See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/345307811

A Study on New Arduino NANO Board for WSN and IoT Applications

Article  in  International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology · October 2020

CITATIONS READS

0 364

4 authors:

Hani Almimi Ali Al Dahoud

14 PUBLICATIONS   38 CITATIONS   
Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan
80 PUBLICATIONS   242 CITATIONS   
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Mohamed Fezari Mohammad Sh

Badji Mokhtar - Annaba University Ferdowsi University Of Mashhad
127 PUBLICATIONS   338 CITATIONS    4 PUBLICATIONS   1 CITATION   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Our research interests include Control systems and Automation, Fault Diagnosis and Isolation, Fault Tolerant Control and Supervisory systems with Advanced Quality
Control. View project

WSN applications View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohamed Fezari on 04 November 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

A Study on New Arduino NANO Board for WSN and IoT

Applications

Hani Al-Mimi1*, Ali Al-Dahoud1, Mohamed FEZARI, Mohammad Sh. Daoud

1 Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Faculty of IT, AMMAN, Jordan,
Laboratory of automatic and signals Annaba, Badji Mokhtar Annaba University,
College of Engineering, Al Ain University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]

Abstract
In this paper, we present a new research on the new coming Arduino Nano boards for
summer 2019. Arduino has expanded its family of tiny Nano boards with new offerings
that deliver better specs for a lower price. Four new boards of Arduino, Nano will be on
the market soon, they have integrated interesting features for attractive applications. The
new boards include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as wireless communication. Some of them
include general-purpose sensors i.e. temperature, humidity, pressor and acceleration for
movement detection. We have detailed the new boards, and made a comparison study. It
can be concluded that these boards will improve and facilitate the design of IoT projects
and applications and the wireless sensors network.
Keywords: Arduino Nano, IoT application, BLE, Single board controller

1. Introduction
Congratulations! Your paper has been accepted for journal publication. Please follow
the steps outlined below when submitting your final draft to the SERSC Press. These
guidelines include complete descriptions of the fonts, spacing, and related information for
producing your proceedings manuscripts. Please follow them and if you have any
questions, direct them to the production editor in charge of your journal at the SERSC,
[email protected].
Arduino, which was introduced in 2005, is an open source microcontroller boards. It is
a platform that provides easy and cheap for interested people to construct electronic
devices that can be programmed to interact with the external environment using sensors
and actuators. It has many capabilities such as: input, output, processing, receiving and
sending information over the internet. Developers write C or C++ programming
languages in the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to program the
Arduino development board.
Several versions of the Arduino hardware have been evolved throughout the time,
starting from the basic one Arduino-Uno, then the Mega, Mini, Nano, LilyPad, and others.
The smallest is the Nano as it can be seen from its name. It is not cheaper than other
Arduino boards and has similar specs to the Uno board.
The Italian makers had produced other four new Arduino boards that will serve
different purposes. Arduino delivered four new boards in mid of June in 2019 [4]. The
new Nano boards are small and cheap and fit into small projects.
Arduino extended the processing power of the previous small 18x45mm boards
reducing power consumption. These low-cost microcontrollers are suitable for those who
want to build their own gadgets.

10223
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

Now the specs of the tiny Nano boards are better for a lower price. The Arduino Nano
Every and the Nano 33 IoT, which adds wireless connectivity, are available without
headers for a lower price. They could be wired into circuits to interact with external
environment, i.e. sensors, lights, motors, microphones, buttons, and more.
The new four boards are:
a) Arduino Nano Every, for our “everyday” projects.
b) Arduino Nano 33 IoT (internet of things), for Internet of Things projects.
c) Arduino Nano 33 BLE (Bluetooth low energy), for Bluetooth connectivity
d) Arduino Nano BLE Sense, which includes many on-board sensors.
The lowest-price board in Arduino’s lineup is the Nano Every. They are suitable for
prototyping compact and small projects [1].

Figure 1. Illustration of the four Nano 33 Boards from Arduino

2. Description
In the next section, the new four Nano boards will be described and more details will
be presented concerning the Nano 33 IoT and Nano 33 BLE sense.

2.1. The Nano Every

The Nano every board is designed based on the old Arduino Nano with little
difference. It is equipped with the ATMega4809 microcontroller and an energy efficient
processor called Arm’s Cortex M0+. It comes with doubled flash memory size, higher
clock speed and 3x the SRAM. It is suitable for everyday projects.
The Arduino Nano Every features a powerful processor, the ATMega4809. It is the
first AVR device that includes Microchip’s Core Independent Peripherals (CIP). The new
Nano differs from the original Nano as it comes in a castellated form. It is also
breadboard-compatible and it can be soldered directly onto another PCB.

10224
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

Figure 2. Arduino Every presentation

2.2 Arduino Nano 33 IoT

The Nano 33 IoT is advanced and compatible with Arduino IoT Cloud [9]. It is
equipped with Arm Cortex-M0+ processor that is based on ATSAMD21 microcontroller,
802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v4.2, and Wi-Fi. To measure angular rate and force you can
take advantage of the 6-axis IMU. The security issue of the IoT can be handled by the
crypto chip embedded in the board.
Arduino Nano 33 IoT supports wireless based projects that allow designers to remotely
control and monitor their projects because it is also compatible with Arduino IoT cloud
service. Certificates and pre-shared keys are securely stored in the crypto ship. The board
is used as an SMT module or in a breadboard and it is equipped with the 9-axis IMU.

2.3 Arduino Nano 33 BLE

This board should provide users with high performance due to higher processing power
and lower power consumption as promised by Arduino. If users are designing projects
that require IoT technologies and applications such as environmental monitoring and
motion tracking then this boards is the most suitable one. It is appropriate for projects that
automates motion and for wearables. It is also suitable for projects that require short-
range Bluetooth and low power consumption.

2.4 Nano 33 BLE Sense

It is the same case for the Nano 33 BLE in terms of performance and power
consumption. Both promise to enhance these issues. For short-range Bluetooth projects
user can use this or the previous board. It is also suitable for environmental and motion
automation projects and wearables. For example, there are sensors for gestures, humidity,
light, color, pressure, and temperature in addition the microphone.

10225
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

3 More Details on Arduino Nano 33 IOT

WIFI+BLE

Figure 3. Nano 33 IoT board

Arduino Nano 33 IoT is based on the SAMD21G18A microcontroller. Its clock speed
is up to 48MHz, with Flash 256KB and SRAM 32KB. The board supports 3.3V I/Os and
does not tolerate 5V. Connecting 5V signals directly to this board will damage it. In
addition, it is not like in the Arduino Nano boards that support 5V operation. the 5V pin in
the Nano 33 IoT is connected to USB power input through a jumper. It does not supply
any voltage. A NINA W102 ESP32 module manages the communication of the WiFi and
the Bluetooth [2]. It is connected to SAMD21 microcontroller with a serial port and an
SPI BUS though the following pins as presented in the following table:

Table 1. Nano 33 IoT board Pin details [1]

There is a supporting library for the crypto chip that is used by the WiFiNINA library.
The board has two 15 pins connectors, one on each side, pin to pin compatible with the
original Arduino Nano.
Pins A4 and A5 are used as an I2C Bus and are not recommended for analog inputs.
debug signals are arranged as 3x2 test pads with 100 mil pitch, under the communication
module, on the bottom side of the board. Pin 1 is the bottom left one with the USB
connector on the left and the test pads on the right.

10226
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

4 More details on Nano 33 BLE Board

The Arduino 33 BLE and BLE sense are similar in design. The new Arduino Nano 33
BLE Sense is based on the same u-blox NINA B306 module. It comes with a set of
sensors such as light, gesture, temperature , pressure, humidity, and embedded
microphone. More details can be found in [3].

BLE

Figure 4: Nano 33 BLE board

Sensors

Figure5. Nano 33 BLE sensor Board “in red circle are inverted sensors”

This compact and reliable Nano board has low power consumption compared to other
same size boards. It contains a powerful Cortex M4F. It has a nine axis Inertial
Measurement Unit (IMU).
Arduino Nano 33 BLE is a multiprotocol; therefore, it is ideal for automation projects.
This board is also suitable for designing wearable devices and movement-sensing projects
that need to communicate to other devices at a close range. It is and is not 5V tolerant, it
supports only 3.3V I/Os. In addition, the 5V pin is connected, through a jumper, to the
USB power input. There are two 15 pins connectors on the board, one on each side, pin to
pin compatible with the original Arduino Nano. Description is presented in Table 2.

10227
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

Table2. Pin description of Nano 33 BLE [1]

In this board, pins A4 and A5 are used as an I2C bus and it is not recommended to use
analog input. On the other hand, the 5V pin is connected to a USB power input though a
jumper.
The debug signals are arranged as 3x2 test pads on the bottom side of the board, under
the communication module, as shown in Table 3 with 100 mil pitch, . Pin 1 is the bottom
left one with the USB connector on the left and the test pads on the right.

Table 3. Debug signal pins on Nano 33BLE and BLE+ sensor [1]

10228
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

5 Comparative study between the new boards and the old one
Table 4. Results of comparative study
Type Nano 33 BLE
Nano Every Nano 33 IoT Nano 33 BLE Old Nano
Char Sense
Microcontroller ATMega4809 SAMD21G18A nRF52480 nRF52480
Clock Speed 20 MHz 48 MHz 64 MHz 64 MHz 16 MHz
32KB (2KB
Flash 48KB 256KB 1MB 1MB used by
bootloader)
RAM 6KB 32KB 256KB 256KB 2KB
WIFI+Bluetooth BLE short range
Connectivity none BLE none
Esp32 LP
9-axes-IMU,
Temp, hum,
Sensors none 6-axes-IMU 9-axes-IMU none
Pression, Color,
gesture
hardware
none Hardware Cripto Hardware Cripto Hardware Cripto none
Security
$9.90 / $11.90 $19 / $21 with $29.50 / $31.50
Price $18 / $20 with headers $22
with headers headers with headers
IoT apps IoT apps
Wearable, IoT apps Some
IoV WSN Apps
Embedded dev WSN Apps applications,
Apps WSN Apps Smart Home
Ehealth Smart Devices robot
Smart Devices Motion sensors
Smart Device Connected dev Automation,
Connected dev automation

Regarding the results in Table 4, we can conclude that using the new Nano 33 IoT or
Nano 33 BLE or BLE Sense will reduce components on old boards. It will also be easy to
integration into IoT applications, and easy to insert as gateway in wireless sensors
network design. Therefore, Based on their characteristics, these boards can be used in
many applications or projects.

6 Conclusion
The new boards are intended to be structured as modules. The goal behind these boards
is not only for big manufacturers but also for small one who want to produce devices
according to their prototypes that are based on classic or MKR boards. “The new Nanos
are for those millions of makers who love using the Arduino IDE for its simplicity and
open source aspect, but just want a great value, small and powerful board they can trust
for their compact projects. With prices from as low as $9.90 for the Nano Every, this
family fills that gap in the Arduino range, providing makers with the Arduino quality they
deserve for those everyday projects” Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino.
Based on this study, we can conclude that students will have more time to develop
software part by including these boards in their applications or project in IoT, WSN,
smart devices, connected devices, wearable devices.

References
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arduino-nano-boards-specs-every-iot-ble-sense,39371.html,
[Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[2] https://store.arduino.cc/nano-33-iot, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[3] https://store.arduino.cc/nano-33-ble, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[4] https://fossbytes.com/arduino-nano-board-family-every-33-iot-ble/, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[5] https://blog.hackster.io/introducing-four-new-arduino-nanos-869b8abbccb4, [Accessed: 04- August-
2020]
[6] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/arduino-reveals-new-powerful-low-cost-nano-boards-for-
building-homemade-hardware-and-gadgets/, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[7] https://www.zdnet.com/article/arduino-just-unveiled-four-new-powerful-and-cheap-nano-boards/,
[Accessed: 04- August- 2020]

10229
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 4, (2020), pp.10223 – 10230

[8] https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/18/arduino-nano-boards/, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]

[9] https://www.arduino.cc/en/IoT/HomePage, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[10] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/internet-of-things-iot-cheat-sheet/, [Accessed: 04- August-
2020]
[11] LilyPad Arduino, 'LilyPad Arduino', [Online]. Available: https://store.arduino.cc/usa/lilypad-
arduino-main-board. [Accessed: 04- August- 2020].
[12] Kickstarter, 'ArduSat - Your Arduino Experiment in Space', 2015,
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space,
[Accessed: 04- August- 2020]
[13] ARDUINO.CC, “Arduino – Introduction”, 2015 [Online] Available:
http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Introduction, [Accessed: 04- August- 2020]

10230
ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST
Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC

View publication stats