The new AVR RZ Raven from Atmel is an evaluation kit that provides designers with a ready-to-use development platform in the rapidly growing low power wireless market for the 2,4 GHz ISM frequency band available worldwide.

The kit utilises AVR picoPower technology in combination with the RF performance offered by the AT86RF230 2,4 GHz ISM transceiver. The kit comprises two Raven boards, one USB Stick and a selection of firmware application and software aimed at reducing time to market for designers considering short range wireless ISM band applications based on IEEE802.15.4, ZigBee or 6LoWPAN.

The board can be used as a multi-application wireless node with an LCD graphical user interface. It has two AVR picoPower microcontrollers: an ATmega1284P that can be used to control RF application stacks, and an ATmega3290P that controls the display and user interfaces. The Raven contains a custom LCD display, a 5-position joystick, a microphone and a speaker allowing the evaluation of a variety of user interactions that are appropriate in the target wireless applications.

To support application development, the following functionalities are available: graphical user interface, communication ports, ATmega1284P port pins available on headers, on-board temperature sensor, voltage sensor, relay driver, boot loader and ISP support for programming.

The USB stick can serve as a PC gateway to the wireless network, or as the hardware platform for a wireless protocol analyser. It is based on the AT90USB1287 AVR microcontroller and the AT86RF230 transceiver.

The firmware provided includes low level drivers and application stacks enabling simple point to point communication, IEEE 802.15.4 compliant solutions, and more complex applications based on ZigBee and 6LoWPAN. Updated source code, libraries and documentation for the applications are available from the Atmel website. PC software is also provided, including a demo and a management suite for setup, configuration and management of wireless networks. Key features include a wireless protocol analyser and over-the-air upgrade (OTA).