Qduino: A Multithreaded Arduino System for Embedded Computing

Abstract

Arduino is an open source platform that offers a clear and simple environment for physical computing. It is now widely used in modern robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, due in part to its low-cost, ease of programming, and rapid prototyping capabilities. Sensors and actuators can easily be connected to the analog and digital I/O pins of an Arduino device, which features an on-board microcontroller programmed using the Arduino API. The increasing complexity of physical computing applications has now led to a series of Arduino-compatible devices with faster processors, increased flash storage, larger memories and more complicated I/O architectures. The Intel Galileo, for example, is designed to support the Arduino API on top of a Linux system, code-named Clanton. However, the standard API is restricted to the capabilities found on less powerful devices, lacking support for multithreaded programs, or specification of real-time requirements. In this paper, we present Qduino, a system developed for Arduino compatible boards. Qduino provides an extended Arduino API which, while backward-compatible with the original API, supports real-time multithreaded sketches and event handling. Experiments show the performance gains of Qduino compared to Clanton Linux.