Introducing the UP² Grove IoT development kit with Ubuntu

As computing at the edge grows, so does the need to connect a flurry of IoT devices directly into a device that can do advanced analytics and processing. The whole journey from prototype to production is often bumpy, having to switch from a tangle of wires and development boards to production hardware: portability issues, lack of performance and so on. To help address this, Canonical is working with Intel, Arduino, AAEON and SEEED to deliver the UP² Grove IoT development kit. In short, it has the simplicity of development of Ubuntu Server, the connectivity options of Arduino, the community support of these 2 ecosystems and a clear path to production with support for the board and the software stack.

Based on the UP² board, the kit includes an LCD display and common prototyping sensors. On the software side, it comes preloaded with the Arduino Create IDE and Intel IoT middleware to help portability and incorporate advanced libraries (OpenCV, Tensorflow, MKL etc) in an intuitive fashion.

With a clear upgrade path to industrial grade sensors, the kit can be deployed to production with additional 3G/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth kits and industrial grade chassis.

The hardware featured includes:

• Up² board

UP² is the new generation embedded board from the UP family. It features the latest Intel Apollo Lake Processors, with only 4W of Scenario Design Power, and a powerful and flexible Intel FPGA Altera MAX 10 onboard. With comprehensive I/O such as: 3 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 2 x Gigabit LAN, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DP, eDP, mini PCI-e/mini card SATA, M.2 2230, SATA 3.0, 2 x CSI, and 40-pin GP-bus. Connectivity can be expanded with additional 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth kits.

• Grove sensors kit

The Grove sensors kit contains a connectors shield for the Up Squared, LCD display, rotary angle sensor, light sensor, button, LED, temperature and humidity sensors, with a clear path to industrial grade versions.

On the software side, in addition to Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS, UP Squared also includes:

• MRAA and UPM

Part of the Intel IoT devkit, MRAA and UPM are middleware libraries allowing to test, map and validate your IoT sensors and actuators, with over 400 drivers supported out of the box.

• Arduino Create

Arduino Create is an integrated web-based IDE that enables users to write code, access content, configure boards, and share projects. It includes examples specifically built for this kit, as well as libraries such as OpenCV and Intel® Math Kernel Library (MKL). It also provides a way to export your projects to the Intel System Studio IDE.

Get the UP² IoT development kit today.