Sean Murphy co-authored this technical article.
The shift toward industry 4.0 automation spurred an exponential increase of robots on factory floors, including industrial robots, collaborative robots and service robots (automated guided vehicles and autonomous mobile robots). Because these robots often work alongside humans, they must have advanced sensing and functional safety capabilities…
With a swipe of the hand, gesture detection gives drivers a new way to control in-cabin climates, lighting, windows, infotainment systems and more. There are currently several options for adjusting various comfort and convenience functions in the cabin. However, manipulating the buttons, knobs and especially touchscreens requires drivers to divert their eyes.
Today, many automotive…
Scalability, reliability, security and speed—these are the advantages that the Wireless Smart Ubiquitous Network (Wi-SUNTM) offers to smart cities and the Internet of Things. But as a developer, how can you maximize these advantages in your software design?
Here are four important questions to ask before choosing a Wi-SUN stack.
Question No. 1: Should…
Reducing the size of integrated circuits (ICs) is often viewed as little more than a path to more compact printed circuit boards (PCBs) or the ability to add functionality without increasing the form factor of a system. And while systems from wearable electronics to automotive cameras continue pushing the limits of physical form factors, integrating the temperature…
Note: Carolina Gomez collected the data for this article.
In my previous articles, I walked through optimizing an operational amplifier (op amp) circuit for power savings and talked about some of the applications that can take advantage of amplifiers with low-voltage-supply capabilities. In this installment of the "Designing with low-power op amps" series, I will show you…
In part 1 of this series, I reviewed power metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) data sheets and explained what’s in the data sheet and more importantly, what’s not, while specifically looking at the temperature dependence of some key MOSFET parameters. In part 2, I’ll focus on voltage-dependent leakage currents – the drain-to-source leakage (I…
Kevin Koestler co-authored this article.
Have you ever been in a crowded hallway with people talking at the same time? Only those talking loudest can be heard. However, if each person talks one at a time, everyone’s communication can be heard clearly even in the same crowded space. This scenario is similar to the wireless spectrum and the increasing number of connected devices.
The 2.4 GHz band is widely used in…
With smartwatches and fitness bands widely used as personal health monitoring devices, the accurate acquisition of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals on these wearable devices has become a field of great interest. An ECG records activity in the heart through the acquisition of electrical signals. Conventional ECG systems such as patient monitors involve the connection of multiple electrodes…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing the capabilities of machine vision and imaging applications. Edge Al, a subset of artificial intelligence that enables localized decision making at the edge, plays a key role among other elements such as 5G network and the Internet of Things (IoT) in the development of New Infrastructure. Through focusing on…
Advances in automated factories and smart vehicles require advanced networking capabilities, real-time processing, analytics at the edge and more advanced motor-control topologies. These examples illustrate the rapidly growing need for a high-performance microcontroller (MCU) that can outpace traditional MCUs and deliver processor-like capabilities. In this article, I’ll cover five…
One of the top worldwide trends in metering is to add connectivity to the meter. This allows for efficient readouts, over the air updates, and quick connectivity to your phone. In large buildings with various tenants, you have multiple meters that need to be read monthly. If all these meters are connected, pulling data from them is as simple as walking up to a data collector…
The features of a modern buck converter are simply tools to get a job done – and much like the utility belt of a certain Gotham City resident, the configuration and layout of these features were designed with space and flexibility in mind. Whether you wear a cape or not, having quick and easy access to these features means more than just solving design…
Relative humidity (RH) sensors are specialized sensors with an open cavity to measure water vapor present in the air. Relative humidity is a critical measurement, as humidity in the air can have a direct effect on system reliability (corrosion) or product longevity since humidity in a storage environment can have a direct impact on perishables.
One of the challenges with RH sensors…
Within the last decade, manufacturers of wearable technologies such as smartwatches have made significant advancements in enabling users to track their personal health and fitness in real time. It’s now possible to leverage a wealth of statistics, such as step count, heart rate, oxygen saturation, workout duration and more, and track progress toward fitness goals in a variety of ways…
The proliferation of 48-V battery systems in vehicles has created a need for high-precision, multidecade current measurement to maximize the efficiency of the battery management system (BMS). In this article, I will discuss the challenge when measuring up to five decades of current and analyze methods to solve this challenge. I will also discuss how additional diagnostic…
The constant push for more component integration and greater power density, on top of demanding project schedules, can leave engineers in difficult situations when designing a system power architecture. Looking specifically at test and measurement or optical module applications, the problem statement is no longer limited to the area (x-axis and y-axis) of the design; rather, it…
(This is a guest technical article from Cadence® Design Systems.)
Part 1 of this series discussed optimizing your simulation profile in PSpice® for TI. After creating a schematic and a simulation profile, you are ready to simulate your circuit design and view the results.
The results must be accurate, of course. However, the effectiveness of a simulation is only half as good as the flexibility and ease of viewing…
There are many approaches to designing low-voltage systems in motor-driven building automation and grid infrastructure applications such as smart meters, smart locks, Internet Protocol (IP) network cameras and video doorbells, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Battery-powered systems: a video doorbell, smart utility meter and electronic smart lock
Common challenges when designing…
A high-voltage circuit design requires isolation in order to protect human operators, enable communication to lower-voltage circuitry and eliminate unwanted noise within the system. Digital isolators provide a simple and reliable way to achieve high-voltage isolated communication in industrial and automotive applications.
Maintaining the integrity of a signal…
Analog
Automotive
