and components.
• Open-source Arduino-code.
• A manufacturer for the ArduMower robot chassis.

Interested in learning more? Additional documentation, code and list of components are available on the ArduMower website in both English and German.

Building an open source Atomic Force Microscope

Alice Pyne, a PhD student at University College London, wants to provide schools with cheaper access to expensive imaging capabilities like the ones that allowed her team to capture the first in-water image of the DNA helix structure.

To do so, Pyne and her colleagues are developing a £300 (approximately $480) open source atomic force microscope (AFM) built around 3D-printed parts, Atmel-powered Arduino boards and LEGO bricks. It should be noted that an AFM isn’t exactly a traditional microscope, but rather, should be thought of as a high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy (or 3D scanner) for imaging, measuring and manipulating matter at the nanoscale level.

“We want to enable children to see biological samples that they wouldn’t otherwise get to see,” Pyne told Wired.co.uk. “What makes [research-grade] AFMs so expensive is that they do a lot of different things and have many different modes. We’re imaging very small areas and doing the simplest type of atomic force microscopy.”

According to Pyne, the prototype microscope currently sits on a metal base, with housings built from LEGO and various 3D component holders, the latter of which is designed to ensure a perfect fit between the LEGO and component. The scanning stage – inspired by research from Bristol University – is also 3D-printed.

“Piezo actuators, components that move when an electric field is applied (or vice versa), were the most expensive part, taking up about half of the entire microscope’s cost,” writes Wired’s Kadhim Shubber. “When 10V is applied, the Arduino-controlled actuators move the scanning stage by just a single micron, allowing for incredible scanning resolution.”

Interested in learning more about the open source AFM? Be sure to check out the original article on Wired.

Board building with Atmel’s Eric Weddington

Mr. Eric Weddington, open-source community manager at Atmel, recently gave a keynote address at the Make Hardware Innovation Workshop. As you can see in the video below, Mr. Weddington discusses the complex relationship between hardware and software, the Maker community, the advantages of an open source philosophy, prototyping Atmel-powered Arduino boards and the benefits of code optimization.

As Mr. Weddington recently noted, there has been a significant increase in the number of companies using Atmel-powered Arduinos and open-source hardware for prototyping as well as product development.

“Democratization of engineering: We’re already seeing that happen. Arduino has made it so easy to get involved in a complex subject, embedded engineering, which in the past has been the purview of engineers who have a wide range of skills, both hardware and software, in dealing with conflicting restraints and requirements, especially in deeply embedded systems,” Weddington told EDN.

“It has been a kind of very exclusive party of people who can work in embedded systems. But with open-source hardware and Arduino, and open-source software, it has become so easy to use that all of these people who have never had a chance to do [embedded engineering] before can be brought in. It opens up a lot of creativity. People come up with all sorts of uses for the Arduino.”

According to Weddington, the democratization of engineering substantially expands the pool of creative and marketable ideas. However, he also emphasized one needed to distinguish between the types of ideas that can be brought to market without formal engineering and those which require a more professional background.

“Blinking a light is always mentioned in embedded systems as the ‘hello world’ application. It’s easy to do something like that. But you really need the professional engineering background if you are going to develop something like a medical device or avionics on a plane. [Still], I don’t see the democratization of hardware taking away from the traditional professional engineering group at all; I just see it as adding to it,” Mr. Weddinton added.

ArduSat launches, open-source in space!

Ardusat is the first open satellite platform that allows the general public to design and run applications, games and experiments in space, while also steering onboard cameras to take pictures on-demand. More specifically, ArduSat is designed to give ordinary people – students, teachers and individuals – the chance to conduct experiments by controlling over 25 different integrated sensors including spectrometers, magnetometers, radiation measurement devices, gyroscopes, accelerometers and thermometers.

As planned, ArduSat was successfully launched on August 4th.

The satellite’s destination? The International Space Station (ISS).

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Nanosatisfi CEO Peter Platzer recently told NPR that Atmel-powered Arduino technology was key to Ardusat’s philosophy.

“I’ve really wanted to use something that everyone across the world can use, that has wide appeal to everyday people,” Platzer explained. “There really was no alternative.”

Indeed, Arduino boards are used to power a wide range of electronic designs and DIY hobbyist creations including robots, desk lamps, environmental sensors, 3D printers and now, even satellites.

What is driving the hardware boom?

Boris Wertz, the founder of Version One Ventures, has identified a number of prominent trends driving the current hardware boom. As Wertz notes, it seems as if everyone is talking about the Maker movement, with hardware startup meetups on the rise from New York to San Francisco, Stockholm to Toronto.

“The Maker Movement is [clearly] increasing the talent pool. The increased focus on hardware brought about by the maker movement is rapidly bringing a new influx of hardware developers to the market,” Wertz wrote in a recent guest column published by CNET. “With access to a bigger talent pool, startups (and established companies too) can develop products more quickly and at a lower cost. The associated lower costs and faster time to market can be a game changer.”

According to Wertz, open hardware such as Atmel-powered Arduino boards significantly increases the speed of innovation.

“The open source movement when applied to hardware accelerates innovation, enabling developers to build derivatives of the original design, such as alternate use cases and accessories,” he explained. “With open source hardware, developers and startups don’t need to seek the approval of the creator. They can just start working, without any patent or licensing hoops to jump through.”

Wertz also commented on the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable tech, both of which are being propelled by an increase in connected devices.

“The common hardware purchase model was always ‘one and done; customers bought their hardware and that was it. With today’s influx of connected devices, consumers expect more than great hardware,” said Wertz. “Connected software now defines the hardware experience. Examples include wireless wearable devices that track a person’s activities or connected home devices that encourage a greener lifestyle.”

The full text of “Five trends driving the hardware boom,” is available here on CNET.

1:1 interview with Rob van Kranenburg (Part 1)

1:1 Interview conducted by Atmel’s Tom Vu with Rob van Kranenburg, IoT-A Stakeholder Coordinator, Founder of Council, and Adviser to Open Source Internet of Things, osiot.org.

TV: Why IoT-A? There are a multitude of IoT consortiums important to forging the progress of this next era of connective technology. Why is it important to the general business and mainstream? Why so many consortiums? Will it eventually roll up to one?

RvK: In systemic shifts the next normal is at stake. Of course you have to believe that IoT is a systemic shift first. Paradoxically, it is precisely the fact that we see so many contenders and consortia – no one wants to miss out or be left behind – that IoT is moving from being a vision to a business proposition. The success of the device as a standard – the Steve Jobs approach to controlling hardware, software, connectivity, app store; what goes in and what goes out and who it is friends with – has been an eye opener.

Patrick Moorhead writes in his Forbes piece that “the stunning success of smartphones, followed by similar success for tablets, has pushed the standardization opportunities for next generation infrastructure into play for the top tier of visionary companies”¹, listing among others IBM Smarter Planet, Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group, Google, IPSO Alliance, ARM, International M2M Council, IoT-A (Internet-of-Things Architecture), and Intel’s Intelligent Systems Framework (ISF).  Software as a service, could only come into existence with the Cloud: “In the 90s, storage disks of less than 30GB capacity were incredibly expensive. Today, thanks to innovations in silicon technology, we are able to get high capacity storage disks at a nominal cost.”² In the early 2000s we see the first experiments with real-time feedback.

In an earlier post you mention Formula 1. In 2002 Wired published a piece on sailing and the America’s Cup: “We’re trying to find patterns, to see that one set of conditions tends to result in something else. We don’t know why, and we don’t need to, because the answer is in the data.” This a programmer talking, a programmer and a sailor: Katori is writing a program that crunches the measurements and creates a “wind profile number an implied wind,” a wind an implied boat can sail on, as sailing, so long an intuitive art, has become a contest of technology: “Sensors and strain gauges are tracking 200 different parameters every second and sending the information across Craig McCraws OneWorld’s LAN to its chase boats and offices. Then the info gets dumped into a Microsoft SQL database, where it’s sifted to pinpoint the effects of sail and hardware experiments. Unraveling all the input is, in the words of OneWorld engineer Richard Karn, “nearly impossible.” And that’s not all: every day for the past two years, five OneWorld weather boats have headed out into the Gulf to harvest data.”³

I remember how struck I was by that notion of an “implied wind.” Before that notion there was the “real” and the “digital,” two concrete and separate worlds. You could argue that prior to that there was the “real” and the “surreal” or spiritual world. Large groups of people historically have been animists. To them objects do have stories, hold memories, are “actors.” Things are alive in that vision. Introducing this notion of implied, it became clear that it was no longer about the relation between the object and the database, materialized in a “tag,” but that the relation itself was becoming an actor, a player in a world where you did not know why, and you could nor care less why or why not – you wanted to gather data. There is “something” in it.

Grasping this key paradigm shift, it then becomes clear that the stakes are very high. In 2001, Steve Halliday, then vice president of technology at AIM, a trade association for manufacturers of tagging (RFID) technology, interviewed by Charlie Schmidt claimed: “If I talk to companies and ask them if they want to replace the bar code with these tags, the answer can’t be anything but yes. It’s like giving them the opportunity to rule the world.”⁴ Since then the most publicized attempt to create one single architecture, an Object Name Server, is the story of the RFID standard called “EPC Global” -two standard bodies EAN and UCC merging to become GS1 in 2005. In a bold move that no regulator foresaw, they scaled their unit of data from being in a batch of 10,000 and thus uninteresting for individual consumers to that of the uniquely identifiable item.

TV: Gartner suggest IoT as a #4 business creation factor for the next 5 years. What are your thoughts? Is this true?

Credit: Image obtained from Gartner’s 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Identifies “Tipping Point” Technologies, Unlocking Long-Awaited Technology Scenarios

*****

RvK: Depending on how you define IoT, I would say definitely. Internet of Things influences changes in production (smart manufacturing, mass customization), consumption (economy of sharing, leasing vs ownership), energy (monitoring grids, households and devices), mobility (connected cars), decision making processes (shift to grassroots and local as data, information and project management tools come in the hands of ‘masses’), finance (IoT can sustain more currencies: Bitcoin, bartering, and again ‘leasing’) and creates the potential for convergence of the above shifts into a new kind of state and democratic model based on the notion of “platform.”

It is more an operation on the scale of: before and after the wheel, before and after printing/the book. In a kind of philosophical way you could say that it is the coming alive of the environment as an actor, it touches every human operation. The browser is only 20 years old – Mosaic being the first in 1993. The web has dramatically changed every segmented action in every sequence of operations that make up project management tools in any form of production and consumption. Because of this some people in the EU and elsewhere are trying to change IoT name-wise to something like Digital Transition. The Singularity is another way of looking at it. As a concept it is Borgian in the sense that the next big trends: Nano electronics and (DIY) biology are not in an emergent future realm as time to market could increase exponentially as they are drawn into being grasped within the connectivity that IoT is bringing.

Interested in reading more? Tune into Part 2 of Atmel’s 1:1 interview with Rob van Kranenburg. View Part 2  and Part 3

*****

¹ http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2013/06/27/how-to-intelligently-build-an-internet-of-things-iot/?goback=%2Egde_73311_member_253757229

² http://www.ramco.com/blog/5-cost-effective-ways-to-store-data-on-the-cloud

³ Carl Hoffman, Billionaire Boys Cup. High tech hits the high seas in a windblown battle between Craig McCaw and Larry Ellison. Carl Hoffman sets sail with Team OneWorld in the race to take back the America’s Cup.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/sailing_pr.html

⁴ Beyond the Bar Code – High-tech tags will let manufacturers track products from warehouse to home to recycling bin. But what’s great for logistics could become a privacy nightmare. By Charlie Schmidt, March 2001.http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/400913/beyond-the-bar-code/

Open Source Design Centre goes live

RS Components has opened the virtual doors to its Open Source Design Centre, a comprehensive free guide to open source electronics design hosted on designspark.com.

Essentially, the Open Source Design Centre brings together all of the elements involved in open source design in a single, easy-to-access reference point.The site provides reliable information on a variety of subjects, ranging from open source licensing guidelines to advice on hardware and software management.

The aim of the Design Centre? To educate engineers in open source design, and to aid and encourage their active participation in open source projects.

RS developed the Open Source Design Centre in cooperation with Andrew Back, a founding member of the UK-based Open Source Hardware User Group (OSHUG).

“While open source hardware has until recently been at the low end of the electronics design spectrum, it is steadily increasing in interest as the opportunities for industry, education and experimentation become apparent,” said Back.

“By working with RS, we are tapping into a vast global base of engineers on designspark.com, many of whom will be the key players in taking forward open source hardware into mainstream electronics design.”

David Tarrant, Head of Community Development at RS Components, expressed similar sentiments.

“The growing popularity of open source hardware design has become self-evident over the past twelve months with the release of new versions of low-cost development boards such as [Atmel-powered] Arduinos  and [others], creating extraordinary demand around the world,” Tarrant noted.

“RS is a trusted source of information on new designs and new technologies for engineers. Our new Open Source Design Centre brings together essential information our users can rely on to support them throughout the research, development and design cycle.”

Open source hardware sees increased use by hobbyists, engineers

Analysts at Premier Farnell expect the use of open source hardware and software to increase among professional engineers and the growing Maker community in 2013.

According to the results of a recent survey commissioned by element14, 56% of professional engineers are more likely to use open source hardware such as Arduino (powered by Atmel MCUs) and other devices, with Maker hobbyists weighing in at a rather impressive 82%.

Similarly, 52% of professional engineers and 81% of hobbyists report being more likely to use open source software in 2013 – while 54% of hobbyists have confirmed using dev kits at least once per quarter for personal projects.

“The numbers paint a very clear picture that open source hardware is showing strong traction among professional engineers and hobbyists as well as educators and students,” said Andrea Koritala, global head of technology integration at Premier Farnell.

“With a high level of crossover between professionals and hobbyists, this increase in adoption extends to the workplace. An engineer on the job is looking for access to many of the same tools and resources accessible to the hobbyist community.”

As Koritala notes, professional engineers rated reference designs as the resource that weighs most heavily in the decision to select a dev kit. Among hobbyists, the most important factor was the availability of online tutorials, webinars and videos.

“This trend also speaks to the importance of ease of access and use, as a strong community can help bring ideas and designs to life,” she explained.

“Engineers have historically been hesitant to fully embrace open source, but the sheer availability of open-source tools and resources has mitigated many of the risks associated with designing in open source for commercial use.”

The above-mentioned survey, conducted in April 2013, included responses from a mix of professional engineers, hobbyists and students. All respondents had purchased one or more dev kits or related products in the year prior to taking the survey.

Aery32 dev board gets reviewed

The folks at TronixStuff have posted a review of the Aery32, a development board powered by Atmel’s AVR32 UC3A1 128KB microcontroller.

Described as a “painless way to get into AVR32 programming and development,” the Aery32 is completely open source – on both a hardware and software level.

“The specifications of the Atmel AVR32 UC3A1 show that it is an incredibly powerful microcontroller. One could say that there is everything you need [on the Aery32] – and nothing you do not,” writes the reviewer.

“Looking at the front of the board, apart from the MCU there is an LED for use, the mini-USB for programming and a switch for changing modes between the bootloader and program. On the rear are the pin references, and on the right-hand side solder pads (on both sides) for the JTAG debugger.”

As the reviewer notes, Aery32-specific information and help is easy to find, with extensive documentation, numerous examples and a designated dev area.

“From my perspective this board was very easy to set-up and get working. Not having to worry about downloading hundreds of megabytes of IDE was great and allows programming from lightweight machines,” the reviewer concluded.

“And there is no doubt about the power or I/O features of the AVR32 UC3A1. Now I’ll get myself a good AVR32 book. So if you’re looking for a powerful and well-supported AVR32 development board, the Aery32 is a good start.”

You can order the Aery32 dev board directly from the Aery website here.

An interview with Tim Leek of Visual Micro for Atmel Studio

By Eric Weddington, Marketing Manager, Open Source & Community

We were looking for ways to support users of the Arduino platform and provide a way for them to transition to C/C++ and custom boards – if and when they wanted. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go far. Tim Leek of Visual Micro in the UK was already on the way. He now has a release candidate of his Arduino language plug-in for Atmel Studio! As you can see below, I recently spoke with Tim in-depth about this plug-in:

Eric Weddington:

Can you tell us a little more about the Visual Micro plugin to Atmel Studio? What features does it have?

Tim Leek:

Essentially, the Visual Micro plugin extends Atmel Studio to include every important  feature of the Arduino IDE. If we look behind the scenes, we see the plugin uses the tool chain and rules of the Arduino IDE for the build process, while ensuring Atmel Studio has the knowledge required to provide IntelliSense and many other code design features.

The plugin – which is compatible with all Arduino IDE versions (1.5 in beta) – provides a wealth of additional features for the Arduino IDE and is targeted at all types of Arduino users, ranging from novice to expert. So yes, an Arduino project of any size or complexity may be opened in Atmel Studio, compiled and upload with just a few mouse clicks. New Arduino projects may be created with the same ease.

In addition, Arduino sketch programs can be uploaded using standard USB (or via a hardware programmer), burning of bootloaders, while multiple serial monitors ensure Atmel Studio is a complete Arduino solution. There are many other features such as  additional build reports (memory/dis-assembly), drill down into source for build errors and support for additional compiler -D defines.

Eric:

What makes the Visual Micro plugin to Atmel Studio unique?

Tim:

First and foremost, Atmel Studio, which is designed specifically for Arduino (Atmel) microcontrollers. From a plug-ins perspective, Visual Micro offers a number features that make it  unique, such as total compatibility with Arduino and complete integration into a more powerful IDE.

There really are a variety of unique features, with some mentioned above. Additional features include blistering fast build times (ex- first build), single-click ability to add a new .cpp and .h source to a project that automatically contain a “ready to use” class with the correct Arduino declarations, a micro explorer help and reference tool, automatic detection of Arduino project structure changes made outside of Atmel Studio and the ability to clone examples for new projects.

Remember, Arduino does not normally provide a debug facility, so users must debug using print statements that are physically added to the sketch source code. However, Visual Micro provides an optional USB debug facility for Arduino which allows the versatility and power of Atmel Studio BreakPoints to be used to debug an Arduino. Simply put, having the ability to easily trace which functions are running on an Arduino, while inspecting variables and expressions of a running Arduino by simply placing Breakpoints in code is a huge benefit that significantly accelerates development.

Meanwhile, the debugger provides a huge range of additional capabilities such as timed breakpoints, conditional breakpoints, “When Hit” text messages, expression watch and the ability to update variables on a running Arduino.

One other notable feature of the debugger is the “extensibility” features of its design. By default, it is supplied with a few open source graphical window controls which displays, for example, Arduino digitalPin states and analog pin graphs in real-time. These controls can be edited and altered by advanced users familiar with C# and registered for use in Atmel Studio Arduino debugging using simple xml files. Visual Micro provides a public interface in the form of a windows assembly that allows the plugin and debugger graphical visualizations to communicate during an Arduino debugging session.

Basically, I set out to create a professional standard, easy to support and easy to use Arduino IDE alternative with a dedicated community forum and wiki. There is still much work to be done and a few rough edges to  polish – but there is certainly unique and growing community at  visualmicro.com

Eric:

How did you first get involved with Arduino devices?

Tim:

I have always liked electronics and engineering, yet both always felt out of my reach. Over the past decade, the internet has helped me expand my knowledge of microcontrollers and electronic circuitry. While I’m not highly technical, my true interest is with making things. For me, the code is simply a means to an end.

I had previously experimented with other microcontrollers in a simple way but found them either overly simplistic or too complex. They seemed  to have huge challenges which took away the fun of the project and required too much time and effort. It is probably worth noting that some years ago I was given a book by Tom Igoe that I really enjoyed called “Making Things Talk,” which taught me how to use an Arduino to implement features for my projects. I could easily understand the Arduino syntax and saw that it supported all of the things that interested me. I bought an Arduino and a couple of shields such as XBee and Button Pad, slowly discovering the huge community and the wealth of Arduino examples and resources.

Eric:

What drew you to using the Visual Studio platform?

When I first started out programming Arduino in the IDE I found that I missed Visual Studio which is very feature rich and, perhaps most importantly, has IntelliSense. People with deep knowledge of the Arduino syntax and intimate knowledge of the library code their project includes might not need IntelliSense but I certainly do.

I have used Visual Studio in my business forever, partly for the same reasons that I use Arduino microcontrollers. Visual Studio is easy to use, well documented, highly flexible, totally reliable and it just works out of the box, the latter being the most important for me. My view, as a Windows user, is that writing a complex document is often best done with Microsoft Word, in the same way that writing a Windows  program is best done with Visual Studio.

For microcontroller development, the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework  (NETMF) is on the face of it, the most natural path for my project work. This is because it uses Visual Studio, is open source and includes a debugger. I discovered NETMF after wanting more than the Arduino IDE so decided to try it out.

NETMF development was easy enough in Visual Studio but for various reasons NETMF didn’t turn out to be the solution for me. For example when coding, I felt too far removed from the hardware. I also found it easier to find Arduino examples and a huge community of help. After these experiences, I located an advanced tutorial on the Arduino playground (wiki) that explained how to configure Visual Studio to show Arduino IntelliSense. After a few tests and a lot of poking around the Visual Studio SDK it became apparent that the Visual Studio platform was capable of being a really great Arduino IDE.

Eric:

Any future plans with the plugin that you can tell us about?

Tim:

Yes, many features to improve productivity, accelerate learning for new users and provide more flexibility for advanced users. There is currently a dedicated and active forum on visualmicro.com which everyone is invited to join. There are also many user interface “wizards” that would make life easier for novices. For example, the creation of “ready to go” Arduino starter projects, easier management of version controlled eeprom, simpler configuration of various debug modes and a wealth of other tools to significantly reduce the Arduino learning curve and make developing more fun.

For advanced users, more flexibility in the build process. We already have a huge amount of flexibility over the build process but the option for closer integration with Atmel Studio project properties and tool chains will be welcomed by many users. I hope the open source community helps to extend the graphical  visualizations available to the debugger to include many useful controls such as “Temperature Gauge,” “Light Meter,” “LCD display” and other useful controls.