Arduino

1. Introduction

Arduino is an open-source electronic prototyping platform that consits of hardware and software.

The software part contains the software development environment Arduino IDE and libraries.

The libraries provide predefined functions, e.g. to interact with a smartphone via Bluetooth LE.

The hardware part contains development boards with different microcontrollers.

Examples:

• Arduino Uno is a development board based on the Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller.
• Espressif ESP32C3 Dev Module is a development board based on the Espressif ESP32C3 microcontroller.

2. Installation

2.1 Download and Install

Installation for Linux, MacOS, Windows is described here:

https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/360019833020-Download-and-install-Arduino-IDE

2.2 Notes for Linux based Systems

If you use Linux, your user account requires permissions to access the USB device, representing your development board.

The access is provided if your user account is part of a specific user group.

On Debian and Ubuntu based systems the user group is called dialout and you can use the following command add your user account to this user group:

sudo usermod -aG dialout USERNAME

Steps:

1. Replace USERNAME with the name of your user account.
2. Open a Terminal and execute the command.
3. Logout and login
4. Open a Terminal and enter the command groups.
5. The group dialout should be listed in the output of the previous step.

3. Espressif ESP32C3 Dev Module

The ESP32C3 Dev Module is a development board from the company Espressif.

The development board is based on Espressif’s ESP32C3 microcontroller (family).

The official documentation is provided by Espressif: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32c3/get-started/index.html#hardware

To develop software for the Espressif ESP32C3 Dev Module with the Arduino IDE you need to 1. add the board to the Arduino IDE 2. connect the board to your computer running the Arduino IDE 3. select the board in the Arduino IDE

Step 1 must be performed once. Step 2 and step 3 must be performed everytime before uploading software to the development board.

3.1 Add the Board

1. Open the Arduino IDE
2. Open File → Preferences → Additional Boards Manager URLs
3. In the new Additional Boards Manger URLs enter https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_dev_index.json
4. Close the Additional Boards Manger URLs with Enter button

3.2 Connect and Select the Board

1. If the Arduino IDE is no open, open it
2. Connect your board to your computer
3. In the Arduino IDE click Select Board
4. In the new window select the ESP32C3 Dev Module and the correct port
   • Note: The correct port depends on your system.
   • Examples: Windows system: COM 3, Linux system: /dev/ttyUSB0
5. Click “OK”

3.3 Upload Software to the Board

After the adding the board and connecting and selecting the board you can upload your first software.

1. Develop (write) the software
2. Click “Upload” and wait for the software to be compiled
3. Wait for the compiled software to be written to the development board
4. Test your software