Popular Prototype Computer now Available for Industrial Serial Use: Kontron’s Single Board Computer Based on Raspberry Pi

SBC Development Board based on Raspberry Pi and numerous interfaces available for typical industrial applications – quicker from prototype to series manufacturing

Kontron, a leading global provider of IoT/Embedded Computing Technology (ECT), offers a comprehensive Development Kit for designing products based on Raspberry Pi for industrial purposes. The kit includes a developement board according to SBC specifications, a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 Light (CM3L) and an SD card with the pre-configured Raspian operating system. With this offer, Kontron is meeting the requirements of development departments in various industries that design prototypes based on Raspberry Pi, but have so far shied away from industrial use of the platform due to a lack of professional support. In addition, many applications and programs that are freely available for Raspberry Pi from the Open Source Community can now be used for industrial purposes as well, without any additional development effort. For example, the platform has already been certified for usage in healthcare.

The Developer Kit, based on a single-board computer, extends the Raspberry Pi Compute Module by a variety of typical industrial interfaces, including not only USB, Ethernet 10/100 Mbit, RS 232 and RS 485, but also a CAN fieldbus interface. Displays are controllable via HDMI, LVDS or DSI 4 lanes. Furthermore, the Raspberry-typical PiHat connector is included, as well as a Micro SDCard slot, a 1-Wire-Interface for connecting simple sensors, a smartcard reader with SIM card holder to operate secure applications and camera interfaces. To have a quick start, the board provides also 24V inputs and outputs and also analog in- and outputs.

With the offer, customers are able to quickly and easily migrate from a prototype to an industrial serial product. This shortens the time to market significantly. Kontron supports the entire value chain from prototyping to series manufacturing. Therefore, Kontron contributes its experience in manufacturing industrial boards and modules and ensures that even individually manufactured serial products meet industry standards and the demanding conditions in rough industrial environments.

SBCs with Raspberry Pi as compute module can be used for various applications, e.g. at the Human-Machine Interface, for M2M (machine-to-machine) communication, home automation, POS displays, in infotainment and entertainment, portable systems, as data gateways or at sensor heads.

Background:

Raspberry Pi is one of the best known embedded Linux computers in the world. With over 20 million copies sold, it is now used in many colleges and universities for training purposes in computer sciences. Countless prototypes based on Raspberry Pi have already been implemented in the industry. In addition, the low price offers the perfect entry point to smart electronics development. However, Raspberry Pi is not ideally suited for industry, as its architecture does not readily support the use of industrial interfaces. To that end, the Development Kit based on a single board computer by Kontron offers the necessary extensions.

For more information please visit: https://www.kontron-electronics.de/passepartout