The RIO is an I/O expansion card intended for use with the Raspberry Pi SBC. The card stacks on top of a Raspberry Pi to create a powerful embedded control and navigation computer in a small 20-mm × 65-mm × 85-mm footprint. The RIO is well suited for applications requiring real-world interfacing, such as robotics, industrial and home automation, and data acquisition and control.
The RIO adds 13 inputs that can be configured as digital inputs, 0-to-5-V analog inputs with 12-bit resolution, or pulse inputs capable of pulse width, duty cycle, or frequency capture. Eight digital outputs are provided to drive loads up to 1 A each at up to 24 V.
The RIO includes a 32-bit ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller that processes and buffers the I/O and creates a seamless communication with the Raspberry Pi. The RIO processor can be user-programmed with a simple BASIC-like programming language, enabling it to perform logic, conditioning, and other I/O processing in real time. On the Linux side, RIO comes with drivers and a function library to quickly configure and access the I/O and to exchange data with the Raspberry Pi.
The RIO features several communication interfaces, including an RS-232 serial port to connect to standard serial devices, a TTL serial port to connect to Arduino and other microcontrollers that aren’t equipped with a RS-232 transceiver, and a CAN bus interface.
The RIO is available in two versions. The RIO-BASIC costs $85 and the RIO-AHRS costs $175.
Roboteq, Inc.
www.roboteq.com
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