Wirelss communication with ARM Eval. Boards

[A.N.Other]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering using one of the ARM evaluation boards for an upcoming project and will require it to operate remotely. I was just wondering if anyone has already used the eval. boards for setting up wireless comms and if they have any suggestions for the best (and cheapest!!) way of doing this?

I was possibly thinking of using a USB WiFi or Ethernet dongle as the basis for the wireless comms. If anyone has tried this, how painful was the experience? How much of the heavy lifting for this interfacing can be done for you by LabVIEW?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated,

Andy

[James_McN]

Hi Andy,

There are a few interfaces that can be used depending on the data you want to send.

If you want to use Wifi then dongles will be difficult as you would have to write a USB driver for this.  The simplest method would be to use a WiFi ethernet access point to put it on the network.

If you are looking at general wireless technologies there is quite a lot based on serial technologies.  If you look at http://www.active-robots.com/products/radio-solutions/index.shtml there is a lot based on RS-232 which is available on the ARM7 board.  You may also find some that are based on UART ports, SPI or I2C that should be able to connect.

I also wanted to draw your attention towards the SingleBoardRIO. It offers the form factor but is much more powerful by allowing you alot of DIO and programmable FPGA.  This is a single board version of the CompactRIO which has the same features but is larger and heavier so depending on the project may not be suitable. Check out ni.com/singleboard and maybe get in touch with your local NI branch for more information.  The SBRIO will offer the same connectivity options as the ARM board with the WiFi access point the simplest way to connect.

Cheers,

[A.N.Other]

Thanks for the reply James. I actually came across the WiFly modules that your link suggests this morning. I suspect that they may well be quite a good option for my purposes (I need to be able to set up a multipoint adhoc remote network).

As for the sbRIO, I would love to use it as I already have quite a bit of experience with it but unfortunately it isn't a goer for my project for various reasons I can't really go into. Besides its good for the soul to learn a new tool 🙂

Andy

[A.N.Other]

Thanks for the reply James. I actually came across the WiFly modules that your link suggests this morning. I suspect that they may well be quite a good option for my purposes (I need to be able to set up a multipoint adhoc remote network).

As for the sbRIO, I would love to use it as I already have quite a bit of experience with it but unfortunately it isn't a goer for my project for various reasons I can't really go into. Besides its good for the soul to learn a new tool 🙂

Andy