I’m looking for the best and easier solution to control a DC motor (1KW) by using an high-level operating system like Linux on a ARM-based development board.
If possible, i’d like to use this board also to read data from some sonar sensors and to include a GPS module.
I always used Arduino to acquire these kind of tasks and now i’d like to try and use a ARM-based board.
Can you suggest me a suitable board for me, please?
I still have to choose what kind of sonar and GPS module to use because before i want to buy the board.
I know nothing of the board, but a quick look at the datasheet shows it has 2 SPI, 2 I2C, 3 serial ports, and 34 pins of GPIO. Now nothing will control a 1kW motor directly, this board has enough IO to control the space shuttle. Only thing that is not obvious is if it has any hardware PWM channels. Most ARM based processor has some, but you never know.
fll-freak:
I know nothing of the board, but a quick look at the datasheet shows it has 2 SPI, 2 I2C, 3 serial ports, and 34 pins of GPIO. Now nothing will control a 1kW motor directly, this board has enough IO to control the space shuttle. Only thing that is not obvious is if it has any hardware PWM channels. Most ARM based processor has some, but you never know.
What I like is it support Micrium’s OS-II. Sweat.
The only reason to use something like that is because the OP wants to go with Linux. Many $5-10 ARM Cortex-Mx MCUs have even more I/O and peripherals (including typical 8-20+ PWM channels).
Also, an ARM Cortex-Mx MCU will easily run Micrium’s OS-II/III. One inexpensive example is this $45 development board (shown running OS-II) available on the auction sites.
The problem is that i do not know how to program in Micrium’s OS-II/III because i’ve never used it.
At the contrary, with Ubuntu I can program in C and easily interface with the modules.
I looked for Micrium’s OS-II/III information on the net but i found no example in order to understand if it’s easy to program it and to interface with the sensors.
You don’t need OS-II (or Ubuntu) to control those sensors. You can do it like with an Arduino. Since you are already familiar with Arduino, take a look at this http://mbed.org/
It is based on a 100MHz ARM Cortex-M3 (LPC1768) and is available from SF as well as others such Digikey, Mouser etc.
motopic:
To control 1 motor(relays really?) and a few sensors Linux OS is WAY overkill, and you’ll spend a ton of time and effort just getting the OS set.
Arduino or ARM7 are easy to get going. STM32 is a bit harder to setup (fewer examples and such).
How are you planning to control the motor, or does it already have a low voltage control interface?
