My apologies, I'm not really sure how to phrase this question. I'm a little confused about what is the advantage of having a separate circuit controlling a module vs connecting the module directly to a master device. For instance, I want to control a nRF24 transceiver module, I have an Arduino microcontroller and a Raspberry Pi.
Is it better to have the Arduino control the transceiver and then have the Raspberry Pi communicate with the Arduino, or just connect the transceiver directly to the Raspberry Pi? What are the advantages of each method? I've seen both method used on the internet but no one really explained why they used one over the other.
Best Answer
This is a rather broad question and may get closed, so I'll be brief.
If you have a general purpose computer like the RPi in your system already, let it do whatever it can within its capability of direct I/O, latency, and bandwidth.
You don't say what the real time requirements of this radio module are. If you are required to react with short latency, then a separate micro to do that makes sense. If the module has sufficient buffering or whatever so that fast reaction isn't required, then the RPi can handle it. This is assuming you have the appropriate I/O lines available on the RPi.