New Tech Press » Embedded Technology

Cool stuff you might have missed at Design West, 2013

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:42:21 +0000

Every year I go to Design West in San Jose to look for the cool geeky products and displays that you aren’t “officially” supposed to be there to check out, because you’re supposed to be doing work related research. This year, it was either a little tougher to find this information or their just wasn’t as much, but I found three off-the-beaten track exhibits that you might have missed. They included an android-based streaming media device that could be used to bypass the movie service in hotels; a device that you can use as a low-cost, DIY car locator (take that Lo Jack); and an honest-to-gosh Enigma Machine from World War II. Check it out.

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Connect Tech’s Qseven at core of military VR system

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:54:02 +0000

Connect Tech, based in Ontario, Canada, designs and manufactures serial communication hardware and software for a range of industries, including communications, industrial automation, transportation, government, military, scientific, medical, educational, POS, and office automation.

At DesignWest, they exhibited a military training system from Quantum3D, that was driven by custom single-board computer, built on Connect Tech’s Qseven Carrier board with an Intel® Atom™ processor. New Tech Press dropped by and had a bit of fun with the team.

Learn more at element14.com

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Teen robotics team learns realities of high-tech product development

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:31:00 +0000

By Lou Covey
New Tech Press Editorial Director

The FIRST national robotics championship brings together teams from high schools and high school districts from all over the US to solve a particular set of challenges every year. At this year’s competition in St. Louis, Missouri, the week of April 23, the teams will work cooperatively in a series of 3-on-3 basketball games using homegrown robots, mostly student designed.

One of the veteran groups, Team 100 from the Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County, California is going to the competition as a “wild card” participant. The team has had a long experience in the competition going back to 1995 (national champion.) In the path toward their current creation, the team found that what the basic design provided was not sufficient for the task.

Woodside High School junior Andrew Blatner, part of the electronics engineering crew for Team 100, said the standard CAN bus (controller area network) that the teams use in their projects was insufficient to deal with the communication between motor controllers. The team attempted to use a workaround that converted the ethernet signals. “That still didn’t solve all the problems we were having in competition so we switched to direct communication to individual controllers.”

Team advisor Laura Rhodes said another problem was a limitation on the number of inputs the project needed, so one of the team members, Ethan Anderson, Woodside High School senior, brought up the idea of using an Arduino development board to expand the available number of inputs. Anderson had some experience using Arduino in personal home projects and several advisors had additional input based on their experience.

A remarkable aspect of the project is how it mirrored problem solving efforts experienced by professional product development teams, as in the software phase of the project. Connor Wake, Sequoia High School senior and part of the software sub-team, said several new aspects of the competition created unique software control issues. The team decided early on to switch from National Instruments Labview to Wind River C++ to handle the use of cameras, motor controls for shooting the ball at different angles and speeds and to control intakes to avoid jamming. New team members had to be trained in the use of the tools and legacy code integrated.

What was unusual in the project development was the lack of “walls” between the sub teams. Wake spoke in detail of the various mechanical aspects of the robot, and Anderson demonstrated more than a working knowledge of the software difficulties.

Rhodes said the goals of Team 100 students have always been to acquire real–life skills and gain hands-on engineering experience. Originally, the team consisted of solely of Woodside High School students, but in 2003, a large group of students from Carlmont High School, a neighboring district school, joined the team, soon becoming a permanent addition. During recent seasons, Sequoia High School students have also been added to the roster, creating the current tri-school team. The team’s primary sponsor is DreamWorks P.D.I.

Tying the home to the Smart Grid

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:33:03 +0000

Most of the attention in the Smart Grid is given to the utilities and their controversial wireless smart meters. But for the consumer to see real value in the technology requires creating a local network of appliances and systems within the home. That’s not an easy task.

There are many smart appliances on the market ready to tie into the grid, but not everyone is flush enough to go out an buy an entirely new set of appliances. Somehow, the industry needs to create aftermarket. At the DesignWest conference, Qualcomm Atheros was demonstrating your their products and techniques can move you closer to energy efficiency, if not complete independence. New Tech Press interviewed Qualcomm Atheros product manager Tim Colleran on what’s happening.

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Nabto offers development help for their worldwide firewall

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:27:44 +0000

Security in the “Internet of Things” is becoming a major issue in embedded, portable device industry and the tiny Danish company of Nabto is helping customers take a step toward securing new devices. At DesignWest, Nabto was talking about the Nabduino, a Arduino-based development board with their tiny (less than one meg) webserver IP that can place your device behind the corporate firewall…anywhere in the world. New Tech Press dropped by to chat with them.

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