Edge AI Resources

Technical guides for running machine learning on microcontrollers. Hardware specs, framework comparisons, and getting-started tutorials — written for embedded developers.

By Microcontroller

27 MCU families with Edge AI capability.

i.MX RT1062

NXP

ARM Cortex-M7 @ 600 MHz

1024 KB RAM · 8 MB Flash

20 guides · 4 boards

i.MX RT1064

NXP

ARM Cortex-M7 @ 600 MHz

1024 KB RAM · 4 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

STM32H7

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M7 @ 480 MHz

1024 KB RAM · 2 MB Flash

21 guides · 22 boards

STM32U5

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M33 @ 160 MHz

786 KB RAM · 2 MB Flash

20 guides · 2 boards

STM32H5

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M33 @ 250 MHz

640 KB RAM · 2 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

ESP32

Espressif

Dual-core Xtensa LX6 @ 240 MHz

520 KB RAM · 16 MB Flash

20 guides · 136 boards

ESP32-C6

Espressif

Single-core RISC-V @ 160 MHz

512 KB RAM · 4 MB Flash

20 guides · 5 boards

ESP32-S3

Espressif

Dual-core Xtensa LX7 @ 240 MHz

512 KB RAM · 16 MB Flash

20 guides · 57 boards

GAP8

GreenWaves Technologies

9-core RISC-V (1 FC + 8 Cluster) @ 250 MHz

512 KB RAM · 8 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

i.MX RT1052

NXP

ARM Cortex-M7 @ 600 MHz

512 KB RAM · 8 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

RA6M5

Renesas

ARM Cortex-M33 @ 200 MHz

512 KB RAM · 2 MB Flash

20 guides · 1 boards

STM32F7

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M7 @ 216 MHz

512 KB RAM · 2 MB Flash

20 guides · 9 boards

ESP32-C3

Espressif

Single-core RISC-V @ 160 MHz

400 KB RAM · 4 MB Flash

17 guides · 16 boards

ESP32-S2

Espressif

Single-core Xtensa LX7 @ 240 MHz

320 KB RAM · 4 MB Flash

0 guides · 28 boards

LPC55xx

NXP

Dual-core ARM Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz

320 KB RAM · 640 KB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

EFR32MG

Silicon Labs

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 40 MHz

256 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

nRF52840

Nordic Semiconductor

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64 MHz

256 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

19 guides · 22 boards

SAMD51

Microchip

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 120 MHz

256 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

0 guides · 18 boards

SAME51

Microchip

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 120 MHz

256 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

STM32L5

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M33 @ 110 MHz

256 KB RAM · 512 KB Flash

0 guides · 1 boards

STM32WB

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64 MHz + Cortex-M0+ @ 32 MHz

256 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

0 guides · 2 boards

STM32F4

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 168 MHz

192 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

16 guides · 105 boards

nRF52833

Nordic Semiconductor

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64 MHz

128 KB RAM · 512 KB Flash

10 guides · 4 boards

STM32G4

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 170 MHz

128 KB RAM · 512 KB Flash

0 guides · 7 boards

STM32L4

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 80 MHz

128 KB RAM · 1 MB Flash

11 guides · 22 boards

STM32F3

STMicroelectronics

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 72 MHz

80 KB RAM · 512 KB Flash

0 guides · 13 boards

nRF52832

Nordic Semiconductor

ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64 MHz

64 KB RAM · 512 KB Flash

0 guides · 19 boards

By Use Case

Activity Recognition

Classifying human physical activities such as walking, running, sitting, cycling, and climbing stairs from wearable IMU …

0 guides

Air Quality Anomaly Detection

Detecting unusual patterns in gas sensor readings to identify air quality hazards, chemical leaks, or ventilation failur…

0 guides

Anomaly Detection

Detecting unusual patterns in sensor data using lightweight autoencoders or statistical models. Learns normal operating …

27 guides

Baby Cry Detection

Detecting infant crying from ambient audio for smart nursery monitors. Privacy-preserving since audio is classified on-d…

0 guides

Barcode and QR Code Reading

Detecting and decoding barcodes or QR codes from camera images on-device. Modern ML-based approaches handle damaged, par…

0 guides

Bearing Fault Detection

Specialized predictive maintenance focused on detecting early-stage bearing failures in rotating machinery. Analyzes hig…

0 guides

Crop Disease Detection

Classifying plant leaf images to identify diseases, nutrient deficiencies, or pest damage. Deployed on battery-powered d…

0 guides

Fall Detection

Detecting fall events from IMU accelerometer and gyroscope data in real time. Classifies motion patterns to distinguish …

26 guides

Gesture Recognition

Classifying hand or body gestures from IMU (accelerometer + gyroscope) data. Models process short windows of motion data…

27 guides

Glass Break Detection

Detecting the specific acoustic signature of breaking glass for security applications. Uses mel-spectrogram features fed…

0 guides

Image Classification

Classifying entire images into predefined categories without localization. The model outputs a single class label per fr…

22 guides

License Plate Recognition

Detecting and reading license plates from camera images at the edge. Combines object detection for plate localization wi…

0 guides

Machine Sound Monitoring

Classifying machinery sounds to detect abnormal operation such as bearing noise, belt squeal, pump cavitation, or motor …

0 guides

Object Detection

Identifying and localizing objects in camera images on-device. Typical models include quantized MobileNet-SSD or YOLO-ba…

16 guides

People Counting

Counting the number of people entering or occupying a space using on-device vision. Uses lightweight detection or classi…

18 guides

Power Quality Monitoring

Monitoring electrical current and voltage waveforms to detect anomalies in power distribution systems. Identifies power …

0 guides

Predictive Maintenance

Monitoring machinery vibration, temperature, and current patterns to detect anomalies before failures occur. Models anal…

27 guides

Pump Cavitation Detection

Detecting cavitation in pumps and hydraulic systems by analyzing vibration and acoustic patterns simultaneously. Cavitat…

0 guides

Scene Classification

Classifying entire camera frames into scene categories such as indoor vs outdoor, day vs night, crowded vs empty, or roo…

0 guides

Sound Classification

Classifying environmental sounds into categories such as glass breaking, dog barking, machinery noise, sirens, or alarms…

26 guides

Speaker Identification

Identifying who is speaking from voice characteristics without recognizing what is said. Extracts speaker embeddings fro…

0 guides

Vibration Anomaly Detection

Detecting abnormal vibration patterns in rotating machinery such as motors, pumps, fans, and compressors. Learns normal …

0 guides

Visual Defect Detection

Identifying manufacturing defects such as cracks, scratches, missing components, or surface irregularities on production…

0 guides

Voice Command Recognition

Recognizing a vocabulary of 10 to 50 spoken commands on-device without cloud connectivity. Extends beyond single-keyword…

0 guides

Voice Recognition

On-device keyword spotting and voice command recognition without cloud connectivity. Typical models use DS-CNN or depthw…

23 guides

Wake Word Detection

Always-on keyword spotting that listens for a specific activation phrase. Ultra-low-power operation is critical since th…

0 guides

Wildlife Monitoring

Detecting and classifying wildlife species from camera trap images on-device. Reduces data transmission by only sending …

22 guides

Expert Guides

Best Microcontroller for Machine Learning

Compare ESP32-S3, STM32H7, ESP32-C3, and Arduino Nano 33 BLE for on-device ML. Specs, benchmarks, and use-case recommendations.

AI Agents for Embedded Systems

What AI agents mean on microcontrollers: sensor-inference-action loops, multi-model pipelines, and autonomous decision logic on ESP32 and STM32.

How to Deploy AI Models to Microcontrollers

Step-by-step guide to deploying machine learning models on ESP32, STM32, and Arduino MCUs using TensorFlow Lite Micro and Edge Impulse.

Edge AI for Manufacturing

How manufacturers deploy edge AI for quality control, predictive maintenance, and energy monitoring. MCU-based solutions without cloud dependency.

Edge AI vs Cloud AI: When to Use Which

Compare edge AI and cloud AI across latency, cost, privacy, and power. Learn when to process on-device and when cloud inference is the better choice.

ESP32 vs STM32 for AI Applications

Compare ESP32 and STM32 for edge AI. Architecture, ML performance, tooling, connectivity, and cost analysis for embedded ML projects.

How to Run TensorFlow Lite on ESP32

Step-by-step guide to running TFLite Micro (LiteRT) on ESP32 with ESP-IDF. Tensor arena, operator registration, and C inference code included.

Predictive Maintenance with Edge AI

Deploy edge AI for predictive maintenance. Vibration analysis, anomaly detection, and ROI calculation for MCU-based monitoring on factory equipment.

TinyML Getting Started Guide

Learn TinyML from scratch. Set up your first machine learning project on a microcontroller with ESP32, Arduino, or STM32 using TFLite Micro or Edge Impulse.

What Is Edge AI Orchestration?

Edge AI orchestration coordinates ML models, sensors, and actions on microcontrollers. Learn how workflow-based AI deployment replaces monolithic firmware.

Not sure which MCU to use?

The MCU Compatibility Checker matches your use case to the best hardware — with specs, scores, and technical reasoning.

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