Arduino-A cheap and efficient Micro-controller Board

Today, let me tell you about an efficient and low cost Microcontroller Board called Arduino. Some of the salient features of Arduino are :
  • Microcontroller: ATmega328.
  • Operating Voltage: 5V.
  • Input Voltage (recommended): 7-12V.
  • Input Voltage (limits): 6-20V.
  • Digital I/O Pins: 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
  • Analog Input Pins: 6


Now, A micro-controller is basically a small chip that has a processing element, memory elements as well as different peripherals on a single chip. We generally program the micro-controller by writing instructions either in assembly language or Embedded C, compiling that program and then burning the program on the micro-controller so that we can observe our results.

Now, learning these languages in itself is a big task. Then, we additionally need a programmer to transfer the programming file onto the micro-controller. We also require some GPIO(General Purpose Input Output) pins so that we can interact with the Micro-controller.

Arduino is open source and solves these problems by giving us a cheap and efficient board, that has GPIO pins readily available for interfacing with different hardware. It also has an onboard LED, that is great for observing output as well as debugging. Moreover, it does not require any additional programmer. Lastly but not the least, the programming language and concept required for Arduino programming is quite simple. This gives us the ease to develop and focus more on our applications rather than understanding the underlying language and its concepts in detail. There is a huge arduino community also available that has a huge list of documentation, guides as well as forums for helping out budding project makers.

Using arduino, you can start writing programs and practically implementing your applications. You can automate your doors, lights or even implement security protocols at your home. You can further use the concept of IoT to control and monitor devices remotely from any part of the world. The list of applications is endless and is entirely fueled by your creativity and imagination.


To get started with programming on arduino, We require:
  1. Arduino Board- This is available at a wide variety of hardware and electronic components stores and can also be purchased from Amazon, Flipkart etc
  2. Arduino IDE- This is the software and the interface that is used for programming arduino. It also installs the necessary driver in your PC and provides a nice interface for programming. The IDE can be downloaded here :  Download Arduino IDE. The page also provides the option of online coding. But I would suggest downloading the IDE :)

Feel free to comment regarding the content as well as any queries.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Microcontroller GPIO

Leap Motion

Uploading your first Dummy Program on Arduino