Hello all,
I'm trying to get a handle on the current SOC/SBC options, but the marketplace is so vast and bewildering, that I'm hoping I can get a few quick recommendations of your favorites. We are developing an embedded system in the domain of mobile environmental monitoring and need to put together a proof of concept in December, so the components we are currently looking for need not be the most optimal for production (i.e. should be developer-friendly, but stil as small as possible). The requirements are quite straightforward:
1) Sample a set of environmental sensors with outputs in the range of 0-5V, hence we need an analog/digital converter (ADC) with, say, 8 channels and at least 10-bits resolution. (To me personally, the ADC component seems to be the critical hurdle.)2) Get current position via GPS (this can be an integrated board, or one attached by serial port or Bluetooth).
3) Wirelessly relay data to collection stations using TCP/IP, preferably with Wi-Fi 802.11, but a GPRS interface would be an option too.4) The system must run off batteries and some of the sensors we are considering need to be powered with 5V while others with 12V (for development we need not more than one day of runtime; the vehicle has its own power source).
5) All these components should be supported under GNU/Linux -- which embedded distribution and development environment would you recommend?6) It looks like we don't need much horsepower... 200MHz will be more than enough, probably even a 486 will do (we are not considering wireless sensor motes at this stage).
7) For prototyping, anything in the range of 200-500 $USD can go...So far, I have looked at Gumstix and PC/104. The former looks smaller and more interesting for our purposes... Any tips and insights will be highly appreciated.
Thank you very much in advance.