Matrix Creator IoT Development Board w/ FPGA, Sensors, Zigbee & Z-Wave

The board is primarily programmed via the Matrix Lite Python library or the Matrix HAL C++ library on the Raspberry Pi host. The FPGA can be configured using Xilinx ISE Design Suite or Vivado for custom bitstreams. Sensor data from the onboard microcontroller is accessed through these libraries, abstracting the I2C/SPI communication. For advanced use, you can directly interface with the ATSAM3S2 MCU using ARM Cortex-M3 toolchains.

The Zigbee (EM358X) and Z-Wave (ZM5202) radios are managed by the onboard ATSAM3S2 microcontroller. You must use the Matrix IO daemon and corresponding libraries on the Raspberry Pi to send commands over the serial bridge. Network configuration, such as joining a Zigbee PAN or including Z-Wave devices, is performed through API commands sent via these libraries. Ensure the correct regional frequency (868MHz, 908MHz, etc.) for Z-Wave is set in your application code.

Yes, the 8 digital MEMS microphones are connected to the FPGA, which handles the real-time processing required for beamforming and acoustic echo cancellation. The Matrix Lite library provides high-level functions for setting beamforming direction and accessing processed audio streams. For custom algorithms, you can develop and deploy your own FPGA bitstream using Xilinx tools to implement raw microphone data processing and spatial filtering logic directly on the Spartan-6 chip.