As energy demand and consumption increase globally and the push for greener energy strengthens, utility companies are changing their strategies. Instead of increasing power generation, they are increasing the efficiency of power transmission and distribution...

Updated 9/23/2020

Industrial functional safety relies on a system functioning correctly in response to its inputs. The system should be able to detect potentially dangerous faults and deploy safety mechanisms to prevent or minimize the impact of a hazardous...

Some appliances, especially those plugged into AC power, continue to draw electricity even after you have ostensibly shut them down. In fact, 5-15 percent of the energy consumed by a home is from appliance...

By any measure, the solar power industry is experiencing significant growth. In fact, the industry turned a very critical corner without much notice: a recent study found that solar-generated power is profitable without financial support in at least...

As automation revolutionizes our world – buildings, homes, cities and now factories leverage intelligent automation— the process chain becomes more efficient and easier to maintain. In factory automation, both fixed...

Designers creating next-generation smart water, gas and electricity meters face a host of challenges. Besides the ever-present need to minimize cost in a highly competitive market, the performance, energy consumption and lifetime reliability requirements...

The demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is growing at an exponential pace, fueled by the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, personal electronics and grid systems. As consumer demand...

Have you ever seen someone having to go around from house to house to take measurements from utility meters? We all consume utilities such as water, gas and electricity and utility company employees spend countless...

As the electric vehicle (EV) market grows, the challenge for governments and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) is to promote the adoption of EVs by deploying a comprehensive charging infrastructure. This means deploying an infrastructure that not...

In the food industry, it is important to be able to clean and disinfect machinery to reduce the amount of bacteria and germs. These machines must have a user interface that can withstand the water and chemicals...

Today, the awareness of the environment and energy savings is as high as ever before. New generations of large household appliances such as washers, dryers and refrigerators must have higher performance parameters...

Starting with the C2000™ Delfino™ TMS320F28379D and TMS320F28379S microcontrollers (MCUs) and now with the F280049C and F280...

In a previous blog post, I introduced a LED Lighting Control Reference Design for Machine Vision. In this post, I’d like to elaborate a bit about it, following the same modular approach that our team followed during the design process.

Easily...

Electrocardiogram (ECG) or photoplethysmograph (PPG) wearable monitoring systems have become increasingly popular in recent years. Heart-rate monitors, pulse oximeters and activity trackers are commercially...

LED signage and lighting applications such as industrial stack lights you might know from industrial machinery or big LED displays that are used in stadiums have a common problem of limited possibilities for power...

People mostly associate smart meters with electric meters (e-meters), but after seeing the benefits that smart meters brought to the e-meters market – delivering real-time consumption data to consumers so they could...

Next-generation smart appliances are getting smarter, thanks to breakthroughs in wireless connectivity and human machine interface. Processors with highly integrated graphic accelerators, like Sitara...

In June 2017, I posted about unprecedented current-loop performance from an off-the-shelf microcontroller (MCU) achieved by the C2000™ family with the fast current loop (FCL) software...

During the last few decades, wireless communications have evolved to enable more and more applications, including the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This evolution has corresponded to the needs and interests of industrial players, who seek to modernize...

In part 1 of this blog series, I gave an overview of the market opportunity for EtherCAT® slave stack support on C2000™ microcontrollers (MCUs) and an introduction to a three-phased solution to jump-start slave...

Modern power and garden tools, vacuum cleaners and other end equipment are getting smarter with wireless connectivity. Wireless connectivity offers features such as authentication, tracking, intelligent...

Photographers will always have the artistic license to claim that motion blur was their intention. But machine vision use cases such as imaging-based automatic inspection, quality control and code reading in factory automation and logistics require ultimate...

C2000™ microcontrollers (MCUs) come with a variety of collaterals that can help you develop functionally safe systems that can comply with a wide range of standards for end products in automotive, appliance and industrial applications. Examples include...

In my last post, I talked about how to interpret a CW/CCW pulse train output (PTO) for motor control on C2000™ Piccolo™ F28004x devices. In this post, I will discuss a situation in which you must deal with noisy signal interference on an input signal...

Motors and pumps are key infrastructure components in both factories and buildings and must be maintained in proper working condition in order to perform their tasks. These tasks may range from moving objects on an automation line to transporting cooling fluids/air for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.

At any time, a drop in performance may result in costly maintenance or downtime for your production…