If you’re looking to find a whole lot of technical information about the Arduino you should visit the arduino.cc website. I included it among my collection of robots simply because it forms the base of robots I am designing and plan to build at some point.
The Arduino is a microcontroller prototyping board. That means it can be used as the basic brain for all sorts of constructs. From giving autonomous capabilities to robots to creating a lamp dimmer for your front porch, the Arduino is a wonderful vehicle.
The Arduino Duemilanove board with USB cable
It’s often used in conjunction with shields; secondary boards which extend and expand its abilities of control while affording protection for the Arduino board. For instance, trying to control an electric motor with an Arduino directly will most likely result in the Arduino burning up because it isn’t made to handle the draw of power that motors require to work. So the Arduino is used to control the actions of a motor controller. The motor controller is designed to handle the higher current draws of motors. Shields may also extend the capabilities of an Arduino. They have shields to add wireless communications and USB communications, GPS, and a whole series of sensors from infrared to ultrasonic and all in between.
It’s a remarkable device for a board slightly smaller in profile than a package of American cigarettes. What is even more remarkable is that is is also what is called an open-source device. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to use and copy or modify its circuitry, even to create other products (so long as they are open source as well). Shields are a different story, some of those are proprietary. The shields actually give the Arduino its ubiquity of function.
For instance, if I wanted an autonomous robots I could use an Arduino to receive the inputs from an ultrasonic sensor to detect an edge. If the robot was on a table, it could sense the edges and know to back away from it and choose a different direction. I could add in an infrared reflectivity sensor to detect obstacles so the robot would skirt around them instead of colliding. These are simple uses but the Arduino is much more capable. People are using them to completely control remote control aircraft. It flies the airplane maintaining stable flight, uses GPS to determine where to fly to and a compass to show it the way. This is actually in use by more than hobby oriented people. It’s reliable enough to be used by the military to control Unpiloted Airborne Vehicles (UAV) and for law enforcement as well.
The Arduino is not a toy although it can give a whole new meaning and life to toys that would be much less animated and capable without it.
Arduino Pro Mini
They’re inexpensive too. An Arduino board goes for around $30, while clones and different versions of it are as little as half that. Support for the Arduino is nearly universal. More assistance is available through its many users than any other product I’ve ever seen, except perhaps the Linux operating system for computers.
I have used one ‘clone,’ the Seeduino Mega. It’s a slightly different take on the Arduino Mega; a smaller footprint and more memory and power, along with a lot more I/O pins makes for real freedom in construction. Another clone I have used is the Arduino Mini Pro. It’s the size of a postage stamp but provides a number of digital and analog I/O pins and the same power as the standard Arduino (Duemilanove).