So you are thinking about working on embedded projects with microcontrollers and want to choose the best one to achieve it. You are not alone. An increasing number of people do not know what kind of microcontroller to use for their project or which manufacturers or models are the best. Microcontrollers are the brain of many electronic devices, whether they be small home appliances or customized drones. In this guide, we’ll go over what the best microcontroller options are for your project so you can get started on your project:
1. Arduino
The Arduino platform is a low-cost, open-source microcontroller that can be used to build small electronics projects. It’s easy to use, comes with lots of example code, and has a large community of users and developers. The Arduino board has dozens of connections to other components, but it’s not hard to add your own. The Arduino platform supports a variety of languages including C++, Java and Processing, along with hardware implementations of the ARM processor. The hardware implementation used in the original boards was based on Atmel’s AVR architecture, which has since been replaced by Atmel’s newer ARM architecture. The new Arduino runs at 16 MHz (analog), while the older boards ran at 8 MHz (analog). As of 2016, there are over 100 different models available from the official Arduino website.
The main advantages of using an Arduino board are its small size relative to other single-board microcontrollers and its ability to easily interface with existing systems such as computers and mobile devices. This allows users to quickly prototype systems without needing expensive development kits or special tools for program development or debugging.
2. Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-sized computer that plugs into a standard 40-pin GPIO connector. The Raspberry Pi is an open-source ARM-based single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi foundation. It is a low-cost platform which can be used for many different applications. It is one of the most powerful mini-computers you can get for your project and is easy to set up. The Raspberry Pi has a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of onboard storage. It also has an Ethernet port, WiFi adapter, composite video out jack and 3.5 mm audio jack for audio output. The Raspberry Pi has more than enough power to run your own application on it and the software support capability is better than ever before.
3. Beagleboard
BeagleBoard is a low-cost development board based on 32 bits ARM Cortex processor for running Linux-based operating systems. It’s currently one of the most popular boards for hobbyists and embedded system developers. There are many good resources for getting started with BeagleBoard, including a build manual and an open-source Linux distribution. When you buy beagle board black you get Linux distribution installed however, you can easily change to any other supported os like fedora, Ubuntu, Android, Debian, QNX etc. One of the major disadvantages of beagle board is that compared to other items on this list it can be extremely difficult to use. However, its open source and therefore inexpensive which is why it is the first choice of many beginners.
BeagleBone Black is a great choice for any beginner who wants to learn how to program microcontrollers. It can be used as a complete development board with an embedded ARM Cortex A8 processor, a Linux operating system and plenty of GPIO pins that are easily accessible from the main application processor. Since it uses standard components such as microcontrollers and microprocessors, it’s easy to find parts for your project on eBay or other websites such as Aliexpress or Banggood.
4. NVIDIA Jetson
The Jetson from Nvidia is a powerful development platform that can be used to build autonomous cars, robots, home appliances and many other devices. The Jetson comes with a special TensorFlow library that makes it easy to use deep learning libraries like TensorFlow.
