Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Beagle Board Trainer

Beagle Board Trainer
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard_Trainer

This board is an expansion board for Beagle Board and has the following features:
  • I2C interface(+3.3v or +5v selectable)
  • SPI(+3.3v)
  • GPIO's(+3.3v)
  • large 0.1" prototype matrix and power bus.
  • Atmega168
  • Arduino compatiblle
  • +3.3v or +5v selectable
  • connected via the second uart to the BeagleBoard
GPIOs on this board can be used as General Input/Output. They can be used in order to run a particular hardware that has no USB, or Serial interface.
Also, this board adds bunch of interfaces to the beagle board.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Android by Embilinux

Android by Embilinux




http://www.embinux.com/download_file.php?type=beagle

The above link is a download page for Android by Embilinux. Android is a software stack for mobile devices including operating system and key applications. This demo supports input devices (keyboard, mouse), network and sound.

This particular demo image has some neat applications such as web browser, Alarm Clock, Media Gallery.

In order to make one for beagle board.

1) download the required files from the above link and untar them.
2) partitions the SD card : partition 1 - FAT 16 (bootable)
partition 2 - EXT 3
Instructions regarding partitioning the SD card
http://www.sakoman.com/OMAP3/preparing-a-bootable-sd-card.html
3) Mount the partitions
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/card
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /media/disk_ext3
4) Copy the boot files in the FAT 16 partition
$ sudo cp MLO /media/card
$ sudo cp uboot.bin /media/card
$ sudo cp uImage /media/card
5) Copy Android file system in the ext3 partition
$ sudo cp * /media/disk_ext3
6) Boot the SD card
# setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,115200n8 noinitrd root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 video=omapfb.mode=dvi:1280x720MR-24@50 init=/init rootfstype=ext3 rw rootdelay=1 nohz=off androidboot.console=ttyS2
# mmc init
# fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage
# bootm 0x80300000
7) Enjoy ! ! !

PixHawk Pioneer

PIX HAWK by Parrot



http://pixhawk.ethz.ch/blog

The above link is about the EMAV 2009 system : PixHawk Pioneer.
This system is made by the EMAV team. This team is from ETH Zurich.
Their system PixHawk Pioneer enables PixHawk to fly autonomously.
This system uses an OMAP 3530 processor, similar to the BeagleBoard.

This team used the OMAP3530 in order to make a bridge between several sensors they are using and between output servos and speed controller. This team is using airspeed sensor, 3D magnetometer, 3D accelerometer, 3D gyro, highspeed USB 2.0, barometric pressure indicator, temperature sensor.
The OMAP3530 processor is used in order to process the input values from these sensors in order to control servo movements and speed controller commands. As a result, PixHawk Pioneer is electronically controlled.

Beagle Board Codec Engine

http://ossie.wireless.vt.edu/trac/wiki/BeagleBoard_CodecEngine

The above link has instructions about setting up the Beagle Board Codec Engine.

Codec Engine is necessary in order to make use of onboard TI TMS320C64x+ DSP, which is a DSP on the Beagle Board.
This enables an user to make use of beagle board's DSP in order to decode video and audio.
Using DSP to decode video help to meet real-time playback of a video stream.

The above link also has instructions regarding running some sample applications provided with the files.
It also has instructions about building your own DSP Link file.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

AR Drone, by Parrot

http://ardrone2.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/how-does-it-work.html#start

The above link has information about AR Drone, which is a flying vehicle made by parrot. It has certain features such as WiFi, which enables it to be controlled from an itouch, or iphone.

Since the guidance system on AR Drone uses Linux, it might be possible to use beagle board for this.
Using beagle board can provide some advantages. AR Drone has 2 cameras for live feed. Since beagle board is capable of producing HD graphics, it might be possible to produce a live HD feed from the cameras. The DSP on the beagle board can be used to encode the live feed and stream it to the viewing device.

Also, beagle board is like a mini-computer, which has many advantages:
  • Since beagle board is a processor, it might be possible to make an Auto-Pilot system for AR Drone.
  • Several image processing programs such as edge detection, obstacle recognition can be used in order to prevent AR Drone from colliding.
  • It might be possible to add an airspeed sensor, altimeter, altimeter which work as input devices for beagle board and can help the AR Drone fly by itself.
  • In short, beagle board can receive inputs from several sensors such as airspeed sensor, altimeter, and process the data received in order to guide the AR Drone by using commanding its control surfaces and speed controllers.

Beagle Board as USB Mass Storage Device

http://wh1t3s.com/2009/05/11/beagleboard-as-usb-mass-storage-device-via-usb-otg/

The above link has instructions regarding using the Beagle Board as a USB Mass Storage Device.

This is advantageous over a network file system because it does not need an network connection in order to be used. Also, you don't need to turn the beagle board on and off in order to copy new files to the file system like with an SD card.

Other Boards

Here are some boards which are similar to that of Beagle Board.

Hawk Board
hawkboard.org

  • Dual Core SoC
    • 300-MHz ARM926EJ-S™ RISC MPU
    • 300-MHz C674x VLIW DSP
  • ARM926EJ-S Core
    • 32-Bit and 16-Bit (Thumb®) Instructions
    • DSP Instruction Extensions
    • Single Cycle MAC
    • ARM® Jazelle® Technology
    • EmbeddedICE-RT™ for Real-Time Debug
  • ARM9 Memory Architecture
  • C674x Instruction Set Features
    • Superset of the C67x+™ and C64x+™ ISAs
    • 2400/1800 C674x MIPS/MFLOPS
    • Byte-Addressable (8-/16-/32-/64-Bit Data)
    • 8-Bit Overflow Protection
    • Bit-Field Extract, Set, Clear
    • Normalization, Saturation, Bit-Counting
    • Compact 16-Bit Instructions
  • C674x Two Level Cache Memory Architecture
    • 32K-Byte L1P Program RAM/Cache
This board is capable of producing VGA resolution, and you can even attach a SATA hard drive on this board.



Leopard Board
leopardboard.org



  • 10/100 Ethernet Port
  • USB 2.0 (can be used to power the board or as expansion)
  • JTAG and Serial ports for debugging
  • SD memory card support (also supports SDIO)
  • Stereo audio In/Out
  • Expansion connector for customer add-on feature
  • Composite TV Output
  • LCD/DVI Interface
  • Support 720p at 30pfs
  • VGA Camera board (included)
  • Support wide range of video resolutions from VGA, 1.3M, 2M, 3M to 5 Mega-pixel CMOS Sensors (High resolution camera boards available seperately)
  • Royalty-free open source 2A functions

This board has some good expansion features such as camera board.
Also it can be used as an input device for camera, with a beagle board. Basically like a stand-alone camera, with its own video decoder.