Arduino is an organization which designs software and develops open source hardware and software based on microcontroller boards. Electronics projects are built using this open source board. Different types of Arduino boards are available like UNO, Lily pad, Nano, Mega etc. Arduino UNO is based on microcontroller ATMga328. It has 14 digital input/output pins, out of which 6 pins are PWM pins, 6 analog input pins, a USB connector to give 5 V DC power supply, quartz crystal with 16 MHz frequency, reset button and a power jack. It has 32 Kbytes of chip memory, out of which 0.5 kb is used by boot loader. It is a programmable circuit board, and programs can be written and uploaded on board using Arduino IDE.
An Uno board is the first version in series of USB Arduino boards. Arduino boards can read inputs from analog and digital sensors, can take input from switch and convert it into output signal to control DC motor, to blink LEDs and display at output.
Arduino UNO is easy to use as compared with microcontrollers and microprocessors and used by beginners to design different projects and applications based on it. It is more flexible and can be run on different platforms like Windows, Mac and Linux. In every field like medical, agriculture, transportation and home automation, Arduino-based projects can be designed with less complexity and limited cost.
As compared with microcontrollers, Arduino boards simplify the task to work on microcontrollers using Arduino IDE with different library functions. These boards become point of attraction due to following advantages:
Inexpensive: Arduino boards are cheap in cost in comparison with other microcontrollers like PIC. Moreover, these boards can be assembled on breadboard.
Simple and clear programming: For beginners, to learn and create projects Arduino is very simple and easy-to-use board. Programming can be done using Arduino IDE and plenty of examples are available in IDE help. Advanced programming can also be done to design complex projects by adding libraries in it (Table 9.1).
| Microcontroller | ATmega328 |
|---|---|
| Clock speed | 16 MHz |
| Operating voltage | 5 V |
| Maximum supply voltage (not recommended) | 20 V |
| Supply voltage (recommended) | 7–12 V |
| Analog input pins | 6 |
| Digital input/output pins | 14 |
| DC current per input/output pin | 40 mA |
| DC current in 3.3 V pin | 50 mA |
| SRAM | 2 kb |
| EEPROM | 1 kb |
| Flash memory | 32 kb of which 0.5 kb used by boot loader |
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