Arduino Board Technology Architecture and Its Applications

The first Arduino board technology was developed by the David Cuartiellers and Massimo Banzi in the year of 2005. This board is a type of Microcontroller based kit and it is designed with low cost & easy to use for the students and professionals to build the device. We can make an Arduino board by using various basic components or it can be purchased from the sellers. Adafruit industries projected in the year 2011 that over 3lakhs Arduino boards had been produced, but in 2013 the year, Arduino boards are 7lakhs in the user’s hand. This technology is used in the operating devices like communication or controlling.

What is an Arduino Board?

The Arduino is nothing but it is an open-source electronic platform. The software & hardware used in the Arduino board are very easy. This board is able to read inputs from a light on a sensor, twitter messages, finger on a button and it will turn it into output like turning ON an LED, online publishing, and activating a motor. We can control the board by sending the set of instruction to Microcontroller on the Arduino board and this can be achieved by using the Arduino programming language and the IDE Arduino software.

Arduino Board Technology

Let us consider a simple example of the Arduino board technology which is Arduino UNO and it contains ATmega328 with 28 pins. The following figure shows the pin diagram of Arduino UNO board architecture. The Arduino UNO consists of 14 digital input/output pins, from these pins the six pins are used for the o/p pins of pulse width modulation, and six pins are used for analogue input pins, ICSP header, power jack, USB connection, 16MHz crystal oscillator.

The Arduino board can be powered from the personal computer by using the USB or external source like a battery or adapter. The operation of this board is by using the external power supply of 7-12V with the voltage reference of the IORef pin or through the Vin pin.

Digital Input Output Pins: There are 14 digital input, output pins and for each pin, there is a current of 40mA. For some pins there are special functions like pins 0 & 1, they are acting as a transmitter and receiver respectively.The serial communication ports have the external interrupts of pins 2 & 3 and the delivery of PWM o/p is from the 3,5,6,9,11 pins. The LED is connected to the pin 13.

The serial communication ports have the external interrupts of pins 2 & 3 and the delivery of PWM o/p is from the 3,5,6,9,11 pins. The LED is connected to the pin 13.

Analogue inputs: The analogue input pins consist of 6 analogues I/O pin and for each pin are provided by the 10 bits resolution.

AREF pin: This pin will give the reference to the analogue I/P’s.

Reset Pin: The reset pin resets the Microcontroller when the pin is low.

Arduino Architecture

Generally, the Arduino board processor uses the Harvard architecture and it has two separate memories, they are program code & program data. The data are stored in the data memory & the code is stored in the flash memory. The 32kb of flash memory is for the Atmega8 microcontroller, 1kb of EPROM, 2kb of SRAM and operation with the 16MHz clock speed. The following figure shows the architecture of the Arduino board.

Arduino Projects

Here we are explaining some projects based on the Arduino board technology and the applications of Arduino board technology.

1. Obstacle avoidance robot operated with the Arduino

2. Arduino based home automation project

3. Under cable fault rejection using Arduino board

Obstacle Avoidance Robot Operated with the Arduino

The Obstacle Avoidance Robot concept, we are using the ultrasonic sensor to avoid the obstacle. A robot is a machine and it is a combination of both program instructions & motor. Automatically or by using some guidance the robot can perform.

This robotic vehicle has the intelligence and it is inbuilt of the robot. When any obstacle problem is occurring then it guides its self and the robot is designed Atmel microcontroller of an Arduino board. The following image shows the obstacle avoidance robot operated with the Arduino.

Arduino Based Home Automation

The main intention of this project is to design the home automation system using an Arduino board with the help of the Bluetooth. The Bluetooth is used for the remote controlled operation by the Android OS based smartphone and home automation system provides the new technology with the android mobiles. To achieve this, Bluetooth module is connected to the Arduino board at the receiver side and on the transmitter side, when the load is connected the GUI application on the smartphone sends ON/OFF commands to the receiver.

If the particular location is touched by the graphical user interface, therefore, the different load can be turned ON/OFF remotely by using this technology and if we touch the next location on the graphical user interface, thus the load can be remotely turned ON/OFF. The load will be working with an Arduino board with a thyristor and the Opto-Isolators using TRIACS

Under Cable Fault Rejection Using Arduino Board

The intention of this project is to find the location of the underground cable fault by using the Arduino technology. In the urban areas, the underground cable fault is the main problem. If there is any problem occurs in the underground cable fault, it is very difficult to repair that cable because not knowing the location of the cable.

Therefore, this project is built with the resistor set to characterise the cable length in kilometres and by using the set of switches, the fault creation is designed at every identified kilometre. At a particular distance a fault is occurring, and then the particular phase is displayed on the LCD, which is interfaced with the Arduino board.

Advantages of the Arduino Board Technology

• It is very simple to use for the beginners.
• It is available with a lower price in the market.
• The software of the Arduino is suitable for all types of operations like Linux, windows, etc.
• It comes with an open supply hardware feature that permits users to develop their own kit.

I hope by reading this article you have gained some basic information on the Arduino board technology. If you have any queries about this article or about the DIY Arduino board projects for engineering students, please feel free to comment in the below section. Here is the question for you, what are the functions of the Arduino board technology?