With the trendiness of the term “edge AI” or talk of “having more intelligence at the network edge,” it’s easy to lose sight of the benefits of having more local, real-time processing that doesn’t rely on cloud-based resources to run artificial intelligence (AI) models. By enabling the electronics we interact with daily to make decisions in the real world…

Microcontrollers (MCUs) in embedded systems are the equivalent of air traffic control in a busy airport. MCUs sense their operating environment, take actions based on those observations, and communicate with related systems. They manage and control signals in an almost endless list of electronics, from digital thermometers to smoke detectors to heating, ventilation and air-conditioning…

Many consumers now have several smart home products, including smart locks, cameras, sensors, smart home hubs, lighting, appliances and thermostats. Unfortunately, a lack of interoperability between various manufacturers makes it more difficult to control smart devices from a single terminal or application.

While the promise of an interconnected and controllable home feels within our grasp, ecosystem fragmentation is…

The previous installment of this real-time control series focused on the sensing functional block of the real-time control signal chain (Figure 1). It’s easy to misunderstand the second functional block, processing, and assume that it is only tied to the core central processing unit (CPU) frequency or million instructions per second (MIPS), focusing purely on data crunching. In this series installment, I’ll demonstrate…

Think about the current applications of Bluetooth® in our daily life and then envision a world that is even more connected. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group estimates that annual shipments of Bluetooth-enabled devices will exceed 7 billion in 2026. As innovative engineers, you have the opportunity to help meet the market demand for more integration of Bluetooth in medical devices, toys, personal electronics, smart…

In the past, a human machine interface (HMI) consisted of a physical control panel with push buttons, switches and indicator lights that enabled users to communicate with a machine. As the technology progressed, it became possible for users to monitor processes, see status information displays and send commands. Now, HMI applications are everywhere, including smartphone apps used…

A typical factory automation environment has multiple levels of operator and field control to establish device-to-device communication. As smart factories become more prevalent, it’s a challenge to design systems that not only address the complex computational needs of larger data sets throughout the factory, but to do so in a way that addresses multiprotocol real-time communication…

Co-authored with Jitin George.

Originally published in Electronic Products.

 Autonomous robots are intelligent machines that can understand and navigate through its environment without human control or intervention. Although this technology is relatively young, there are many different use cases of autonomous robots in factories, warehouses, cities, and homes. For example, robots can be used to transport goods around warehouses…

Not too long ago, widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) was nothing but science fiction. Once thought too expensive or impractical, we are now in the midst of an EV revolution driven by OEMs’ desire to achieve zero emissions and explore alternative energy sources. Many car manufacturers have gone all-in by pledging all-EV lineups in the next 10 to 15 years.

Despite this momentum, we stand at an inflection…

This post was co-authored by Joe Folkens 

Sensing offers an opportunity for companies to increase functionality in existing products. In the Internet of Things space, for example, Omdia predicts that sensor shipments will increase by almost 20 billion units from 2020 to 2024, with radar sensing growing at a compound annual growth rate of approximately…

Designing a power-efficient edge artificial intelligence (AI) system while achieving a faster time to market can become tedious in the absence of the right tools and software from an embedded processor vendor. Challenges include selecting the right deep learning model, training and optimizing the model for performance and accuracy goals, and learning proprietary tools for model deployment…

With advances in medicine and health care, the average life expectancy of humans continues to increase. Virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the size and proportion of the elderly in their populations, with the total number of people aged 65 years or older projected to double to 1.5 billion in 2050. Concurrently, in-home care or nursing facilities must…

If you’re a designer working on a new product that will use an Arm®-based processor, you’re probably already comfortable working with integrated circuits (ICs) that have four to 48 pins. You may occasionally use a device with more pins, even though it takes a considerable amount of time to read the data sheet and make sure that everything is wired up correctly.

But…

Developers have more flexibility and configuration options than ever with the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s (SIG) release of version 5.3 of the Bluetooth Core Specification in July 2021. With this release come three updates to Bluetooth® Low Energy that can improve performance, reduce power and cut down on latency for devices. These improvements are relevant for all sorts of Bluetooth Low Energy applications…

Battery packs have enabled a new generation of personal electronics. Products with demanding power requirements like power tools, e-bikes, and electric vehicles have been redefined by advancements in high performance battery technology. Today, batteries must be safer, more efficient, and smarter than ever before. The increased demand for intelligent battery pack systems…

Developing functional safety systems in a streamlined and simplified manner calls for robust functional safety support. Part of this includes having the resources to validate that the development tools used in the system design process meet functional safety requirements.

The new TI Arm® Clang compiler’s available TI compiler qualification kit helps simplify system design development efforts. The TI compiler qualification…

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…

Scalability, reliability, security and speed—these are the advantages that the Wireless Smart Ubiquitous Network (Wi-SUN^TM) 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…

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…

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…

Other Parts Discussed in Post: CC1352P7, CC2652P, CC1352P, MIOTYOmdia expects low-power wireless microcontroller (MCU) shipments to double over the next four years to more than 4 billion units. This massive influx of MCUs will result in more opportun...

As embedded application developers, the last thing you want is for customers to run across latent bugs in your application code – especially when those bugs occur in portions that were not covered by your testing. Measuring code cove...

What do you think of when you hear the word “gateway”? The literal definition, “an opening that can be closed by a gate” or “a means of access or entry to a place,” makes sense in the context of electronics and our connected world, where a gateway provides a local network with access to another network or to the internet. In this article, I’ll explain some…

Matter, formerly known as Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), is a royalty-free connectivity standard developed within the Connectivity Standards Alliance, formerly the Zigbee Alliance. Matter runs on Thread and Wi-Fi® network layers and uses&...