Arduino 101 - An Introduction to the Intel Curie Module Development Board

This post is about the Arduino/Genuino Board 101 - the Intel Curie Module development board. It is a not an introduction to Arduino, AKA Arduino 101.

 

Introduction

This post is just a quick introduction to the Arduino 101. I plan to do a couple of projects in the future involving it, and I want to document a few of the questions I had when initially considering whether or not this board will work for me. I will likely update this post with any other issues I run into. 

The Arduino 101 is very different from the classic Atmel AVR based chips the world has come to know and love. The old AVR based Arduinos (easily spotted by the plethera of low cost generics available on sites like eBay) are traditional microcontroller development boards. They are basically just microcontrollers packaged conveniently and paired with the all important Arduino IDE. While I honestly have had very little exposure to most of the vast array of new boards covering the Arduino universe these days, I can say the Arduino 101 is not your slightly-younger-self's AVR. It instead is based on the very capable Intel Curie Module and wraps it in a software architecture to give you a board that looks and feels like an Arduino Uno but performs like something else entirely. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support and a built in IMU make this a very capable little board for $30. While it is being marketed as an internet of things board, I say why has no one made this into a drone yet?

Overall the Arduino 101 looks like a very powerful board for anyone with the willingness to dig into the datasheets. As it is further developed, I have no doubt it will become a hallmark of the new multi-core (non-AVR) Arduino family. 

Questions Answered

What IMU is in the Arduino 101?

The Bosch BMI160

Is there an included IMU sensor fusion algorithm?

It does not appear that there is any sort of sensor fusion capability exposed at the Arduino level at the time of this writing. However, the 32 MHz processor is more than capable of running the Madgwick algorithm, and there is a library ready to go out of the box. I imagine it is only a matter of time before it or some Kalman filter variant is included in the Curie download or sensor fusion is implemented at a lower level. See the visualization tutorial.

Resources

• Intel Curie Module Datasheet
• Bosch BMI160 Datasheet
• Arduino 101 Hardware
• Curie IMU Library Reference
• Arduino 101 Getting Started
• Intel - Getting to Know the Arduino 101 

Troubleshooting

Uploading Script Problem

When I first tried to use the Arduino 101 I got the "ERROR: Timed out waiting for Arduino 101 on COM##" error. No amount of  pressing the Master Reset would fix it. I was running Curie Core 2.0.2 on Windows 7, so I tried reverting to 1.0.7. Then I tried running as an administrator. Eventually I tried changing USB ports. My computer has a 2.0 port as well as a 3.0. When I changed to the USB 2.0 it worked. This could very well mean that I simply have a flaky USB port. I've certainly triggered the fuse on it a few times. However, I mention it here simply in case someone else has this problem. In my case, switching to my USB 2.0 port fixed it.

Matthew