Why I Like the B-L4S5I-IOT01A Discovery Kit IoT Node Development Board: And Why You Will Too

I’ve been an embedded developer for many years, and I’ve experienced and seen first-hand how finding the “right” development board can be an overwhelming experience. A quick search will reveal a nearly unlimited list, and that doesn’t even take into account expansion boards! This is a critical decision, as a good development board will serve you well in several ways, including as a hardware representation for an end product, as an expandable rapid prototyping platform, and as a training tool to experiment with cutting-edge technologies.

One development board that I’ve grown particularly attached to as it meets all these different needs is the B-L4S5I-IOT01A IoT Discovery development board from STMicroelectronics. Let me show you what I mean and how it can help you.

Why I like STMicroelectronics’ B-L3S51-IOT01A

The B-L3S5I-IOT01A is a low-cost, expandable, and feature-rich development board that is slightly larger than a standard credit card (Figure 1). For starters, this development board includes common expandable headers for shields and sensors through the use of Arduino headers and one Digilent Pmod connector. These connectors are great for experimenting with sensors and circuits that are custom to a product that is not part of the development board. This lets you or your team test out circuits and build application code long before prototype product hardware is available to you to work with directly.

Figure 1: The B-L45SI-IOT01A IoT Discovery Board contains a plethora of onboard sensors, standard expandable headers, and connectors, as well as software framework tools that can help in rapid prototyping or product development. (Image source: STMicroelectronics)

The connectivity and onboard sensors are two of the features I love the most as it allows me to build entire applications without needing the expansion headers. For example, if I need to build an IoT device, the development board has an onboard Wi-Fi module that I can use to connect it to Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft’s Azure. In fact, the software that runs on the onboard Arm Cortex-M processor—the STM32L4S5VIT6—is readily available on GitHub and as part of the STM32CubeIDE development platform.

Advanced security features

If like me, you’re very interested in IoT security, you can leverage the onboard STSAFE-A110 secure element to set up a secure boot solution. In fact, you can even go through the entire process of creating a secure solution, including secure firmware updates, by leveraging the software provided by AWS and STMicroelectronics. You can also leverage the Secure Boot Secure Firmware Update (SBSFU) framework to customize solutions and learn more about IoT security.

Sensors to practice with cutting-edge technology

Earlier I mentioned that the development board has a ton of sensors onboard. One such sensor is the LSM6DSLTR inertial measurement unit (IMU), a 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope (Figure 2). This sensor is interesting because it also provides you with the option to use this development board to learn about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) on microcontroller-based devices.

Figure 2: The B-L3S5I-IOT01A features the LSM6DSLTR IMU, which comprises a 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope, and lets you experiment with ML and AI concepts on a microcontroller. (Image source: STMicroelectronics)

For example, you can use the development board to generate data sets for various 3D gestures using the LSM6DSLTR accelerometer to measure the board’s motion. You can then use that data to train a neural network (NN) that you can then deploy back to the development board through the STM32CubeIDE AI plug-in. Next, run the AI inference model, see how it performs, and then go back and tweak your NN, either for a production system or just to learn more about cutting-edge technologies.

Conclusion

When selecting a development board, keep in mind that the board can serve several purposes simultaneously. Personally, I like to select development boards that can be used for products, experimentation, prototyping, and even for training courses. The STMicroelectronics B-L4S5I-IOT01A is one of those boards that comes with everything needed to experiment with cutting-edge technologies and develop a production-intent product.