GPIO versus Arduino

Andy Laberge

Hi,
First let me say I really enjoy my UP Board. It is just as good as my desktop in
performance and better then my laptop.


I am working with Ubilinux on an UP Board 2G Ram and 16G eMMC. I have 4
USB ports and I believe a plug in for 2 more. I am starting to find the GPIO
frustrating to work with. Would using the USB Arduinos be a more reasonable
path to follow?

6 USB devices shouldn't bog down the OS should it? ( Could someone verify
that this UP Board does have 6 USB ports- Thank you).

My project is a field robot that I can talk to via a Logitech H800 headset through
a USB port. The speech recognition engine is "julius". I use flite 2.0.0 for the TTS
and a selection of 6 voices from same source.

I can drive my robot wheel motors via voice command thru USB to an Arduino motor
hat. The hat does have pin out for GPIO drives. Believe PWM, 2 other for activate
and direction.

My gut says to go Arduino and off load some processing and also the possibility of
accidentally destroying my UP Board. Loosing Arduino and hat is one thing, loosing
an UP Board would hurt.

Looking for pro GPIO or anti Arduino arguments.

Thank you.
andyinyakima