Atmel: ATAVRRZRAVEN 2.4 GHz Evaluation and Starter kit

Kit Overview

The Atmel's ATAVRRZRAVENATAVRRZRAVEN 2.4GHz evaluation and starter kit speeds development, debugging, and demonstration of a wide range of low-power IEEE 802.15.4, 6LoWPAN, and ZigBee wireless network applications.The ATAVRRZRAVEN is a development kit for the AT86RF230AT86RF230 radio transceiver and the AVR microcontroller.

It serves as a versatile and professional platform for developing and debugging a wide range of RF applications; spanning from: simple point-to-point communication through full blown sensor networks with numerous nodes running complex communication stacks. On top of this, the kit provides a nice human interface, which spans from PC connectivity, through LCD and audio input and output.

The ATAVRRZRAVENATAVRRZRAVEN kit is built around three main components; the hardware itself, the firmware running in the RZUSBSTICK and AVRRAVENs, and the AVR Wireless Services PC suite. The AVRRAVEN hardware is based on 2 microcontroller and one radio transceiver chip.

The ATmega3290PATmega3290P handles the sensors and the user interface and the ATmega1284PATmega1284P handles the AT86RF230AT86RF230 radio transceiver and the RF protocol stacks. Two AVR microcontrollers are found on the AVRRAVEN module. An ATmega1284P is connected to the AT86RF230 radio transceiver, and an ATmega3290P is driving the LCD.Both these devices are selected from the AVR picoPower family,  that ensures minimal power consumption and operation down to 1.8 Volts. Universal Synchronous and Asynchronous serial Receiver and Transmitter (USART) is used as an inter processor communication bus.

The AT86RF230AT86RF230 Low-power 2.4GHz transceiver designed for low cost IEEE802.15.4, ZigBee, RF4CE, SP100, WirelessHART and ISM applications. It is a true SPI-to-antenna solution providing a complete radio transceiver interface between the antenna and the microcontroller.It comprises the analog radio transceiver and the digital demodulation including time and frequency synchronization, and data buffering. All RF-critical components are integrated on a single chip minimizing the number of required external components to the antenna, crystal and decoupling capacitors. The bidirectional differential antenna pins, used for transmission and reception, eliminate the need for an external antenna switch.

Key Applications: Building Automation, Home Appliances, Home Entertainment, Industrial Automation, Lighting, Metering and Mobile Electronics.