Atmel Sensors Xplained software drivers and AVR MCUs accelerate development of sensor-based designs

SAN JOSE, USA: Atmel Corp. announced the release of the Sensors Xplained software drivers integrated with the recently-launched AVR Studio 5 Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

The new software drivers accelerate application and device development by providing driver and calibration support for a variety of the most popular sensor types used in consumer, industrial and medical applications.

Atmel has teamed with a number of the leading sensor manufacturers to make the necessary sensor drivers available as part of the AVR Studio 5 development environment, including AKM, Bosch Sensortec, Honeywell, Invensense, Kionix, and Osram Opto Semiconductors in the initial release. The company plans to support and release drivers for additional companies and products over time.

The driver software is available directly from Atmel, and provides basic interface functionality with both raw data and calibrated engineering unit outputs, using a standard API (application programming interface) to simplify application development. There are also a number of higher level application examples available as library functions both from Atmel and several of the sensor suppliers that are optimized for the AVR architecture and provide support for sensor fusion algorithms used in many applications.

"There is increasing demand to incorporate sensors into a broad range of applications which makes it essential that there be support for a wide variety of microcontrollers," said Adrian Woolley, marketing director for microcontrollers, Atmel Corporation. "With Atmel Sensors Xplained software drivers and expansion boards, our customers can now quickly develop sensor applications with easy-to-use drivers and ready-to-use sensor boards to significantly accelerate their ability to rapidly bring prototype designs to market. Atmel microcontroller solutions provide lower power and higher performance, with more flexibility and now provide the necessary development environment to help designers make these new products a reality."

The Atmel Sensors Xplained software drivers and expansion boards are designed to be plug-in compatible with all the Xplained series microcontroller (MCU) boards for the Atmel AVR family of MCUs. The Sensors Xplained software drivers address core challenges of using sensors including calibration and scaling, data conversion and interoperability for a variety of sensor vendors.

The Atmel sensor solution provides designers with the AVR Xplained processor board and development system, a sensors board to add onto the Xplained processor board and the software drivers in the free Atmel AVR 5 Studio.