Real Edge Electronics
The SONY Spresense
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Ultra low power consumption
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Integrated GPS
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Real-Time Operating System
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Six Cortex 4MF+ Cores
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Integrated Camera,2D hard acceleration
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Hi-Res Audio, up to 8 Mics.
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Able to run AI Inference
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Power Management
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Easy to integrate with other hardware
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Heat tolerance
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Battery / USB operated
The Spresense is one of the most important building blocks for BCB's edge devices, it is small enough to build powerful things in small packages. The open source designs can help you to create your own custom and smaller board if you are planning to produce huge amounts of devices. After reading all the related material you will realize that I really like this board because it is almost what I ever wanted, but be aware that this market is evolving rapidly.
Using the NuttX SDK
New!
NON-INVASIVE
SMALL AND CLEAN
TECHNOLOGY
IS WELCOMED
IN OUR TERRITORY
EFFECTIVE
USE OF ENERGY
IS APPRECIATED
PLEASE DEMAND
RoHS
COMPLAINT COMPONENTS
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Substance Concentration
Lead..................0.1%
Mercury.............. 0.1%
PBB ................. 0.1%
PBDE................. 0.1%
Hexavalent Chromium.. 0.1%
Cadmium.............. 0.01%
The Microchip RN2903 Module
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LoRaWAN Compliant, Full Stack firmware
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Type A and C compliant
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LoRa and FSK modulation (255/64 bytes)
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Easy to integrate with MCUs (UART)
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Easy to configure (text commands, radio and mac)
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Configurable output power
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Secure Encryption
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Low power consumption by inherited LoRa nature
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Long Range, 10Km (tested) even more by specs
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Environment friendly.
Intelligence and power without communication worth nothing, that's why LoRa is so important for Big Cat Brother. I've been working with these modules (I was supposed to be testing things from Semtech but the pandemic forced me to stop some collaborations for precaution) and they delivered the LoRa promises, all of them, from range to battery durability. The good thing about this module is the freedom you have in terms of configuration. You can easily choose to use the LoRaWAN standard or use the module just as a LoRa radio, BCB uses both schemes, so it is perfect for my needs. I tested these modules in the real environment and they performed superbly. Always keep in mind that Battery life will depend on your needs to communicate things, if you need to send or receive messages all the time you cannot expect this device running for years on a single battery charge.
More information on LoRa / LoRaWAN Here
Some details about the tests Here
The Arduino Portenta
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2 Core MCU, 1 M7 + M4, Running at 480Mhz.
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Low power consumption + Battery charger.
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Hardware accelerator and encryption.
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WiFi / BLE on board (UFL Antenna Connector)
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Multiple Analog, Digital and PWM Pins
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Multiple interfacing options, Video over USB-C
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SDRAM 8MB, Flash QSPI 16MB, Flash 2MB, SRAM 1MB
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Vision Shield adds: A Low Power Consumption Hi-Max Camera, 2 MEMS Mics, LoRaWAN Connectivity (Including an antenna connector and a JTAG)
Arduino got really serious about the PRO line, The Portenta family is the first thing I see ready to be deployed in real scenarios. The standard configuration is almost excellent (I would add a GPS receiver but the Vision Shield is meant to work with LoRaWAN so you can get that information from your gateway). The best thing is that they offer some customization options. It is a fast and solid board. I tested some features on edgeImpuse and openMV and the speed is pretty good. In terms of development you can use the usual Arduino cores plus native mbed OS RTOS applications. The openMV has its own IDE and it is based on microPython (not my favorite thing though).
You can read the detailed first impressions on the board and expect to see more posts on the blog about this board that honors its name.
Arduino is not a kid anylonger, see my review here
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ABOUT BCB
Big Cat Brother is a network of intelligent connected devices built to mitigate the common death causes that are putting Jaguars at direct risk of extinction.
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