Arduino History and Its Famous Boards
What is ARDUINO ?
Arduino is an open-source hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control both physically and digitally.
ARDUINO Features
---- Arduino board designs use a variety of microprocessors and controllers.
----The boards are equipped with sets of digital and analog input/output (I/O) pins that may be interfaced to various expansion boards or breadboards (shields) and other circuits.
-----The boards feature serial communications interfaces, including Universal Serial Bus (USB) on some models, which are also used for loading programs from personal computers.
-----The microcontrollers are typically programmed using a dialect of features from the programming languages C and C++.
------In addition to using traditional compiler toolchains, the Arduino project provides an integrated development environment (IDE) based on the Processing language project.
Motive to Start Project ARDUINO
The Arduino project started in 2003 as a program for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy, aiming to provide a low-cost and easy way for novices and professionals to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors and actuators. Common examples of such devices intended for beginner hobbyists include simple robots, thermostats and motion detectors.
ARDUINO Name Comes from
The name Arduino comes from a bar in Ivrea, Italy, where some of the founders of the project used to meet. The bar was named after Arduin of Ivrea, who was the margrave of the March of Ivrea and King of Italy from 1002 to 1014.
Famous/Mostly Used Boards
1- Arduino Nano
2- Arduino UNO
3- Arduino Mega
Arduino UNO
Technical specifications of Arduino UNO
Microcontroller: Microchip ATmega328P
Operating Voltage: 5 Volt
Input Voltage: 7 to 20 Volts
Digital I/O Pins: 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
Analog Input Pins: 6
DC Current per I/O Pin: 20 mA
DC Current for 3.3V Pin: 50 mA
Flash Memory: 32 KB of which 0.5 KB used by bootloader
SRAM: 2 KB
EEPROM: 1 KB
Clock Speed: 16 MHz
General Pin functions
LED: There is a built-in LED driven by digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it's off.
VIN: The input voltage to the Arduino/Genuino board when it's using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or other regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via the power jack, access it through this pin.
5V: This pin outputs a regulated 5V from the regulator on the board. The board can be supplied with power either from the DC power jack (7 - 20V), the USB connector (5V), or the VIN pin of the board (7-20V). Supplying voltage via the 5V or 3.3V pins bypasses the regulator, and can damage the board.
3V3: A 3.3 volt supply generated by the on-board regulator. Maximum current draw is 50 mA.
GND: Ground pins.
IOREF: This pin on the Arduino/Genuino board provides the voltage reference with which the microcontroller operates. A properly configured shield can read the IOREF pin voltage and select the appropriate power source or enable voltage translators on the outputs to work with the 5V or 3.3V.
Reset: Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one on the board.
Special Pin Functions
Each of the 14 digital pins and 6 Analog pins on the Uno can be used as an input or output, using pinMode(),digitalWrite(), and digitalRead() functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin can provide or receive 20 mA as recommended operating condition and has an internal pull-up resistor (disconnected by default) of 20-50k ohm. A maximum of 40mA is the value that must not be exceeded on any I/O pin to avoid permanent damage to the microcontroller.
The Uno has 6 analog inputs, labeled A0 through A5, each of which provide 10 bits of resolution (i.e. 1024 different values). By default they measure from ground to 5 volts, though is it possible to change the upper end of their range using the AREF pin and the analogReference() function.
In addition, some pins have specialized functions:
Serial / UART: pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. These pins are connected to the corresponding pins of the ATmega8U2 USB-to-TTL Serial chip.
External Interrupts: pins 2 and 3. These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or a change in value.
PWM (Pulse Width Modulation): 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 Can provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface): 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (MISO), 13 (SCK). These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library.
TWI (Two Wire Interface) / I²C: A4 or SDA pin and A5 or SCL pin. Support TWI communication using the Wire library.
AREF (Analog REFerence): Reference voltage for the analog input
Arduino NANO
The Arduino Nano is a small, complete, and breadboard-friendly board based on the ATmega328P (Arduino Nano 3.x). It lacks only a DC power jack, and works with a Mini-B USB cable instead of a standard one.
Arduino Mega 2560
The MEGA 2560 is designed for more complex projects. With 54 digital I/O pins, 16 analog inputs and a larger space for your sketch it is the recommended board for 3D printers and robotics projects. This gives your projects plenty of room and opportunities.
* Mega 2560 can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply. The power source is selected automatically.
* The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts.
** ATmega2560 has 256 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 8 KB is used for the bootloader), 8 KB of SRAM and 4 KB of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library).
*** Serial: 0 (RX) and 1 (TX); Serial 1: 19 (RX) and 18 (TX); Serial 2: 17 (RX) and 16 (TX); Serial 3: 15 (RX) and 14 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data.
** PWM: 2 to 13 and 44 to 46. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function
** TWI: 20 (SDA) and 21 (SCL). Support TWI communication using the Wire library.
