Avnet Silica ST Sensor Node

Powered by ultra compact ST SensorTile - Arm Mbed Enabled

Overview


Avnet Silica, an official partner of Arm Mbed, developed an Arm Mbed Enabled™ Sensor Node board delivering the low power operation and secure connectivity required for Internet of Things (IoT), smart sensing and cloud applications.

Avnet Silica has combined best-in-class processing, sensing, security and connectivity from STMicroelectronics with the Arm Mbed IoT Device Platform, which provides a complete solution including an advanced OS to run on hardware, device management in the cloud and advanced security.

Powered by ST’s ultra-low-power STM32L4 microcontroller, the Sensor Node board enables quick development of smartsensor applications that can make use of several connectivity options. Choices include Bluetooth LE connectivity, which enables an easy connection with smartphones, and sub-GHz 6LoWPAN connectivity for long-range communications. Key hardware on the board includes the highly integrated ST SensorTile module, which integrates the ultra-low-power STM32L4 Arm® Cortex®-M4 microcontroller, plus ST’s very low-power BlueNRG-MS Bluetooth low energy (BLE) single mode network processor and ST TESEO III GNSS receiver, together with a wide selection of ST’s sensing devices like accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer and microphone plus STSAFE-A100, a highly secure solution which acts as a secure element providing authentication and data management services to the local host.

The Sensor Node board also offers some additional onboard sensors from ST that provide support for humidity, temperature, proximity and ambient light.

In addition to Arm Mbed OS 5, the board also supports STM32Cube middleware and is further supported by software demos and libraries provided for both Mbed OS and STM32Cube.

Benefits


  • Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity for easy connection with smartphones
  • Sub GHz connectivity for long-range communications
  • NFC/RFID Dynamic Tag for easy pairing and configurations
  • GNSS Receiver IC for location services
  • STSAFE-A100 secure element ensuring integrity and confidentiality of data communications
  • Mbed Enabled board with integrated ST-LINK for programming and debugging
  • Supporting Arm Mbed OS 5 and STM32Cube Ecosystems

Features


  • STM SensorTile module – 13 x 13 mm module including
    • Ultra-low-power STM 32 L4 Arm Cortex M4 MCU
    • Accelerometer
    • Gyroscope
    • Magnetometer
    • Barometer
    • Microphone
    • Bluetooth Smart – BlueNRG-MS
  • Additional on-board connectivity
    • STM SPSGRF-868 Spirit sub-ghz module (13.5 x 11,5 mm)
    • STM TESEO-LIV3 GNSS module (9,7 x 10,1 mm) supporting GPS/Galileo/Glonass/BeiDou/QZSS
    • STM M24SR02 Dynamic NFC/RFID Tag (2-Kbit EEPROM with dual interface)
  • Additional on-board sensors
    • STM humidity and temperature sensor
    • STM proximity and ambient light sensor VL6180x , gestures
  • Additional features
    • mbed enabled board with embedded interface for programming and debugging (ST-LINK)
    • STM Qi 1.0 wireless battery charger
    • STSAFE-A100 Security Module

Note

  • Microphone: is not currently supported
  • GNSS: is not currently supported
  • NFC application will be added soon.

SensorNode

Connectors

Connectors

SensorTile

Getting started


Avnet Silica Sensor Node has an embedded ST-LINK to enable programming and debug.

Nucleo ST-LINK/V2 driver installation and firmware upgrade

  • Install the ST-LINK/V2 driver before connecting the Nucleo board to your PC the first time. Follow this LINK for all details.
  • For optimum performances, ensure that the Nucleo ST-LINK/V2 firmware is upgraded to the latest version. Follow this LINK for all details.

Quickstart guide documents be found here

Sub-Ghz 6LowPan Demo project

Build instructions are here

Extended information on here

Technical references


Example programs

Import programmbed-os-example-blinky

mbed-os-example-blinky

Import programsensor-node-ble

Silica Sensor Node board sends custom ble advertising for the Gateway board

Import programmbed-os-sensor-node

mbed-os-sensor-node

Known limitations

The following section describes known limitations of the platform. Note that general issues are tracked into the mbed OS repository available on GitHub.

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