Bosch sensor evaluation board accelerates development

7th September 2021

Bosch Group

Louis Regnier

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The newly launched Application Board 3.0 provides a versatile development solution that makes it quick and easy for engineers to work with all Bosch Sensortec sensors on one common platform. The new board simplifies the evaluation and prototyping of sensors for a wide range of applications, particularly in Industry 4.0, IoT, Smart Home systems, and wrist- and head-mounted wearables.

To maximise scalability, any sensor mounted on a ‘shuttle board’ from Bosch Sensortec is simply plugged into the socket on the application board. All shuttle boards have an identical footprint, and Bosch Sensortec’s software automatically detects which sensor is plugged in at any given moment and launches the appropriate software. This enables the straightforward evaluation of a wide range of sensors and solutions. Prototypes can be easily built to quickly test different use case configurations.

The new board is conveniently provided in a small form factor, measuring just 47.0 x 37.0 x 7.0mm³, which is well suited for evaluating sensors in portable applications. It can be powered using a 3.7V Li-ion battery or a standard 5V USB power supply.

"The Application Board 3.0 makes it quick and easy for developers to build their projects with any of our sensors on a single platform, meaning that they can now focus on creating unique use cases and differentiating their products," said Dr. Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO at Bosch Sensortec. “Our customers also benefit from efficient support through regional Field Application Engineers and Bosch offices.”

The integrated development environment software provided with the board includes a simplified graphical user interface to evaluate and tune sensor parameters, as well as to visualise and record sensor data. The software also saves time in troubleshooting sensor-related issues.

Application Board 3.0 is designed around the u-blox NINA-B302 Bluetooth Low Energy module and is based on the nRF52840 chipset from Nordic Semiconductor, which includes an ARM Cortex-M4F CPU. It is certified and compliant with multiple directives for different international regions: CE, RoHS, China RoHS, FCC, IC, VCCI, SRRC and NCC.

To ensure efficient and fast customisation of the vast majority of IoT use cases, the new board comes with 256 KB RAM, 1MB of internal flash and 2GB of external flash memory for data logging. It provides full-speed micro-USB 2.0 connectivity and BLE to connect to a host, such as a PC, for transferring the logged sensor data from the board.