SINGLE BOARD MICROCONTROLLER MAKER Arduino has launched a range of boards at the Maker Faire in Rome, including one based on Intel architecture and one based on a Texas Instruments chip.
Named the Galileo, Intel's and Arduino's new development board is aimed at both beginners looking for a quick tool and hardware developers looking to take their designs to the next level.
"Overall, the Intel Galileo development board is a tool for quickly prototyping simple interactive designs like LED light displays that respond to social media, or for tackling more complex projects from automating home appliances to building life size robots that you control from your smartphone," Arduino said in a statement.
Intel and Arduino said that in addition to building the Galileo board they will also work closely on future products to bring more performance "to this growing community of makers".
As part of the announcement, Intel said that it will donate 50,000 Galileo boards to 1,000 universities around the world over the next 18 months, though it has yet to announce which ones. The chip giant is also working with 17 universities across six continents to develop curricula based on the new Galileo board.
"The goal of the education effort is to put the power of its technology into the hands of as many educators and students as possible," Intel's CEO said in a statement. The Galileo board will be available in the US by 29 November.
It's not only Intel that has realised the potential of the Arduino community and partnered with the firm. Texas Instruments (TI) has also teamed up with Arduino to create the TRE, which is powered by a TI Sitara AM335x Processor.
Featuring a 1GHz processing, the TRE is the first Arduino board made in the US and is expected to give developers 100 times more performance than on the Arduino Leonardo or Uno.
"This performance opens the doors to more advanced Linux powered applications. The Sitara processor based Linux
Arduino can run high-performance desktop applications, processing intensive algorithms or high-speed communications," Arduino said.
The Arduino TRE will also act as two Arduinos in one - the Sitara processor based Linux Arduino plus a full AVR based Arduino. The firm has said that this won't affect the simple nature of the Arduino software.
"The integration of the AVR Arduino enables the Arduino TRE to use the existing shield ecosystem so that innovators can expand the Arduino TRE to develop a wide range of high-performance applications such as 3D printers, gateways for building automation and lighting automation, telemetry hubs that collect data from nearby sensors wirelessly, and other connected applications that require host control plus real-time operations."
According to Arduino's co-founder, Massimo Banzi, the integration of TI's Sitara AM335x processor enables Linux to run faster.
"Our customers now have a scalable portfolio at their fingertips, from the microcontroller based Uno to the TRE Linux computer," Banzi said.
The Arduino TRE is expected to be available in the US in spring 2014. We have no word on UK availability yet.
Hot related:
Cheap Arduino Compatible,
Raspberry Pi,
Microcontroller Kit
