So for a university project, I am designing a water depth measurement system based on an Arduino. I have chosen the Arduino Uno but I am a little confused when it comes to shields and modules for the application. I need to have an ultrasonic sensor, I have chosen this one at the suggestion of a student who has done a similar project.
I also need to add Zigbee/Xbee and GPS to the project. To add the Zigbee/Xbee I have chosen the Arduino Wireless Proto Shield and the Digi XBee ZigBee linked below.
My questions are basically this,
How can I go confirming that these will all be able to work off of a single board?
Will the Arduino UNO be sufficient or will I need to pick another board?
The rangefinder will work with any Arduino. It just needs any 2 digital pins, power and ground.
The GPS needs a serial port connection. Will take 2 pins for RX and TX plus power and ground. The pins for RX and TX can be fixed, like pin 0 and 1 are the first hardware serial port, or you can choose the pins with a software serial port.
The shield would be convenient for mounting the GPS module and wiring.
What you want to do takes 4 digital pins out of 17 on an Uno.
An Uno would be more than sufficient.
I missed the ZigBee some how. Looks like the ZigBee needs a serial port, too. That changes my opinion. You need 2 serial ports for the modules and it is best (my opinion) to keep the hardware port free for upload and debug. That is 3 ports which is hard to do with an Uno. A Mega (or another Arduino with multiple hardware serial ports) is a better choice.