What is Arduino

Arduino is a convenient, flexible and easy-to-use open source electronic prototyping platform, including hardware (various types of arduino boards) and software (arduino IDE), suitable for artists, designers, hobbyists and those interested in “interaction”. friends.
Arduino can perceive the environment through various sensors, and feedback and influence the environment by controlling lights, motors and other devices. The microcontroller on the board can be programmed through the Arduino programming language, compiled into binary files, and burned into the microcontroller.
The programming of the Arduino is achieved using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino-based projects can include only Arduino, or include Arduino and some other software running on the PC, and communicate between them (such as Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).
You can make your own, or buy a ready-made set. The software used by Arduino can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) also follow the availableopen-source protocol, and you are very free to modify them according to your requirements.

Advantages of Arduino

At present, there are many other microcontrollers and microcontroller platforms on the market, such as 51 microcontrollers, STM32 microcontrollers, etc. However, they have a relatively high threshold for ordinary developers, and they need to have a certain programming and hardware-related foundation. The internal registers are more complicated, and the configuration of the mainstream development environment Keil is relatively troublesome, especially for the development of STM32, even if the official library is used, the environment configuration is indispensable. , and there is a charge for the development environment. Arduino not only simplifies the process of working with a microcontroller, but also provides teachers, students and hobbyists with some advantages that other systems do not have:

Inexpensive , compared to other microcontroller platforms, the various development boards of the Arduino ecosystem are relatively cost-effective;
Cross-platform , Arduino software (IDE) can run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems, while most other microcontroller systems are limited to running on Windows operating systems;
The development environment is simple , the Arduino programming environment is easy for beginners to use, and it is flexible enough for advanced users, and its installation and operation are very simple;
Open source extensible Arduino software and hardware are all open source, developers can expand the software library, or download thousands of software libraries to realize their own functions. Arduino allows developers to modify and expand the hardware circuit to meet different needs.

Arduino development board type
Link: Official website development board type .

picture

One of the entry-level development boards is easy to use. It is recommended for beginners to use entry level such as Arduino UNO R3.

Arduino development language

Arduino uses C/C++ to write programs, although C++ is compatible with C language, but these are two languages, C language is a procedure-oriented programming language, and C++ is an object-oriented programming language. The early Arduino core library was written in C language, and then the object-oriented idea was introduced. At present, the latest Arduino core library is written in a mixture of C and C++.
Usually, the Arduino language we say refers to a collection of various Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provided by the Arduino core library files. These APIs are formed by secondary encapsulation of the lower-level MCU support library. For example, the core library of Arduino using AVR microcontroller is a secondary encapsulation of AVR-Libc (a GCC-based AVR support library).
In the traditional development method, it is necessary to configure multiple registers to realize the corresponding functions. In Arduino, the complicated registers are encapsulated into a simple API, which can be controlled intuitively, enhance the readability of the program and improve the development efficiency.

Arduino development environment

The Arduino development environment IDE can be downloaded from the official website. It supports different platforms of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and can be downloaded from the corresponding PC platform.
IDE download address