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Electronics For You
March 2017 Issue
Vol. 49 No. 3
Tech Focus
Open Source And Emerging Protocols Lead The Way
For The IoT
Ever since the Internet of Things (IoT) came into the picture, it has caused one disruption after another. After all, the prospect of connecting anything non-computer to the Internet sounds exciting. But who knew that even after connecting your security system to the Internet to send out an alert to the authorities, you could still get robbed. Nevertheless, there is a lot of exciting stuff going on in the IoT spectrum.
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Internet Of Things
Security Challenges For The Industrial IoT
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a subset of the IoT evolution, is quite the rage within automation companies as they seek to add a high-margin software component to their traditional businesses. Since Maxim Integrated chips are used to build these automation systems, they get a unique perspective on how automation system design has to evolve or, in some cases, change as companies attempt to put their automation systems online to take advantage of the IIoT.
| Career
How The Internet of Things Can Take You Places
We live in a fast-paced world. We wake up in the morning and are in a rush to get to office. From there we are in a rush to get home. We sleep less and focus all our energies into developing ourselves. We develop ourselves and hope that we are working in the right direction.
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Do-It-Yourself
Wireless Doorbell
Installing a doorbell in an existing building is a difficult task as it involves wiring that can look shabby if not concealed properly. Presented here is a circuit that does not require external wiring and can be placed in small enclosures. This circuit can be used as a call bell in office, too.
| Do-It-Yourself
Electrolysis-Free Water-Level Alarm
In most water-level monitors and alarms, corrosion of the probes makes the systems unusable in a few months. This water-level alarm uses a phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit to generate a particular frequency at its probes to avoid electrolysis of the water. The circuit uses two NE567 PLL ICs.
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Internet Of Things
The Top 5 IoT Hacks
The Internet of Things (IoT) automates your lives by connecting everything around you from your cars to your homes to even your bodies.
| Satcom
RockBLOCK Mk2: Communication Beyond Limits
Communication is a basic requirement. However, sometimes we are in an area where Wi-Fi, GSM and other forms of terrestrial communication are not available and so we are unable to communicate or send messages. And without any terrestrial connectivity we cannot install any project required for either one- or two-way connectivity. In this situation, a satellite communication device comes to the rescue, and helps us send or receive data using satellites for projects like oil pipelines, weather data collection, location tracking and emergency communication.
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Programming
The Rhyme Of C Operators
It is thanks to Dennis Ritchie and his team that the first C compiler was released way back in 1972. C language has found its own place in developing embedded system software, real-time operating system policy implementations and device drivers ranging from simple 8-bit microcontrollers to complex 32-bit FPGA targets. This article takes you through the basics of C-supported operators and describes an easy way to remember the priority of operators while evaluating an expression.
| Innovation
SmartMoo, An Agri-IoT Revolution
Our daily diet includes dairy products in one form or the other, be it milk, ghee, butter or other milk based products. These play a very important role in maintaining the nutrient balance in our body. But, how do you know if the milk you drink is hygienic, with nutrients in proper portions, stored under correct conditions and is from a healthy cow?
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Make In India
Budget: Union Budget 2017: What’s In Store For The Indian Electronics Industry
The Union Budget 2017, presented by the NDA government on February 1, 2017, has put forth various initiatives to give a boost to the digital economy. The budget has offered some incentives as well as various tax and duty benefits to the electronics system design and manufacturing (ESDM) industry. Will these go a long way in strengthening the manufacturing capabilities of Indian companies? Here is a collation of key points related to the ESDM industry.
| Do-It-Yourself
Arduino Based Digital Capacitance Meter: An Interrupt Based Approach
Capacitive sensors are widely used to measure various physical and chemical process parameters such as displacement, acceleration, thickness, force, pressure, stress, level and humidity. The measured value of capacitance is then calibrated in terms of the process parameter for indication and/or control.
Download source code
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Do-It-Yourself
Power Supply Hub With Battery Charger, Quad-USB And Variable Outputs
This article presents a simple, universal low-cost power supply hub with quad-USB and variable voltage outputs, plus a battery charger. There are electronic equipment like battery chargers, electronic lamps and MP3 players that take power from USB ports, but there may not be sufficient ports or sufficient power available from the USB ports on a computer.
| Do-It-Yourself
Duck Hunt Game Using Arduino And Python
This is a shooting game based on pygame, using Arduino and an accelerometer sensor. In this project a gun pointer is made on the screen, which is moved along x and y coordinates of the accelerometer, and a switch is used to fire at the target.
Download source code
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e-Payments
Use Blockchain Technology To Rout Risk Out Of Network Transactions
Ripple, a blockchain based technology startup, is sitting on a venture capital of US$ 93 million, sourced from an interesting mix of funders ranging from Google Ventures and Seagate Technology to a horde of banks like Standard Chartered. Ripple’s network already has 15 global banks, and 10 more are waiting to board the train. Shanghai Huarui Bank, a privately-owned bank in China, is working with Ripple to implement a commercial cross-border payment service, so customers can transfer money internationally in real time. The bank feels it will help Chinese families to send money to their children studying abroad.
| Futuristic
Towards Transient Electronics And The Need For It
Electronic devices are built to last. But now their lifespans can be controlled, courtesy burgeoning research into transient electronics, or devices that are meant to serve a specific function before completely dissolving into their environment over a predetermined span of weeks, months or even years. Moreover, with a degrading environment where electronic waste also plays a major role, the need for such electronic devices that can be disposed of when we want increases.
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Quality Control
Importance Of Quality Engineering In Consumer Electronics
In a modern world, it is a big challenge for many industries in information technology or manufacturing to maintain quality without compromising on the costs of quality and non-quality. These two together make the total cost towards maintaining quality of a product, and are involved throughout the project’s life cycle. The primary challenge here is to determine how to trim the overall costs of quality and non-quality.
| Chips
IP Cores For FPGA Designs
Intellectual property (IP) cores are standalone modules that can be used in any field programmable gate array (FPGA). These are developed using HDL languages like VHDL, Verilog and System Verilog, or HLS like C.
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Design
Material and Design Come Together To Forge Reliable PCBs
As we moved towards touchscreen phones with ultra-smart features, we also reduced the lifetime of our mobile phones. A case that comes to mind from personal experience is a phone bought in 2004 that was still functioning in 2014, and was decommissioned only when a different phone was bought.
| Interview
Automotive: “AI Can Increase Efficiency... To About 90 Per Cent”
The rise of autonomous vehicles calls for improving the systems regularly. Every kilometre that an autonomous vehicle covers, delivers valuable data in its development. Puneet Gupta, chief technology officer, Brillio, talks about the challenges involved in autonomous vehicle development with Saurabh Durgapal of EFY
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EFY Plus DVD
Pocket Some Mechatronic Tools For The Industrial IoT
| Make In India
Market Survey: The Indian Electronics Industry In 2017-18: Key Trends
What are the factors likely to shape the Indian electronics industry this year and beyond? We talked to industry members about the trends expected to impact businesses in this sector, and the developments and opportunities companies can look forward to.
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eStyle: Buyers' Guide
Buyers’ Guide: Breathe Easy With Intelligent Air Purifiers
Air purifiers make use of two common types of filters to remove extremely small particles from the air. One is called high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, which uses very fine glass threads with diameter less than one micron to collect particles down to 0.3 micron in diameter.
| eStyle: Do-It-Yourself
Do-It-Yourself: How To Free Up Space On Android
Android phones usually come with a decent amount of storage, but can still run out on memory. Let us see how you can get more storage on your Android device(s).
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Digital
Digitalisation: An Imperative For New-Age India
Every once in a while, a new technology or innovative practice takes the world by storm, but soon the technology or practice becomes more of a fad than a way of life. It changes the pace and scope and disrupts for a while, after which another trend takes over. Digitalisation stands out because it has shown that it can be a real equaliser, a fast track to growth and development, and could solve problems hitherto not touched yet for want of even a semblance of an available solution.
| Do-It-Yourself
IoT Based Notification System Using Android App
Presented here is a smart notification system for a door sensor, motion detector, fire alarm and doorbell using Raspberry Pi (RPi) and Pushover app. The project triggers an event through various sensors and sends notifications to your smartphone. Sensors used in this project include a magnetic reed switch for a door or window, PIR sensor for motion detection and NTC thermistor for fire alarm.
Download source code
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EFY Plus DVD
Verilator: The Verilog To C++/SystemC Compiler
One of the biggest questions in a Verilog designer’s mind is, “How would it be if the Verilog code can include synthesisable constructs?” A lot of issues that a verification engineer might come across can probably be solved by a simple display statement. We are not talking about the test-bench here but, simply, synthesisable Verilog, with some Property Specification Language (PSL), System Verilog and synthesis assertions thrown in.
| Do-It-Yourself
RGB Colour Detector Using TCS3200 Sensor Module
This is a simple colour sensor using Arduino Uno R3 and TCS3200 colour sensor module. It can be useful for colour identification and detection for food-processing units, colour printer applications, paint-mixing applications and other industrial applications including robotics.
Download source code
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Do-It-Yourself
Time For A Break
This is a computer based program to remind you to take regular breaks while working on your desk for good health. Some of us spend at least sixty per cent (if not more) of our day sitting on a chair working on a computer or for some other work. This physical inactivity for such long durations causes diseases like varicose veins, weak bones, back problems, weak digestion and can even increase the risk of cancer.
Download source code
| EFY Plus DVD
OpenSCAD: Solid 3D Modeller For Programmers
Three-dimensional (3D) modelling has been in vogue for decades. The first thing you would imagine on hearing the term is a piece of complicated graphics on the screen—something you can move around and view from different angles. The mind creates small videos of choosing one extra component and moving it into that small hole you can see on the screen, moving around the rest to make space for this or deleting that extra length from rectangular section R2; in essence, a powerful graphical user interface (GUI).
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EFY Plus DVD
Gazebo: Let Your Robots Do The Talking
Behind every robot there is a story of how it was made. Though there was no mama robot or papa robot, there is a story of ideation, prototyping, debugging and the usual repeat till satisfied. In my humble opinion, if humans could be brought into this world the same way, we would all be far better off, but that is a different story and a different scheme of thinking.
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Issue...
Virtual And Augmented Reality
Printed Circuit Boards
Developer Boards: DIY And Hobbyist Applications
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