C/C++ on Intel Edison/Galileo – part5:Temperature sensor

In this blog post, we will explore the ways of interfacing a temperature sensor using both mraa and upm.

The Grove temperature sensor that we are going to use is a class of transducer know as the thermistor. It is called so because it's resistance (the 'istor') part is controlled by the thermal energy ('therm' part) applied on the sensor. We are going to use the Grove temperature sensor.

We have already learned from the previous blog post that with ADC, we can measure the change in the resistance of a device connected to the analog input of Edison/Galileo.

Compiling Arduino sketchs on Galileo/Edison from command line

For some time I've been playing around the idea of compiling and executing Arduino sketches right from the Galileo and Edison. In this post I'll detail out the method that I used to accomplish this task and will also note down the investigation that I had to do in order to do this.

Python on Intel Galileo/Edison - Part 5:Temperature sensor with mraa and upm

The temperature sensor that we are gong to use for this post is from Grove. This sensor outputs the voltage that represents the temperature hence we will need the ADC module on the Intel Galileo/Edison to interface with this peripheral.

Python on Intel Galileo/Edison - Part 4: ADC

ADC is a peripheral that lets you input an analog signal and gives the digital representation of that analog signal.
The world in which we live in is surrounded by the analog signals. The temperature, sound that hear, the light that we see are all analog signals. If you want to interact or measure these signal in a digital system like Galileo/Edison, you'll have to use ADC a.k.a Analog to Digital Converter.

Python on Intel Galileo/Edison - Part 3: PWM

In this blog post, we are going to look into the process of using mraa methods for controlling the PWM module available on the Galileo/Edison.

What is PWM?
 PWM stands for pulse width modulation. As the name suggests, there is a "pulse" and with "width", we mess("modulation"). The idea here is to change the width of the pulse, resulting in another pulse that meets our needs.

Python on Intel Galileo/Edison - Part 2: Buttons

In this post, we will be writing a Python script to read button inputs.
As in previous post, mraa library is used for handling the GPIO. For this example, the button will be used to turn on and off an LED connected to the Galileo. This example is going to be very similar to the previous one. The only difference being that the state of the LED is controlled by a button instead of the program running on Galileo itself.

Python on Intel Galileo/Edison - Part 1

In this series of blog posts, I'll be posting on writing Python code on Intel Galileo platform. I'll be using the Grove kit. You can also use a bread board instead of Grove kit.

There are two libraries available on the Intel Galileo for developing applications written in python that need to use sensors, actuators, LEDs etc...

1. MRAA: Provides API for interfacing with the GPIOs, ADCs, PWM, SPI, etc... It is basically for interfacing the low level peripherals. It is kind of bare bones, you can use the functions provided by MRAA to drive more complicated peripherals like sensors or you can use...
2. UPM: Provides higher levels of abstractions via objects for controlling things like LCDs, temperature sensors etc... It is a level above the MRAA and most of the functions that you might need while interfacing a sensor or LCD are already implemented in UPM. 

Intel Galileo as a teaching aid

Below are some of my thoughts about the Intel Galileo as a teaching platform for engineering grads.

The Galileo is really an versatile board. The unique thing about Galileo is that not only it runs Linux, it also supports the Arduino environment. This helps the students to get into physical programming with more easier "Arduino language" and once comfortable with that, they can move into C/C++ programming with MRAA and UPM libraries.

Getting started with Intel Galileo Gen 2 with the IoT Linux image

This post is going to be quick start guide for using the Intel Galileo with the "IoT Linux" image.
First you'll need to download the image from here.
Note: Intel keeps changing their website layout. I try to keep up with these changes but I only update it in my new blog here: https://navinbhaskar.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/getting-started-with-intel-galileo-gen-2-with-the-iot-linux-image/