Introduction and Advantages of Digital Sensor Addon for EDGE FPGA kit

Digital Sensor Addon card is designed to interface 4 digital sensor modules to EDGE FPGA kits. Those sensor includes 3 axis accelerometer, Hand Gesture recognition sensor, Capacitive Touch Sensor and Ultrasonic Sensor.

Advantages are the sensor data can be accessed in the cloud by using Wifi module available on EDGE FPGA kits. Also helpful in lot of device control application from the sensor data.

3 Axis Accelerometer

Accelerometer measures angle at which the sensor is tiltled with respect to the earth gravity. The accelerometors are used in wide range of applications like cell phone, Navigation devices, Pedometer, Gaming, Robotics and so on.

Digital Sensor addon card features Analog Devices ADXL345, 3-axis accelerometer with high resolution (13-bit) measurement at up to ±16 g. Digital output data is formatted as 16-bit twos complement and is accessible through either a SPI or I2C digital interface.

Example code provided for ADXL345 communicates with FPGA master via SPI communication.Read the Accelerometer output and display it on the 2×16 LCD.

Both I2C and SPI lines are connected to interface card for users to try both I2C and SPI protocol.

Gesture Recognition Sensor

Gesture Recognition Sensor included with Digital sensor addon recognize 9 types of hand gestures. Such us Moving Up, Down, Left, Right, Forward, Backward, Circle Clockwise, Counter Clockwise and Waving.

Applications of Gesture sensor includes smartphones, Tablet personal computer and automobiles

Gesture sensor communicates with FPGA via I2C interface. Example codes provided along with addon card demonstrates Hand gestures send to PC via UART interface.

UltraSonic Sensor

Ultrasonic Sensor measure distance of an object by sending ultrasonic sound. It uses a transducer to send and receive ultrasonic pulses to know the odject proximity.

Ultrasonic wave frequency are higher than the human audible range. Single transducer send the pulse and to receive the echo.  The sensor determines the distance to a target by measuring time lapses between the sending and receiving of the ultrasonic pulse.

Example code provided for Ultrasonic sensor display measured distance of an object in the 4 digit seven segment diplay on EDGE FPGA kit.

Capacitive Touch sensor

4 Channel Capacitive Touch Sesnor Module uses the touch-sensing IC TTP224 to sense the touch input thus making it easy to add capacitive touch input to your project. When a capacitive load (such as a human hand) is in close proximity to the sense-pad, the sensor detects the change in capacitance and activates the switch. 

Example code demonstrates LED blinking on FPGA kit by touch movement on Capacitive touch pad.

Digital Sensor Addon can be purchased on the following products page.