Arduino - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 4/30/15, 10:25 PM

Arduino
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arduino is an open-source computer hardware and software

company, project and user community that designs and Arduino
manufactures kits for building digital devices and interactive
objects that can sense and control the physical world.[1]
Arduino boards may be purchased preassembled, or as do-it-
yourself kits; at the same time, the hardware design
information is available for those who would like to assemble
an Arduino from scratch.

The project is based on a family of microcontroller board

designs manufactured primarily by SmartProjects in Italy,[2]
and also by several other vendors, using various 8-bit Atmel
AVR microcontrollers or 32-bit Atmel ARM processors.
These systems provide sets of digital and analog I/O pins that
can be interfaced to various extension boards and other
circuits. The boards feature serial communications interfaces,
"Arduino Uno" Revision 3
including USB on some models, for loading programs from
personal computers. For programming the microcontrollers, Type Single-board microcontroller
the Arduino platform provides an integrated development Website www.arduino.cc (http://www.arduino.cc/)
environment (IDE) based on the Processing project, which
includes support for C and C++ programming languages.

The first Arduino was introduced in 2005. The project leaders sought to provide an inexpensive and easy way
for hobbyists, students, and professionals to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors
and actuators. Common examples for beginner hobbyists include simple robots, thermostats and motion
detectors. Adafruit Industries estimated in mid-2011 that over 300,000 official Arduinos had been commercially
produced,[3] and in 2013 that 700,000 official boards were in users' hands.[4]

Contents
1 History
2 Hardware
2.1 Official boards
2.2 Shields
3 Software
4 Development
5 Applications
6 Reception
7 Legal dispute

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8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links

History
Arduino started in 2005 as a project for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy. At that
time program students used a "BASIC Stamp" at a cost of $100, considered expensive for students. Massimo
Banzi, one of the founders, taught at Ivrea.[5] The name "Arduino" comes from a bar in Ivrea, where some of
the founders of the project used to meet. The bar, in turn, was named after Arduino, Margrave of Ivrea and King
of Italy from 1002 to 1014.[6]

A hardware thesis was contributed for a wiring design by Colombian student Hernando Barragan. After the
Wiring[7] platform was complete, researchers worked to make it lighter, less expensive, and available to the
open source community. The school eventually closed, but the researchers, including David Cuartielles,
promoted the idea. The Arduino core team consisted of Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca
Martino and David Mellis.[5]

Hardware
An Arduino board consists of an Atmel 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit AVR
microcontroller with complementary components that facilitate
programming and incorporation into other circuits. An important aspect
of the Arduino is its standard connectors, which lets users connect the
CPU board to a variety of interchangeable add-on modules known as
shields. Some shields communicate with the Arduino board directly over
various pins, but many shields are individually addressable via an I²C
serial bus—so many shields can be stacked and used in parallel. Official
Arduinos have used the megaAVR series of chips, specifically the
ATmega8, ATmega168, ATmega328, ATmega1280, and ATmega2560. An official Arduino Uno with
A handful of other processors have been used by Arduino compatibles. descriptions of the I/O locations
Most boards include a 5 volt linear regulator and a 16 MHz crystal
oscillator (or ceramic resonator in some variants), although some
designs such as the LilyPad run at 8 MHz and dispense with the onboard voltage regulator due to specific form-
factor restrictions. An Arduino's microcontroller is also pre-programmed with a boot loader that simplifies
uploading of programs to the on-chip flash memory, compared with other devices that typically need an external
programmer. This makes using an Arduino more straightforward by allowing the use of an ordinary computer
as the programmer.

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At a conceptual level, when using the Arduino software stack, all boards are programmed over an RS-232 serial
connection, but the way this is implemented varies by hardware version. Serial Arduino boards contain a level
shifter circuit to convert between RS-232-level and TTL-level signals. Current Arduino boards are programmed
via USB, implemented using USB-to-serial adapter chips such as the FTDI FT232. Some variants, such as the
Arduino Mini and the unofficial Boarduino, use a detachable USB-to-serial adapter board or cable, Bluetooth or
other methods. (When used with traditional microcontroller tools instead of the Arduino IDE, standard AVR
ISP programming is used.)

The Arduino board exposes most of the microcontroller's I/O pins for
use by other circuits. The Diecimila, Duemilanove, and current Uno
provide 14 digital I/O pins, six of which can produce pulse-width
modulated signals, and six analog inputs, which can also be used as six
digital I/O pins. These pins are on the top of the board, via female 0.10-
inch (2.5 mm) headers. Several plug-in application shields are also
commercially available. The Arduino Nano, and Arduino-compatible
Bare Bones Board and Boarduino boards may provide male header pins
on the underside of the board that can plug into solderless breadboards.

There are many Arduino-compatible and Arduino-derived boards. Some An early Arduino board[8] with an
are functionally equivalent to an Arduino and can be used RS-232 serial interface (upper left)
interchangeably. Many enhance the basic Arduino by adding output and an Atmel ATmega8
drivers, often for use in school-level education to simplify the microcontroller chip (black, lower
construction of buggies and small robots. Others are electrically right); the 14 digital I/O pins are
equivalent but change the form factor, sometimes retaining compatibility located at the top and the six analog
with shields, sometimes not. Some variants use completely different input pins at the lower right.
processors, with varying levels of compatibility.

Official boards

The original Arduino hardware is manufactured by the Italian company Smart Projects.[9] Some Arduino-
branded boards have been designed by the American company SparkFun Electronics.[10] Sixteen versions of the
Arduino hardware have been commercially produced to date.

Example Arduino boards

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Arduino Diecimila in Arduino Duemilanove Arduino UNO Arduino Leonardo

Stoicheia (rev 2009b)

Arduino Mega Arduino MEGA 2560 Arduino MEGA 2560 Arduino Nano
R3 (front side) R3 (back side)

Arduino Due (ARM- LilyPad Arduino (rev

based) 2007)

Shields
Arduino and Arduino-compatible boards use printed circuit expansion boards called "shields", which plug into
the normally supplied Arduino pin headers. Shields can provide motor controls, GPS, Ethernet, LCD, or
breadboarding (prototyping). A number of shields can also be made DIY.[11][12][13]

Example Arduino shields

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Multiple shields can be Screw-terminal Adafruit Motor Shield Adafruit Datalogging

stacked. In this example breakout shield in a with screw terminals for Shield with a Secure
the top shield contains a wing-type format connection to motors Digital (SD) card slot
solderless breadboard. and real-time clock
(RTC) chip

HackARobot Fabric
Shield – designed for
Arduino Nano to hook
up motors and sensors
such as gyroscope or
GPS, and other
breakout boards such as
WiFi, Bluetooth, RF,
etc.

Software
The Arduino integrated development environment (IDE)
is a cross-platform application written in Java, and derives Arduino Software IDE
from the IDE for the Processing programming language
and the Wiring projects. It is designed to introduce
programming to artists and other newcomers unfamiliar
with software development. It includes a code editor with
features such as syntax highlighting, brace matching, and
automatic indentation, and is also capable of compiling

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and uploading programs to the board with a single click.

A program or code written for Arduino is called a
"sketch".[15]

Arduino programs are written in C or C++. The Arduino

IDE comes with a software library called "Wiring" from
the original Wiring project, which makes many common
input/output operations much easier. The users need only
to define two functions to make an executable cyclic
executive program:

setup(): a function run once at the start of a

program that can initialize settings
loop(): a function called repeatedly until the board
powers off A screenshot of the Arduino IDE showing the "Blink"

A typical first program for a microcontroller simply blinks program, a simple beginner program
an LED on and off. In the Arduino environment, the user Developer(s) Arduino Software
might write a program like this:[16] Stable release 1.6.3 / 2 April 2015[14]

Written in Java, C and C++

#define LED_PIN 13
Operating system Cross-platform
void setup() {
pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT); // Enable pin 13 for digital
Type output Integrated development environment
}

void loop() { License LGPL or GPL license

digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH); // Turn on the LED
delay(1000); // Wait one second (1000Website
milliseconds) arduino.cc
digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW); // Turn off the LED
delay(1000); // Wait one second
(http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software)
}

Most Arduino boards contain an LED and a load resistor connected

between pin 13 and ground; a convenient feature for many simple
tests.[16] The previous code would not be seen by a standard C++
compiler as a valid program, so when the user clicks the "Upload to I/O
board" button in the IDE, a copy of the code is written to a temporary
file with an extra include header at the top and a very simple main()
function at the bottom, to make it a valid C++ program.

The Arduino IDE uses the GNU toolchain and AVR Libc to compile The integrated pin 13 LED
programs, and uses avrdude to upload programs to the board.

As the Arduino platform uses Atmel microcontrollers, Atmel's development environment, AVR Studio or the
newer Atmel Studio, may also be used to develop software for the Arduino.[17][18]

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Development
Arduino is open-source hardware: the Arduino hardware reference designs are distributed under a Creative
Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 license and are available on the Arduino Web site. Layout and
production files for some versions of the Arduino hardware are also available. The source code for the IDE is
available and released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.[19]

Although the hardware and software designs are freely available under copyleft licenses, the developers have
requested that the name "Arduino" be exclusive to the official product and not be used for derivative works
without permission. The official policy document on the use of the Arduino name emphasizes that the project is
open to incorporating work by others into the official product.[20] Several Arduino-compatible products
commercially released have avoided the "Arduino" name by using "-duino" name variants.[21]

Applications
Xoscillo: open-source oscilloscope[22]
Scientific equipment[23]
Arduinome: a MIDI controller device that mimics the Monome
OBDuino: a trip computer that uses the on-board diagnostics interface found in most modern cars
Ardupilot: drone software / hardware
ArduinoPhone[24]
GertDuino, an Arduino mate for the Raspberry Pi[25]
Water quality testing platform[26]

Reception
The Arduino project received an honorary mention in the Digital Communities category at the 2006 Prix Ars
Electronica.[27]

Legal dispute
When the Arduino project started, the five co-founders created a company that owned all the Arduino associated
trademarks. The manufacture and sale of the boards was done by sell boards, Arduino would get a royalty from
them. In the founding bylaws of the company, it was specified that each of the five founders was to transfer
ownership of the Arduino brand to the newly formed company. At the end of 2008, Gianluca Martino’s
company, Smart Projects, registered the Arduino trademark in Italy and kept this a secret from the other co-
founders for about two years. This was brought to light when the Arduino company tried to register the
trademark in other areas of the world (they originally registered in the US), and discovered it was already
registered in Italy. Negotiations with Gianluca and his company to bring the trademark under control of the
original Arduino company were not successful, and in 2014, Smart Projects began refusing to pay royalties.
Smart Projects appointed a new CEO, Mr. Musto, who renamed the company to Arduino SRL and created a

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website named Arduino.org, copying the graphics and layout of the original Arduino.cc. This resulted in a rift in
the Arduino development team, and although all Arduino boards are still available to consumers, and the
designs are open source, the implications of this are uncertain.[28][29][30]

See also
List of Arduino boards and compatible systems
Comparison of single-board computers

References
1. Arduino Project introduction (http://arduino.cc/en/guide/introduction)
2. http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ
3. "How many Arduinos are "in the wild?" About 300,000" (http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/15/how-many-
arduinos-are-in-the-wild-about-300000/). Adafruit Industries. May 15, 2011. Retrieved 2013-05-26.
4. "Arduino FAQ – With David Cuartielles" (http://medea.mah.se/2013/04/arduino-faq//). Malmö University. April 5, 2013.
Retrieved 2014-03-24.
5. David Kushner (26 Oct 2011). "The Making of Arduino" (http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-making-of-
arduino). IEEE Spectrum.
6. Justin Lahart (27 November 2009). "Taking an Open-Source Approach to Hardware"
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574559960271468066.html). The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved 7 September 2014.
7. "Rhizome - Interview with Casey Reas and Ben Fry" (http://rhizome.org/editorial/2009/sep/23/interview-with-casey-
reas-and-ben-fry/). 2009-09-23. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
8. "Hardware Index" (http://arduino.cc/en/main/boards). Arduino Project. Retrieved 2013-12-10.
9. Smart Projects (http://smartprj.com/)
10. Schmidt, M. ["Arduino: A Quick Start Guide"], Pragmatic Bookshelf, January 22, 2011, Pg. 201
11. "Arduino breadboard shield: US$10 & 10 mins". todbot.com (http://todbot.com/blog/2006/07/11/arduino-breadboard-
shield/)
12. Igoe, Tom (April 4, 2006). "Arduino Shields for Prototyping". tigoe.net
(http://www.tigoe.net/pcomp/code/arduinowiring/26)
13. Jonathan Oxer. "Arduino Shield list" (http://shieldlist.org/). Retrieved 5 Nov 2013.
14. "Arduino Software Release Notes" (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ReleaseNotes). Arduino Project. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
15. "Programming Arduino Getting Started with Sketches" (http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Arduino-Getting-
Started-Sketches/dp/0071784225/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364494138&sr=1-
1&keywords=arduino+sketches). McGraw-Hill. Nov 8, 2011. Retrieved 2013-03-28.
16. "Blink Tutorial" (http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink). Arduino.cc.
17. "Using Atmel Studio for Arduino development"
(http://www.megunolink.com/Building_an_Arduino_project_with_MegunoLink_and_Atmel_Studio_(Blink_Tutorial)).
Megunolink.com. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
18. "Using AVR Studio for Arduino development" (http://www.engblaze.com/tutorial-using-avr-studio-5-with-arduino-
projects/). Engblaze.com. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
19. "The arduino source code" (https://github.com/arduino/Arduino). The arduino source code.
20. "Policy" (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Policy). Arduino.cc. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
21. "Freeduino Open Designs" (http://www.freeduino.org/freeduino_open_designs.html). Freeduino.org. Retrieved
2008-03-03.
22. "xoscillo – A software oscilloscope that acquires data using an arduino or a parallax (more platforms to come). – Google
Project Hosting" (https://code.google.com/p/xoscillo/). Code.google.com. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
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Project Hosting" (https://code.google.com/p/xoscillo/). Code.google.com. Retrieved 2013-01-18.

23. Pearce, Joshua M. 2012. "Building Research Equipment with Free, Open-Source Hardware". Science 337 (6100): 1303–
1304. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6100/1303.summary) (open access)
(http://mtu.academia.edu/JoshuaPearce/Papers/1867941/Open_Source_Research_in_Sustainability)
24. ArduinoPhone (http://www.instructables.com/id/ArduinoPhone/). Instructables.com (2013-07-17). Retrieved on 2013-
08-04.
25. Raspberry Pi Spy (http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-the-gertduino-add-on-board-for-raspberry-pi/).
Introducing The GertDuino Add-on Board For Raspberry Pi. Retrieved on 2014-11-09.
26. Bas Wijnen, G. C. Anzalone and Joshua M. Pearce, Open-source mobile water quality testing platform. Journal of Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 4(3) pp. 532–537 (2014). doi:10.2166/washdev.2014.137 open access
(https://www.academia.edu/8319858/Open-source_mobile_water_quality_testing_platform)
27. "Ars Electronica Archiv" (http://archive.aec.at/prix/#8052). Retrieved 2015-03-27.
28. Allan, Alasdair (6 March 2015). "Arduino Wars: Group Splits, Competing Products Revealed?"
(http://makezine.com/2015/03/06/arduino-vs-arduino/). makezine.com. Maker Media, Inc. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
29. Banzi, Massimo (19 March 2015). "Massimo Banzi: Fighting for Arduino" (http://makezine.com/2015/03/19/massimo-
banzi-fighting-for-arduino/). makezine.com. Maker Media, Inc. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
30. Williams, Elliot (28 March 2015). "Arduino SRL to Distributors: “We’re the REAL Arduino”"
(http://hackaday.com/2015/03/28/arduino-srl-to-distributors-were-the-real-arduino/). Hackaday.com. Hackaday.com.
Retrieved 21 April 2015.

Further reading
Getting Started with Arduino; Massimo Banzi, Michael Shiloh; 262 pages; 2014; ISBN 1-4493-6333-4.
Arduino For Dummies; John Nussey; 446 pages; 2013; ISBN 978-1118446379.
Programming Arduino Next Steps: Going Further with Sketches; Simon Monk; 2013; ISBN 978-
0071830256.
Exploring Arduino: Tools and Techniques for Engineering Wizardry; Jeremy Blum; 384 pages; 2013;
ISBN 978-1118549360.
Arduino Workshop: A Hands-On Introduction with 65 Projects; John Boxall; 392 pages; 2013; ISBN 978-
1593274481.
Beginning C for Arduino: Learn C Programming for the Arduino and Compatible Microcontrollers; Jack
Purdum; 280 pages; 2012; ISBN 978-1430247760.
Programming Arduino: Getting Started With Sketches; Monk Simon; 162 pages; 2011; ISBN 978-
0071784221.
Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery); Charles Platt; 352 pages; 2009; ISBN 978-0596153748.

External links
Official website (http://arduino.cc/)
Wikimedia Commons has
Arduino The Documentary
media related to Arduino.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1869268/) at the Internet Movie
Database, Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/18539129)
Documentary about Arduino (http://tv.wired.it/entertainment/2012/12/06/arduino-creare-e-un-gioco-da-
ragazzi-eng-sub.html), Wired Magazine (Italian with English subtitles)
How to install additional Arduino libraries (http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Libraries)
Arduino cheat sheets (http://robodino.org/resources/arduino)
An online platform and collaboration platform for Arduino users (http://codebender.cc/)

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Examples of various Arduino projects (http://codeduino.com/projects)

Arduino Board Pinout Diagrams: Due (http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?/topic,132130.0.html), Esplora
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8469564216/sizes/l/in/photostream/), Leonardo
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8466547410/sizes/l/in/photostream/), Mega
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8451024820/sizes/l/in/photostream/), Micro
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8471357492/sizes/l/in/photostream/), Mini
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8453583648/sizes/l/in/photostream/), Nano
(http://pighixxx.com/nanopdf.pdf), Uno
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28521811@N04/8449936925/sizes/l/in/photostream/)
Evolution tree for Arduino (http://i.imgur.com/yGRLPvL.jpg)
Massimo Banzi (http://twit.tv/show/triangulation/110/) interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the
TWiT.tv network
Massimo Banzi (http://twit.tv/show/floss-weekly/61/) interviewed on the TV show FLOSS weekly on the
TWiT.tv network
Arduino Stack Exchange, questions and answers (http://arduino.stackexchange.com/)
Arduino, LLC v. Arduino S.R.L. et al (https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/mad/167131/); Federal
district court docket from the United States Courts Archive

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Categories: Arduino Open hardware electronic devices Microcontrollers 2005 introductions

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