The Tinker's Toolbox - Adrian Woolley of Atmel on Sensor Software Drivers

Hosted by Alix Paultre, the Tinker’s Toolbox is the Advantage Design Group’s web-based interview show where we talk about the latest technology, components, and design issues for the electronic design engineering community.

In this episode we talk to Adrian Woolley, marketing director for microcontrollers for Atmel, on their Sensors Xplained software drivers announcement. The new software drivers accelerate application and device development by providing driver and calibration support for a variety of the most popular sensor types used in consumer, industrial and medical applications.

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Here is a link to the podcast in case the play button is not visible: Atmel Interview

Here is the press release on the technology:

Atmel Corporation, a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced the release of the Sensors Xplained software drivers integrated with the recently-launched AVR Studio 5 Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The new software drivers accelerate application and device development by providing driver and calibration support for a variety of the most popular sensor types used in consumer, industrial and medical applications.

Atmel has teamed with a number of the leading sensor manufacturers to make the necessary sensor drivers available as part of the AVR Studio 5 development environment, including AKM, Bosch Sensortec, Honeywell, Invensense, Kionix, and Osram Opto Semiconductors in the initial release. The company plans to support and release drivers for additional companies and products over time. The driver software is available directly from Atmel, and provides basic interface functionality with both raw data and calibrated engineering unit outputs, using a standard API (application programming interface) to simplify application development. There are also a number of higher level application examples available as library functions both from Atmel and several of the sensor suppliers that are optimized for the AVR architecture and provide support for sensor fusion algorithms used in many applications.

“There is increasing demand to incorporate sensors into a broad range of applications which makes it essential that there be support for a wide variety of microcontrollers,” said Adrian Woolley, marketing director for microcontrollers, Atmel Corporation. “With Atmel Sensors Xplained software drivers and expansion boards, our customers can now quickly develop sensor applications with easy-to-use drivers and ready-to-use sensor boards to significantly accelerate their ability to rapidly bring prototype designs to market. Atmel microcontroller solutions provide lower power and higher performance, with more flexibility and now provide the necessary development environment to help designers make these new products a reality.”

The Atmel Sensors Xplained software drivers and expansion boards are designed to be plug-in compatible with all the Xplained series microcontroller (MCU) boards for the Atmel AVR family of MCUs. The Sensors Xplained software drivers address core challenges of using sensors including calibration and scaling, data conversion and interoperability for a variety of sensor vendors. The Atmel sensor solution provides designers with the AVR Xplained processor board and development system, a sensors board to add onto the Xplained processor board and the software drivers in the free Atmel AVR 5.0 Studio.

More Information
For more information about the Atmel Sensors Xplained series, please click the following link: www.atmel.com/xplained.

Pricing and Availability
The Atmel Sensors Xplained drivers are available now by downloading AVR Studio 5: http://www.atmel.com/microsite/avr_studio_5. There are also a variety of Sensors Xplained expansion boards available now:

Inertial Sensor Board One (ATAVRSBIN1): Provides 9 degrees of freedom for inertial sensing. Includes an Invensense ITG-3200 3-axis gyro, Bosch Sensortec BMA150 3-axis accelerometer and AKM AK8975 3-axis magnetometer for USD $54.
Inertial Sensor Board Two (ATAVRSBIN2): Provides 9 degrees of freedom inertial sensing. Includes an Invensense IMU-3000 3-axis gyro, Kionix KXTF9 3-axis accelerometer and a Honeywell HMC5883L 3-axis magnetometer for USD $54.
Pressure Sensor Board One (ATAVRSBPR1): Includes a Bosch Sensortec BMP085 barometric pressure for atmospheric and altitude sensing for USD $24.