Recently we heard the news that Raspberry Pi (RPi) has shipped its 10 millionth unit to its customers, it is an amazing feat for a company that started its operations roughly 50 odd months ago. So what makes it so popular in the world of techies? The answer would be its simplicity in design and an easy to configure approach. Such is its popularity among the students that the code written by them was run using RPi aboard International Space Station by UK astronaut Tim Peake. Raspberry Pi is also a vital component in IoT related projects.
How Raspberry Pi is better than other controllers
Arduino or other micro-controller based board has limited data processing capability. Raspberry Pi is a fully-functional single-board computer with keyboard, mouse, camera and display interfaces. Now-a-days it works with Linux and Windows based operating systems and has got great acceptance, which also reflects in the sales of Raspberry Pi.
Interoperability is the main concern for selecting Raspberry Pi for IoT platform. RPi can directly handle the protocol for embedded system like UART, SPI, and I2C. It can handle Industrial protocol like Modbus, CAN bus etc. with RS232/RS485 dedicated hardware interface. Raspberry Pi can directly interface with sensors based on one-wire protocols and also has good library support for most of the sensors available in the market. Touch screen interface makes it suitable for HMI (Human machine interface) applications. USB interface makes its scope in the level of a General purpose computer.
Easy configuration and programming make it as the first choice for research scholars. They can quickly make prototypes for their research. Industrial folks too find it compact enough for quick deployment of IoT solutions. Wide range of discussion forums put a great contribution for RPi acceptance. Please visit our IoT Portfolio for Raspberry Pi Based projects we have done here.