ARDEPv2 Development Board

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Introducing ARDEP

Automotive development has always meant proprietary tools, expensive licenses, and hardware that was not built for the realities of the job. ARDEP, the Automotive Rapid Development Platform, is our answer to that.

Developed by Frickly Systems in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz, ARDEP is a fully open-source hardware and software platform designed to give automotive engineers what they actually need: a fast, robust, and reusable foundation that does not get in the way.

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Built for Automotive Environments

Standard development boards are not designed for automotive supply voltages, transient conditions, or the mechanical realities of a test bench or vehicle installation. ARDEP is. The board accepts input voltages from 5V to 48V via its main supply terminals, with overvoltage protection via a 51V TVS diode. USB-C is also supported for bench use. The board comes with quality connectors, spacers and mounting screws included, so it stays put whether you are on a bench or inside a vehicle.

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CAN-FD and LIN Out of the Box

No shields. No adapter libraries. No cables that fall off. ARDEP ships with two CAN-FD capable transceivers and one LIN transceiver built in. Both share a single DB-9 connector in accordance with the Vector pinout, making it a drop-in replacement in existing toolchain setups. CAN Channel B is permanently connected to the DB-9. CAN Channel A and LIN connect via spring terminals, with a hardware switch to route either to the DB-9 pin 7. Each CAN channel includes a common mode choke, ESD protection, and a hardware-configurable 120-ohm termination. The LIN transceiver can be software-configured for master or slave mode.

And because ARDEP can flash other devices over CAN, it fits naturally into modern zonal E/E architectures where a central node manages distributed hardware.

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A Software Stack That Scales

The firmware is built on Zephyr RTOS, a mature open-source real-time operating system with a large ecosystem already used in serious production environments. Zephyr is moving toward safety certification, which means your prototype does not hit a dead end when it is time to think about production. UDS diagnostics (ISO 14229) are included out of the box, along with DFU firmware update support over CAN and USB.

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Power IO Shield

The optional Power IO Shield extends the platform for switching high-power loads. It adds six 48V-capable high-side output drivers rated at 3A continuous per channel and 10A total across all six channels, plus six 48V-capable inputs. Each output driver includes overcurrent and overtemperature fault detection with onboard LED indicators and I2C diagnostic feedback to the mainboard. The shield is designed to switch automotive loads like relays, solenoids, and actuators directly from software.

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Open Source. All of It.

Hardware design files, firmware, documentation: everything is published on GitHub under a permissive Apache license. No lock-in, no license fees, no asking permission. The project is hosted under the Mercedes-Benz GitHub organization, reflecting the open-source commitment that drove the project from the start.

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GitHub: github.com/mercedes-benz/ardep

‍Documentation: mercedes-benz.github.io/ardep