2 Endrich IoT Board v052 Hardware Guide

2.1 System Overview

The single board RISC-V computer integrates all IoT functions (sensors, MCU and communication) into one single PCB. This IoT endpoint evaluation board is capable of vibration and magnetic field sensing, ambient light intensity, temperature and air pressure measurement, altitude change calculation, and reporting the data through GSM LPWA network to a Cloud Database. This IoT board works autonomously as an island device powered by Lithium battery or USB power bank, and also reports GPS location thus can be applied even for vehicle superstructure tracking (such as cold storage or truck cargo compartment.)

The card has been equipped with an external I²C and SPI interface in order to connect a breakout sensor board in an extended range up to 50 meters. These customized breakout boards are available in various versions and variety and could also be used in combinations with customers’ own MCUs supporting I²C or SPI interface. On the following sections one can get a detailed overview of the solutions embedded into the evaluation kit.

2.1.1 Endrich IoT Single Board Computer v052 - evaluation board

The evaluation board is a single board computer based on Gigadevice’s RISC-V MCU platform. The following section describes the functions, the available interfaces, the operating modes and the onboard key electronics components and their function, which will be detailed in the 2.2 section.

2.1.2 External sensor boards (OPTIONAL)

A series of external sensor boards have been developed to be used with the Endrich IoT Board v052 as well as customer’s own single board computers. They are equipped either with I²C or SPI interface in order to connect them. If customer uses his own MCU board / SBC the standard I²C and SPI interfaces are available. In order to offer advantage using an external breakout sensor board with the Endrich IoT Board v052, we have developed a special boosted I²C interface, with an extended range up to 50 meters. These customized breakout boards are available in various versions and variety. They are available as additional products, not as a part of the development kit and also customized versions are the subject of discussion. Please turn to your Endrich sales representative for details.

The external sensor boards contain both analog and digital sensors. The output of the analog sensors are sampled with a special A/D converter addressable either by I²C or by SPI interface. The on-board digital sensors are directly linked to the same interface than the A/D converter thus their data can be collected by the host MCU the same way. The SPI analog front-end based breakout board solution offers however no digital sensors and limited only to two channels (ALS and temperature sensor), while the 4 channel I²C A/D based board offers ALS, Magnetic, Vibration and temperature detection and contains a digital air pressure sensor for altitude measurement.

2.1.2.1 External breakout board with I2C interface (OPTIONAL)

2.1.2.2 External breakout board with SPI interface (OPTIONAL)