Bench TalkBench Talk for Design Engineers | The Official Blog of Mouser Electronics for Control: Magnetic Sensing in Building Automation,Automation,SensorsThu, 24 Jun 2021 18:46:30 GMT<figure class="easyimage easyimage-full"><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Theme Image_Shutterstock_526689706.jpg" width="600" /> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p><em><small>(Source: fanjianhua/</small></em></p> <p>You may have heard the expression “opposites attract.” This universally relatable phrase is derived from magnetism, where opposite poles, north (N) and south (S), are attracted to each other. You may remember this from playing with magnets as a kid. But, many people don’t realize that magnets are used in many systems and products in their everyday life.</p> <p>Today’s buildings and homes are equipped with intelligent technologies for safer, more convenient, and energy-efficient living. <a href="" target="_blank">Littelfuse</a> is a global leader in <a href="" target="_blank">magnetic sensing solutions</a>. Its <a href="" target="_blank">Building Automation</a> solutions help designers create Internet of Things (IoT) devices that improve the safety, reliability, convenience, and energy efficiency of buildings. Sensor solutions provide information related to tampering, position, speed, and temperature, among other variables. The following will cover three magnetic sensor technologies: reed, Hall effect, and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) related to applications in building automation.</p> <div> <h2>Magnetic Sensing Technologies</h2> </div> <p>Three leading magnetic sensor approaches include reed sensors, Hall effect devices, and TMR sensors.</p> <div> <h3>Reed</h3> </div> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Reed sensors</a> are reed switches packaged within an external housing for simplified mounting/connecting and additional protection against environmental influences (<strong>Figure 1</strong>). These sensors are typically mounted in mechanical systems. A bare reed switch can easily be mounted on circuit boards. However, for an application such as a door-security sensor, the reed switch needs a protective shell/housing for handling and mounting. These packages offer resistance to mechanical stress by protecting the bare glass of the reed switch. Reed sensors require zero power to operate. They can carry a load up to 100W and are available in NO, NC, CO in various sizes. The switches operate in X, Y, and Z sensing directions and are suitable for ultra-low-power battery applications. They can switch power level loads, incorporate the most mounting flexibility and exhibit stable operation over the widest range of temperatures.</p> <figure class="easyimage easyimage-full"><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Littelfuse Reed Switches_161655394.jpg" width="150" /> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1:</strong> Littelfuse reed switches operate in X, Y, & Z sensing directions and consume zero power to operate, making them suitable for ultra-low-power- battery applications. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <div> <h3>Hall effect</h3> </div> <p>A Hall effect device is a semiconductor-based integrated circuit with Hall plates that respond to magnetic fields (<strong>Figure 2</strong>). Hall effect technology enables sophisticated sensors used in various automotive, electronic, and industrial product applications. <a href="" target="_blank">Hall effect devices</a> provide digital or analog output signals used for proximity and continuous rotary or linear positioning. Unlike a reed switch, a Hall effect device contains active solid-state circuitry, so it draws current at all times. These devices are available in digital, analog, and programmable configurations and are well-suited for high-shock or high-vibration environments. They are reliable to billions of operations and suitable for angular position sensing and high-speed switching.</p> <figure class="easyimage easyimage-full"><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Littelfuse_55210 Flange Mount178251531.jpg" width="150" /> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 2</strong>: The image shows an example of a hall effect device, the <a href="" target="_blank">Littelfuse 55110</a> Flange Mount Hall Effect Sensor. Hall effect devices draw current at all times and are suitable for angular position sensing and high-speed switching. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <div> <h3>Tunneling Magnetoresistance (TMR)</h3> </div> <p>Tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) elements are a new type of magnetoresistance sensor. <a href="" target="_blank">TMR sensors</a> have better linearity, better temperature stability, higher sensitivity, and lower power consumption compared to Hall effect sensing technology available today (<strong>Figure 3</strong>). The sensors are solid-state devices with no moving parts. Like Hall effect, the sensors are available in digital and analog and require very little power to operate (lower even than that required of Hall effect sensors). Of the three magnetic sensors covered, they provide the highest level of sensitivity. They are eminently suitable for high-shock and high-vibration environments and offer reliability up to billions of operations. They also require the most miniature magnet needed to operate.</p> <figure class="easyimage easyimage-full"><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Littelfuse_TMR_186583802.png" width="400" /> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 3</strong>: The Littelfuse TMR Switch series has better linearity, better temperature stability, higher sensitivity, and lower power consumption compared to Hall effect technology. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <div> <h2>Little Design Prudence</h2> </div> <p>High-noise environments might require over-voltage (OV) protection. Both Hall effect and TMR sensors show sensitivity to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electrostatic discharge (ESD). Proximity to motors, generators, reactive circuit components, or long cable harnesses (>1m) can cause damage. Design engineers are cautioned to consider the appropriate device protections, including options such as <a href="" target="_blank">Littelfuse Transient Voltage Suppressor (TVS) Diodes</a> for high-noise or <a href="" target="_blank">Littelfuse SD05 Uni/Bidirectional TVS Diodes</a> for low-noise situations.</p> <p><em><small><strong>Table 1</strong>: Magnetic Sensing Application Examples</small></em></p> <style> .BlogTable5px th, .BlogTable5px td { padding: 5px; } </style> <table border="1" class="BlogTable5px" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width:600px"> <thead> <tr> <th scope="col">Application</th> <th scope="col">Example</th> <th scope="col">Best Technology</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Position: Battery Powered</td> <td>Door & window (open/close)</td> <td>Reed: Reed consumes zero current in the off state, ideal for ultra-low-power battery applications. Hall has significant current consumption.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Position: Non-battery powered</td> <td>Appliance door (open/close), lid detection</td> <td>Reed: Reed has the most mounting flexibility compared to Hall or TMR due to being omnipolar and able to sense in the x, y, and z-directions with one component. Reed is a two-wire device; while Hall and TMR are three-wires. If your sensor harness has long leads, there are high added costs to having an extra wire.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Flow rate: continuous</td> <td>Inlet in a tankless water heater</td> <td>Hall and TMR: Hall and TMR have faster switching capabilities in a smaller package with no wear-out mechanism.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Counting: rotation</td> <td>Gas or water meter</td> <td>Reed: Mounting flexibility and zero power consumption give reed an edge. TMR can be considered as well for its extra-long life and low-power consumption.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Counting: >500Hz</td> <td>Gear-tooth speed</td> <td>Hall and TMR: Hall and TMR can switch up to 15kHz, ideal for high-speed counting.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Level sensing: a single point</td> <td>Washing machine detergent level</td> <td>Reed: Reed has the most mounting flexibility compared to Hall or TMR. Reed is a two-wire device, while Hall and TMR are three-wires. If your sensor harness has long leads, there are high added costs to having an extra wire.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Relay</td> <td>Automated test equipment (ATE)</td> <td>Relay: Hall and TMR are not used in relay applications due to space issues of wrapping them in a coil.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <div> <h2>Building Metering and Security Applications</h2> </div> <p>Reed sensors have a clear advantage for anti-tamper applications. Reed sensors do not draw power and thus enable longer system battery life and provide 3D anti-tamper protection. In meter counting, reed is presently in the lead; however, TMR may make sense in some cases where battery life is not as important. Reed has a proven track record with 100M+ units in the field (and counting). Reed is the straightforward winner of indoor security applications. A changeover to reed sensors pays for itself in battery life and no service calls.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Today’s buildings and homes are equipped with intelligent technologies for safer, more convenient, and energy-efficient living. Littelfuse magnetic sensors are an attractive choice for control in building automation.</p> 1850Distributed Analytics Beyond the Cloud,Computing,IoT,SensorsFri, 18 Jun 2021 22:55:00 GMT<figure class="easyimage easyimage-full"><img alt="Distributed Analytics Theme Image" src="/blog/Portals/11/Byers_Distributed%20Analytics_Theme%20Image.jpg" width="600" /> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p><em>(Source: everything possible/</em></p> <p>Analytics is a very general term for correlating and digesting raw data to produce more useful results. Analytics algorithms could be as simple as data reduction or averaging on a stream of sensor readings, or as complex as the most sophisticated artificial intelligence or machine learning (AI/ML) systems. Today, analytics are commonly performed in the cloud because it is the most scalable and cost-effective solution. However, in the future, analytics will be increasingly distributed across the cloud, edge computing, and endpoint devices to take advantage of their improved latency, network bandwidth, security, and reliability. Here, we&rsquo;ll discuss some of the architectures and tradeoffs associated with distributing analytics beyond the boundaries of the traditional cloud.</p> <h2>How Distributed Analytics Adds Value</h2> <p>Simple analytics involve data reduction, correlation, and averaging, resulting in an output data stream much smaller than the input data. Consider the system that supplies fresh water to a large building. It might be valuable to know the pressures and flows at various points in the system to optimize the pumps and monitor the consumption. This could involve an array of pressure and flow sensors spread around the distribution piping. Software periodically interrogates the sensors, adjusts the pump settings, and creates a consumption report for the building managers. But, the raw readings from the sensors could be misleading&mdash;for example, a momentary pressure drop when a fixture is flushed. Analytics algorithms can average the readings from a given sensor over time and combine and correlate the readings from multiple sensors to create a more accurate and useful picture of the conditions in the pipes. All of these readings could be sent to analytics based in the cloud, but it would be a much more efficient architecture if the sensors did some of the averaging themselves, and local edge computers did the correlation and reporting. That&rsquo;s distributed analytics, and it can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and cost of many analytics systems.</p> <p>Analytics becomes more complicated when AI/ML techniques are employed. AI/ML usually operates in two phases:</p> <ul> <li>A model building phase where large amounts of data are distilled to produce a model for the AI/ML system</li> <li>An inference phase where that model is applied to data flowing in a system to generate the desired results, often in real-time</li> </ul> <p>In today&rsquo;s systems, the models are almost always built in large server farms or the cloud, often as an off-line process. Then, the resulting AI/ML models are packed and shipped to different systems that run the inference phase of the models on live data, generating the desired results. The inference phase can run in the cloud, but recently has been moving toward the edge to improve latency, network bandwidth, reliability, and security. Tradeoffs are worth considering when deciding which level of compute resource to use for each phase.</p> <h3>Inference Phase of AI/ML</h3> <p>The inference phase of AI/ML is relatively easy to distribute across multiple peer-level processors or up and down a hierarchy of processing layers. If the models are pre-computed, the data upon which the AI/ML algorithms operate can be split across multiple processors and operated on in parallel. Splitting the workload between multiple peer-level processors provides capacity, performance, and scale advantages because more compute resources can be brought to bear as the workload increases. It can also improve system reliability because adjacent processors are still available to complete the work if one processor fails. Inference can also be split between multiple levels of a hierarchy, perhaps with different parts of the algorithm operating on different levels of the processor. This allows the AI/ML algorithms to be split in logical ways, allowing each level of the hierarchy to perform the most efficient subset of the algorithm. For example, in a video analytics AI/ML system, the intelligence in the camera could perform adaptive contrast enhancement, hand off this data to edge computers to perform feature extraction, send it to neighborhood data centers to perform object recognition, and finally the cloud could perform high-level functions such as threat detection or heat-map generation. This can be a highly efficient partitioning.</p> <h3>Learning Phase of AI/ML Algorithms</h3> <p>The learning phase of AI/ML algorithms is harder to distribute. The problem is context size. To prepare a model, the AI/ML system takes large batches of training data and digests them with various complex learning-phase algorithms to generate a model that is relatively easy to execute in the inference phase. If only a portion of the training data is available on a given compute node, the algorithms will have trouble generalizing the model. That is why training is most often done in the cloud, where memory and storage are virtually unlimited. However, certain scenarios require the training algorithms to be distributed across multiple peer-level compute nodes or up and down the cloud-to-edge hierarchy. In particular, learning at the edge enables the learning process to collect lots of training data from nearby sensors, and act upon it without cloud involvement&mdash;which improves latency, reliability, security, and network bandwidth. Advanced distributed-learning algorithms are under development to address these challenges.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>AI/ML is an important future capability of nearly all electronic systems. Understanding the options for how the inference and training capabilities of these systems can be partitioned across a hierarchy of compute resources is key to our future success.</p> <p><em>The blog was written by Charles Byers and originally published in 2020. Mouser updated the blog in June 2021.</em></p> 1416Intel® NUC 8 Enables Higher Level Designs,Automation,Computing,Industrial,IoT,Motor Control,WirelessWed, 28 Apr 2021 16:43:43 GMT<h2 style="color:#aaa; font-style:italic; font-size:16px;">A View from the Top</h2> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Theme%20Image_Intel%20Nuc_300dpi_SPL.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 357px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><small><em>(Source: Mouser Electronics)</em></small></p> <p>Design engineers are faced with more technical challenges today than ever before. The depth of knowledge of modern-day designs encompasses many generations of encapsulated experience.</p> <p>The first personal computers used a single 8-bit microprocessor to drive a display, control removable and non-removable storage, scan a keyboard, decode a mouse, load, run, store, and debug programs, and communicate through I/O. In contrast, present-day single-chip multicore processor arrays can hold up to 1,100 processor cores that can perform 32- and 64-bit operations at GHz speeds. Also, the trillion-transistor wafer-scale technology level we have achieved makes it possible to do tasks that were unimaginable only a few years ago.</p> <div> <h2>Reusability, not Redesign</h2> </div> <p>We can no longer operate at the bit level when designing, coding, and instantiating complex functional blocks into designs. Instead, we use less granular and more sophisticated building blocks to create digital and mixed-signal structures. Each technological advance raises the bar. What once was leading-edge becomes another cut-and-paste element of our next design. Reusability, not redesign, is vital, and this approach extends to code. Using higher level integrated functional blocks systems elements that are well debugged and proven along with application-specific software coupled with well-documented and debugged drivers and APIs help glue the system design together into usable and reusable code regardless of whether using company proprietary generated code or open-source software as high-level blocks.</p> <p>As new designs become a copy-and-paste task, you no longer need to operate or understand the underlying workings. This happened with transistors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, and system boards. Smaller and leaner designing teams can leverage generations of expertise by designing at a more sophisticated level. In this blog, we explain how designing at a higher level using highly integrated, fully functional building blocks enable you to develop next-generation designs more efficiently.</p> <div> <h2>Board Level Justifications</h2> </div> <p>Many engineers like to create schematics, PCB layouts and watch as a new computer comes to life. While this micro-design approach might be an excellent learning opportunity for the DIYer, this would not be the preferred or recommended approach to a company&rsquo;s proprietary computer design. To reinvent the wheel means schematic entry, printed circuit board (PCB) layout, fab, test, debug, and code. Even if you make your boards, these are delicate prototypes, not hardened and rugged systems that can be put through their paces, especially for rugged or industrial designs. What is the alternative?</p> <p>Leveraging board-level functionality can save time and money when developing new, advanced products. Board-level computers are not a new concept. Going back to 8-bit Von Neumann processors, single-board computers have always been an option. Although simpler, they provided the same quick time-to-market and higher level springboard from which to launch your design.</p> <p>The complexity, flexibility, and completeness of modern-day single-board computers and stackable systems are new. It is not uncommon for modern designs to have hardwired Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi<sup>&reg;</sup>, <em>Bluetooth</em><sup>&reg;</sup>, removable SD storage, high-speed disk interfaces, high-speed memory, high-end multiple graphics ports, 3D imaging and capture, USB 2 and USB 3, and advanced user interfaces. What&rsquo;s crucial is an OEM high-level system solution such as the <a href="" target="_blank">Intel</a><sup>&reg; </sup><a href="" target="_blank">NUC 8</a>. The NUC 8 is a well-engineered, fully tested, ruggedized, fully documented OEM system that includes both live and self-service support tools.</p> <p>Offering more than just the system board, the Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> NUC family includes tight tolerance, ruggedized chassis that encompass the I/O and ports, and antennas for wireless standards such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This out-of-the-box Intel NUC Rugged Board and Chassis (Austin Beach) use both NUC 8 and 11 Compute Element that have a range of processors from Celeron up through Core i7 vPro.</p> <h3>Key Features of the Austin Beach - Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> NUC Rugged Board with the Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> NUC Rugged Chassis</h3> <ul> <li>Fanless, dust-resistant chassis with I/O board installed; preliminary IP50 rating</li> <li>Three design implementations: Expandable (<a href="" target="_blank">CMCR1ABA</a>), Dual LAN (<a href="" target="_blank">CMCR1ABB</a>), and Multi HDMI Board (CMCR1ABBC)</li> <li>Dual M.2 22x80 key M slots for PCIe x4 NVMe and SATA SSDs</li> <li>Two HDMI 2.0a with built-in CEC for all ports; 4-lane eDP on CMCR1ABB</li> <li>CMCR1ABA: support for dual 4k@60Hz via HDMI 2.0a (additional 4k@60 via eDP on board SKU)</li> <li>Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> Optane&trade; Memory H10 with Solid State Storage ready</li> <li>Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> i219-LM 10/100/1000 Mbps RJ45 Ethernet; 2nd Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> i211-AT GbE LAN on CMCR1ABB</li> <li>1x front and 2x rear USB 3.1 gen 2 type A ports, 1x internal USB 3.0 header</li> <li>Up to 7.1 multichannel (or dual 8-channel) digital audio via HDMI</li> <li>19V<sub>DC</sub> 90W power supply adapter with geo-specific AC cords</li> <li>VESA mounting plate included, with mechanical support for power supply adapter</li> <li>External dipole antennas</li> <li>Microsoft Windows* 10, Windows 10 IOT Enterprise, compatible with various Linux distros</li> </ul> <p>These items work in conjunction with your keyboard, mouse, and amplified sound system. Additionally, Lidar cameras can connect for 3D applications and even high-end gaming. The design makes these units ideal for factory-automation inspection systems, self-driving vehicles, kiosks, signage, and high-end embedded computers for virtually any application.</p> <p>These cost-effective units are certified to comply with international standards. These units also are backward and forward compatible as new generations emerge, and they support Windows, Linux, and real-time operations. With all these features, you can see how this is a win-win situation all around.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Design engineers face more technical challenges today than ever before. The in-depth knowledge needed to design a modern-day proprietary computer from scratch can be a daunting task and requires a considerable amount of time. The Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> NUC family of high-level modular compute elements enables design engineers to focus on innovation for next-generation products. The family features fully functional building blocks that are modular, easy-to-upgrade, scalable, rugged, backwards/forwards compatible, and compliant with international standards. Using the Intel<sup>&reg;</sup> NUC family, designers can achieve a faster time-to-market with less design, debug, fab, and test time through a trusted brand.</p> 1806Where Nanotechnology and Machine Learning Meet,Automation,Computing,Industrial,Memory,Robotics,SensorsFri, 09 Apr 2021 20:00:00 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Critchley_Nano%20ML%20Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source: BEST-BACKGROUNDS/</small></em></p> <p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to be used more and more across several industries, as it helps to make processes far more efficient. AI methods are becoming increasingly important as well as we move toward Industry 4.0 and more automated industrial systems. Among the many AI methods, machine learning (ML) has become one of the most popular. In addition to the various manufacturing, monitoring, computing, and process industries that are adopting machine learning algorithms, machine learning methods are being used in conjunction with nanotechnology&mdash;an area that is not as well documented as some others.</p> <p>Given that both AI and nanotechnology industries are still in relative infancy compared to some industries that have been going for well over a century, some challenges are still associated with both of these industries. Naturally, combining these two highly advanced industries also have challenges. They range from data methods being faster than the physical experiments, to a lack of effective communication between the relevant researchers in each industry about what each industry needs from the other&mdash;and how best to exploit both areas to produce optimized results.</p> <p>Nevertheless, with challenges come opportunities, and many opportunities are available at the interface of AI and nanotechnology. So, despite a few challenges, these could be overcome with relative ease, so let&rsquo;s look at some of the key emerging areas where machine-learning methods and nanotechnology are combining to produce effective results. These areas include analyzing large data sets, designing and discovering new nanomaterials, and developing more efficient hardware to power machine-learning algorithms.</p> <h2>Analyzing Large Data Sets</h2> <p>Analyzing, optimizing, and picking trends in large data sets is at the core of machine-learning methods, and this is something that can be applied to nanomaterials. This is developed in several ways.</p> <ul> <li>The first way is to analyze the data from various characterization instruments, such as when using spectroscopy methods and electron microscopy methods to characterize the nanomaterials&rsquo; properties. A combination of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used in conjunction with characterization instruments.</li> </ul> <p style="margin-left:.16in;">On the one hand, machine learning is used with spectroscopy to indicate very small changes in data sets that might not otherwise be noticeable. These small changes can actually correlate to changes in the chemical structure and morphology of the material being analyzed, which are two factors that can change the properties of the nanomaterial. So, the ability to identify such small changes is quite important.</p> <p style="margin-left:.16in;">On the other hand, machine learning is used with microscopy methods&mdash;specifically electron microscopes used to analyze nanomaterials, but machine-learning methods have also been used with optical microscopes for other types of materials. In this area, the output is an image with spatial correlations, and machine-learning methods can be used to detect small deviations from the norm, leading to a more accurate analysis of the material. This can also be applied beyond pure nanomaterial analysis to analyze the spatial features of biological features&mdash;such as using the shape and size of cells to determine which ones are cancerous. Although this is not strictly nanotechnology, many of the applied approaches to achieve to analyze these cells rely on nanomedicine approaches, so it is a closely related area.</p> <ul> <li>The second key way is to separate data sets of a characterization instrument. Many analytical methods tend to compress data, and machine learning can separate the different data signals from the analysis. This is important because data compression can lead to mixed signals developing, which can affect the results. So, machine learning can essentially be employed to nanomaterial analysis methods to act as a means of quality control and provide more accurate data outputs from the original data sets.</li> </ul> <h2>Designing and Discovering New Nanomaterials</h2> <p>One scientific area that has gathered a lot of interest in recent years is the ability to optimally design nanomaterials&mdash;as well as many other materials and chemicals&mdash;and find routes to produce new materials that might be better than the status quo. The need has been so great that it has led to many computational/theoretical fields developing&mdash;such as computational chemistry and biology&mdash;which has become more and more prevalent with the sharp increase in computing power over the last decade or so.</p> <p>Machine-learning methods are being employed because nanomaterials&rsquo; properties are much harder to predict than other materials because of quantum effects coming into play at such small scales. ANNs, deep neural networks (DNNs), and generative adversarial networks (GANs) have been utilized to analyze and optimize the many different parameters and properties possible at the nanoscale. These outputs can be rationalized and used to build up the best-possible solution for designing a new nanomaterial or the best way of optimizing an already existing nanomaterial. It&rsquo;s like an advanced version of computational chemistry/biology that can be used with materials that exhibit unique properties and phenomena. Such methods have been used to design and optimize a range of nanomaterials, including 2D materials, 2D material heterostructures, nanoscale catalysts, nanophotonic materials, and 1D materials, to name a few.</p> <h2>More Efficient Hardware</h2> <p>Although the above areas have focused on what machine learning can do for nanotechnology, this section is devoted to what nanotechnology can do for machine learning. The advanced nanofabrication and nanopatterning methods nowadays can create highly efficient and small computer hardware devices. These advanced computing components can then be utilized to provide more computational power, which can be used to power and sustain machine-learning algorithms.</p> <p>Besides being able to pattern existing nanoscale materials to make them more efficient, creating nanoelectronic devices enables traditional components to be much smaller, meaning that more components can be fabricated in a given area. A perfect example of this is nanoscale transistors&rsquo; development, as many more transistors can be fabricated onto a chip/hardware than with other bulkier transistors, enabling the speed and efficiency to be increased.</p> <p>The use of nanomaterials has also led to the development of novel transistor-based devices, such as memristors, which can &ldquo;act like a brain&rdquo; and store information&mdash;which remains stored when the power is removed. The ability to produce faster hardware and advanced components that can facilitate the &ldquo;brain-like&rdquo; behavior of machine learning and other AI algorithms will help to further implement machine-learning algorithms to more applications and industrial sectors.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>Despite the challenges within both industries and combining two high-tech industries together, many opportunities are possible by combining nanotechnology with AI methodologies, many of which are starting to gain interest. Machine-learning methods can be employed to better analyze nanomaterials and nanoscale biological materials, and aid in the effort to find new materials and the best routes to design nanomaterials optimally. Nanotechnology can also give back as well by providing more efficient hardware to power machine-learning algorithms. Overall, it&rsquo;s still a developing area, but it&rsquo;s a cross-over area with potential on many fronts.</p> 1772Precise Position Tracking Using Ultra-Wideband,Automation,Computing,Dev Tools,General,Industrial,IoT,RF,Sensors,WirelessMon, 15 Mar 2021 23:36:46 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Qorvo_UWB_shutterstock_453842350_theme%20image-min.png" style="width: 600px; height: 413px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source:</small></em></p> <p>Global positioning systems (GPS) technology changed the world. So too will ultra-wideband (UWB) position-tracking capabilities. In the following, we&rsquo;ll explore how UWB&rsquo;s fast updates, shorter latency, and 1cm accuracy will enable both Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices to be accurately tracked and combined with data in personal, public space, and industrial applications.</p> <div> <h2>First, a Little Background&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2> </div> <p>Younger generations might take it for granted, but people marvel today over GPS technology and its ability to resolve location as a navigational aid. Although initially a military technology to aid soldiers and Special Forces perform secret missions, its use today is so common that using traditional paper maps is no longer as common as it used to be.</p> <p>GPS kicked off in 1973, but it wasn&rsquo;t until 1993 that all 24 geosynchronous satellites were in place to support a real, usable correlatable global positioning system that required no transmitted signals from the user. This was particularly important to the military because it helps preserve the stealthy nature of many missions by eliminating traceable radio signals.</p> <p>The early worries that foreign forces could take advantage of US-developed GPS systems resulted in a program called selective availability, which limited resolution and effectiveness. Selective availability lasted around ten years while other countries created their global positioning systems, such as the Soviet GLONASS and the Chinese BeiDou system, and the European Galileo GPS. When selective availability was eliminated, GPS could achieve approximately 5m of positional accuracy, making it useful for the masses as a navigational aid while driving. With the merging of GPS into cellphones, continuous improvements in geolocation now allow GPS systems to get approximately a foot&mdash;or within 30cm&mdash;of spatial resolution.&nbsp;</p> <p>Cellphone towers allowed service providers to use signal strength, phase relationships between towers, and now Time of Flight (ToF) information that measures how long it takes for a signal to travel to the different towers in range. This triangulation technique enhances the position system accuracy, and modern-day devices can even use Wi-Fi<sup>&reg;</sup> beacons to help improve accuracy. The use of <em>Bluetooth</em><sup>&reg;</sup> and Wi-Fi even permits a few meters of positional accuracy with an indoor location. I tested this and found that when I overlaid my position on Google Earth maps, it not only told me whose house I was in, it also pinpointed to the exact room.</p> <p>Between GPS, cell tower data acquisition, beacons, and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth signaling,12 inches of resolution is great for many needs, but higher resolutions are coming because of technological advancements, new use of RF bands, and new applications of existing technology. Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) technology, which can provide detailed location data and position accuracy down to the 1cm resolution, is gaining a lot of traction. Called microlocation, we can now locate and find anything in real-time with centimeter accuracy because of UWB&rsquo;s ability to work across platforms and anchor itself into the world of wireless technology.</p> <div> <h2>Modern-Day UWB</h2> </div> <p>In the mid-2000s, IEEE began defining the UWB specification to enhance micro-positional system accuracy and real-time location services (RTLS) for multiple targets. UWB was chosen because it&rsquo;s secure and features high immunity to noise and spurious signals and is immune to multipath signal interference. The result is the IEEE 802.15.4a and 802.15.4z standards.</p> <p>Operating at 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz and using orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)&mdash;orthogonally closely spaced subcarriers with overlapping spectral characteristics that can carry data in parallel&mdash;UWB can penetrate nonmetallic walls and floors and does not have to be in the line of sight like 5G. Also known as pulse radio (2nsec wide high amplitude 500MHz band bursts of data), UWB rides above a noise floor and presents an easily accessible signal to recover and decode compared with narrowband (<strong>Figure 1</strong>).</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Figure%201_UWB%20with%20Noise.png" style="width: 236px; height: 206px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1</strong>: &nbsp;High-amplitude pulse radio signals of UWB typically ride above the noise floor, even in the presence of other RF communications. (Source: Qorvo)</small></em></p> <p>UWB also provides much more reliable, secure, and real-time data than GPS technologies. UWB position data can be updated 1,000 times per second, which is 50 times faster than satellite navigation systems.</p> <p>Because of the accuracy of ToF measurements and the wide bandwidth, multiple devices can be communicating and tracked simultaneously without interference. This can help eliminate the stadium effect that limits performance in densely populated areas, such as Wi-Fi in stadiums. This also allows UWB to be embedded in a slew of new devices aimed at IoT and automation technologies inside houses, apartments, factories, and public locations such as airport terminals. Imagine looking at your phone to find where your friends are in a huge airport or where your gate is when changing planes.</p> <p>Already, cellphone makers and industrial equipment makers are working together in the <a href="" target="_blank">FIRa Consortium</a> to smooth out protocol definitions and eliminate interoperability issues. Apple and Samsung are among the first to integrate UWB into their new phones. The consortium is architecting the structure to support hierarchal aggregated access points that use initiator and responder sequences to minimize latency (<strong>Figure 2</strong>). Personal area networks can use anchors in a fixed location to support aggregation, gateway functions, routing functions, and a peer-to-peer handoff to adjacent access points for a seamless transition from one location to another. In addition to public-access locations where fixed and mobile nodes are in play, UWB technology is also suitable for industrial functions. Industrial sites can use UWB tags to track assets and inventory, locate items on a conveyor, and even send critical data such as the temperature of a container that holds a vaccine.</p> <p>The UWB technology allows virtually any sensor, actuator, fixed or mobile, to coexist within a given volume with mobile devices that move from volume space to volume space. This includes access to cloud-based services that can typically devote more processing resources and artificial intelligence (AI) to critical tasks such as self-driving vehicles, delivery robots, self-functioning agricultural systems, drones, contact tracing, and even patient-location-monitoring for dementia and Alzheimer patients in a care facility.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Figure%202_UWB%20nodes%20in%20Public%20Spaces.png" style="width: 600px; height: 362px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 2:</strong> Public spaces can be loaded with UWB nodes that function together to weave a personal area network for public spaces. (Source: Qorvo)</small></em></p> <div> <h2>UWB Products and Toolkits</h2> </div> <p>For designers interested in implementing a UWB system, there are tools and components at their disposal to help teach the technology, provide reference hardware, firmware designs, and help ensure that the system is compliant with industry standards.</p> <p>Based on the <a href="">DW1000</a> UWB transceiver IC and compliant to IEEE802.15.4-2011, the DWM1001C UWB Transceiver Module supports data rates up to 6.8Mbits/sec. DWM1004C integrates a UWB and <em>Bluetooth</em><sup>&reg;</sup> antenna, all RF circuitry, Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 MCU, and a 3-axis accelerometer. Each mode can be configured as an RTLS anchor or tag and additionally can act as a network gateway device.</p> <p>UWB demo and development tools specifically aimed at position and distance measurement are in production in addition to antennas and signal-conditioning components. The <a href="" target="_blank">Qorvo</a>&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">MDEK1001 Development Kit</a> is a great starting point to get a feel of an RTLS system. The MDEK1001 Development Kit provides designers with the necessary hardware, software, and development environment to quickly evaluate Qorvo&#39;s UWB technology for use in a scalable RTLS. The kit includes 12 DWM1001-DEV development boards, which can be configured as an anchor, tag, or bridge node.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/MDEK1001%20Development%20Kit.png" style="width: 600px; height: 436px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 3:</strong> The Qorvo&nbsp;MDEK1001 Development Kit enables designers to quickly evaluate Qorvo&#39;s UWB technology for use in a scalable RTLS.</small></em></p> <p>The <a href="" target="_blank">DWM1001-DEV Module Development Board</a> evaluates the performance of the DWM1001 module.&nbsp;Designers can use the DWM1001-DEV Module Development Board to assemble and evaluate an RTLS, including anchors, tags, and gateways without developing any hardware or writing a single line of code.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Just like the introduction of GPS changed the world, highly accurate UWB position-sensing technology is on the cusp of doing the same thing. As interoperability gets more refined and as tags get smaller and cheaper, you might never lose your keys again.</p> 1735Power over Ethernet Pushes Forward,Automation,Computing,Connectors,Dev Tools,IoT,Power,Security,SensorsFri, 12 Mar 2021 05:01:00 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Microchip%20mPoE_Theme%20Image_shutterstock_1335924944.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source: Jakub Krechowicz/</small></em></p> <p>Power over Ethernet (PoE) evolved in response to the growing need for fast, cost-effective network communication among powered devices (PD). The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) developed safety standards to support the devices sharing a network connection.&nbsp;The IEEE has ratified and supported several versions of the standards since 2003. For slower 10 Base-T at 10Mbps and 100 Base-TX at 100Mbps transport, only two of the four Category 5 (CAT5) twisted pairs are used for signaling, leaving the other two twisted pairs to be used for transporting power to the end device (<strong>Figure 1</strong>).</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/2%20Twisted%20Pairs.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 211px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1</strong>:&nbsp; The Data Delivery Over Two Pairs diagram illustrates a two-pair power connection. Power is delivered on the red pair only, while all four pairs can deliver data. (Source: Microchip)</small></em></p> <p>Variant standards use the typically unused wires (Variant B) for power and ground. At the same time, Variant A rides the signal over power such as the -48 volts used in phantom power for audio condenser microphones. This clever technique biases each twisted pair with a voltage differential. This allows power to be extracted without interfering with the signals, which are differential relative to each voltage potential.</p> <p>4PPoE, another shifting standard, uses all four twisted pairs for power and permits higher levels of power for more than just electronics, including motorized cameras, emergency lighting sources, vent actuators, relays, and pumps (<strong>Figure 2</strong>).</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/4%20Twisted%20Pairs.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 228px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 2</strong>: The Data Delivery Over Four Pairs diagram illustrates a four-pair power connection with power delivered over all eight wires. (Source: Microchip)</small></em></p> <p>It is interesting to note that PoE is not the first powered networking technology. Decades ago, RS-232-based networking schemes used 4-wire RJ-11 cabling to supply transmit/receive and rectified AC over long distances. The rectified AC looked like AC so as not to be limited by cable impedance, and all had a common ground reference for the NRZ (Non-Return-to-Zero) signaling.</p> <h2><strong>Why Wire?</strong></h2> <p>With Wi-Fi<sup>&reg;</sup>, <em>Bluetooth</em><sup>&reg;</sup>, Zigbee, ultra-wideband (UWB), and so many other wireless protocols available that have a proven track record of effectiveness, why would anyone want a wired connection? Foremost, not every remote location that needs to be controlled or monitored has access to power. Buried sensors and actuators in a building can be in crawl spaces, attics, inside vents, and even locations where people cannot fit. A self-contained powered and wired connection might be the only solution. Likewise, critical systems such as emergency lighting might lose main power but still can operate on the PoE power. This is especially critical during emergencies such as in skyscrapers where lighting is maintained in escape stairwells. A wired connection is much harder to defeat because wireless can more easily be jammed. This is an important consideration in any security system.</p> <h2><strong>The Latest Standard Is IEEE 802.3bt</strong></h2> <p>Early 2003 802.3af standards could source 15.4W, which is plenty of power for embedded, buried, and distributed sensor systems. Cameras, internet protocol (IP) phones, and access points for wireless LANs also took advantage of this. The 2009 IEE standard allowed up to 30W per cable run, opening the door for potentially more power-hungry applications such as user-interface terminals and low-level lighting. Loud sound and siren systems were now also feasible.&nbsp;</p> <p>The latest IEEE standard ratified in 2018 is gaining traction and ups the ante to 60W for the 802.3bt type 3-class devices and 90W for the 802.3bt type 4-class devices. This not only provides power for single-port endpoint applications but also allows remote multi-port implementations, each capable of supplying power that can accumulate up to the 90W of the multi-port switch. This can also allow solenoids, motors, and other electromechanical functions such as emergency door opening or locking cockpit systems.</p> <h2><strong> PoE Meet USB-3C</strong></h2> <p>Interfaces between PoE and USB-3C are becoming more popular with the latest PoE and USB standards. This could allow laptops, tablets, and more sophisticated user interfaces to connect to a wired network that provides power and data for use and recharging.</p> <p>There is more to this than meets the eye. Bridges between wired PoE ports to USB-3C ports could change how data flow is architected, even in houses and apartments. Although Wi-Fi is easy, the more people and devices trying to compete for the same airspace can introduce lag times and performance degradation. Takeaway data hogs such as streaming TVs from the Wi-Fi space and usable performance can return to heavily congested traffic areas like apartment buildings. With wired USB-3C ports, handheld devices, fixed-function units such as whole-house A/V distribution user interface, cloud, and IoT devices have more access to charger ports.</p> <p>Many buildings already have Ethernet wiring in place, along with switches and even routers. Using this internet and cloud connectivity, as well as the backbone for re-architecting data flow and preserving the use of legacy systems, is important for using standard functions and limiting choices for who uses proprietary enhancements to the standards. If a piece of equipment adheres to the present standards, and as long as new equipment preserves backward compatibility with legacy systems, then your network can optimize data flow and performance.</p> <div> <h2>&nbsp;Microchip mPoE Lineup</h2> </div> <p>Microchip&rsquo;s multi-Power over Ethernet (mPoE) technology seamlessly and efficiently powers wired network devices, making it the ideal solution for Ethernet-based applications. Leveraging a uniquely designed algorithm, mPoE enables backward compatibility with pre-standard devices while supporting all IEEE<sup>&reg;</sup> PoE standards. Microchip mPoE is an excellent solution for traditional network devices such as IP phones, Wireless Access Points (WAPs), IP surveillance cameras, 5G small cells, LoRa<sup>&reg;</sup> gateways, LED luminaires, access control terminals, and other IoT devices.</p> <p>Designing flexible, scalable, and reliable future-proof networks capable of accommodating business growth is essential. As the industry adopts the latest generation of PoE technology for managing data and power over a single Ethernet cable, companies face the challenge of making pre-standard PDs work alongside new IEEE 802.3bt-compliant PDs in a single Ethernet infrastructure. Microchip&rsquo;s Power Source Equipment (PSE) chipsets with mPoE enable both pre-standard and IEEE-compliant devices to work together on the same network. The PoE injectors/midspans and PoE switches implement this unique technology to allow quick and simple deployment of Microchip mPoE in any network without changing existing switches or cabling. Microchip mPoE solves interoperability issues between different PoE standards and legacy solutions to provide an international network power standard.</p> <p>Microchip mPoE supports PoE 1, PoE 2, PoE+, IEEE 802.3af/at/bt, legacy af/at, 12.5K, UPoE, Class 4 60W, and PoH standards concurrently. This innovative technology enables flexible and quick network design upgrades to address business requirements. Microchip mPoE offers the scalability and interoperability necessary to power IoT networks not only today but well into the future.</p> <h3>Featured Products</h3> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Microchip</a>&nbsp;provides several configurations of single-port plug-and-play PoE 802.3bt modules for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) into mid-span 60W applications in Japanese, European, and American standards. Supporting 10/100 and 1G speeds, the single RJ45 connector delivers 60W. With legacy support and models such as the outdoor-ready <a href="" target="_blank">PD-9501GCO IP67 Single-Port PoE Midspan</a> primed to use off-the-shelf, infrastructure can be easily built into new and existing structures supporting these enhanced capabilities and advantages. Multi-port off-the-shelf solutions are also ready to embrace. Units such as the <a href="" target="_blank">PDS-408G PoE Switches</a> are 8-port PoE BT switches with up to 1G speeds and delivering up to 480W.</p> <p>Designers can&nbsp;use the Microchip controllers to design their integrated Ethernet, USB, mixed-signal devices, and even leverage experience with past Ethernet designs to incorporate PoE advantage of PoE Power switch devices such as the <a href="" target="_blank">PD69208 Ethernet ICs</a> (<strong>Figure 3</strong>). Development kits such as the <a href="" target="_blank">PD70xx &amp; PD-Imxx PoE Development Tools</a> can ease designers new to this technology into a rapid, low-cost, low-risk way of testing, evaluating, and developing with this technology.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Typical%20PoE.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 295px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 3</strong>: Adding Power over Ethernet to conform to 802.3bt specifications is simplified using power switch parts and isolation. (Source: <a href="" target="_blank">Microchip</a>)</small></em></p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Wired Ethernet provides secure, reliable connections for an increasing number of PDs. Since adopting the first PoE standard in 2003, PoE use dramatically increased and made headway into new applications. The main limiting factor affecting PoE use in new applications is the amount of available power. Although 15.4W at the power source is sufficient for most IP phones and 802.11a/b/g access points, it does not meet the demand for an even higher power to support additional devices, such as PTZ security cameras, kiosks, POS terminals, thin client, 802.11ac and 802.11ax access points, small cells, and connected LED lighting, The latest itineration of the standard, IEEE 802.3bt, enables delivery of 90W over four pairs of CAT5e cables and above.</p> <p>Microchip&rsquo;s mPoE technology powers any wired network device seamlessly and efficiently leveraging a uniquely designed algorithm. This technology enables backward compatibility with pre-standard devices while supporting all IEEE PoE standards. mPoE supports PoE 1, PoE 2, PoE+, IEEE 802.3af/at/bt, legacy af/at, 12.5K, UPoE, Class 4 60W and PoH standards concurrently. This versatile technology enables flexible and quick network design upgrades to address ever-evolving business requirements.</p> 1736How AR and VR are Reconstructing the Landscape,Automation,Computing,IoTSat, 06 Mar 2021 04:00:00 GMT<p><img alt="Theme Image" src="/blog/Portals/11/Poornmia_AVVR_shutterstock_556824226-min.png" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="Theme Image" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source: supparsorn/</small></em></p> <p>A perfect storm had been brewing in the construction industry for years. But advanced technologies, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), are emerging rays of sunshine.</p> <p>On the one hand, the construction industry had struggled with the adoption of digital technologies. More than half the construction/engineering professionals surveyed for a 2018 study reported in an article titled <em>CMAA: Construction&#39;s Still Lagging in Tech Adoption</em> said their organization lacked a clear digital business vision. On the other hand, industries such as construction and manufacturing, are facing a shortage of skilled labor. Ninety-four percent of respondents in a survey for the <a href="" target="_blank">2019 USG + U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index</a> found that finding construction workers were either difficult (54 percent) or moderately difficult (40 percent).</p> <p>Although such a combination of factors could spell trouble, the construction industry fortunately follows in manufacturing&rsquo;s footsteps in accelerating its adoption of advanced technologies. The pandemic might have rebooted the narrative. Market Research Future Report predicts that the construction industry technology market&rsquo;s size will exceed $2.7 billion (USD) by 2023.</p> <p>AR and VR are two of the many advanced technologies that will work in concert with others, such as cloud-based building information modeling (BIM), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), to revolutionize how construction projects are designed and executed.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s how AR and VR can help the construction (and manufacturing) industries do more with less.</p> <div> <h2>Accelerate Project Completion</h2> </div> <p>Whereas the construction industry used to work with 2D blueprints, BIM delivers blueprints in 3D. It&rsquo;s not just the 3D delivery format that&rsquo;s exciting, it&rsquo;s that BIM preserves the relationship between different design elements so when one changes, the others recalculate automatically. Newer versions of BIM also facilitate cloud-sharing so all stakeholders, including those involved in the approval process, can access the models, add their updates, and understand interdependencies. Construction industry professionals use AR to superimpose imagined/designed models against the real ones. Because AR allows users to overlay the ideal scenario over what&rsquo;s on the ground, it&rsquo;s easy to compare and contrast and see the missing pieces.</p> <p>Engineers, for example, can detect where clashes between various elements occur and avoid them before the design process moves much further along. BIM models can also be exported into devices such as the Microsoft HoloLens for VR walkthroughs of models. Construction companies no longer need to build physical models of potential structures. Simply fit the client with a VR headset, and they can tour the site before it&rsquo;s done. AR and VR help professionals save time and money, which is especially vital when large infrastructure projects are increasingly compressed and frequently short on funding.</p> <div> <h2>Train Employees</h2> </div> <p>Each construction site or manufacturing plant floor varies&mdash;and it can even change day-to-day. Understanding hazards and knowing how to deal with them is a crucial aspect of employee training. Although manufacturing and construction industries once had employees sit through endless days of training to understand how to work with the tools of the trade, training and hazard detection are getting smarter because of AR.</p> <p>Instead of modeling every hazard scenario, employees can use tutorials through AR apps on mobile devices to walk through construction sites and be trained on what is and what isn&rsquo;t hazardous. Employees can even dig deeper and click on pictures on the tablet to get more in-depth information about proper safety protocols to follow.</p> <p>On the manufacturing plant floor, rugged mobile devices situated by machines can hold AR tutorials that train employees on proper operating procedures. Such live on-the-ground training helps workers understand how the various parts function while on the floor instead of being trained away from the action. Employees can also check off training steps and access digital versions of manuals if they need further information.</p> <div> <h2>Access Expert Assistance</h2> </div> <p>Skilled labor in both construction and manufacturing is in short supply. It&rsquo;s also expensive. AR helps companies use expensive experts judiciously. When machines malfunction, workers on the plant floor can collaborate with remote experts through video calls on tablets and use AR apps to highlight problem areas. The expert and the worker can both be on the same page and troubleshoot more effectively. Companies save time and labor that might otherwise have been wasted in both costly machine downtime and having the expert travel to the location.</p> <p>AR apps also help field service technicians connect to experts while on the road helping these technicians deliver better customer service. The end goal through these technologies is a decrease in time and improved outcomes while keeping costs low.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>In both construction and manufacturing, AR and VR drive collaboration and increase accuracy in fields that have notoriously labored under the weight of antiquated systems. The low-hanging fruit&ndash;the switch from 2D to 3D, from pen and paper to electronic systems&ndash;is already underway. Expect AR and VR to play an even greater role in these industries, especially as black swan events such as the pandemic have highlighted the necessity of staying nimble despite the profound change.</p> 1726New Tech Tuesdays: 3 Products That Keep Modern Industrial Automation Humming,Automation,General,Industrial,New Tech Tuesdays,Power,Robotics,SensorsTue, 02 Mar 2021 06:01:00 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/NewTechTuesdaysWTommy1_1.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 216px;" title="" /></p> <div> <h2>New Tech Tuesdays</h2> </div> <h3><em>Join journalist and Mouser technical content specialist Tommy Cummings for a weekly look at all things interesting, new, and noteworthy for design engineers.</em></h3> <p>Keeping modern industrial automation humming&mdash;from maintaining assembly lines running to managing power distribution&mdash;requires a multitude of products for businesses of all sizes. Manufacturers continually strive to create and refine products that will enhance productivity and safety while controlling costs. Maintaining automation standards means better customer service, the lifeblood for manufacturers in a competitive environment. This means increasing and upgrading quality, flexibility, and data analysis collection in the manufacturing process and building on the productivity gains associated with automation, including robots and collaborative robots.</p> <p>With so many moving parts, it&rsquo;s a process that seems to have no end.</p> <p>Robots and cobots are significant to industrial automation&rsquo;s progression. The evolution of <a href="" target="_blank">Industry 4.0</a> has room for humans and bots working together on the factory floor. A 2017 <a href="" target="_blank">International Federation of Robotics&rsquo; positioning paper</a> maintains that automation and the ongoing development of robotics have a positive impact on employment, job quality, and wages.</p> <p>To accomplish this progression, automation developers require a diverse array of parts&mdash;sensors providing raw data and feedback, control systems, programmable logic, connected embedded devices. This week&#39;s New Tech Tuesdays highlights three of those products available to keep the industrial hum &hellip; humming.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/21-0672_HEADER_NTT-IndustrialAutomation.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 315px;" title="" /></p> <div> <h2>From Actuators to Switch Gear to Position Sensor</h2> </div> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Trinamic PD42-1-1243-IOLINK PANdrive&trade; IO-Link&trade; Actuator</a> enables smart factories to remotely adjust an actuator&#39;s electrical characteristics to minimize factory downtime and maximize throughput. The device combines a NEMA-17 stepper motor with a controller and driver electronics. The actuator monitors 50 percent more configuration and performance parameters to reduce commission times and improve predictive maintenance data quality. It might be small (2.6x smaller than its competitors), but it incorporates motion-control technology into a plug-and-play solution.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Omron Industrial Automation J7 Low-Voltage Switch Gear</a> is ideal for motor application solutions in every industry and conforms to space-saving control panel design&#39;s main safety standards. The Push-In Plus-style gear connects J7KC Magnetic Contactor, J7MC Manual Motor Starters, J7KC / J7KCA Industrial Relays, and the J7TC Thermal Overload Relay. The metal-enclosed switch gear is a three-phase power distribution product designed to safely, efficiently, and reliably supply power at voltages up to 1kV and current up to 6kA.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Bourns HES38U-RS485 Hybrid Position Sensor</a> is designed for heavy-duty industrial applications requiring long cycle life and high reliability. The Bourns sensor comes in the form of a 6mm-diameter slotted shaft that provides position feedback on automated manufacturing robotics, 3D imaging, pneumatic control valves, draw wires, actuator motors, and electric linear actuators. Available in a servo mount configuration, the sensor is durable with a rotational life of up to 5 million shaft revolutions.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Industrial automation is regarded as the second step beyond mechanization in the scope of industrialization. For designers and developers, the human element means keeping up with a lot of diverse moving parts&mdash;from actuators to switch gears to sensors&mdash;to consider in maintaining the hum of the industrial automation machine.</p> 1704How Being Bold Brings Smart Automation Solutions,Automation,Industrial,IoT,Sensors,WirelessThu, 21 Jan 2021 06:01:00 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/DeAngelis_Smart%20Automation%20Solutions_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 361px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em>(Source: Zapp2Photo/</em></p> <div> <h2>Industry 4.0 Smart Factories</h2> </div> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Industry 4.0</a> smart factories require design attention to realize smarter, faster, and lower power solutions. This transformation shift in the economic activity concerned with processing raw materials and manufacturing goods in factories is achieved by digitizing value, products, services, and business models. Industry 4.0 relies on technology, including the <a href="" target="_blank">Internet of Things (IoT)</a>. IoT enables the connection of cyber-physical systems through wireless connectivity and smart sensors.</p> <div> <h2>Maxim Advanced Factory Automation Solutions</h2> </div> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Maxim Integrated</a> provides a portfolio of advanced factory automation solutions that create pathways toward achieving Industry 4.0. At the heart of this revolution is Maxim&rsquo;s <a href="" target="_blank">IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup>,</a> which enables flexible manufacturing to improve factory throughput and operational efficiency. Maxim&rsquo;s IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup> new communications technology allows traditional sensors to become intelligent sensors. IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup> is a 3-wire industrial communications standard designed for linking sensors and actuators into control networks. IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup> enables flexible manufacturing to improve factory throughput and operational efficiency. In IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup> applications, the transceiver acts as the physical layer interface to a microcontroller running the data-link layer protocol while supporting 24V digital inputs and outputs. Maxim transceivers support all IO-Link<sup>&reg;</sup> specifications.</p> <div> <h2>Bold Steps Bring Smart Automation Solutions</h2> </div> <p>In spring 2019, Maxim Integrated Chief Executive Officer Tunc Doluca released his first book titled <em>Maximum Impact: Maxim&#39;s Quiet Rise as Silicon Valley&#39;s Most Prolific Analog Chip Maker</em>. This book chronicles Maxim&#39;s founders, along with the company&#39;s growth over the past 37 years. The Maxim story parallels the passion, inspiration, and innovation woven into the fabric of Silicon Valley.</p> <p>This fabric provides the &quot;it&quot; factor for a company to set itself apart in the industry and gain the necessary momentum to succeed. The most successful companies set themselves apart from the pack with their fearless approach to challenging the status quo, their ability to execute their strategy, and their drive to return shareholder value.</p> <p>The Go-IO&nbsp;development platform introduced at electronica at Munich in November 2018 is an example of delivering on this promise of delivering industrial solutions. This platform demonstrated Maxim&#39;s latest digital IO, power, and IO-Link technology by&nbsp;implementing an industrial IoT solution to control and monitor Maxim&#39;s soccer ball factory on the show floor using real-time health and status information delivered by these technologies. However, an <em>EE Times</em> editor from Japan asked during Maxim&rsquo;s pre-electronica 2018 press tour: &quot;How does this ultra-small Go-IO module support analog IO?&quot; At the time, the reality was that a Maxim team had developed a new analog IO IC we decided to secretly road-test on Go-IO modules. The modules were used to control the soccer ball factory for four days while processing over 1,000 soccer balls for 10 hours each day. The result is a software-configurable analog IO solution that proved it was up to the challenge. It delivered to the cloud thousands of cycles of vibration, temperature, and IC diagnostic data during the show.</p> <p>At electronic, that same <em>EE Times</em> editor was shown the Go-IO module in operation controlling the soccer ball factory and delivering diagnostic data about the health and status of the factory to the cloud. During the demonstration, he noticed the previously empty 9mm x 9.5mm gold footprint was now populated with a new IC that was masked so no one could see the part marking. This part was the new software-configurable analog IO solution that was being road-tested in a soccer ball factory on the Maxim Integrated booth floor. Over those four days at electronica, Maxim gained performance insights by battle-testing the new software-configurable analog IO solution.</p> <p>Maxim also announced a software-configurable universal analog IO solution called <a href="" target="_blank">MAX22000</a>.&nbsp;This platform solution can operate as an independent 4x 24-bit universal analog input and a 1x 18-bit universal analog output or, when combined with Maxim&rsquo;s configurable digital IO companion solution <a href="" target="_blank">MAX14914A</a>, it provides a true universal IO port that can operate over a common single 2-wire interface or support 4-wire RTD temperature / TC operation. This product supports the bipolar operation and requires &lt; 200mW of current for the complete single-channel universal analog IO + digital IO solution. This complete, compact, single-channel universal IO design requires &lt; 0.5 cubic inch of space and provides low-power operation to enable customers to pack eight software-configurable universal IO channels in a 3in x 5in x 0.25in size space (&lt; 4 cubic inches).</p> <p>Achieving this new level of true 2-wire configurability provides process automation installers a common universal IO port that eliminates all wire marshaling burdens and the need to match the sensor to the correct IO port or module, as existing solutions require. Because the <a href="" target="_blank">MAX22000</a> can determine whether an analog sensor is a current or voltage mode sensor, this eliminates the need for a technician to physically re-wire ports. As a result, this reduces installation costs and provides an easy way to accommodate expansion needs over a facility&rsquo;s lifetime by simply using these new universal ports on an industrial controller to adapt to any analog input, analog output, digital input, or digital output sensor on command.</p> <p>Maxim&rsquo;s universal analog IO solution is an example of how Maxim Integrated helps designers solve their industrial application challenges.</p> <p><small>The <a href="" rel="noreferrer nofollow"><em>How Being Bold Brings Smart Automation Solutions</em></a> blog was written by Jeff DeAngelis and updated by Mouser Electronics.</small></p> 1679Precision Motion Control Enables Automation,Automation,Motor ControlFri, 15 Jan 2021 02:00:00 GMT<p>&nbsp;<img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Maxim_Trinamic_Theme%20Image_1.jpg" style="width: 285px; height: 124px;" title="" />&nbsp;<img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Medical%20Robotics%20Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 285px; height: 124px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source: PopTika/ {left] MAD.vertise/ [right])</small></em></p> <p>The world of automation exists in four dimensions: height, width, depth, and time. When the equipment must place an object in an exact location precisely, it requires motion control&mdash;the control of position, speed, and acceleration. Fabricating objects for specialized applications leverages the precision and reliability of motion control more than most other disciplines.</p> <p>When digital information transforms into precise physical motion, previously infeasible use cases suddenly become possible. This improvement delivered Industry 4.0 to applications such as advanced robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), battery-powered medical devices, additive manufacturing, and prosthetics. Each of these applications requires high precision in the control of the manufacturing equipment. As a result, turning digital information into physical motion and accurate part placement for these applications requires more than just transferring data into movement.</p> <p>In the following, we&rsquo;ll discuss precision motion control, review medical and industrial automation applications needs, and highlight high-performance Trinamic product recommendations in each area.</p> <h2><strong>Precision Motion Control</strong></h2> <p>Precision motion control uses stepper motors to guide the active machine components&rsquo; position. Open-loop systems employ a stepper motor, which converts the electric control signal into a precise rotational position for the shaft. For higher-precision uses, engineers incorporate a check feature to measure the shaft&rsquo;s position. The measurement device sends dimensional data back to the controller to compare with the setpoint, allowing variance correction. The two-way communication is termed closed-loop.</p> <p>CNC machining is one of the most well-known applications that benefit from advanced-precision motion control, but 3D printing and desktop manufacturing also benefit from tighter tolerances. Inspection equipment that feeds information back to the controller, pick and place machines, and automated assembly lines are three of the other segments that benefit from high-precision motion control.</p> <p>With precision motion control, labs run more smoothly, and warehouses experience additional increases in operational efficiency. Simultaneously, this control improves product cost elements driven by inefficiencies, such as:</p> <ul> <li>Heat loss and power consumption</li> <li>Resonance</li> <li>Audible noise</li> <li>Diagnostics without sensors</li> <li>Battery life</li> </ul> <p>The <a href="" target="_blank">Trinamic Motion Control</a> Architecture consists of functional building blocks. The motor controller (or motion controller) receives commands over a selected interface in a defined protocol. The tasks are translated into signals for the motor control and driver part. For ease of integration into the application&rsquo;s firmware, the code exports in Trinamic&rsquo;s format or C. Read on to learn about Triminic&rsquo;s recommended products for medical and industrial automation applications.</p> <div> <h2>High-Precision Applications</h2> </div> <p>Trinamic developed products that address the performance issues in medical and industrial automation.</p> <h3>Medical</h3> <p>Medical devices, such as pumps and ophthalmic devices, need precise control at low speeds. Applications ranging from tissue analysis to blood centrifugation and liquid handling provide opportunities for a solution to low-speed, minimal-vibration precision. Trinamic technology provides current loops that are nearly perfect sine waves to address excessive vibration. The smooth curves limit vibrations that would hinder tolerances. Inefficient current conversion in the motor leads to temperature rise in the component, creating a system failure or automatic shutoff event. Furthermore, tweaking the acceleration profile can allow system operators to improve precision and smooth out machine component movements.</p> <p>Below are Trinamic product recommendations ideal for the respective medical applications:</p> <ul> <li>Tissue analysis: <a href="" target="_blank">TMCM-3110</a> (3-axis for sensorless load dependent current control) (<strong>Figure 1</strong>)</li> <li>Blood centrifugation: TMCM-1636 (1-axis for 3-phase BLDC motors)</li> <li>Liquid handling: <a href="" target="_blank">TMCM-6110</a> (6-axis for sensorless load dependent current control)</li> </ul> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/tmcm-3110_updated.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 224px;" title="" /><br /> <em><strong>Figure 1</strong>: </em><em>The TMCM-3110 is a triple axis stepper motor controller/driver module for sensorless load dependent current control. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</em></p> <p>Ensuring precise, low-speed, smooth operation is the key to motion control in medical device automation. With a range of solutions from sophisticated chips to smart motors, Trinamic&rsquo;s motion control solutions are customizable and flexible to applications in this space.</p> <h3>Industrial</h3> <p>Productivity and throughput drive product development for industrial applications. As motion control improves, Trinamic&rsquo;s advanced diagnostics and interconnected drives enable an intelligent factory. The technology is robust enough to apply to standalone applications to networks by creating building blocks that system designers can use to build the most efficient, customized solution for their needs.</p> <p>3D printing, robotics, and factory automation are three applications that require precision automation. Trinamic products that serve these use cases are:</p> <ul> <li>3D printing: <a href="" target="_blank">TMC2209</a> (ultra-silent motor driver integrated circuit for 2-phase stepper motors)</li> <li>Robotics: <a href="" target="_blank">TMC5160</a> (high-power stepper motor controller) (<strong>Figure 2</strong>)</li> <li>Factory Automation: <a href="" target="_blank">TMC262</a> (integrated stepper motor)</li> </ul> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/TMC5160.png" style="width: 300px; height: 218px;" title="" /></p> <p><strong><em>Figure 2: </em></strong><em>The TMC5160 combines a flexible ramp generator for automatic target positioning with industries&rsquo; most advanced stepper motor driver. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</em></p> <p>The products above address significant challenges with industrial applications. 3D printing is notoriously loud, disrupting activities happening near the operation. TMC2209 smooths the sine waves and enables quiet part fabrication at higher dimensional accuracy. The TMC5160 is similarly soft and rapidly produces high-accuracy robotic components. It is highly integrated and scalable, maximizing operational efficiency to drive throughput without wasted energy or time. The TMC262 can drive to a gate current of 40mA, ideal for laboratory and factory automation applications.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Precision control transformed two crucial macro industries&mdash;medical and industrial automation. Precision motion control is the enabler for both. It improves vibration performance, energy efficiency, noise, and smoothness of motion and significantly reduces the tolerance of automatic movement to enhance its precision.</p> <p>Industrial automation is propelling Industry 4.0 forward, bringing smart manufacturing technology into the market. Adding precision motion control can unlock 3D printing, CNC machining, pick and place machines, inspection, quality, test equipment, automated assembly lines and conveyors, and collaborative robots. To aid in supply chain and operations, automated guide vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) improve productivity and increase product velocity, approaching a just-in-time product flow state.</p> 1677A Year Later, How Does My Smart Mailbox Perform?,Automation,Dev Tools,IoTLow Power,Maker,Open Source,WirelessMon, 04 Jan 2021 17:15:18 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Mitry_Smartmailbox_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 300px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em><small>(Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <p>One year ago, I designed a <a href="" target="_blank">Smart Mailbox</a> using the <a href="" target="_blank">Arduino MKRFOX 1200</a> board. The board connects to the cloud through the SigFox network. The Smart Mailbox was constructed at the Mouser Electronics Germany branch in Munich, and we have been testing it for the past year. In the following, we&rsquo;ll review the performance of the board over the previous year.</p> <h2>Background on the Smart Mailbox Project</h2> <p>SigFox allows users to send up to 140 messages per day, with each carrying a payload of 12B. In my application, I didn&rsquo;t need to send the whole payload. So to save some battery power, I reduced the payload to only 1B. This 1B contained hexadecimal of the remaining battery percentage. The battery percentage is calculated using the equation below:</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Mitry_Smartmailbox_Battery%20Percentage.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 59px;" title="" /></p> <p>This calculation is a rough estimate of the battery&rsquo;s state of charge. Ideally, a battery charging circuit such as this is needed to calculate the battery capacity, which then can be used to calculate an accurate state of charge. Based on Arduino&rsquo;s website, if you supply the MKRFOX 1200 board using two AA or AAA batteries (1.5V each), the board should operate for up to six months with typical usage.</p> <h2>Update on the Smart Mailbox Project</h2> <p>Our smart mailbox has been sending three messages per day on average. SigFox offers the user the option to pull out received data with a limitation of 50,000 entries. The data is saved in a CSV format, as indicated in a graph (<strong>Figure 1</strong>). The graph shows the surprisingly impressive power consumption of the MKRFOX 1200 board. The blue line represents the battery state of charge, and the red line is a trendline to simplify the fluctuations of the battery level changes.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Mitry_Smartmailbox_Battery%20Level.png" style="width: 600px; height: 348px;" title="" /><br /> <small><em><strong>Figure 1</strong>: The chart shows the Arduino MKRFOX 1200 power consumption. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</em></small></p> <p>The batteries were fully charged when I started building the project, but you can see the graph beginning at an 80 percent state of charge in the chart. This state of charge was when the board was mounted on the mailbox and was operating normally. The 20 percent battery percentage was lost because of testing during the building process. An important point to consider is that the <a href="" target="_blank">MKRFOX 1200</a> is programmed to go into sleep mode after the initialization process and only wake from the sleep mode when triggered by the sensor. By this, the Arduino MKRFOX 1200 is operating in low-power mode most of the time. <strong>Figure 1 </strong>shows that the curve is very similar to a typical 1.5V AA-battery discharge graph. The assumption is that our smart mailbox is reaching the cutoff voltage very soon.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h3>SigFox Subscription Renewal</h3> <p>The Arduino MKR FOX 1200 includes a one-year free subscription to the Sigfox network. In the following section, we&rsquo;ll show steps on how renew the subscription.</p> <ol> <li>Navigate to <a href="" target="_blank"></a>.</li> <li>Login using the same SigFox ID you use for the Sigfox Backend.</li> <li>After you log in, click on <code style="color:black !important; background-color:white !important;">Buy Connectivity</code>.</li> <li>Choose your preferred plan and proceed to the payment.</li> <li>After you completed the payment, navigate to the <a href="" target="_blank">SigFox Backend</a>.</li> <li>Click on <code style="color:black !important; background-color:white !important;">Device Type</code>.</li> <li>Copy the new subscription contract ID, which is marked red in the image <strong>Figure 2</strong>.</li> </ol> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Mitry_Smartmailbox_SigFox%20Backend_Contract%20ID.PNG" style="width: 600px; height: 114px;" title="" /><br /> <br /> <small><strong><em>Figure 2:</em></strong><em> SigFox backend&nbsp;contract ID. (Source: Author)</em></small></p> <ol> <li value="8">On the same page, click on your <code style="color:black !important; background-color:white !important;">DevKit</code> and click on <code style="color:black !important; background-color:white !important;">Edit</code>.</li> <li value="9">Paste the new contract number in the contracts field, and a list will pop up where you confirm your selection (<strong>Figure 3</strong>).</li> </ol> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Mitry_Smartmailbox_SigFox%20backend_subscription%20activation.PNG" style="width: 600px; height: 209px;" title="" /><br /> <small><em><strong>Figure 3</strong>: </em><em>SigFox backend subscription activation. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</em></small></p> <ol> <li value="10">Click on <code style="color:black !important; background-color:white !important;">OK</code> at the bottom of the page, and your Arduino MKRFOX1200 should be back in operation.</li> </ol> <p>Overall, the Ardunio MKRFOX1200 has been operating very well in terms of power consumption and reliability. The SigFox network coverage is also excellent in my area, but this depends on which area you want to deploy your application.</p> 1658Assessing Risk on Home Network Security Devices,Automation,Computing,Dev ToolsRF,Sensors,WirelessSat, 22 Aug 2020 04:53:52 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Felligne_Home%20Network%20Security_1.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 338px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small>(Source: Virgiliu Obada/</small></em></p> <p>Connected homes powered by the Internet of Things (IoT) have become commonplace. Doorbells, thermostats, locks, and smart appliances have joined streaming video and audio to monitors and speakers throughout our homes. These wired and wireless devices sit inside your home but often connect continuously to remote cloud services. Attackers see these new devices as possible footholds into your home or business, and endpoint protection techniques such as regularly applying security updates and enabling operating system security features might not always be possible for these new devices. It&rsquo;s important to be aware of where your sensitive assets and data are stored, and then ensure that the right security controls are in place to protect them.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s important to take a step back and think about the data that are most important to you, where they reside, and how you access them. For example, when you think about sensitive data, do you worry about losing photos stored on your computer, or perhaps losing a music collection painstakingly ripped from hundreds of CDs so many years ago? Do you worry about an attacker reading the email you&rsquo;ve archived on your computer or stored in the cloud? Do you worry about attackers accessing webcams that you installed to monitor your home while you&rsquo;re away? Each of these assets has a different valuation, and how much you want to invest in protecting these assets will vary. You will likely make different security choices, depending on your situation. For example, if your photos are stored on your laptop, you might choose first to encrypt your hard disk and back your pictures up to an external drive if you lost the laptop. If your mail and documents are all stored in the cloud, you might enable two-factor authentication and install malware protection software that includes phishing protection to reduce the risk of an attacker stealing your credentials. Thinking about which assets are most important to you will lead you to the security controls that will most effectively address the risks to these assets. Let&rsquo;s review these specific security protection technologies.</p> <div> <h2>Home Network Protection</h2> </div> <p>Home network protection can be divided into two broad categories: endpoint protection and network protection.</p> <h3>Endpoint Protection</h3> <p>Endpoint protection ensures that your devices and computers are hardened against attacks, even if connected to an untrusted network. For example, your laptop should be reasonably protected when connected to the Wi-Fi at a local coffee shop. Examples of essential endpoint protection controls include having the latest security updates installed on your computer or other devices, running modern malware protection, and enabling a host-based firewall. Out of the box, both Windows and macOS provide good security features. Both operating systems include automatic security updates to ensure that your computer is patched. They can automatically lock after a period of nonuse to prevent prying eyes from accessing data on the computer. Security doesn&rsquo;t have to be difficult anymore. Newer systems support facial recognition, fingerprint touch sensors, or proximity to mobile devices to unlock them; you no longer have to type in complex passwords. Enabling encryption means that even if you lose your laptop, an attacker can&rsquo;t steal data from it. Built-in firewalls operate at the network and application layers to protect your computer from both inbound and outbound connections. Best of all, most of these features are free and included as a part of the operating system; some need only be enabled for you to use them.</p> <h3>Network Protection</h3> <p>Both Windows and macOS provide all these capabilities built-in, but some IoT devices that run stripped-down versions of Linux might not have adequate protection. In that case, network-level security controls can help. Network-level protection can include the inspection and blocking of network traffic between devices based on static or dynamic rules. For example, the most basic firewalls typically block inbound traffic from the internet to your protected devices but allow outbound connections for surfing the Web. More advanced firewalls can detect the unwanted outbound connection from a compromised device to an attacker&rsquo;s command and control server by checking communications against a real-time blacklist that looks for and alerts on connections to known malicious sites. In today&rsquo;s connected homes, it&rsquo;s important to consider both endpoint and network protection to protect your most sensitive data.</p> <div> <h2>Protect Yourself with a Home Security Appliance</h2> </div> <p>Even after taking all these precautions, you might still want to consider a home security appliance to monitor risky internet behavior or discover misconfigured or vulnerable devices on your home network. The technology used in these devices has often trickled down from commercial firewalls but at a fraction of the price and designed specifically for home networks. As such, these devices are generally much easier to install and manage. Devices such as the <a href="">Trend Micro Home Network Security</a> appliance and <a href="">Firewalla</a> security device scan network traffic to identify and block network intrusions. These devices can also look for open ports and misconfigured devices and show useful metrics on device and bandwidth usage. They also include parental controls for restricting access based on time, site, or category. Catering to nontechnical users, the companies that make these devices advertise them as easy to install. In fact, they have just one network connection that you connect to your existing broadband router. They then use networking techniques to sit inline, even though physically, they are not logically.</p> <p>Mesh Wi-Fi systems are another example of newer technology that often includes more robust security features and capabilities. These systems typically include multiple devices installed around your home to provide better wireless performance and coverage. Because all your wireless devices connect through this system, it provides a natural choke point to inspect all wireless traffic and analyze all network communications to look for risky behavior or signs of an attack or compromised system. As an example, the <a href="">NETGEAR Orbi Wi-Fi mesh system</a> advertises <a href="">NETGEAR Armor</a> as a service that integrates BitDefender malware protection to check for malware, open ports, password strength, firmware versions, and other potential security weaknesses.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>IoT devices and cloud-based services continue to advance in-home technology. New security gateways and appliances continue to be developed to protect these new devices. As you consider how new devices can fit into your existing home network, make sure you consider which changes might be necessary to avoid putting your most sensitive data at risk.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Felligne_Home%20Network%20Security.jpg" style="width: 600px;" title="" /></p> 1514Qorvo Webinar Covers Design Challenges,Audio,Automation,AutomotiveComputing,General,IoT,RF,WirelessWed, 12 Aug 2020 04:58:00 GMT<p><a href="" target="_blank"><img alt="Qorvo Design Summit Banner" src="/blog/Portals/11/Qorvo%20Online%20Design%20Summit%20Banner%20Initial.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 340px;" title="Qorvo Design Summit Banner" /></a></p> <p>For anything and everything you need to know about radio frequency and power management technology, Qorvo&rsquo;s Design Summit fits the bill.</p> <p>The summit is a comprehensive month-long series of virtual webinars on design challenges for 5G, Wi-Fi, radar, mobile, and motor control. The free webinar brings together several experts and kicks off Aug. 12 and continues through Sept. 3. Mouser Electronics is among the sponsors. Register <a href="" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>Two seminars are presented per day, with the first session starting at 10 a.m. (Central time) and the second at noon (Central time). Here are the topics for each webinar:</p> <h2>Aug. 12</h2> <h3>How Low-Phase Noise Amplifiers Improve System Performance, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn how market developments in low-phase noise amplifiers provide higher levels of performance, frequency, and bandwidth. Also, get in on a discussion on how these components enable the next generation of high-performance systems in many defense and commercial applications. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>Solving 5G RF Design Challenges with Qorvo&#39;s Small Signal Solution, noon</h3> <p>Examine how Qorvo&rsquo;s small signal solutions can help resolve RF design challenges. Discuss how the 5G system complexity brings RF hardware design challenges, including a dramatic increase in the number of RF components, complex carrier aggregation, massive MIMO, and antenna beam forming schemes. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Aug. 13</h2> <h3>Wi-Fi Architectures and What&#39;s Next in Wi-Fi Standards, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn the common architectures of Wi-Fi products and the features they enable, including hardware requirements from Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). This presentation also will discuss Wi-Fi 6E (6GHz 802.11ax), the features that IEEE is looking for in the next generation standard 802.11be. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>The New Wi-Fi 6 Standard and Transforming the Connectivity Landscape, noon</h3> <p>Discuss the evolution of the Wi-Fi 6/6E (802.11ax) standard and how it supports the demand for increased capacity, data, throughput, and range. Discussion will include migration to Wi-Fi 6E and the opportunities for new front-end system solutions servicing this market. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Aug. 19</h2> <h3>Broadband Solutions for the New DOCSIS 4.0 Specification, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn more about what&rsquo;s next after the Data Over Cable Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 4.0 Specification release. Explore the broadband market, highlighting the main components needed to deliver DOCSIS 4.0. The webinar will provide key technical highlights for Node and Amplifier applications in the downstream and upstream. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>5G Architecture&ndash;Integration in a Cost Sensitive Market, noon</h3> <p>Discuss challenges present in complex 5G mobile devices; compare trade-offs in architecture options related to performance, cost, and time to market; and highlight the benefits of today&#39;s highly-integrated solutions. This presentation is ideal for engineers interested in the development of 5G terminal devices. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register</a>.</p> <h2>Aug. 20</h2> <h3>Enabling 5G Solutions for Network Access Device (NAD) and Telematics Control Unit (TCUs) Applications, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn key technical insights on the latest developments in RF front-end technology and how to utilize smart front-end RF design techniques to enable 5G in NAD and TCU designs. 5G will enable autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-anything (V2X) as the technology proliferates in the coming years. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>How to Mitigate V2X Spectrum Coexistence Challenges, noon</h3> <p>Discuss the technologies that support vehicular connectivity and how high-selectivity filter solutions address V2X coexistence with Wi-Fi to enable vehicular communications or V2X coexistence with Electronic Toll Collection. Learn how V2X, Wi-Fi, and 5G work together and co-exist. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Aug. 26</h2> <h3>How Qorvo Solutions Simplify Smart Home Systems, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn how designers are meeting smart-home products and systems challenges&ndash;from competing, non-interoperable wireless standards to interference with existing wireless systems. Join a discussion on how Qorvo technology helps overcome these challenges. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>The 5G Ecosystem and Deploying mmWAVE Next Generation Infrastructure, noon</h3> <p>Learn more about the 5G ecosystem and the surge in investment and infrastructure deployment to support this next generation of networking. Qorvo is playing a big part in enabling the 5G ecosystem with its portfolio of products that encompass a 5G radio unit&rsquo;s RF chain. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Aug. 27</h2> <h3>GaN Devices and RF Filters for Defense &amp; Aerospace and Commercial Markets, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn more about the onset of 5G, which is driving advancements in RF filtering performance and technology. Discuss how radar and communications technologies are critical for defense and commercial applications. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>GaN Solutions for Radar, Satcom, and Wideband Applications, noon</h3> <p>Explore performance advances in GaN Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) power amplifiers applied to advanced radar technology, linear power Satcom uplinks, and wideband amplifier applications. The presentation will discuss GaN MMIC power attributes that are crucial to improving and offering more next-generation products. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Sept. 2</h2> <h3>Mastering BLDC and PMSM Solutions&ndash;Tri-Phase Inverters Tips and Tricks, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Learn more about key technical insights on the latest developments in sensor/sensorless tri-phase BLDC/PMSM motor drive topologies. The webinar is designed for participants to learn more about applying these techniques to battery-based or line power tri-phase motor applications. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>ActiveCiPS<sup>&trade;</sup> Technology Enables Quick Power IC Customization, noon</h3> <p>Discover more about Qorvo&#39;s ActiveCiPS<sup>&trade;</sup> technology, which enables the rapid modification of Qorvo ICs to meet customer design requirements. This webinar provides examples of customer challenges and how ActiveCiPS quickly moved their products into the marketplace. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h2>Sept. 3</h2> <h3>Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Use Cases &amp; Benefits, 10 a.m.</h3> <p>Discuss the latest Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology use cases, possibilities, and highlight the benefits of using UWB technology. UWB enables a wave of applications that use highly accurate location and distance sensing to deliver new experiences and capabilities. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> <h3>Antenna Evolution: How They&#39;re Supporting 5G Mobile Devices, noon</h3> <p>Learn how the advent of 5G has caused antenna solutions to evolve to simplify RF complexity in mobile devices. Antenna tuning is crucial to solving 5G challenges in mobile devices with space constraints. <a href=";PS=mouser" target="_blank">Register.</a></p> 1498Managing Bias in AIoT Models,Automation,Industrial,IoTFri, 07 Aug 2020 02:21:54 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Evanczuk_Bias%20in%20AI_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 272px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:12px;"><em>(Source: Ryzhi/</em></p> <p>Discussion about bias in artificial intelligence (AI) continues to focus significant attention largely on its social implications and rightly so. Yet, the very same processes that cause machine-learning models to reinforce stereotypes in society can impact efforts to use these technologies in artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) applications in industrial environments, healthcare, and many more. Without careful attention to data used to build these models, these applications stand to fall short of expectations even as companies and individuals rely more heavily on their results.</p> <p>Encouraged by the ready availability of tools and hardware for building AI-based applications, organizations in nearly every market segment are rushing to take full advantage of a growing pool of data sources enabled by the rapid emergence of smart sensors in industrial, medical, and consumer devices, among others. Indeed, market researchers predict that the global AI market will reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 35 percent through 2023. For AI within the manufacturing sector alone, researchers forecast a CAGR of over 55 percent through 2025. Here&rsquo;s a look at how AI can be managed in these models.</p> <div> <h2>The Compelling Nature of AI</h2> </div> <p>The potential of using AI methods to deploy intelligent applications rapidly is compelling. AIoT applications able to predict failures of industrial machinery can offer much-needed relief from unplanned shutdowns when equipment fails. Instead of manually checking machine health periodically, sensors such as accelerometers, microphones, and temperature can feed continuous data streams to predictive maintenance applications built with machine-learning models trained to identify impending failure modes well before they occur (<strong>Figure 1</strong>).</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Fig1_ST_failure_modes_vs_time.png" style="width: 600px; height: 321px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1</strong>: By analyzing data from multiple sensor types, machine-learning models in predictive maintenance applications can warn of impending machine failures well before they lead to equipment breakdowns. (Source: STMicroelectronics)</small></em></p> <p>For predictive maintenance of industrial motors, developers would gather combinations of vibration, audio, and temperature measurements associated with specific failure modes such as motor imbalance, misalignment, loose coupling, degraded bearings, and others. Using these data sets, they would then use supervised learning algorithms such as decision trees or neural-network models to later predict those failure modes from fresh sensor data collected from motors.</p> <p>This approach is both a virtue and a limitation. It allows the deployment of sophisticated applications to detect those states without the need to write complex pattern-recognition software. Unfortunately, it also allows deployment of applications that are blind to states not supported with corresponding training data and are likely to favor the states that dominate the training data. If the training data set is heavily weighted to states associated with high-frequency vibrations and sound, for example, the corresponding model predictions will be weighted toward the kind of bearing-related failures associated with that combination of sensor measurements. Ideally, the chance of the model predicting a particular type of failure should be the same for each failure type rather than simply dependent on how much data corresponding to each failure type was collected and used in training.</p> <div> <h2>Managing Bias in AI</h2> </div> <p>Model bias appears when the model is more likely to predict one type of outcome over another. It can arise from the kind of sampling bias described above or from attempts to clean the data by removing data that seems to the human observer to be outliers. A more subtle form arises from the cognitive bias inherent in human observers, who naturally bring their own perceptions and understanding of the world into determining what is and what is not relevant&mdash;all of which can subtly impact the efficacy of machine-learning models.</p> <p>Machine-learning researchers and experienced developers use various methods to counter the effects of bias. Approaches such as random forest algorithms or collections of neural networks use ensemble methods designed to help avoid these limitations. Other approaches focus on training methods, using generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generate new data sets to enhance the target neural network&rsquo;s training. Still, other methods focus on the data itself with approaches that oversample data for poorly represented states to provide balanced training data. Methods for managing bias in AI remain a very active topic of research.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Even without these more advanced methods, AIoT application developers can take the first step in managing bias in their models by simply reminding themselves of the critical importance of collecting training data that is truly representative of their application. Although development platforms and supervised learning algorithm software tools have greatly simplified the machine-learning models&rsquo; deployment, the most critical component of machine-learning-based application development is the unbiased training data.</p> 1496Why Blockchain and IoT Belong Together,Automation,Automotive,Industrial,IoTSecurity,Sensors,WirelessThu, 11 Jun 2020 03:26:57 GMT<p><em><small><img alt="Blockchain and IoT Theme Image" src="/blog/Portals/11/Why%20Blockchain%20and%20IoT%20Belong%20Together%20-%20Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 360px;" title="Blockchain and IoT Theme Image" /></small></em></p> <p style="font-size:10px;"><em><small>(Source: Symmetry Electronics)</small></em></p> <p>The Internet of Things (IoT) grabs headlines for its use in business and industrial applications. An International Data Corporation (IDC) study predicts IoT spending to reach $6 trillion between 2015 and 2020 as more industries continue to incorporate IoT into their everyday applications. Meanwhile, the blockchain is having its own surge in popularity, as more industrial manufacturers are beginning to recognize the benefits that it can have on their businesses. According to a Gartner study, blockchain technology will add $3.1 trillion in business value by 2030. The most exciting development is how these two technologies come together. Because of the nature of blockchain and IoT, the two are an obvious match. Combining them unlocks a series of possibilities that could propel the next big thing. Read along to learn the benefits of combining the two technologies together.</p> <h2>What Is the Internet of Things?</h2> <p>The Internet of Things is a network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and connectivity that enables these objects to connect and exchange data with each other. Each &ldquo;thing&rdquo; is uniquely identifiable through an embedded computing system and can interoperate with the existing internet structure. A few examples of IoT applications include smart home devices such as the Amazon Echo,&nbsp;wearables&nbsp;such as fitness trackers, patient tracking in healthcare, self-driving cars, and the thousands of connected devices in manufacturing, agriculture, and asset tracking that help industries operate more efficiently.</p> <h2>What Is Blockchain?</h2> <p>When many people think of blockchain, they often associate it with bitcoin. However, blockchain is disrupting a number of diverse industries; including the financial sector, trading, shipping, healthcare, automotive, manufacturing, industrial, agricultural, and building automation. The blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called&nbsp;&ldquo;blocks&rdquo;, which are linked together and secured from tampering or revision through cryptography. Each block links to the previous block and contains a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to data modification. A blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.</p> <h2>Blockchain Enhances the Capabilities of IoT</h2> <p>The surge of new IoT devices available on the market prompted an increase in demand for data security. As a standalone system, many IoT devices lack the authentication required to protect data effectively. In fact, when multiple IoT devices are introduced into an ecosystem, the risk for cyberattacks increases exponentially because there are now many more points of vulnerability. Attempting to add extra layers of security can become a costly and resource-heavy task, with the need for gateways and middlemen. Additionally, if processes and security are managed by internal leadership, the entire system runs the risk of collusion.</p> <p>Fortunately, the blockchain takes care of a number of these issues while offering a scalable, reliable, and secure infrastructure to do business in the following ways:</p> <ul> <li>Blockchain can track and log sensor data measurements while preventing unauthorized duplication of malicious data.</li> <li>IoT device identification, authentication, and data transfer are all seamless within a distributed ledger architecture.</li> <li>IoT devices exchange data through a secure and trusted blockchain rather than a third-party governing entity.</li> <li>IoT devices are protected from data tampering because of the blockchain&rsquo;s native cryptographic processes.</li> <li>Initial deployment and operation costs of IoT devices are reduced because of the elimination of an intermediary.</li> <li>Blockchain smart contracts automatically activate when a specific condition is met, enabling device autonomy that removes technical bottlenecks and inefficiencies without the need for human intervention.</li> <li>IoT devices are directly addressable within the blockchain, providing a history of connected devices and their data for troubleshooting and analytical purposes.</li> </ul> <h2>Equipment Operations and Maintenance</h2> <p>From heavy agricultural machinery to elevators, the blockchain provides operational data and maintenance records that are highly resistant to tampering or forgery. With IoT devices, businesses can effectively track the state of safety-critical machinery and their maintenance records by relying on third-party workers to monitor preventive maintenance and update records on the blockchain. Operational records can then be shared with governing entities to verify compliance.</p> <h2>Logistics and Transportation</h2> <p>Freight transportation is a complex process that involves different parties with varying priorities. An IoT-enabled blockchain allows freight to be tracked by all entities to ensure transparent and timely delivery. Positioning can be monitored to facilitate arrival times and status of cargo, while temperature, orientation and vibration sensors can ensure that proper handling procedures have been maintained throughout the process.</p> <h2>Solar Energy</h2> <p>A community in Brooklyn, N.Y., is experimenting with the blockchain to record the production of solar energy to allow locals to purchase excess renewable energy credits for use. The connected network, known as a microgrid, distributes energy resources to improve electrical grid resilience and efficiency. Best of all, the microgrid can operate independently from the larger grid during power outages and emergencies.</p> <p>With this connected solar grid, people can aggregate purchasing power, share the burden of maintenance, and trust that devices are recording actual solar production that can be viewed on the blockchain.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>Without a doubt, blockchain and IoT represent the largest technological disruption since the integration of computing and transaction processing systems. The applications of the two technologies will soon be so impactful in our society, it will be hard to imagine life without them.</p> <p style="font-size:10px;"><em>The <a href="" rel="noreferrer nofollow"> Why Blockchain and IoT Belong Together</a> blog was written by Tyler Wojciechowicz and was first published on</em></p> 1442IoT Device Management Affects System Design,Automation,Computing,Industrial,IoT,Security,SensorsTue, 09 Jun 2020 03:00:00 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Bhatt_Device%20Management_Theme%20Image-min.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:10px;">(Source: THINK A/</p> <p>Gone are the days of manually provisioning devices and equipment. In the world of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), as millions of smart, connected devices proliferate the market, there must be a scalable and reliable solution to provision and manage devices. That&rsquo;s what makes device management a must-have component of today&rsquo;s connected ecosystem, and thoughtful device management needs to be designed into IoT systems. Here&rsquo;s a quick rundown of IoT device management.</p> <div> <h2>A Quick Peek into IoT Device Management</h2> </div> <p>There are two main aspects of device management (DM):</p> <ul> <li><strong>Onboarding of new devices.</strong> For example, provisioning configurations to deploy 10,000 smart bulbs across a large industrial site</li> <li><strong>Management of the installed devices throughout their life cycle.</strong> Involves secured provisioning, identity and access control, configuration management, remote monitoring of device health, and retirement of unused devices</li> </ul> <p>DM for the IoT and for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) might appear similar, but the former is much more challenging because of a highly heterogeneous mix of devices in any deployment in terms of operating system, application, and service layer functionality.</p> <p>For cost-efficiency reasons, IoT DM platforms are typically cloud-based and often built into the IoT solution. While designing the application and service layers of the product, you have a choice to either customize them to a specific cloud platform (such as&nbsp;Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Predix) or design them as platform agnostic.</p> <p>An automated device provisioning service registers new devices with geographically diverse points of presence, manages device configurations, secures devices by pushing over-the-air (OTA) patches and updates, and reprovisions devices when they reconnect or relocate. For secure and efficient access to device state information and health data and to facilitate analysis and business application development, a virtual replica of each device is maintained in the cloud. This replica is referred to by various names by various cloud platforms&mdash;for example, <em>digital or device twins</em> and <em>device shadows.</em> The digital replica in the cloud and at the edge are state synchronized with the physical device in quasi-real time. This mechanism gives greater visibility into device state, security posture, its software and firmware versions, and device health (<strong>Figure&nbsp;1</strong>).</p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/DM%20Diagram-min.png" style="width: 600px; height: 329px;" title="" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1</strong>:&nbsp;DM using a state-synchronized digital replica at the edge and in the cloud. (Source: Practical Industrial IoT Security, Packt)</small></em></p> <div> <h2>Fundamental Aspects of DM Design</h2> </div> <p>Design for any IoT system must factor in the following fundamental aspects of DM:</p> <ul> <li>Authentication and provisioning</li> <li>Configuration and control</li> <li>Monitoring and diagnostics</li> <li>Maintenance and patching</li> </ul> <h3>Authentication and Provisioning</h3> <p>Network-connected devices provide an excellent entry point for attackers unless adequate security is built in. As soon as a device is connected, the DM platform needs to verify that the new device is indeed trustworthy. During authentication, devices establish their identity by using credentials. Default user names and passwords are the least reliable credentials for the machine-to-machine world. Password-less authentication using keys and certificates and hardware-based root-of-trust are more suitable credentials to consider. Some original equipment manufacturers install certificates before shipping the product. Additional certificates can be added along the supply chain to create a chain of trust. Safe storage of credentials, run-time processing, power consumption, etc., are important considerations at this stage. After the device has successfully authenticated itself, the DM platform can begin provisioning to enroll the device based on its access privileges.</p> <h3>Configuration and Control</h3> <p>Typically, your device would be shipped with default configurations. Once deployed, the DM platform applies use case&ndash;specific configurations such as location, unique ID, and other application-related settings. For example, a device that is provisioned to track location and report on-vehicle telemetry in a fleet management system would need to be programmed with the vehicle&rsquo;s license plate or vehicle identification number, and notification frequency. Remote programmability and secure application programming interfaces and configuration interfaces are important considerations at this stage.</p> <p>From a control perspective, it should be possible to power off the device remotely or reset it to recover from error conditions or retire it. Remote commands to apply firmware updates, patch bugs, and reload are also necessary features.</p> <h3>Monitoring and Diagnostics</h3> <p>Typical IIoT deployments involve thousands of devices installed in locations that are not easily accessible for in-person troubleshooting. To minimize the fallout of unscheduled downtime, it&rsquo;s important to detect failures early. Most DM platforms come with continuous monitoring capabilities to collect device health data such as CPU usage, account activity, network traffic, and process-level input/output activities to detect anomalies. To support these data, the system should generate in-depth logging, run-time statistics, and process dumps for diagnostics for remote triage.</p> <h3>Maintenance and Patching</h3> <p>It&rsquo;s unfortunate but true that no software is 100&nbsp;percent bug free when shipped. After device deployment, bugs and security vulnerabilities are sure to surface. Besides, you might want to introduce feature enhancements for the software and firmware. Thus, throughout the product&rsquo;s life cycle, it would be necessary to apply software and firmware patches and upgrades.</p> <p>The challenge here again is that IoT devices are many in number, and they are often installed in bandwidth-constrained areas where connectivity is intermittent. It&rsquo;s necessary to design products that can handle OTA updates during upgrade windows over encrypted communication channels for security.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>Much like a device&rsquo;s power supply module, DM features seemingly do not add any differentiating value to the product; as such, their inclusion tends to be an afterthought. These features are, however, critical to reducing downtime and improving run-time efficiency, which directly affects the financial bottom line. Many commercial development platforms from Microsoft, Wind River, Intel, and other vendors simplify the integration of DM, which system designers and developers can use.</p> 1439Component Gains Fuel the Next Generation of Cobots,Automation,IndustrialFri, 29 May 2020 20:46:16 GMT<p><img alt="Industry 5.0 Theme Image" src="/blog/Portals/11/TE_Cobot_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="Industry 5.0 Theme Image" /></p> <p style="font-size:10px;"><em>(Source: Zapp2Photo/</em></p> <p>Robots have been part of the manufacturing landscape for decades, but the advent of <a href="" target="_blank">Industry 5.0</a> fueled by Big Data is helping retool the equation in favor of not only increased but flexible automation from robots. Sure, giant robots in cages that stamp out automobile bumpers by the minute are still needed, but so are their more flexible and smaller cousins: The collaborative robot. Collaborative robots, shortened to cobots, enjoy many advantages over their more traditional counterparts: They can be reprogrammed quickly to take on new tasks even over the course of a single day. Cobots play well with humans and work alongside them efficiently. More often than not, cobots take on tasks that are repetitive and boring, freeing up humans for more complex work. Most important, cobots are regarded as cost-effective, meaning even small- to medium-sized businesses can afford automation.</p> <p>Cobots are anchoring Industry 5.0, the next Industrial Revolution. Valued at $649.1 million in 2018, the global market for cobots <a href="" rel="nofollow">is forecast to grow</a> at an astonishing 44.5 percent compounded annual growth rate until 2025. Here, we will discuss some of the components that are supporting the next generation of cobots.</p> <h2>The Cobot Industrial Arm</h2> <p>Industrial robot arms are manipulators, sort of like human arms. Instead of muscles, their mechanical joints are powered by an external power source, typically electric motors. The arm does the heavy lifting and computer software acts as the brain. Vision- and motion-detection systems help it perceive objects and act on that information.</p> <h3>Proximity Sensing</h3> <p>Since a cobot is not caged, it must meet a certain range of safety conditions. It must have proximity sensing enabled during task execution. This way, when employees come too close, it knows to enforce a safety stop. More sophisticated vision systems can also monitor the rate at which a human moves toward them so they can stop on time and resume when the human leaves. In addition to proximity sensing, it should also allow employees to override its behavior with a standard emergency stop (E-stop) button.</p> <h3>Force-sensing</h3> <p>Cobots must also know when to stop pushing or how much force to exert when performing tasks. A pick-and-place cobot that handles eggs, for example, will need to apply a different amount of force compared to one that handles metal bearings. Force-sensing is an important aspect of a mechanical arm and will need to have embedded sensors included to adjust its responses accordingly.</p> <p>In manufacturing or other applications, the mechanical arm is outfitted with a range of end-of-arm tooling options from soft grippers to vacuum cups, depending on the application desired.</p> <h2>Cobot Components</h2> <p>The computer &ldquo;brain&rdquo; that controls the robot arm must be able to sense the current angular positions of all the joints at all times. This is a fundamental requirement for the proper functioning of control algorithms for all industrial arms, including conventional, caged robots as well as collaborative robot arms. To sense the joint positions, these robots need special-purpose sensors integrated into the joint motors. For robot manufacturers, these sensors are a critical component to source. They must work reliably throughout the working life of the robot, even when the joint becomes hot through loading on the factory floor. One of the key requirements for these sensors is the ability to fit into a very tight space. Every time the arm links are redesigned, the sensors need to be chosen to match. For designing a family of robots with a common bill of materials, it is important to have these sensors available in a range of sizes.</p> <p><a href="">TE Connectivity&#39;s Industrial Resolvers</a> fit the bill nicely. They are analog angular position sensors for industrial servo motors. These hollow-shaft high-precision resolvers are more reliable and designed for low-space requirements, allowing customization and greater flexibility to the users.</p> <p><img alt="TE Connectivity Industrial Resolvers " src="/blog/Portals/11/Figure%201%20Industrial%20Resolvers.png" style="width: 600px; height: 436px;" title="TE Connectivity Industrial Resolvers " /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 1</strong>: TE Connectivity Industrial Resolvers offer absolute angular information throughout 360 degrees, depending on the version.&nbsp; (Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <p>Cobots, like all industrial robots, need power to be delivered reliably to their motors. There are many design options for connecting the control signaling, electrical power, and power electronics components. In any case, the connectors that deliver this power and signaling need to adhere to industrial standards, as well as withstand a significant amount of mechanical twisting and bending. A wire-to-board connector, which connects a wire to a printed circuit board (PCB) that enables connectivity between circuits, is a key part to select in the design. Again, a common bill of materials probably dictates a family of related connectors with multiple configurations to mix and match.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">TE Connectivity&#39;s ELCON Micro Wire-to-Board Power Solutions</a> offer a high-current density up to 12.5A per pin (maximum) in the common industry footprint of 3mm (contact pitch). This common industry footprint provides designers and engineers with design flexibility through easy upgrades to existing designs.</p> <p><img alt="TE Connectivity's ELCON Micro Wire-to-Board Power Solutions" src="/blog/Portals/11/Figure%202%20ELON.png" style="width: 600px; height: 436px;" title="TE Connectivity's ELCON Micro Wire-to-Board Power Solutions" /></p> <p><em><small><strong>Figure 2</strong>: TE Connectivity ELCON Micro Wire-to-Board Power Solutions support 2 to 24 pin configurations and different currents with multiple combinations of different wire sizes. (Source: Mouser Electronics)</small></em></p> <p>Components such as these from TE Connectivity help enterprises set up cobots to meet their specific space constraints and programming needs.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>As automation continues to increase, cobots are expected to play a critical role in accelerating its pace. The next Industrial Revolution, Industry 5.0, is already here. Cobots can work for pick-and-place tasks in assembly lines, assembly of parts, driving screws, polishing, inspections, and other routine tasks.</p> <p>The technology that drives these cobots is also becoming more sophisticated with advanced computer vision and sensing capabilities leading the way. As cobots will increasingly be called upon to do more with less, they will need components similar to the ones from TE Connectivity to build the next generation of cobots.</p> 1428How IoT System Design Makes a Difference,Automation,Automotive,Computing,Industrial,IoTSat, 09 May 2020 04:21:10 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Bhattacharjee_Designing%20Security%20for%20IoT%20Systems_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 341px;" title="" /></p> <p style="font-size:10px;"><em><small>(Source: metamorworks/</small></em></p> <p>According to multiple market research reports, Internet of Things security is a top concern for both industrial and individual consumers. Secure design without driving up price is a delicate balancing act for system designers. Add to that the organizational pressures to accelerate time-to-market.</p> <p>In the case of IoT products, an additional challenge is the lack of integrated security standards and certification guidelines. Nevertheless, in IoT markets, secure design is no longer only a design imperative but also a competitive differentiator.</p> <p>The cyber-physical attributes of IoT products <a href="" target="_blank">expose them to new types of threats</a> unseen in traditional computing systems. Successful exploits of these threats directly affect not just the product lifecycle but also its market longevity. In this blog, we&rsquo;ll take a look at a full-stack approach to integrate secure design in a way that reduces both complexity and implementation costs.</p> <div> <h2>Security Begins with Silicon</h2> </div> <p>Because of direct exposure to physical environments, IoT systems are vulnerable to many complex attack scenarios. Software-based security alone cannot safeguard against these threats. A hardware-based, tamper-resistant trust-model has been demonstrated to outperform software in many attack scenarios. By establishing the root-of-trust in silicon and by storing secrets in hardware, vaults can significantly harden the system. Hardware-based security offers power-efficiency. The complexity of firmware updates can be reduced by using IoT-specific security solutions.</p> <p>Infineon&rsquo;s OPTIGA Trust family, for example, offers many turnkey trust solutions at the silicon layer. <a href="" target="_blank">OPTIGA&trade; Trust X (SLS 32AIA)</a> is a high-end security controller that can be integrated into products across a wide range of industrial automation, consumer, and smart city use cases.</p> <p>Crypto-accelerators help to embed cryptographic capabilities within small form factors. Hardware security modules (HSMs) and Trusted Platform Module (TPMs) (defined in International Organization for Standardization and Trusted Computing Group standards) can be used for strong tamper resistance, cryptographic key storage, and key generation using hardware random number generators (RNGs), strong authentication, boot integrity protection, and firmware integrity measurements.</p> <div> <h2>Secure Boot Process and Device Identity</h2> </div> <p>Because IoT devices might not be rebooted for long intervals, it is important to ensure boot process integrity through measurement and validation. This prevents a compromised device from exchanging data. Measured boot, verified boot, and secured boot are three options to ensure device integrity during boot. A range of security ICs is available to reduce the complexity of boot protection and that of managing the integrity metrics.</p> <p>Once booted, the device needs to authenticate itself using identity credentials. For machine-to-machine scenarios, authentication keys and certificates are more suitable than passwords. In addition to device-level Identity and Access Management, it is also important to authenticate and control access for hardware elements, firmware, application programming interface (API) calls, etc. by adhering to the principles of separation of duty, least privilege, and role-based permissions. TPMs allow the secured authentication of devices and systems looking to connect to clouds, servers, and other devices.</p> <p>Securing the software and firmware updates is also crucial for connected systems to prevent malicious code in the system that could lead to dire consequences. Digital signature verification and hashing are two common mechanisms to secure firmware updates.</p> <div> <h2>Securing Communication</h2> </div> <p>In M2M and machine-to-cloud communications, embedded systems need to communicate over heterogeneous networks involving various standard and proprietary protocols. To protect against eavesdropping, message tampering, etc., VPNs, encrypted tunnels can be used. Resourced-constrained systems with small-footprint (sensors, actuators) can rely on gateways for secure communication.&nbsp; Third-party security ICs can be used to store keys, certificates used in the communication protocols and cryptographic operations.</p> <div> <h2>Protection of Data Integrity</h2> </div> <p>Data integrity is a critical part of product design because compromised data can sabotage the entire IoT ecosystem. Data includes device-generated raw data, secrets, libraries, binary executable, configuration and log files, etc. These can be classified as:<br /> &nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Stored data &ndash; Data-at-Rest (DAR)</li> <li>Runtime data &ndash; Data-in-Use (DIU)</li> <li>Sent/Received Data &ndash; Data-in-Motion (DIM)<br /> &nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>Traditionally, checksum is used to validate data integrity, but the IoT threat landscape requires more advanced integrity controls. Cryptographic signatures can attest to data integrity at any point in the workflow. Hardware trust root or TPM is usually used for the signing. The signing key can also be securely stored there. Some of the common data integrity measures are shown in <strong>Table 1</strong>.</p> <p><em><small><strong>Table 1:</strong> Common Data Integrity Measures (Source: Practical Industrial Internet of Things)</small></em></p> <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:78px;"> <p style="text-align: center;">DAR</p> </td> <td style="width:545px;"> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Symmetric key encryption using software-enabled stores, secure storage of secrets/keys in hardware/Trusted Platform Module.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:78px;"> <p style="text-align: center;">DIU</p> </td> <td style="width:545px;"> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Policy-based blacklisting or whitelisting of files; control memory rights access to protect memory regions from unauthorized access; and runtime process integrity attestation, secure coding, buffer overflow protection, input/output checks.&nbsp;</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:78px;"> <p style="text-align: center;">DIM</p> </td> <td style="width:545px;"> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Integrity using signed message digests, session key-based encryption, digital certificates.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <div> <h2>Leveraging IoT Security Platforms and Plug-ins</h2> </div> <p>For system developers, complying with a myriad of cybersecurity standards is a major challenge in IoT design. IoT security platforms and products resulting from ecosystem partnerships among security vendors can ease the burden. These integrated security platforms provide robust hardware and software design and toolset that system designers can either replicate or customize to fit their application needs.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>System designers face multiple technical and business challenges in designing adequate security for IoT systems. A full-stack approach for security should be followed to ensure that adequate security at every layer of the system has been considered such as hardware, boot process and firmware update integrity, communication, and data integrity. Designing security also needs to factor in use-case security requirements, as not every use-case or system requires the same level of security.</p> 1410ZigBee vs. Z-Wave: What’s the Difference?,IoT,Low Power,WirelessWed, 29 Apr 2020 14:06:59 GMT<p><img alt="ZigBee vs. Z-Wave Everything You Need to Know" src="/blog/Portals/11/zigbee-zwave-nosymlogo.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="ZigBee vs. Z-Wave Everything You Need to Know" /></p> <p>The market for the Internet of Things (IoT) is continuing to grow and become more commonplace for consumers and engineers alike. The rise of IoT has caused an explosion of new IoT products to be released, with various ecosystems claiming superiority over others. With all the options now available, buyers are left overwhelmed and unsure as to which technology best fits their design needs. Two popular IoT ecosystems are ZigBee and Z-Wave. Both are great wireless solutions for home automation, smart energy, telecommunications, health care, remote control (RF4CE, or radio frequency for consumer electronics), building automation, and retail services. However, they differ in their specifications and applications and are therefore suitable for different uses. Understanding the differences between ZigBee and Z-Wave can be tricky. Read along for a comparison and what you need to know about ZigBee and Z-Wave.</p> <div> <h2>ZigBee</h2> </div> <p>ZigBee is a low-power wireless mesh network standard for battery-powered devices. As a solution for wireless control and monitoring applications, ZigBee has become very popular in home automation, data monitoring, management systems, and industrial equipment. ZigBee&rsquo;s technology was designed to support the development and deployment of custom profiles&mdash;making it an efficient solution for manufacturers to create wireless products for common applications.</p> <div> <h2>Z-Wave</h2> </div> <p>Z-Wave is a proprietary System on a Chip (SoC) home automation protocol designed to support control, monitoring, and status reading applications. Although less flexible than ZigBee, this technology benefits from a strict certification process that allows buyers to avoid roadblocks that are often experienced with ZigBee and other solutions. This process allows all Z-Wave devices to function in a seamless interoperable manner. In recent years, Silicon Labs acquired the Z-Wave protocol from Sigma Designs and is now the only licensed manufacturer of Z-Wave chips. One of the latest advancements in the Z-Wave product portfolio, is the <a href="">Z-Wave 700</a> platform produced by Silicon Labs. This platform enables smart-home applications to be more intelligent; allowing consumers to control various sensors using minimal power at a broader range.</p> <div> <h2>How Do ZigBee and Z-Wave Compare?</h2> </div> <p>ZigBee and Z-Wave are capable of operating as mesh networks. Devices on these networks can last for years on a coin cell battery when used in sleep mode or a couple months while transmitting a constant signal. Aside from these two main similarities,&nbsp;<strong>Table 1</strong> outlines the differences in specifications between these technologies:</p> <p><em><small><strong>Table 1:</strong> ZigBee and Z-Wave specifications. (Source: Author)</small></em></p> <p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/ZigBeee%20Z-Wave%20Table_90.jpg" style="width: 540px; height: 252px;" title="" /></p> <div> <h2>Why Choose ZigBee?</h2> </div> <ul> <li>Provides more flexibility in its profile development, which led to its popularity among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).</li> <li>Numerous suppliers allow OEMs to have more options from which to choose.</li> <li>Open portfolios make it a highly versatile wireless solution (Although the protocol is fairly complex).</li> <li>More connected devices allow for more resources and community support for the application that is being built.</li> </ul> <div> <h2>&nbsp;Why Choose Z-Wave?</h2> </div> <ul> <li>Longer range than ZigBee.&nbsp;Z-Wave range is 100m line-of-sight whereas ZigBee is only 20m.</li> <li>Operates at 908MHz, which avoids interference with other wireless signals commonly operating at 2.4GHz, including Wi-Fi, <em>Bluetooth</em><sup>&reg;</sup>, and ZigBee. Interferences can result in lost or unreliable signals.</li> <li>Uses less power than ZigBee. Depending on the application and configuration, a set of AA batteries could keep the Z-Wave module going for years.</li> <li>One of the biggest advantages for Z-Wave is its interoperability. The Z-Wave standard ensures that all deployed devices are compatible with one another, regardless of the manufacturer. This makes Z-Wave a truly open system that removes constraints on product choices for consumers. Additionally, Z-Wave is completely backwards compatible. Device or technology obsolescence has forever been a major concern for vendors. Z-Wave has therefore made it a key requisite to ensure that all new devices will communicate effectively with older devices.</li> </ul> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>ZigBee and Z-Wave each have their benefits. While they can be used for many of the same wireless solutions, choosing between the two comes down to the requirements of your selected application.</p> <p style="font-size:10px;"><em>The <a href="" rel="noreferrer nofollow"> ZigBee vs. Z-Wave: What&rsquo;s the Difference?</a> blog was written by Tyler Wojciechowicz and was first published on</em></p> 1403Robotic Irrigation Reduces Farming Costs,Automation,IoTFri, 03 Apr 2020 04:57:51 GMT<p><img alt="" src="/blog/Portals/11/Byers_Robots%20for%20Farming_Theme%20Image.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 383px;" title="" /></p> <p><em>(Source: B. Brown/</em></p> <p>Field crop production is labor and energy intensive. Traditional methods for growing commodities such as corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, alfalfa, vegetables, or fruits typically require making multiple passes over the field with human-driven, diesel-powered tractors pulling various implements. These implements perform functions such as plowing, soil preparation, seed planting, cultivation, agrichemical application, and harvesting. A single growing year of alfalfa (harvesting multiple crops of growth per field) can take 15 or more tractor passes, potentially using thousands of gallons of fossil fuel and hundreds of hours of labor for a large field. Self-driving tractor experiments have tried to reduce the labor investment, but they&rsquo;ve had limited success. Attempts to electrify tractors are proving difficult because available battery technologies do not have the energy density to provide nearly half a megawatt (big modern tractors are rated at more than 600 horsepower) for a 10-hour or longer shift. This is on the order of 50 times the battery capacity of a Tesla Model S electric car. Tethering an electric tractor to the grid with what amounts to a long extension cord has severe reliability, safety, and practicality problems.</p> <div> <h2>The IoT Makes It to the Farm</h2> </div> <p>But, what if we could eliminate the tractor entirely by employing robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies? One interesting way to do this can be inspired by center-pivot irrigation systems, where a central tower supplies water, and one end of a long string of pipes is attached to it with a pivot, while the other end slowly travels around to make a large circle. Segments of pipe are suspended by trusses between a series of towers, with variable-speed drive wheels that are controlled to keep the pipeline straight. Sprinkler heads distributed along the pipe irrigate the crops below. Typical center-pivot systems are a quarter of a mile (400&nbsp;meters) in radius. To see this technology in action, take a look at a satellite image of the croplands in the region of Ogallala, Nebraska.</p> <p>The robotic system suggested here beefs up the trusses and wheeled towers to allow a heavy implement to be hung on a rail where the water pipe is located in traditional center-pivot systems. A motorized carriage moves across the entire length of the rail, carrying a turntable that in turn carries the interchangeable implement. To place the implement at the exact position the field the system commands, the wheels of the towers are driven at coordinated speeds to pivot the rail to the correct angle, the carriage moves the required radial distance from the center pivot, and the turntable orients the implement so that it&rsquo;s positioned to do the required work and can follow rows of plants no matter what their orientation in the field. Rails can be 10&nbsp;feet (3 meters) or more above ground level to accommodate tall crops.</p> <p>The system has several technical innovations. An electrical busbar parallel to the rail delivers electrical power from the pivot to all elements of the system&mdash;something on the order of 100kW (kilowatts), 440V&nbsp;(volts), 3&nbsp;phase. Sliding contacts on the carriage connect the busbar to the implement, supporting electrical loads in excess of 100hp (horsepower). Data networks interconnect the implement, carriage, motors, valves, and sensors to the central pivot, where fiber-optic links connect to the internet and cloud-based control. A water pipe irrigates the field, but individual valves and perhaps robotic sprinkler heads apply the water with much greater precision than traditional irrigation systems. Conveyer systems can run on top of the rail to deliver seeds and agrichemicals to the implement as well as remove the harvested crops. Hundreds of sensors, actuators, and distributed computers manage the system and integrate its functions.</p> <h3>A Use Case</h3> <p>Here&rsquo;s a use case for the system. First, the central pivot is anchored in the middle of the field, and various power, computer network, conveyer, and water-distribution systems are buried fairly deep to supply it. Then, the pivot is assembled to segments of rails and wheeled drive towers to achieve the radius needed to cover the field. A grading implement is attached to the rail that levels and grades the land, moving soil from high spots to low spots. Plow and soil-conditioning implements till the soil, preparing a planting bed. Next, a planting implement is attached, which is periodically refilled with seed from the overhead conveyer. It precision-plants the entire field. Planting in rows is unnecessary if different patterns, such as hexagonal grids, are better for the specific crop. As the crops grow, cultivator implements make passes to control weeds and pests. This task can be mechanical or chemical or use video analytics and high-tech solutions such as lasers, water jets, or ice darts to selectively destroy weeds and harmful insects. Irrigation is done by the robotic system as needed based on sensors that measure the soil moisture with square-meter precision and apply exactly the required amount of water.</p> <p>At harvest time, an implement suitable to the crop is mounted on the rail, gathers the crop, cleans and sorts it, and delivers the harvest to the conveyer system, where it&rsquo;s moved to the central pivot, and then to storage or market. Unlike traditional harvest practices, this system can efficiently support multi-pass harvesting implements that use sophisticated vision systems to analyze the crops and robots to pick only the portion that has achieved optimal ripeness.</p> <div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> </div> <p>This system has several advantages over traditional agricultural techniques. It&rsquo;s all electric, avoiding emissions, carbon, and petroleum cost volatility. It requires a fraction of the labor that human-driven tractors need. It can efficiently use seed, water, and agrichemicals. It supports selective harvesting to improve product quality. Soil compaction and erosion can be greatly reduced. It can enable organic farming by eliminating chemicals in favor of advanced weed and pest control practices. As the global population increases, these electronic, robotic, and IoT technologies should be valuable in improving the efficiency, productivity, and environmental responsibility of farming.</p> 1377