What is Arduino Uno used for | Arduino programming

Photo by SparkFun Electronics / CC BY

What is Arduino Uno?

Arduino is an Open Source electronic prototyping platform based on flexible easy-to-use hardware and software. It comprises a Single circuit board, which can be programmed and a ready-made software called Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which is used to write code and upload the code to the Circuit board. We use it for building electronic project, IOT project, Smart Robot, and many more. It is very popular in people because of easy to program and so many shields and sensors.

Arduino Board - Serial Interface    

Photo by Nicholas Zambetti / CC BY  

Hardware Specifications:-      

                 

Who invented Arduino?

The co-founder of Arduino is Massimo Banzi. He is an Interaction Designer, Educator, and Open Source Hardware advocate. The initial Arduino core team comprised Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis. The support of the team to make a programming ATmega8 micro-controller board.

Photo by Kenming Wang / CC BY

1.   Digital pin I/O   [1]

The Arduino Uno has 14 digital pins (0-13) and 6 digital pins which can provide PWM (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11) output. They show this symbol  "~" in Arduino Uno board as PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). It can configure these pins as either inputs or outputs to drive different modules like led, sensors and many more.

Commands:-pinMode(), digitalRead(), digitalWrite(), etc.

2.   AREF   [2]

Stands for Analog Reference. We use AREF pin for Reference voltage for the analog inputs and we can set voltage up to 0 to 5v.

Commands:-analogReference().

3.   Reset   [3,13]

As the restart button in your Phone restarts the system. In the same manner, the reset button restarts the Arduino. It means that the program memory ROM set to the starting position or address. Your code starts from the beginning, and hardware resets.

⃟    There are two ways to reset the board.

      I.  By using the reset button.

    II.  Connect an external reset button to the Arduino RESET pin.

4.    Power led Indicator   [4]

It shows power led when you plug your Arduino into a power source.

5.    TX and Rx   [5]

Used to receive and transmit TTL serial data. It communicates on digital pins 0 (RX) and pins 1 (TX) and with the computer via USB.

For example:  To Communicate with the Arduino board to the mobile phone or Pc by using Bluetooth Hc-05 with the help of this pin.

6.   ICSP Pin   [6,20]
   ICSP stands for In-Circuit Serial Programming and it is a protocol used to program micro-controllers like the PIC and the AVR chips, etc. ICSP pins are used for programming Arduino chip by another Arduino or connecting the Arduino board to a computer for uploading a sketch. 

7.   Microcontroller   [7]
    It is the brains of our board. The micro-controllers are usually of the ATMEL Company. Arduino UNO R3 use ATmega328 micro-controller as the main controller.

      ⃟   ATmega328 has three types of memory:

• Flash memory: 32KB nonvolatile memory. It uses this for storing program. We need not upload our program every time. If you unplug a power source, it must save the program in flash memory.
• SRAM memory: 2KB volatile memory. It uses this for storing variables used by the program while it's running.
• EEPROM memory: 1KB nonvolatile memory. It can use this to store data when you unplug the power source on board and then powered up again.

8.   Pins (5V, 3.3V, GND, VIN)   [10,11,12]

• GND: stand for ‘Ground’. There are several GND pins on the board, it can use any of which to ground your circuit.
• 5V:  the 5V pin gives 5 volts output.
• 3.3V: the 3.3V pin gives 3.3 volts output. Most of the components need 3.3v  like HC-05 to need a 3v power supply.
• We use VIN for External power source to the board.

9.      ANALOG Pin   [9]
    The Arduino UNO board has five analog pins A0 to A5. It uses These pins to read the signal from an analog sensor like Accelerometers, Light Sensors, and Temperature Sensor and convert the analog signal into a digital signal the microprocessor can read that.
    Command:  analogRead()

10.  DC barrel jack   [14]
It uses the DC jack for External Power Supply to the board. (9-12VDC)

11.  Voltage Regulator   [15]
It uses the voltage to control the voltage given to the Arduino board and stabilizes the DC voltages used by the Microcontroller and other elements. Doesn’t give greater than 20 volts.

12.   Crystal oscillator (16 MHz)   [16]
Crystal oscillator provides clock frequency for the micro-controller. Basically, it's mean Speed of the program execution is primarily. Arduino board has two sources of a clock one is internal RC oscillator and other through external crystal oscillator.

13.   MEGA16U2 IC   [17]
It uses IC for data communication between the board and USB.

14.   USB Plug   [18]

It can power the Arduino UNO from a USB cable coming from your computer. It also uses the USB plug to program your Arduino board.

Software

Arduino Uno has its own software called Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment). It provides an editor to write a program for hardware. It code editor was simple to a design program. It provides you a very distinguished view (in color and fonts) to the function, constants, variables, etc. of the source code. It includes features like brace matching, syntax highlighting and automatic code indentation.

The programming language of Arduino is a simplified form C/C++ programming language based on what Arduino calls "sketches," which use basic programming structures, variables, and functions. They can convert these into a C++ program.

It uses software to compile the program and then program converts into machine understandable instructions and creates an object file. It combines the object file with standard Arduino Libraries which provides the definitions of the inbuilt Arduino functions. The result of this is a single hex file. It transfers this hex file to the micro-controller through USB.

How to install Arduino IDE in step by step.

Step 1: Download the Arduino IDE from the official website.  Click here.

Step 2: When the software is downloaded after then you have to click on the software icon to install it.

 Step 3: Carefully read the agreement after that click on the 'I Agree ' button.

Step 4: Select all the component and then click to the next button.

Step 5: Choose the installation directory. 

Step 6: The process will extract and install all the required files to execute properly the Arduino Software (IDE)

Step 7: After the installation is complete click on the close button.

Basic explain of Arduino IDE Interface:-



 
It used to find any compilation error.   



                    

   It uses to upload a program to board.


Its job is to allow you to both send messages from your computer to an Arduino board and also to receive messages from the Arduino.   

  

The compilation of the program, when some error occurs is shown here.

Setup() is the function that only runs once upon controller reset.  You put your setup code there (like serial.begin(), wire.begin(), pinMode, variables and many more).
Loop() is where the code that runs over and over goes (your program).  Loop () and setup () are functions.  A function with a void in front is a void function and so will not return a value.  The void after means that the function will accept no arguments.