connecting arduino to beagleboard

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

Can anyone help me in attempting to connect a arduino to a beagleboard?

Currently I'm attempting to use serial communication, and python code to receive the bits. I have the arduino transmitting a string in form of a tuple. I can use the function
eval(serialRead) to convert the characters to a tuple. the problem with serial communication is that at times, not all the characters are received, so the print out becomes something like
(1,,1,128) instead of the form (1,0,1,128)
the first 3 numbers are bits connected to switches that enables a loop in my python program.
the last bit of numbers is a potentiometer readout that controls an integer of 0-255.
Any missing bits causes an error the the python script. Anyone know if I should use something like spi or i2c communication to communication from arduino to the beagleboard? And is there a guide to do this process?

thanks

2

Are the two communicating via Usb, or did you do some wiring? Although serial communication is not particularly reliable on the arduino you should be able to make it work, especially for a simple task like transmitting a few parameters once in a while. You may suffer from the combination of a "noisy" cable, interference, too high baud rate for your setting, and maybe some specific issue with TX/RX pins.

SPI and I2C are more reliable, but while you make your decision you can probably implement a sanity check on the received data (something that you should do any way) before calling eval(), so if the data are corrupted you can request them once again. This may also help when you go for a master/slave protocol.