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Arduino Software

A screenshot of the Arduino IDE showing a simple example program.
Developer(s)	Arduino Software
Stable release	0018 / January 29, 2010; 48 day(s) ago (2010-01-29)
Written in	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Integrated Development Environment
License	LGPL or GPL license
Website	http://www.arduino.cc/en/

Arduino is a tool for the design and development of embedded computer systems, consisting of a simple open hardware design for a single-board microcontroller, with embedded I/O support and a standard programming language.^[1] An Arduino is programmed using the Wiring language, which is essentially C++ with a few simplifications. The Processing programming language is often used to interface a computer with an Arduino, often to create unorthodox interfaces.^[1]

Currently shipping versions can be purchased pre-assembled; hardware design information is available for those who would like to assemble an Arduino by hand. Additionally, Arduino-inspired clones with varying levels of compatibility have been released by third parties.

The Arduino project received an honorary mention in the Digital Communities category at the 2006 Prix Ars Electronica.^[2][3]

The project began in Ivrea, Italy in 2005 to make a device for controlling student-built interaction design projects less expensively than other prototyping systems available at the time. More than 50,000 Arduino boards have shipped as of October 2008.^[4]

Platform

Hardware

An official Arduino Duemilanove (rev 2009b).

An Arduino board consists of an 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller with complementary components to facilitate programming and incorporation into other circuits. An important aspect of the Arduino is the standard way that connectors are exposed allowing the CPU board to be connected to a variety of interchangeable add-on modules (known as shields). Official Arduinos have used the megaAVR series of chips, specifically the ATmega8, ATmega168, ATmega328, and ATmega1280. A handful of other processors have been used by Arduino clones. Most boards include a 5-volt linear regulator and a 16 MHz crystal oscillator (or ceramic resonator in some variants), although some designs such as the LilyPad run at 8Mhz and dispense with the onboard voltage regulator due to specific form-factor restrictions. An Arduino's microcontroller is also pre-programmed with a bootloader that simplifies uploading of programs to the on-chip flash memory, compared with other devices that typically need an external chip programmer.

At a conceptual level, when using the Arduino software stack all boards are programmed over an RS-232 serial connection, but the way this is implemented in hardware varies by version. Serial Arduino boards contain a simple inverter circuit to convert between RS-232-level and TTL-level signals. Current Arduino boards are programmed via USB, implemented using USB-to-serial adapter chips such as the FTDI FT232. Some variants, such as the Arduino Mini and the unofficial Boarduino, use a detachable USB-to-serial adapter board or cable, Bluetooth or other methods. (When used with traditional microcontroller tools instead of the Arduino IDE, standard AVR ISP programming is used.)

The Arduino board exposes most of the microcontroller's I/O pins for use by other circuits. The Diecimila, now superseded by the Duemilanove, for example, provides 14 digital I/O pins, 6 of which can produce PWM signals, and 6 analog inputs. These pins are available on the top of the board, via female 0.1 inch headers. Several plug-in application boards known as "shields" are also commercially available.

The Arduino Nano, and Arduino-compatible Barebones and Boarduino boards provide male header pins on the underside of the board to be plugged into solderless breadboards.

Software

The Arduino IDE is a cross-platform application written in Java which is derived from the IDE made for the Processing programming language and the Wiring project. It is designed to introduce programming to artists and other newcomers unfamiliar with software development. It includes a code editor with features such as syntax highlighting, brace matching, and automatic indentation, and is also capable of compiling and uploading programs to the board with a single click. There is typically no need to edit Makefiles or run programs on the command line.

The Arduino IDE comes with a C/C++ library called "Wiring" (from the project of the same name), which makes many common input/output operations much easier. Arduino programs are written in C/C++, although users only need to define two functions in order to make a runnable program:

• setup() – a function run once at the start of a program which can be used for initializing settings, and
• loop() – a function called repeatedly until the board is powered off.

A typical first program for a microcontroller is to simply blink a light-emitting diode on and off. In the Arduino environment, the user might write a program like this:

#define LED_PIN 13
 
void setup () {
    pinMode (LED_PIN, OUTPUT);     // enable pin 13 for digital output
}
 
void loop () {
    digitalWrite (LED_PIN, HIGH);  // turn on the LED
    delay (1000);                  // wait one second (1000 milliseconds)
    digitalWrite (LED_PIN, LOW);   // turn off the LED
    delay (1000);                  // wait one second
}

The above code would not be seen by a standard C++ compiler as a valid program, so when the user clicks the "Upload to I/O board" button in the IDE, a copy of the code is written to a temporary file with an extra include header at the top and a very simple main() function at the bottom, to make it a valid C++ program:

#include "WProgram.h"
#define LED_PIN 13
 
void setup () {
    pinMode (LED_PIN, OUTPUT);     // enable pin 13 for digital output
}
 
void loop () {
    digitalWrite (LED_PIN, HIGH);  // turn on the LED
    delay (1000);                  // wait one second (1000 milliseconds)
    digitalWrite (LED_PIN, LOW);   // turn off the LED
    delay (1000);                  // wait one second
}
 
int main(void)
{
    init();
 
    setup();
 
    for(;;)                       // executes the loop function as infinite loop
        loop();
 
    return 0;
}

"WProgram.h" is the main header for the Wiring library, and the main() function only makes three distinct calls: init(), defined in the library itself, and the setup() and loop() functions defined by the user.

The Arduino IDE uses the GNU toolchain and AVR Libc to compile programs, and uses avrdude to upload programs to the board.

Official hardware

The Arduino Diecimila

The original Arduino hardware is manufactured by the Italian company Smart Projects. Some Arduino-branded boards have been designed by the American company SparkFun Electronics.

Eleven versions of the Arduino hardware have been commercially produced to date:^[1]

1. The Serial Arduino, programmed with a DE-9 serial connection and using an ATmega8
2. The Arduino Extreme, with a USB interface for programming and using an ATmega8
3. The Arduino Mini, a miniature version of the Arduino using a surface-mounted ATmega168
4. The Arduino Nano, an even smaller, USB powered version of the Arduino using a surface-mounted ATmega168
5. The LilyPad Arduino, a minimalist design for wearable application using a surface-mounted ATmega168
6. The Arduino NG, with a USB interface for programming and using an ATmega8
7. The Arduino NG plus, with a USB interface for programming and using an ATmega168
8. The [1], with a Bluetooth interface for programming using an ATmega168
9. The Arduino Diecimila, with a USB interface and utilizes an Atmega168 in a DIL28 package (pictured)
10. The Arduino Duemilanove ("2009"), using the Atmega168 (Atmega328 for newer version) and powered via USB/DC power, switching automatically
11. The Arduino Mega, using a surface-mounted ATmega1280 for additional I/O and memory.^[5]

Open hardware and open source

The Arduino hardware reference designs are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 license and are available on the Arduino Web site. Layout and production files for some versions of the Arduino hardware are also available. The source code for the IDE and the on-board library are available and released under the GPLv2 license.^[1]

Accessory hardware

A prototyping shield, mounted on an Arduino

Arduino and clones make use of shields, which are printed circuit boards which sit atop an Arduino, and plug into the normally supplied pin-headers. These are expansions to the base Arduino. There are many functions of shields, from motor controls, to breadboarding (prototyping).^[1]
For Example:

• The Arduino Ethernet Shield
• The XBee Shield
• Liquidware's TouchShield
• Extender Shields
• Liquidware's InputShield
• Circuits@Home's USB Host Shield

Clones

While the hardware and software designs are freely available under copyleft licenses, the developers have requested that the name "Arduino" be exclusive to the official product and not be used for derivative works without permission. The official policy document on the use of the Arduino name emphasizes that the project is open to incorporating work by others into the official product.^[1]

As a result of the protected naming conventions of the Arduino, a group of Arduino users forked the Arduino Diecimila, releasing an equivalent board called Freeduino. The name "Freeduino" is not trademarked and is free to use for any use.^[6]

Several Arduino-compatible products commercially released have avoided the "Arduino" name by using "-duino" name variants.^[6]

Shield-compatible clones

The following boards are fully or almost fully compatible with both the Arduino hardware and software, including being able to accept "shield" daughterboards.

• The "Freeduino SB", manufactured and sold as a mini-kit by Solarbotics Ltd..
• The "Freeduino MaxSerial", a board with a standard DE-9 serial port, manufactured and sold assembled or as a kit by Fundamental Logic.
• The "Freeduino Through-Hole", a board that avoids surface-mount soldering, manufactured and sold as a kit by NKC Electronics.
• The "Illuminato Genesis", a board which uses an ATMega645 instead of an ATMega168. This provides 64K of flash, 4K of RAM and 42 general IO pins. Hardware and firmware are open source.
• The "metaboard", a board that is designed to have a very low complexity and thus a very low price. Hardware and firmware are open source. It was developed by Metalab, a hackerspace in Vienna.
• The "Seeeduino", derived from the Diecimila.
• The "eJackino", kit by CQ publisher in JAPAN. Similar to Seeeduino, eJackino can use Universal boards as Shields. On Back side, there is a "Akihabara station" silk, just like Italia on Arduino.
• The "Wiseduino", is an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board, which includes a DS1307 real time clock (RTC) with backup battery, a 24LC256 EEPROM chip and a connector for XBee adapter for wireless communication.

Bootloader-compatible clones

These boards are compatible with the Arduino software but do not accept standard shields. They have different connectors for power and I/O, such as a series of pins on the underside of the board for use with breadboards for easy prototyping, or more specific connectors.

• The "Oak Micros om328p" - an Arduino Duemilanove compacted down to a breadboardable device (36mm x 18mm) that can be inserted into a standard 600mil 28-pin socket, with USB capability, ATmega328p, and 6 onboard LEDs.
• The "Boarduino" - an inexpensive Diecimila clone made for breadboarding, produced by Adafruit.
• The "Bare Bones Board" (BBB) and "Really Bare Bones Board" (RBBB) by Modern Device - compact inexpensive clones suitable for breadboarding.
• The "iDuino", a USB board for breadboarding, manufactured and sold as a kit by Fundamental Logic.
• The "Sanguino" - An open source enhanced Ardiuno clone which uses an ATMega644P instead of an ATMega168. This provides 64K of flash, 4K of RAM and 32 general IO pins in a 40 pin DIP device. It was developed with the RepRap Project in mind.
• The "LEDuino", a board with enhanced I²C, DCC decoder and CAN-bus interfaces. Manufactured using surface mount and sold assembled by Siliconrailway.
• The "Stickduino", similar to a usb key.
• The "Roboduino", designed for robotics. All of its connections have neighboring power buses into which servos and sensors can easily be plugged. Additional headers for power and serial communication are also provided. It was developed by Curious Inventor, L.L.C.
• The "Wireless Widget", is a compact (35 mm x 70 mm), low voltage, battery powered Arduino clone with onboard wireless capable of ranges up to 120 m. The Wireless Widget was designed for both portable and low cost Wireless sensor network applications.
• The "ZB1", is an Arduino clone that includes a Zigbee radio (XBee). The ZB1 can be powered by USB, a wall adapter or an external battery source. It is designed for low-cost Wireless sensor network applications.
• The "NB1A", is an Arduino clone that includes a battery backed up real-time clock and a four channel DAC. Most Arduino clones require an additional shield for these resources.
• The "NB2A", is an Sanguino clone that includes a battery backed up real-time clock and a two channel DAC. Sanguino's feature the ATmega644P which has additional memory, IO lines and a second UART.
• The "Seeeduino Mega", is an Arduino Mega clone with 16 extra IO Pins.
• The "JeeNode" (and JeeLink) is a low-cost, low-size, radio-enabled Arduino clone. Based on RBBB with a HopeRF wireless module.

Non-ATmega boards

The following boards accept Arduino "shield" daughter boards but do not use ATmega micro-controllers, and are therefore incompatible with the Arduino IDE.

• The "ARMmitePRO", an ARM-based shield-compatible board from Coridium, programmable in BASIC or C.
• The "Cortino", a development system for the 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 Microprocessor.
• The "Pinguino", is a board based on a PIC microcontroller, with native USB support and compatibility with the Arduino programing language plus an IDE built with Python.
• The "Unduino", is a board based on the dsPIC33FJ128MC202 microcontroller, with integrated motor control peripherals.

Development team

The core Arduino developer team is composed of Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, David Mellis and Nicholas Zambetti.

See also

Free software portal

• Arduinome
• BASIC Stamp
• Fritzing
• Rabbit Semiconductor
• Make Controller Kit
• OOPic
• Parallax Propeller
• PICAXE

References

Bibliography

External links

• Collection of Arduino Electronics Projects
• Arduino project main page
• Arduino tutorial at Adafruit Industries
• Sheepdog Software's Introduction to Arduino

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Italian

Proper noun

Arduino (m)

1. A male given name

Anagrams

• Anagrams of adinoru
• oriunda