Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum and have been working on an engineering project that uses a pair of microcontrollers to send data from one microcontroller to another via a wireless connection (802.11a 5GHz or 802.11g 2.4GHz).

We have been using a device that has a Ralink (now known as MediaTek) RT3662 SOC as the heart of the system. We build our kernels and application using OpenWRT.

I am interested in finding an alternate microcontroller that I could use as a test platform (to compare performance with our existing system).

Could someone recommend a microcontroller that offers the following features:

1. 5GHz and 2.4GHz modes of wireless operation (preferably integrated)
2. Linux-based kernel (preferably something that is supported by OpenWRT)
3. USB ports (2 if possible, 1 is sufficient) with host support
4. C IDE
5. Ethernet port (10/100 is fine)
6. Programmable LEDs (to provide status info to the user)
7. Onboard reset switch

Are there any off-the-shelf cards/microcontrollers that would satisfy these requirements (particularly 1 through 3)?

Thanks in advance!

 

Raspberry Pi?
http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

You can use USB Wi-Fi dongle to add wifi capability. It is in FAQ.

 

Hi shteii01,

Thanks for the reply! I will look at the Raspberry Pi. That might be a good choice.

We had considered it in the past, but I think because it didn't have an integrated WiFi radio we hadn't thought about.

I guess, however, we could use an external radio module.

Are there any other recommendations for something with an integrated Wireless Radio?

 

Hi shteii01,

Thanks for the reply! I will look at the Raspberry Pi. That might be a good choice.

We had considered it in the past, but I think because it didn't have an integrated WiFi radio we hadn't thought about.

I guess, however, we could use an external radio module.

Are there any other recommendations for something with an integrated Wireless Radio?

I am not sure. I was looking for microcontroller back a year ago so I had to do some side by side comparisons, but wifi was not a requirement for me. Once I read your list, it seemed that Raspberry Pi is natural fit.

Depends on how you mean integrated. Arduino has add on wifi cards and software for them. So on one hand it is not build in wifi, on the other hand everything is setup for you so no need to write your own software and build your own hardware. I think there is Linux support for using Arduino, but I am not sure.

Maybe look at the Microchip PIC, they make so many microcontrollers, maybe they have one with wifi.