Electronics For You 01 - 2017

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January 2017 VoL. 05 | no. 09 issn-2454-4426

Editor

artificial inteLLigenCe

: ramesh Chopra

Editorial : Editorial Secretary CorrESpondEnCE phone: 011-26810601; E-mail: [email protected] (technical queries: [email protected]) SubSCriptionS & : phone: 011-26810601 or 02 or 03 E-mail: [email protected] miSSing iSSuES baCk iSSuES, bookS, Cds, pCbs etc.

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nEwSStand diStribution

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How To Take Your IIoT Device From Prototype To Product

20 Materials

Some Ways To Beat The New Monster In Our Environment

46 Innovation

bEngaluru

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punE

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China

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Uncanny Vision Uses Deep Learning To Sense Unfamiliar Happenings

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unitEd StatES

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Some Techniques For Lowering Power Consumption

62 Embedded 68 Test & Measurement Power Analysers Becoming Portable And Power-Efficient

82 EFY Plus DVD Software That Can Fly Your UAVs And Drones

Make In India

78 Business Opportunity: For A Successful Vertical Farming Tech Business Put Farming First

83 Market Survey: The Indian Electronic Interview

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please send payments only in favour of EFY Enterprises Pvt Ltd

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92 Buyers’ Guide: Flying Drones Can Be Great Fun

Do-It-Yourself

59 Design

Components Industry—An Outlook

Digital (`) 750 280

91

Do-It-Yourself: Google Drive Features You Need To Know

52 Futuristic

7nm IC Technology Trends And Challenges (Part 2 of 2)

printed, published and owned by ramesh Chopra. printed at international print-o-pack ltd, C-4 to C-11, hosiery Complex, phase-ii Extension, noida-201305, gautam budh nagar, uttar pradesh, on the first day of each month and published from d-87/1, okhla industrial area, phase-1, new delhi 110020. Copyright 2017. all rights reserved throughout the world. reproduction of any material from this magazine in any manner without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. although every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility whatsoever is taken for any loss due to publishing errors. articles that cannot be used are returned to the authors if accompanied by a self-addressed and sufficiently stamped envelope. but no responsibility is taken for any loss or delay in returning the material. EfY will not be responsible for any wrong claims made by an advertiser. disputes, if any, will be settled in a new delhi court only.

You Pay (`) 1800 960

eStyle

Dream Machines Of The Future: Computers Based On Cutting-Edge Technology

japan

Period Newstand Price Year (`) two 2400 one 1200

Conventional Machine

16 Manufacture

28 e-Waste

: ph: 022-24950047, 24928520 E-mail: [email protected]

Deep Learning Makes Learning Look Dumb

An Emerging Class Of Graphene Based Electronics

advErtiSEmEntS : ph: 011-26810601 or 02 or 03 nEw dElhi (hEad offiCE) E-mail: [email protected] mumbai

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January 2017 | ElEctronics For you plus

autonoMous robots: “theoretical Calculations only take You so Far” — rajeev Karwal, founder and director, Milagrow Humantech

96 IoT-Enabled Air Pollution Meter With Digital Dashboard On Smartphone 99 Simple Dual-Way Amplifier For Microphone And Guitars 102 Electronic Eye Security System 104 Optoreflective Sensor 106 Sound-Operated Timer 108 Ultrasonic Distance Meter Using Raspberry Pi 2 110 GUI Based Error Correction In Data Communication Using MATLAB

eFY Plus DVD

Osmond: A Feature-Rich PCB Designing Tool ..................I Meet MRPT: The C++ Robotic Destination .................IV SmartSoft: The Framework For Robotic Systems............ VII

Regulars 06 08 10 75 86 89 112 125 128 129

Feedback Q&A Tech News Make in India: Industry News New Products First Look Business Pages Ads Electronics Mart Ads Advertisers’ Index + Product Categories Index Attractions During 2017

www.EFymag.com

Feedback Your suggestions

ThAnK You! It is nice to know that the magazine that I have been subscribing to for more than three decades is one of the best in India. I have greatly benefited from the articles published in your esteemed magazine. I wish the staff, publishers and editors all the best in making EFY one of the best internationally. Prabhu D. Prakash Through email EFY. Thanks a lot for the pat on our backs—it is truly appreciated. We are trying to build a series of testimonials of readers who have benefited from EFY.  First of all, congratulations on Electronics For You and electronicsforu. com being recognised as the leaders in the Indian tech media, according to a recently-conducted ELCINA-IMRB study. I have been reading the magazine and visiting Electronics For You website since I was in college. I would like to say that, along with me, many people have gained a lot of knowledge from EFY, and have referred it to many people. Once again, congratulations to your whole team for providing circuit designs efficiently. Sunil Rajpurohit Through email EFY. Thank you! We truly appreciate you taking out time to share this feedback with us.  Indeed, it is a great pleasure to write as a reply to your thanking letter. Whether ELCINA or others recognise it or not, my family knows how important EFY copies are for me. The study shows how deep EFY has 6

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

From electronicsforu.com

Electronics Projects In ‘Home Automation Using Android’ DIY article published in August 2016 issue, I was unable to update the program into Arduino Uno board. Please help. Asiq Syed Abdul Kadar EFY. First, compile homeautomation.ino sketch from Arduino IDE. Then, select the correct Arduino board and COM port from Tools menu. You should be able to upload the code without any problem. In ‘Home Automation Using Android’ DIY article, can we power Arduino with a USB cable instead of a 12V DC? Kartik EFY. No! In this project, the relay board requires a 12V power supply. So an external 12V DC adaptor for Arduino board is used instead of powering through a USB cable. Therefore 12V is reflected at Vin pin of Arduino board, which is used to power the relay board. In ‘Infrared Sensor Based Power Saver’ DIY article published in March 2016 issue, how can I know whether potmeter VR1 has 1-mega-ohm fixed value? Liang EFY. You need a multimeter to get the value of VR1. In ‘Low-Cost Air-Quality Meter’ DIY article published in July 2016 issue, I have downloaded the code from www. efymag.com but it does not work. Please check and fix the problem. Rob EFY. You need DHTlib and RTClib libraries under Libraries folder in Arduino IDE. The code folder has been updated now and is available at www.efymag.com/admin/issuepdf/ Air_Quality_Meter_code.zip

penetrated into the roots of India. On many occasions, I have recommended the magazine to my students.

I am retired now from the main stream, but still scroll through the older editions of EFYs that I own. I wish EFY magazine goes deeper into the minds and hearts of the youth. Leadership of good people like you allows the magazine to grow to its peaks. V. Hari Hara Prasad Through email EFY. Thank you for the pat on our backs! And, super thanks for spreading the word about EFY among your students!

EFY EdiToRiAL CALEndAR As we approach the beginning of 2017, I am sure you are all set to prepare many more interesting stories with versatile topics for your readers. Please share your editorial calendar for the next few months and, also, if possible, a list of upcoming stories where we could participate on behalf of our relevant clients. Mamta Bhatia Fernandes Founder and CEO, Einovate EFY. The editorial calendar for the year 2017 is available in one of the last pages of this magazine.

REmoTE ConTRoL PRojECT I am a subscriber to EFY. I need a remote control circuit that can control a fan or tubelight. Namrata Madame Through email EFY. You may please refer to ‘Remote Controlled Smartfan Using AT89C2051’ DIY article published in December 2016 issue. It can also control light. www.EFymag.com

Q&A

Things You WanTed To KnoW!

Ques. How can we control direct-on-line tHreepHase motor starter, and wHicH relay can control it from arduino? Varun poojary

ans. Small three-phase induction motors of below 5kW can be started with the help of a direct-on-line starter, which consists of a contactor and motor-protection device such as circuit breaker. The starter is put into action by a coil-operated contactor, which can be controlled by start and stop pushbuttons. When the start push-button is pressed, the contactor gets energised and closes all three phases of the motor to the supply phases at a time. The stop push-button de-energises the contactor and disconnects all three phases to stop the motor. As per your requirement, manual operations of start and stop are to be replaced by relays, which, in turn, are controlled by Arduino. You can opt for an electromagnetic or solid-state relay; selection is made on the basis of voltage and current requirements of the coil of the direct-on-line starter, environmental conditions and mounting options. Q2. wHat is tHe difference between flasH memory and eeprom? deepak negi

a2. Flash memory is a type of electronically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), but it can also be a standalone memorystorage device such as USB drive. It is a non-volatile memory chip used for storage and for transferring data between a PC and other digital devices. It is often found in USB flash drives, MP3 players, digital cameras and solid-state drives. 8

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Flash memory incorporates the use of floating-gate transistors to store data. EEPROM is a type of data memory device that uses an electronic device to erase or write digital data. It has perbyte erase-and-write capabilities, which makes it slow. Flash memory is a distinct type of EEPROM, which is programmed and erased in large blocks. Nonetheless, the trend seems to be of using AND flash for devices that only support large-block erasure. Flash memory has many features. It is a lot cheaper than EEPROM and does not require batteries for solidstate storage such as static RAM. To sum it up, • Flash is just one type of EEPROM. • Flash uses NAND-type memory, while EEPROM uses NOR type. • Flash is block-wise erasable, while EEPROM is byte-wise erasable. • Flash is constantly rewritten, while other EEPROMs are seldom rewritten. • Flash is used when large amounts are needed, while EEPROM is used when only small amounts are needed.

Q3. How does bluetootH keep deVices connected? arnav bansal

a3. Bluetooth, named after Danish King Harald Bluetooth, who unified Scandinavia, is a standard protocol for unifying wireless voice and data communications among mobile telephones, environment systems, printers, portable computers, local area networks and other electronics. It connects all equipment through one universal short-range radio link. The standard is incorporated in a radio module, a microchip that can send voice and data signals for about 10 metres, or 30 feet (100 metres with a power amplifier). Its signals operate in the free 2.45GHz ISM (which is short for

industry, science and medicine) band that non-Bluetooth devices also use. In command of Bluetooth protocol is each device’s link manager. This software identifies other Bluetooth devices, creates links with these for voice or data, and sends and receives data at a theoretical 1Mbps (725kbps, real world). Link manager also determines the mode in which Bluetooth operates. After a link is established between the master and the slave, Bluetooth sends short bursts of data in packets. To survive in a noisy radio frequency environment, radio transmissions from the master and the slave hop among 79 different frequencies to send each packet of data. Transmission also includes error correction in case a packet is dropped or garbled.

Q4. wHat are tHe differences between arduino uno and leonardo? pamarthi kanakaraja

a4. Differences between Arduino Uno and Leonardo are listed below: • Arduino Uno uses Atmega328, while Arduino Leonardo uses Atmega32U4. • The microcontroller on Arduino Leonardo cannot be detached as it is mounted on the board, while the microcontroller on Arduino Uno can be easily removed. • Arduino Uno has six pulse-wave modulation pins, while Leonardo has seven. • Arduino Uno uses 14 input/output pins, while Arduino Leonardo is capable of using 20 since it can use the analogue pins as input/output. Answers compiled by EFY senior application engineer, Nidhi Kathuria. Letters and questions for publication may be addressed to Editor, Electronics For You, D-87/1, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi 110020 (e-mail: [email protected]) and should include name and address of the sender www.EFymag.com

Tech News Technology UpdaTes

Passive Wi-Fi system to use 10,000 times less power than traditional Wi-Fi A team from the engineering department at University of Washington, USA, has created a Wi-Fi system that uses 10,000 times less power than traditional WiFi. Passive Wi-Fi, as the team calls it, is compatible with current smartphones and routers. Traditional Wi-Fi radios consume a lot of power, mainly because of the analogue radio frequency (RF). In order to reduce power consumption of Wi-Fi radios in smartphones and digital devices, Passive Wi-Fi uses the digital baseband, while the analogue RF band is delegated to a single plugged-in device. Essentially, Passive Wi-Fi helps remove the power-hungry analogue RF from the picture, which would make the smartphone last much longer. The team has managed to achieve download speeds of up to 11Mbps, which falls in line with most LTE download speeds. However, the team is now working on increasing the throughput. According to the team, this new technology will allow for new kinds of communications that was not possible before due to the power requirements of current Wi-Fi systems.

Super-tall robotic arm is made of helium balloons Unlike regular robotic arms that you might find in a factory, this device, developed by Suzumori Endo Laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology and discovered by IEEE Spectrum, uses a series of helium-filled balloons to form its arm. The use of balloons means that the entire 20-metre-long structure weighs only 1.2 kilograms, which is light enough for simple pneumatic artificial muscles to be used to articulate its joints from the ground. To further minimise the robot’s weight, instead of using heavy pneumatic actuators that require hoses attached along the arm’s length to pump hydraulic fluid, Giacometti Arm takes advantage of lightweight artificial muscles to move its individual segments. However, there are some drawbacks to Giacometti Arm— presumably named after artist Alberto Giacometti, who is famous for his slender, spindly sculptures depicting the human form. Its lightweight nature means that it would be 10

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

easily buffeted by winds, for instance. Also, it cannot carry heavy stuff, either. And it is only as resilient as its balloons.

Giacometti Arm can easily squeeze into the trunk of a car (Image courtesy: screenshot taken from Youtube) www.EFymag.com

Tech News

Robot that can be controlled with thoughts According to a new research, it is now possible to control a robotic hand with only your mind. According to Bin He, professor and lead researcher of the study, department of biomedical engineering, University of Minnesota, USA, “This is the first time in the world that people can operate a robotic arm to reach and grasp objects in a complex 3D environment using only their thoughts, without a brain implant.” The application has utility for areas like collapsed buildings where GPS cannot be used (Image courtesy: https://news.ncsu.edu)

The biobots would be allowed to move freely within a defined area and would signal researchers via radio waves whenever these would get close to each other. Custom software would then use an algorithm to translate biobot sensor data into a rough map of the unknown environment.

Research subjects at University of Minnesota fitted with a specialised noninvasive brain cap were able to move the robotic arm just by imagining moving their own arms (Image courtesy: University of Minnesota)

He adds, “Just by imagining moving their arms, people were able to move the robotic arm.” This research has the potential to help millions of people who are paralysed or have neurodegenerative diseases. The non-invasive technique, called electroencephalography (EEG) based brain-computer interface, records weak electrical activity of the participant’s brain through a specialised, high-tech EEG cap fitted with 64 electrodes and converts the thoughts into action by advanced signal processing and machine learning.

UAVs, biobots for mapping unexplored territories Researchers at North Carolina State University, USA, have developed a combination of software and hardware that will allow them to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and insect cyborgs, or biobots, to map large, unfamiliar areas such as collapsed buildings after a disaster. Edgar Lobaton, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of the paper, says, “The idea is to release a swarm of sensorequipped biobots, like remotely-controlled cockroaches, into a collapsed building or other dangerous, unmapped area.” He adds, “Using remote-control technology, we would restrict the movement of the biobots to a defined area. That area would be defined by proximity to a beacon on a UAV. For example, the biobots may be prevented from going more than 20 metres from the UAV.” 12

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Radio receiver built from components the size of two atoms Researchers from Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have made the world’s smallest radio receiver, built out of an assembly of atomic-scale defects in pink diamonds. This tiny radio, whose building blocks are the size of two atoms, can withstand extremely harsh environments and is biocompatible, meaning it could work in places as varied as a probe on Venus to a pacemaker in a human heart. The diamond’s tiny imperfections make up a system of nitrogen atoms with a hole next to it. This arrangement can emit single photons or detect very weak magnetic fields. Also, these flaws have photo-luminescent properties, which means these can convert information into light that could offer uses in sensors and quantum computing.

The radio is extremely resilient, thanks to the inherent strength of the diamond. The team successfully played music at 350°C (Image courtesy: Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) www.EFymag.com

Tech News

Lab-grown LED provides better way to clean water Engineers at Ohio State University, USA, have developed foil based LEDs for portable ultraviolet (UV) lights that soldiers and others can use to purify drinking water and sterilise medical equipment. The LEDs are created on lightweight Ohio State University researchers have developed a technique to create LEDs on flexible metal foil. metal foil (Image courtesy: Ohio State University) As per Roberto Myers, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Ohio State University, the military, industry and humanitarian organisations already use deep UV light for applications ranging from detection of biological agents to curing plastics. However, traditional deep-UV lamps are very heavy and electrically inefficient. LED foil could offer a more environmentally-friendly light to purify water. The researchers are confident that they will be able to scale up their prototype; their goal is to transform nanophotonics, a study centred around how objects just nanometres big interact with light, into a profitable industry.

World’s first semiconductor-free microelectronic device is here Engineers at University of California, San Diego, USA, have created the first semiconductor-free, optically-controlled microelectronic device. Using metamaterials, they were able to build a micro-scale device that shows a 1000 per cent increase in conductivity when activated by low voltage and a low power laser. Capabilities of existing microelectronic devices such

as transistors are ultimately limited by the properties of their constituent materials such as their semiconductors, according to the researchers. A team of researchers in Applied Electromagnetics Group led by electrical engineering professor Dan Sievenpiper at UC San Diego, in order to remove these roadblocks to conductivity, replaced semiconductors with free electrons in space. The discovery paves the way for microelectronic devices that are faster and capable of handling more power, and could also lead to more efficient solar panels.

A drone that flies like a bird A drone developed by Dario Floreano’s team in Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, is geared toward flying more like a bird than like small helicopters, as most available multi-rotors currently do. Floreano and his team wanted to develop a bioinspired drone that could meet various aerodynamic requirements. It had to be capable of flying between obstacles, making sharp turns and coping with After observing birds in flight, researchers from strong winds. Laboratory of Intelligent Systems had the idea of building an energy-efficient winged drone capable By changing its of changing its wingspan, flying at high speed and moving through tight spaces (Image courtesy: geometry midÉcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) flight, their drone can meet all these criteria. The moving part is located on the outer wings. It works like a bird’s quill feathers, which are the large feathers at the edge of the wing.

Ford using drones to guide self-driving cars

Semiconductor-free microelectronic device (Image courtesy: UC San Diego Applied Electromagnetics Group)

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Automobile giant Ford is studying a system through which it can use drones to help self-driving cars. The system also guides the vehicles in off-road adventures. Drones launched from an autonomous vehicle would help guide it by mapping the surrounding area beyond what the car’s sensors can detect. Passengers can control the drone using the car’s infotainment or navigation system. According to a company spokesperson, the drones could also prove useful in areas beyond the digital maps of urban and sub-urban areas and inter-city highways. www.EFymag.com

Manufacture

How To Take Your IIoT DevIce From ProToTyPe To ProDucT

W Siddharth Unny is founder and director, TL Micro Automation. This article has been curated by Ahalya Mandana, who worked with EFY until recently

hat goes into making an Internet of Things (IoT) product? A product development cycle starts with an idea, which, if found to be technically feasible, sees funds raised to start designing the product’s prototype. This prototype is modified till it becomes a market-ready product. For any new product, there should be a focus on achieving quick time-to-market and small production batch size. Let us take a look at how to go about doing this.

The product design flow There are a few steps that are helpful to those designing products from scratch. These steps are collectively known as the product design flow. It involves all steps in the design process, from start to finish. Design specifications. The very first step in the product design flow is to define

Fig. 1: International Protection Standards chart

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the specifications of the product. Thus, appearance of the product is finalised, and components are selected. A costing exercise is also included in this step to make sure that the product does not become too expensive. Achieving a balance between features and cost is very important at this stage. Product costing process is a very important part of the design specification stage. There are some basic rules to be followed for this process. First, a base price is calculated. It is the sum of bill of materials (at minimum order quantity), assembly cost and amortised development cost. Selling price is decided based on the company’s sales method. If it is a traditional sales method, with shop space, sales people and print advertisements, then the base price is multiplied by a factor of 2.7 to determine the sales price of the product. This is the minimum sales price of the product, and will result in a margin of about 10 to 12 per cent, after tax is deducted. e-Commerce companies do not have to rent shop space and generally have fewer sales people, so their expenses are usually less as compared to companies with traditional sales methods. For an e-commerce company, base price of the product can be multiplied by a factor of 2.2 to obtain the sales price. When it comes to increasing margins, companies can www.EFymag.com

Manufacture The customer’s point of view A customer usually considers three aspects of a product while making a choice between different product options. These aspects are related to buying, using and throwing away the product. While buying a product, the customer thinks of the price, features, design and life of the product. When the customer is using the product, he looks for ease of assembly, use and maintenance. It should be made of non-toxic materials as well as recyclable plastic and metal so that disposal is not a problem.

Fig. 2: Some IIoT products

Fig. 3: Printed circuit board

do so by adding more value through their software. Development stage. In this stage, the enclosure, hardware and software of the product need to be developed completely. Components that were selected in the previous stage can be used in many different combinations to produce different hardware designs. Hardware design affects the software as well as enclosure design, so optimisation is needed at this stage to get the best possible design combination. Since the device is an industrial IoT (IIoT) device, it has to be rugged and reliable, and should be able to withstand all disturbances from the surrounding environment. It should have protection against reverse polarity, short-circuit and over-voltage. Electrostatic discharge protection, resettable fuses and signal isolation should also be provided. The printed circuit board should have connectors mounted properly, and must be designed to minimise 18

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electromagnetic interference. Two-layer printed circuit board designs can be used instead of a multi-layer design. The two-layer printed circuit board design is not expensive and is much easier to debug. For software design of the device, there should be focus on error detection and recovery. Errors should be detected as soon as possible, and recovery time should be minimal. Software should also be able to perform deterministic operations, cyclical operations and timecritical sequences. Last, enclosure design must be able to withstand shock and vibrations, and should have protection against solid particulate matter and water (International Protection Marking 66). Cables of the device should be properly managed; loose cables should be avoided. Validation. This is the final stage in the product design cycle. Design that was finalised in the previous stage is sent to the lab for testing, to ensure that all product specifications are met. Required certification should be obtained for the product, depending on where it is going to be launched. Productionisation. The process of turning a prototype into a design that can be easily mass-produced is known as productionisation. A product line is set up at this stage. It has to be efficient, and should allow one to decide the time-to-market, as per requirements. Also, it should be flexible in terms of scalability; one should be able to scale up or scale down the production process easily, depending on demand. Product quality is of utmost

importance, so end-of-line testing should be ensured. This will help get rid of manufacturing defects and prevent defective products from being shipped to the market. Last, packaging of the product has to be taken care of. This should take care of two requirements. It should be designed in such a way that the equipment inside is protected from damage, and it should look attractive to the customer.

Quick time to market solutions There are certain ways to reduce development time of a product. Sequencing of operations, which reduces development time, can be done in the following way. In the design specification stage, planning of requirements and the test plan can be done simultaneously. In the development stage, hardware design and software design can be done simultaneously. Testing and certification can also be done simultaneously.

Distributed product lines For companies that are keen on designing their own products, the process is not too difficult. There are many vendors who will provide the necessary printed circuit boards, components and enclosure designs. Some vendors provide electronic manufacturing services, which include assembly of various components. This makes it a distributed product line. Last, the product is subjected to end-of-line testing and quality checks to prevent defective products from being shipped. Then, products are packaged and are ready to enter the market.

Take one step at a time The entire design process of a product may seem daunting at first, but with the right approach, the process becomes straightforward. Potential product designers are advised to take one step at a time to ensure the best results for their products in the long run. www.EFymag.com

materials

An Emerging Class Of Graphene Based electronics

I Dr S.S. Verma is a professor at Department of Physics, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Sangrur, Punjab

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n an era of electronics based civilisation there is always a demand for more, faster, better and cheaper electronic devices. Electronics started with copper wires and moved to semiconductors (silicon and germanium) base, but now scientists and engineers are putting in efforts to design and develop graphene based electronics for which new applications that fulfil all qualities of desired electronics are emerging very fast. These electronics meet the demands of electronic device-happy and data-centred world of consumers. Meeting these demands requires technologies for processing and storing information. Now, with the use of graphene, a significant obstacle to the development of next-generation device technologies appears to have been overcome. In simple terms, graphene is a thin layer of pure carbon. It is a single, tightly-packed layer of carbon atoms that are bonded together in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. Graphene is the world’s first 2D material. Since its isolation in 2004 it has captured the attention of scientists, researchers and industry worldwide with its unique properties.

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Some properties of graphene are: 1. It is ultra-light yet immensely tough. 2. It is 200 times stronger than steel, but is incredibly flexible. 3. It is the thinnest material possible and is transparent. 4. It is a superb conductor and can act as a perfect barrier; not even helium can pass through it. Graphene has been proven to be much more efficient at conducting electrons than silicon, and is also able to transfer electrons at much faster speeds (relatively speaking, 1000 kilometres per second, which is 30 times faster than silicon). In the next few years you will begin to see products from consumer electronics companies using graphene, and electronic devices based on flexible, robust, touchscreen devices such as mobile smartphones and wrist watches. This could mean foldable televisions and telephones, and eventually electronic flexible newspapers and publications that can be updated via wireless data transfer. Being extremely translucent, in the coming years you can also expect to be able to fit intelligent (and extremely robust) windows in your home, with (potentially) virtual curtains or projected images of your choice. Soon you will begin to see clothing containing graphene-enhanced photovoltaic cells and super capacitors. So you will be able to charge your mobile telephones and tablet computers in a matter of minutes (even seconds) while walking to work. You may possibly even see securityorientated clothing offering protection against unwanted contact with the use of electrical discharge. Possibilities of what we can achieve with the materials and knowledge we possess, have been blown wide open. It is now conceivable to imagine such amazing www.EFymag.com

materials prospective situations as lightningfast yet super-small computers, invisibility cloaks, smartphones that last weeks between charges and computers that we can fold up and carry in our pockets wherever we go. The range of applications for graphene in 2D materials in electronics extends far beyond just digital logic. While much research effort is devoted to seeing if graphene can replace silicon as the basis for the next generation of computer chips, this is not its only potential application in the broader field of electronics. In addition to its use in transistors for digital logic, graphene is also being investigated for use in flexible electronics where it can enable conductive inks and serve as a replacement for indiumtin-oxide as transparent conductors in these devices. There are also the more workhorse roles as an alternative material for interconnects and heat-sinks. Graphene research is focused on applications like energy, membranes, composites and coatings, biomedical, sensors and electronics. This is only the start and these are only the first steps. Potential of graphene is limited only by imagination. Electronics and energy storage could also be revolutionised by graphene. Flexible, durable, semi-transparent mobile phones, wearable technology, clothing that communicates, electric sports cars and lightweight planes are some of the future technologies that are becoming realistic in our present. Hence, there are a number of growing applications of graphene based technology, but this article is limited to introducing briefly the applications of graphene in electronics. Graphene based flexible displays. One particular area in which you will soon begin to see graphene used on a commercial scale 22

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is in optoelectronics, specifically touchscreens, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). For a material to be able to be used in optoelectronic applications, it must be able to transmit more than 90 per cent of light and also offer exceptional electrical conductive properties and therefore low electrical resistance. Graphene is an almost completely-transparent material and is able to optically transmit up to 97.7 per cent of light. It is also highly conductive and so it would work very well in optoelectronic applications such as LCD touchscreens for smartphones, tablets, desktop computers and televisions. Researchers have developed a method for producing graphenetreated silver nanowires, which could significantly reduce production costs for nanowire based displays. This could mean that graphene offers a real alternative to indium-tin-oxide in flexible low-cost touchscreen displays. The work has cut the amount of expensive nanowires required to build such touchscreens by more than 50 times besides simplifying the production process by using graphene. The key to the new process is to exploit graphene’s unmatched conducting properties. To do this, researchers changed from using graphene-oxide that is typically used in a solution based process to create nanowires to pristine graphene. Since pristine graphene is free of oxygen functional groups found in graphene-oxide, it could conduct electricity without any further chemical treatment, which resulted in more than a 50-fold reduction in the number of nanowires needed to produce viable electronic electrodes. This is a real alternative to indium-tin-oxide displays and could replace existing touchscreen technologies in electronic devices. Energy-efficient transistors. When graphene is placed on

top of boron-nitride, it creates a super-lattice, which is a structure made of aligned, alternating layers of various nanomaterials. The super-lattice can move electrons perpendicular to the electric field without the influence of a magnetic field. This could lead to a new kind of energy-efficient transistor. While the research team has not attempted to build a transistor based on the phenomenon, the super-lattice material has displayed high sensitivity to gate voltage that operates transistors. Another implication of this discovery is that electrons in the super-lattice appear to behave just like neutrinos, which are mass-less particles that do not interact with most kinds of matter. Researchers believe that this discovery could contribute to our understanding of the Universe. Random access memory (RAM). Researchers have developed a way of using graphene in order to improve the ferroelectrictunnel-junction that is a component of RAM. They have improved the ferroelectric-tunnel-junction by combining graphene with ammonia so that it is capable of switching on and off the flow of electrons more completely. The result is a distinct improvement in the reliability of RAM devices and the ability to read data without having to rewrite it. This is one of the most important differences between previous technology that has already been commercialised and this emergent ferroelectric technology. In a typical ferroelectric-tunneljunction design, a ferroelectric layer is placed between two electrodes so that when an electric field is applied to these, direction of the junction’s polarisation is reversed. This reversal of polarisation changes the alignment of positive and negative charges, which correspond to zero and one in binary computing. www.EFymag.com

materials tion in many applications Energy storage. Belike high-performance ing able to create supersemiconductor chips and capacitors out of graphene transparent displays. This will possibly be the biggest is compelling evidence step in electronics engifor improved speed and neering. While developthermal management by ment of electronic compoadapting the copper-granents has been progressing phene hybrid technology at a very high rate over the in future silicon chips and last 20 years, power storflexible electronics applicaage solutions such as battions. teries and capacitors have Graphene in thermal been the primary limiting This illustration depicts a copper nanowire coated with graphene—an management. As circuit factor due to size, power ultrathin layer of carbon—which lowers resistance and heating, suggesting densities and clock speeds capacity and efficiency potential applications in computer chips and flexible displays (Image courtesy: www.purdue.edu) of chips are steadily ris(most types of batteries ing, thermal-management are very inefficient, and issues are becoming increasingly Textile electrodes. A team of capacitors are even less so). paramount. Because of graphene’s researchers has used chemical vaFor example, with the develophigh thermal conductivity, it has pour deposition to fabricate monment of currently-available lithiumbeen investigated as a potential olayer graphene. This research has ion batteries, it is difficult to create solution to some of these thermaldeveloped a way to peel graphene a balance between energy density management issues. off the copper sheet and transfer and power density. In this situation, Now, researchers have brought it to a yarn without compromising it is essentially about compromising that promise of graphene one step the electronic properties of graone for the other. closer with the discovery that, phene. The methodology that has Graphene is also being used to heat propagates in the form of a been developed to prepare transboost not only the capacity and wave, just like sound in air. This parent and conductive textile fibres charge rate of batteries but also is extremely-valuable information by coating these with graphene longevity. Currently, while such for engineers, who could adapt the will now open the way to the materials as silicone are able to design of future electronic compointegration of electronic devices on store large amounts of energy, nents using some of these novel these textile fibres. that potential amount diminishes 2D materials’ properties. The work Researchers envision this prodrastically on every charge or should help engineers better undercess will enable a range of potenrecharge. With graphene tin-oxide stand the mechanisms of thermal tial applications including textile being used as an anode in lithiumconductivity in graphene and other GPS systems, biomedical monitorion batteries. for example, batteries 2D materials, and become a valuing, personal security or even comcan be made to last much longer able tool for those who are looking munication tools for those who are between charges (potential capacto use graphene for thermal-mansensory impaired. ity has increased by a factor of agement solutions. Graphene-coated copper ten). And with almost no reducMagnetised graphene. While nanowires. In research that sort tion in storage capacity between the over-riding preoccupation with of bridges flexible displays with charges, it would effectively make graphene in electronics may be to interconnects, researchers have electronically-powered vehicles a see it used in digital logic applicabeen successful in developing much more viable transport solutions, it may provide enormous copper nanowires coated with tion in the future. improvements to today’s digital graphene to lower resistance and This means that batteries (or memory solutions. Graphene has susceptibility to heating of copper capacitors) can be developed to been imbued with magnetic properwires. This research could allow last much longer and at higher ties that could lead to a million-fold copper wires to be used in a range capacities than previously realincrease in capacity over today’s of electronics including the flexised. Also, it means that electronic hard drives. While some research ible variety. devices may be able to be charged teams have managed to magnetHighly-conductive copper within seconds, rather than minise graphene, others were able to nanowires are essential for efficient utes or hours, and have hugelyachieve it with a relatively-simple data transfer and heat conducimproved longevity. 24

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materials and scalable process. Researchers first put a layer of graphene over a silicon wafer. The graphene-covered silicon wafer was then placed into cryogenic ammonia that contained a small amount of lithium. This process adds hydrogen to the wafer, which makes it ferromagnetic. While that is a pretty neat feat, what surprised the researchers was just how evenly the magnetism was spread across the wafer. The key discovery was that they were able to remove hydrogen atoms from the material using an electron beam. This maintained magnetic areas in some parts of the graphene and removed magnetism from others. This means that large areas of graphene can be patterned with the electron beam to precisely tune magnetism. Since massive patterning with commercial electron beam lithography system is possible, this technique can be readily applicable for current microelectronics fabrication. Role in spintronics. Spintronics, where the spin of electrons is used to encode information rather than charge, has long promised to be the next step in the evolution of computing. We have already seen evidence of that migration with today’s disk drives that are capable of much greater storage capacities than the previous generation, due to the material phenomenon known as giant magneto resistance. However, it did not appear as though graphene was going to have much of an impact on the future of spintronics, because if you laid it out flat it did not seem to have any effect on the spin of electrons. This changed when it was discovered that if you put a small bend in graphene it could influence the spin of electrons. In the latest piece of work, an electron spin has been preserved for an extended distance using large-area graphene. These results 26

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would attract a lot of attention in the research community and put graphene on the map for applications in spintronic components. Paves the way for harmless x-rays. Electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range make it possible to see into the body without using harmful x-rays. Radiation is moderated by water and therefore stops after about a centimetre. But it is precisely its sensitivity to fluids that makes it possible to create an image of various tissues in the body, or to see through clothing, for example. Terahertz radiation requires materials whose electrons can move extremely rapidly, and there are great hopes for graphene. A team has already constructed a graphene transistor that works at more than ten gigahertz. This research is now proceeding into the terahertz range, which opens up entirely new possibilities. This could lead to soft x-rays for applications in biomedicine or security checks at airports, for instance, where there has been a lack of suitable component materials to deal with sufficiently high frequencies. Another future scenario is shortdistance radars that can penetrate fog and rain up to 100 metres, which might facilitate driving in bad weather.

Technological bottlenecks The problem that prevented graphene from initially being available for developmental research in commercial uses was that the creation of high-quality graphene was a very expensive and complex process (of chemical vapour disposition). It involved the use of toxic chemicals to grow graphene as a monolayer by exposing platinum, nickel or titanium-carbide to ethylene or benzene at high temperatures. Also, it was previously impossible to grow graphene layers on a large scale using crystalline epitaxy on anything other than a metallic

substrate. This severely limited its use in electronics as it was difficult, at that time, to separate graphene layers from its metallic substrate without damaging the graphene. However, later studies found that, by analysing graphene’s interfacial adhesive energy, it is possible to effectively separate graphene from the metallic board on which it is grown. Besides, it is also possible to reuse the board for future applications (theoretically, an infinite number of times), thereby reducing the toxic waste previously created by this process. Further, quality of graphene that was separated by using this method was high enough to create molecular electronic devices successfully. While this research is very highly regarded, quality of graphene produced will still be the limiting factor in technological applications. Graphene needs to be produced on very thin pieces of metal or other arbitrary surfaces (tens of nanometres thick) using chemical vapour deposition at low temperatures. And it has to be separated in a way that can control such impurities as ripples, doping levels and domain size, while also controlling the number and relative crystallographic orientation of graphene layers. With production techniques becoming more simplified and cost-effective, graphene will be more widely utilised in various applications in general and electronics in particular. Graphene has a tremendous number of possible applications, and scientists and engineers are just getting started in their work to develop it. Let us hope that their sincere efforts in this direction will create good chances of developing new graphene based electronics applications that are faster, flexible, robust, cheaper and efficient. www.EFymag.com

e-waste

some ways to beat The New Monster In Our Environment

T Col. B.C. Halan (Retd), M.Tech is advisor climate control services at KBS Certification Services, Faridabad

Fig. 1: An e-waste dump largely made up of discarded electronic goods (Image courtesy: www.childfund.org)

he rapid growth of information, communication and entertainment technology sectors is ratcheting a viral effect on the manufacturing industries, leading to phenomenal growth in volume, variety and applications. The booming demand, rapid changes in technology, media (tapes, software, MP3), falling prices and planned obsolescence are resulting in the fast growth of e-waste. Electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) when discarded is called e-waste. These include discarded computers, office electronic equipment, electronic entertainment devices, mobile phones, television sets, refrigerators, microwave ovens and electric appliances and devices, among others. India is likely to generate three million metric tons (MT) of e-waste per year by 2018 from the present 1.85 million MT, as per an ASSOCHAM-Frost & Sullivan study. Mumbai with 120,000MT tops the list followed by Delhi-NCR (98,000MT) and Bengaluru (92,000MT).

The study also points out that Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune are generating 67,000MT, 55,000MT, 36,000MT, 32,000MT and 26,000MT of e-waste per year, respectively. Computer equipment accounts for almost 70 per cent of e-waste material, followed by telecommunication equipment (12 per cent), electrical equipment (eight per cent) and medical equipment (seven per cent). Other equipment such as household e-scrap account for the remaining four per cent. This estimate includes second-hand equipment and devices imported from developed countries for reuse, which mostly end up in unauthorised recycling yards either immediately or once the reused product is discarded. Complex and ambiguous definitions of second-hand electronic equipment has made it difficult for the customs department to trace, identify and stop the illegal inflow of e-waste into the country. The government recently informed Apple that it will not allow import and sale of second-hand consumer products as it contributed to electronic waste being dumped in India. The discard rate of EEE is shown in Table I. Most businesses and individuals sell their discarded EEE to informal recyclers for ease and ready money without realis-

Table I

The DIscarD raTe Of eee Item

estimated discard rate

Mobile telephones

1 to 3 years

PCs

Every 2 years

Cameras

3 to 5 years

Televisions

10-15 years

Refrigerators and washing machines

10-15 years

IT accessories

Very fast

Source: Guidelines for Environmentally Sound Management of E-Waste, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi

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e-waste ing the hazardous implications it causes to health and environment. Also, dumping EEE directly in the trash bin is equally hazardous to the environment. Exchange offers for old devices are one of the ways for proper disposal of EEE. Most consumer electronics brands such as LG, Microsoft, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Whirlpool provide such offers from time to time. For this purpose they have local collection centres.

Recycling and disposal practices e-Waste is much more hazardous than domestic, general-industry and municipal wastes because of thousands of components made of highly-hazardous chemicals and metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, polyvinyl chlorides, brominated flame retardants, beryllium, antimony phosphors (not to be confused with phosphorus) and phthalates. Generally, EEE comprise 50 per cent steel, 21 per cent plastic and 14 per cent non-ferrous metals, which include precious metals like gold, platinum and silver. Apple revealed in recently-released environmental responsibility report that it has reclaimed almost one metric ton of gold, three tons of silver and over 1300 tons of copper by recycling its own products in 2015. Due to the presence of hazardous chemicals and toxic substances, disposal of e-waste has become an environmental and health nightmare. More than 95 per cent of e-waste generated is managed by the unorganised sector and scrap dealers in India. Only 2.5 per cent of India’s total e-waste gets recycled because of poor infrastructure and legislative framework, leading to waste of diminishing natural resources, irreparable damage to environment and health of the people. Recycling involves sorting, dismantling and recovery of 30

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Table II

MaTerIals recOvereD frOM refrIgeraTOrs (TypIcal) Materials

percentage

CFCs

0.20%

Oil

0.32%

Ferrous metals

46.61%

Precious metals

4.97%

Plastics

13.84%

valuable materials. Typical materials recovered from refrigerators are shown in Table II.

Compressors

23.80%

Cables/plugs

0.55%

Spent foam

7.60%

How e-waste is polluting the environment and affecting human health

Glass

0.81%

Mixed waste

1.30%

Total

100.00%

Fig. 2: Recovery being done from e-waste by unqualified persons (Image courtesy: enews. toxicslink.org)

Most of the e-waste either ends up in landfills or unauthorised recycling yards where dismantling of e-waste is done in an unorganised and unscientific way to reclaim precious metals like gold and silver. Incineration by unqualified e-waste disposers could release toxins into the air. After recovery of items with value, remaining materials are thrown in rivers, drains or disposed of in solid waste dumps, which adds to environment pollution. Liquid and atmospheric releases end up in bodies of water, groundwater, soil and air. Hazardous chemicals including deadly dioxins and furans have been reported where recycling takes place. Recycling and disposal of e-waste usually results in serious health and pollution problems and significant risk to workers and communities. Long-term exposure damages the nervous system, kidneys, bones and the reproductive and endocrine systems, and some of these are carcinogenic and neurotoxin. Great care needs to be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in these operations and leaking of materials from landfills and incinerator ashes. e-Waste toxins and body parts affected by these are shown in Table III. It is estimated that nearly

Source: Guidelines for Environmentally Sound Management of E-Waste, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi

500,000 child labourers in the age group of 10 and 14 years are engaged in various unauthorised e-waste activities, without adequate protection and safeguards in various yards and recycling workshops. There are 148 registered e-waste dismantling/recycling units with an estimated total capacity of 450,000 per annum—a huge gap between waste generation and dismantling/ recycling capacity. Karnataka has the maximum number (52), followed by Maharashtra (24), Tamil Nadu (16), Uttar Pradesh (16) and Haryana (14).

E-Waste (Management) Rules 2016, formulated by Ministry of Environment and Forest Ministry of Environment and Forest has formulated and notified E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016, to collect, dismantle and recycle all e-waste. The rules reflect commitment to environmental governance. The rules have, for the first time, included management of e-waste generated from disposal of mercury-containing compact fluorescent lamps, which are dangerous to the environment and health www.EFymag.com

e-waste Table III

e-WasTe TOxIns anD affecTeD bODy parTs e-Waste toxins

affected body parts

PCBs lead and cadmium

Nervous system, kidney, lever

Switches and flat-screen monitors mercury

Brain, skin

PCBs, plastic brominated flame-retardant

Skin, heart

Plastic housing bromine

Endocrine

Motherboards beryllium

Lungs, skin

Computer batteries cadmium

Kidney, lever

Cathode ray tubes lead oxide, barium and cadmium

Heart, lever, muscles

Cable insulation/coating polyvinyl chloride

Immune system

Source: Guidelines for Environmentally Sound Management of E-Waste, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi

Fig. 3: An e-waste collection centre (Image courtesy: static.dnaindia.com)

as these contain mercury. New instruments of E-Waste Exchange, Deposit Refund Scheme and Extended Producer Responsibility have been introduced as incentives for consumers to voluntarily adopt the system of waste management. E-Waste Exchange offers sale and purchase of e-waste. If you as a consumer deposit end-of-life EEE, you will get a specified amount for the scrap. Under Deposit Refund Scheme, the manufacturer will charge an additional amount as deposit at the time of sale, which will be returned to you along with interest when the end-of-life equipment is returned. Under Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, manufacturers will be responsible for the collection and disposal of e-waste in an environmentally-sound manner. Other features of the rules are: 1. Rules are also applicable to components, consumables, spares and parts of EEE. 2. Collection target is set as 30 per cent of the waste genera32

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tion during the first two years, 40 per cent during third and fourth years, 50 per cent during fifth and sixth years and 70 per cent seventh year onwards. 3. Responsibility to implement these rules lies with the state governments. They are responsible to ensure registration, skill development and monitoring to ensure safety and health of workers, and making available industrial space for e-waste dismantling. 4. e-Waste transporters need to carry a manifest prepared by the sender, giving all details. 5. Collection mechanism includes collection centre, collection point, take-back system and the like. 6. The refurbisher has to collect the e-waste generated during refurbishing and channelise it to the authorised dismantler or recycler. 7. There is liability for damages caused to the environment or third party due to improper management of e-waste; financial penalties to be imposed, where environmental degradation is happening. 8. The dealer, if given the responsibility on behalf of manufacturers, has to collect e-waste by providing the consumer a box for sending to the authorised dismantling centre.

e-Waste and Basel Convention India is a signatory to Basel Convention, which is a global agreement

to handle waste to protect the environment and peoples’ health. The convention is the response of the international community to the problems caused by the annual worldwide production of 400 million tonnes of hazardous waste, which are toxic, poisonous, explosive, corrosive, flammable, eco-toxic or infectious. It addresses increasing concerns over the management, disposal and transboundary movements of hazardous waste, and puts obligations on to its parties to ensure that such waste is managed and disposed of in an environmentallysound manner. The convention was adopted in 1989 in Basel, Switzerland, and entered into force in 1992. Main principles of the convention are: 1. Trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes should be reduced to a minimum consistent with their environmentally-sound management. 2. Hazardous waste should be treated and disposed of as close as possible to their source of generation. 3. Hazardous waste generation should be reduced and minimised at source. Total number of ratifications to the convention stands at 63. Basel Convention Annex VIII refers to ewaste, which is considered hazardous under the convention.

Suggestions to prevent the e-waste crisis Solution to this huge e-waste crisis lies in prevention rather than its control and management. A feedback loop needs to be created to product developers and designers to design end-of-life costs; for example, by making the product less toxic and more amenable to material recycling. Recycling of e-waste is beyond the means of most consumers or local bodies, given its toxic nature. www.EFymag.com

e-waste Manufacturers should therefore bear the responsibility for financing the scientific treatment of the e-waste, discarded by customers and be responsible for end-oflife costs. Producer Responsibility Legislation for e-waste is already in force in developed countries such as EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and some American states. It is absolutely necessary that multinational companies treat all customers globally in the same way and create customer awareness for proper and correct disposal of their products and offer take back and recycling services in all countries—not just in countries where this is a legal requirement. Manufacturers should take back their products once discarded by customers and ensure responsible recycling and disposal when products reach their end-of-life phase.

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Moreover, they should ensure a robust system of e-waste collection and treatment so that it is Fig. 4: Logo for informing people on how to reduce collected and e-waste (Image courtesy: recycled in a media-cache-ak0.pinimg. com) safe manner. In our country the take-back programme is not working as well as it should, due to lack of an effective system, complex procedures and lack of awareness and education among customers.

Conclusion Most people and businesses are not aware that properly disposing of or reusing EEE can help prevent health problems, create jobs and reduce environmental pollution and

greenhouse-gas emissions. Reusing EEE needs to be encouraged and promoted. Reusing involves greater diversion of electronic waste from energy-intensive down-cycling processes (for example, conventional recycling), where equipment is reverted to raw material form. Environmental and social benefits of reuse include diminished demand for new products and virgin raw materials (with their own environmental issues), availability of larger quantities of pure water and electricity for associated manufacturing, less packaging per unit, availability of technology to wider swaths of society due to greater affordability of products, and diminished use of landfills and effective management of hazardous waste, so as to avoid environmental pollution and adverse health effects due to its improper handling and disposal.

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artificial intelligence

Deep Learning Makes Conventional Machine Learning Look Dumb

G Janani Gopalakrishnan Vikram is a technically-qualified freelance writer, editor and handson mom based in Chennai

lobal media has called inventor and author Ray Kurzweil everything from ‘restless genius’ and ‘the ultimate thinking machine’ to ‘rightful heir to Thomas Edison’ and ‘one of the 16 revolutionaries who made America.’ His list of inventions is long—from flat-bed scanners to synthesisers and reading machines for the visually-impaired. He has over 20 honorary doctorates, and has founded a string of successful companies. There is an interesting story about how this genius, who was not known to work for any company other than his own, joined Google as director of engineering in 2012. He wanted to start a company to build a truly-intelligent computer and knew that no company other than Google had the kind of resources he needed. When he went to meet Larry Page about getting the resources, Page convinced Kurzweil to join them instead. Considering that Google was already well into deep learning research, Kurzweil agreed. It is said that it is the aura of deep learning that closed the deal. What is this deep learning all about, anyway? It is machine learning at its best—

Today’s neural networks have several layers. The lowest layer takes raw data and its neurons store some information about the data these encounter. Each neuron sends information up to the next layer of neurons, which learn a more abstract version of the data below it. Higher layers learn more and more abstract features. The neural network in the image has five layers, of which three are hidden (Image courtesy: NVIDIA)

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machine learning that tries to mimic the way the brain works, to get closer to the real meaning of artificial intelligence (AI).

Taking machine learning a bit deeper Machine learning is all about teaching a machine to do something. Most current methods use a combination of feature extraction and modality-specific machinelearning algorithms, along with thousands of examples, to teach a machine to identify things like handwriting and speech. The process is not as easy as it sounds. It requires a large set of data, heavy computing power and a lot of background work. And, despite tedious efforts, such systems are not fool-proof. These tend to fail in the face of discrepancies. For example, it is easy for a machine-learning system to get confused between a hurriedly written 0 and 6, or vice versa. It can understand brother but not a casually-scribbled bro. How can such machine learning survive in the big, bad, unstructured world? Deep learning tries to solve these problems and take machine learning one step ahead. A deep learning system will learn by itself, like a child learns to crawl, walk and talk. It is made of multi-layered deep neural networks (DNNs) that mimic the activity of the layers of neurons in the neocortex. Each layer tries to go a little deeper and understand a little more detail. The first layer learns basic features, like an edge in an image or a particular note of sound. Once it masters this, the next layer attempts to recognise more complex features, like corners or combinations of sounds. Likewise, each layer tries to learn a little more, till the system can reliably recognise objects, faces, words or whatever it is meant to learn. With the kind of computing power and software prowess available today, it is possible to model many such layers. Systems that learn by themselves are not restricted by www.EFymag.com

artificial intelligence Deep learning to sort cucumbers Inspired by AlphaGo, Makoto Koike, a former embedded systems designer in Japan, decided to build a cucumber sorter for his parents’ farm, using deep learning technology. Cucumber sorting is a very difficult skill, acquired only through practice. It is difficult to hire parttime workers to help during the peak season alone, because it takes months to learn how to sort cucumbers by sight. When Koike learnt about AlphaGo, he realised that deep learning can automatically classify images with a high degree of accuracy, using a hierarchy of numerous artificial neurons. So he decided to give automated cucumber sorting a try, using Google’s open source machine learning library, TensorFlow. Although it was his first experience of deep learning, Koike got good results with TensorFlow, which does not need any knowledge about advanced Maths models or optimisation algorithms needed to implement DNNs. This gave him the confidence to get started with developing the system. The system designed by Koike uses Raspberry Pi 3 as the main controller, to take images of the cucumbers with a camera and send it to the server. The first phase of the solution runs a small-scale neural network on TensorFlow to detect whether or not the image is of a cucumber. It then forwards the image to a larger TensorFlow neural network running on a Linux server to perform a more detailed classification. You can watch the system at work, in this video: https:// youtu.be/4HCE1P-m1l8. But deep learning is not without challenges, as Koike reveals in a blog post. He trained the model using around 7000 images of cucumbers sorted by his mother, but even that was insufficient. With test images, recognition accuracy was more than 95 per cent, but in real use cases, it dropped to around 70 per cent. To train the

what these have been taught to do, so these can identify a lot more objects and sounds, and even make decisions by themselves. A deep learning system, for example, can watch video footage and notify the guard if it spots someone suspicious. Google has been dabbling with deep learning for many years now. One of its earliest successes was a deep learning system that taught itself to identify cats by watching thousands of unlabelled, untagged images and videos. Today, we find companies ranging from Google and Facebook to IBM and Microsoft experimenting with deep learning solutions for voice recognition, real-time translation, image recognition, security solutions and so on. Most of these work over a Cloud infrastructure, which taps into the computing power tucked away in a large data centre. As a next step, companies like Apple are trying to figure out if deep learning can be achieved with less computing power. Is it possible to 38

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Systems diagram of Koike’s Cucumber Sorter (Image courtesy: Google Cloud Big Data and Machine Learning Blog)

system further, he would need more computing power. At present his cucumber sorter uses a typical Windows desktop PC to train the neural network model. It converts the cucumber images into 80 x 80 pixel low-resolution images, but still takes around two or three days to complete training the model with 7000 images. With this low a resolution, the system can only classify a cucumber based on its shape, length and level of distortion. It cannot recognise colour, texture, scratches and prickles. Increasing the image resolution would improve accuracy, but also increase the training time. So he looks forward to using Google’s Cloud ML for this purpose, because it would give him access to a large-scale cluster for distributed training, and he can just pay for what he uses.

implement, say, a personal assistant that works off your phone rather than rely on the Cloud? We take you through some such interesting deep learning efforts.

From photos to maps, Google uses its Brain Brain is Google’s deep learning project, and its tech is used in many of Google’s products, ranging from their search engine and voice recognition to email, maps and photos. It helps your Android phone to recognise voice commands, translate foreign language street signs or notice boards into your chosen language and do much more, apart from running the search engine so efficiently. Google also enables deep learning development through its open source deep learning software stack TensorFlow and Google Cloud Machine Learning (Cloud ML). The Cloud offering is equipped with state-ofthe-art machine learning services, a customised neural network based

platform and pre-trained models. The platform has powerful application programming interfaces (APIs) for speech recognition, image analysis, text analysis and dynamic translation. Another of Google’s pets in this space is DeepMind, a British company that it acquired in 2014. DeepMind made big news in 2016, when its AlphaGo program beat the global champion at a game of Go, a Chinese game that is believed to be much more complex than Chess. Usually, AI systems try to master a game by constructing a search tree covering all possible options. This is impossible in Go—a game that is believed to have more possible combinations than the number of atoms in the universe. AlphaGo combines an advanced tree search with DNNs. These neural networks take a description of Go board as an input and process it through 12 different network layers containing millions of neuron-like connections. A neural network called www.EFymag.com

artificial intelligence the policy network decides on the next move, while another network called the value network predicts the winner of the game. After learning from over 30 million human moves, the system could predict the human move around 57 per cent of the time. Then, AlphaGo learnt to better these human moves by discovering new strategies using a method called reinforcement learning. Basically, the system played innumerable games between its neural networks and adjusted the connections using a trial-and-error process. Google Cloud provided the extensive computing power needed to achieve this. What made AlphaGo win at a game that baffled computers till then was the fact that it could figure out the moves and winning strategies by itself, instead of relying on handcrafted rules. This makes it an ideal example of deep learning. AI world has always used games to prove its mettle, but the same talent can be put to better use. DeepMind is working on systems to tackle problems ranging from climate modelling to disease analysis. Google itself uses a lot of deep learning. According to a statement by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, deep learning networks have now replaced 60 handcrafted rule based systems at Google.

Learning from Jeopardy Some trend-watchers claim that it is Watson, IBM’s AI brainchild, which transformed IBM from a hardware company to a business analytics major. Watson was a path-breaking natural language processing (NLP) computer, which could answer questions asked conversationally. In 2011, it made the headlines by beating two champions at the game of Jeopardy. It was immediately signed on by Cleveland Clinic to synthesise humongous amounts of data to generate evidence based hypotheses, so they could help clinicians and students to diagnose diseases more accurately and plan 40

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their treatment better. Watson is powered by DeepQA, a software architecture for deep content analysis and evidence-based reasoning. Last year, Watson strengthened its deep learning abilities with the acquisition of AlchemyAPI, whose deep learning engines specialise in digging into Big Data to discover important relationships. In a media report, Steve Gold, vice president of the IBM Watson group, said that, “AlchemyAPI’s technology will be used to help augment Watson’s ability to identify information hierarchies and understand relationships between people, places and things living in that data. This is particularly useful across long-tail domains or other ontologies that are constantly evolving. The technology will also help give Watson more visual features such as the ability to detect, label and extract details from image data.” IBM is constantly expanding its line of products for deep learning. Using IBM Watson Developer Cloud on Bluemix, anybody can embed Watson’s cognitive technologies into their apps and products. There are APIs for NLP, machine learning and deep learning, which could be used for purposes like medical diagnosis, marketing analysis and more. APIs like Natural Language Classifier, Personality Insights and Tradeoff Analytics, for example, can help marketers. Data First’s influencer technology platform, Influential, used Watson’s Personality Insights API to scan and sift through social media and identify influencers for their client, KIA Motors. The system looked for influencers who had traits like openness to change, artistic interest and achievement-striving. The resulting campaign was a great success. Quite recently, IBM and Massachusetts Institute of Technology got into a multi-year partnership to improve AI’s ability to interpret sight and sound as well as humans. Watson is expected to be a key part of this research. In September, IBM www.EFymag.com

artificial intelligence also launched a couple of Power8 Linux servers, whose unique selling proposition is their ability to accelerate AI, deep learning and advanced analytics applications. The servers apparently move data five times faster than competing platforms using NVIDBig Sur is designed around operational efficiency and serviceability IA’s NVLink high-speed (Image courtesy: https://code.facebook.com) interconnect technology. Locally-done deep learning. IBM is also trying to do someSpeaking of reducing processing thing more about reducing the power and learning times, can you amount of computing power and imagine deep learning being pertime that deep learning requires. formed locally on a mobile phone, Their Watson Research Center without depending on the Cloud? believes that it can reduce these Well, Apple revealed at 2016’s using theoretical chips called resisWorldwide Developer’s Conference tive processing units or RPUs that (WWDC) that it can do precisely combine a central processing unit that. The company announced that it (CPU) and non-volatile memory. is applying advanced, deep learning The team claims that such chips techniques to bring facial recognition can accelerate data speeds exponento iPhone, and it is all done locally tially, resulting in systems that can on the device. Some of this success do tasks like natural speech recogcan be attributed to Perceptio, a comnition and translation between all pany that Apple acquired last year. world languages. Perceptio is developing deep learnCurrently, neural networks like ing tech that allows smartphones to DeepMind and Watson need to identify images without relying on perform billions of tasks in parallel, external data libraries. requiring numerous CPU memory calls. Placing large amounts of resisFacebook intends tive random access memory directly to understand your intent onto a CPU would solve this, as such chips can fetch data as quickly Facebook Artificial Intelligence as these can process it, thereby Research (FAIR) group has come reducing neural network training out with innumerable innovations, times and power required. which are so deeply woven with their The research paper claims that, products that we do not even realise “This massively-parallel RPU arthat we are using deep learning every chitecture can achieve acceleration time we use Facebook. FbLearner factors of 30,000 compared to stateFlow is Facebook’s internal platform of-the-art microprocessors—probfor machine learning. It combines lems that currently require days of several machine learning models to training on a data centre size cluster process data points drawn from the with thousands of machines can be activity of the site’s users, and makes addressed within hours on a single predictions such as which user is in RPU accelerator.” Although these a photograph, which post is spam chips are still in the research phase, and so on. Algorithms that come out scientists say that these can be built of FbLearner Flow help Facebook to using regular complementary metalidentify faces in photos, select conoxide semiconductor technology. tent for your news feed and more. 42

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artificial intelligence One of their recent innovations is DeepText, a deep learning based text understanding engine that can understand the textual content posted on Facebook in 20-plus languages. Understanding text might be easy for humans, but for a machine it includes multiple tasks such as classification of a post, recognition of entities, understanding of slang, disambiguation of confusing words and so on. All this is not possible using traditional NLP methods, and makes deep learning imperative. DeepText uses many DNN architectures, including convolutional and recurrent neural nets to perform word-level and character-level learning. FbLearner Flow and Torch are used for model training. But, why would Facebook want to understand the text posted by users? Understanding conversations helps to understand intent. For example, if a user says on Messenger that “the food was good at XYZ place,” Facebook understands that he or she is done with the meal, but when someone says, “I am hungry and wondering where to eat,” the system knows the user is looking for a nearby restaurant. Likewise, the system can understand other requirements like the need to buy or sell something, hail a cab, etc. This helps Facebook to present the user with the right tools that solve their problems. Facebook is also trying to build deep learning architectures that learn intent jointly from textual and visual inputs. Facebook is constantly trying to develop and apply new deep learning technologies. According to a recent blog post, bi-directional recurrent neural nets (BRNNs) show a lot of promise, “as these aim to capture both contextual dependencies between words through recurrence and position-invariant semantics through convolution.” The teams have observed that BRNNs achieve lower error rates (sometimes as low as 20 per cent) compared to regular convolutional or recurrent neural nets for classification. If Google open-sourced its deep learning software engine, Facebook open-sourced its AI hardware last year. Known as Big Sur, this machine was designed in association with Quanta and NVIDIA. It has eight GPU boards, each containing dozens of chips. It has been found that deep learning using GPUs is much more efficient compared to the use of traditional processors. GPUs are power-efficient and help neural nets to analyse more data, faster. In a media report, Yann LeCun of Facebook said that, open-sourcing Big Sur had many benefits. “If more companies start using the designs, manufacturers can build the machines at a lower cost. And in a larger sense, if more companies use the designs to do more AI work, it helps accelerate the evolution of deep learning as a whole—including software and hardware. So, yes, 44

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artificial intelligence Facebook is giving away its secrets so that it can better compete with Google—and everyone else.”

Deep learning can deeply impact our lives Deep learning’s applications range from medical diagnosis to marketing, and we are not kidding you. There is a fabulous line on IBM’s website, which says that we are all experiencing the benefits of deep learning today, in some way or the other, without even realising it. In June 2016, Ford researchers announced that they had developed a very accurate approach to estimate a moving vehicle’s position within a lane in real time. They achieved this kind of sub-centimetre-level precision by training a DNN, which they call DeepLanes, to process input images from two laterally-mounted down-facing cameras—each recording at an average 100 frames/s. They trained the neural network on an NVIDIA DIGITS DevBox with cuDNN-accelerated Caffe deep learning framework. NVIDIA DIGITS is an interactive workflow based solution for image classification. NVIDIA’s software development kit has several powerful tools and libraries for developing deep learning frameworks, including Caffe, CNTK, TensorFlow, Theano and Torch. The life sciences industry uses deep learning extensively for drug discovery, understanding of disease progression and so on. Researchers at The Australian National University, for example, are using deep learning to understand the progression of Parkinson’s disease. In September, researchers at Duke University revealed a method that uses deep learning and light based, holographic scans to spot malaria-infected cells in a simple blood sample, without human intervention. Abu Qader, a high school student in Chicago, has created GliaLab, a startup that combines AI with the findings of mammograms and fine-needle aspirations to identify and classify breast cancer tumours. The solution starts with mammogram imaging and then sifts Big Data to build predictive models about similar tumour types, risks, growth, treatment outcomes and so on. He used an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M GPU on his laptop along with TensorFlow deep learning framework. Deep learning is supposed to be the future of digital personal assistants like Siri, Alexa and Cortana. Bark out any command, and these personal assistants will be able to understand and get it done. Deep learning is also going to be the future of Web search, marketing, product design, life sciences and much more. Once the Internet of Things (IoT) ensnares the world in its Web, there is going to be Big(ger) Data for deep learning systems to work on. No wonder companies ranging from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon, to NVIDIA, Apple, AMD and IBM, are all hellbent on leading the deep learning race. A year down the line, we will have a lot more to talk about! www.EFymag.com

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InnovatIon

Uncanny Vision Uses Deep Learning To Sense Unfamiliar Happenings

I Shanosh Kumar is technology journalist at EFY. He is BCA from Bangalore University and MBA from Christ University, Bengaluru

n the history of life on earth, animals gained the gift of organic vision approximately 700 million years ago. Over time, we were able to use technology to invent the camera and machine vision, with functions similar to human eyes. To use these visuals and take decisions based on various situations in which things could get involved needs higher intelligence. With the Internet of Things (IoT), it is now possible to bring in awareness to such digital eyes and keep ourselves informed about something out of the ordinary or unfamiliar happening around us. Uncanny Vision, a startup founded by Ranjith Parakkal and Navaneethan Sundaramoorthy, has a product revolving around this innovative idea of teaching the IoT device to identify objects using an analytical system powered by deep learning and smart algorithms. At the grassroots level, the system needs to be taught about various images and visuals that it needs to familiarise with for it to understand how these normally appear. In essence, it is like teaching a child about the world and correcting the perception in order to set proper benchmarks.

Learning the unfamiliar or uncanny In the biological world, vision is crucial for survival. Visual data helps us make better decisions on various activities. Take the example of a surveillance camera designed to watch over a specific place frequently visited by people on the street. Fig. 1: Edge The camera based vision seems to have no other objective apart from Uncanny Vision staring at a fixed pointCloud IoT Infrastructure of-interest. In (Alerts and Analytics) the case of a Uncanny Vision mishap, what Edge-based Vision Solutions Enable Scalable Surveillance if this camera 46

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could trigger an important push notification to the nearest police station and help the police arrive in a jiffy? Now that could only be accomplished if an extra awareness feature is added to the set-up so that it can carry out better surveillance while simplifying it for the human involved in decision making. Uncanny Vision works on two prime areas. One is on the edge, which is at the user’s end and the other on the IoT-Cloud infrastructure. This combination is very powerful when it comes to making human-like decisions. The whole system is like an intelligent being that can recognise anything it is programmed to see—even a moving object. When we say programmed to see, there are a couple of ways that this can be achieved. One way is to train a model (neural network) with thousands of labelled images of target objects that you would like the camera to recognise, for example, gun, helmet, people or wallet. This trained model is optimised and programmed onto the camera hardware. The camera can then recognise objects with reasonable accuracy. Another way is to have a self-learning camera. In this scenario, the camera (pre-loaded with an untrained model) is given a certain amount of video data and is told that everything in that sample data is normal behaviour. The model learns the definition of normal with the given sample data. The camera is then switched to surveillance mode. It watches and flags any behaviour that it has not seen before, as an anomaly. An excellent application of this would be to track human movement in an automated teller machine (ATM). These places are often visited by people to swipe cards and get cash out. It might not look like a fast-moving assembly line, but on any given day thousands of people visit www.EFymag.com

InnovatIon ATMs. Let us take an example. If you approach an ATM and do not stand in the position that the system normally recognises, it flags it as an anomaly or unfamiliar sighting. Smart surveillance is achieved here by giving intelligent sight to the camera itself. If you normally withdraw money and leave, the system does not trigger an anomaly, but if you Fig. 2: Human activity monitoring in green try to reach out to the ATM in an unfamiliar way, the analytical system evaluates the events based on a scale, which spans from red to green. Any normal human activity that is expected, for example, standing or walking, would be in the green zone, whereas an unfamiliar or unexpected activity such as you falling down, crouching down or with arms raised up above the head would be in the red zone. Fig. 3: Human activity monitoring in red When the system realises that an activity has triggered the red zone, an alert is sent to the smartphones as these are equipped responsible personnel or emergency with graphic processors and other system that it has been programmed processing cores for fulfilling all to contact. The system can also hardware requirements for evaluatbe taught to detect unauthorised ing the visual sequences captured objects that people wear such as by these. helmets or headscarves for early Evaluating visual sequences detection of normal behaviour. Processing of data starts after the Algorithms that learn images reach the CMOS sensor on and adapt the camera. From here, these are taken to an image signal processor Deep learning may sound fancy that cleans up the image from the but it forms the heart of the syssensor and then hands it to the main tem. Uncanny Vision’s computer application running on the CPU. All vision has 70-plus algorithms that of this happens inside a system-oncover everything from pedestrian chip like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon detection, vehicle detection, histochips used in most smartphones grams or holography estimation, these days. and is faster than OpenCV (an This is where Uncanny Vision’s open source software used for imsoftware takes over and interprets age processing). the image using deep learning Computer vision in Uncanny algorithms and convolutional neural Vision is targeted to and optimised network models. These convolutionfor an ARM processor. A new set al neural network software models of cameras that Uncanny works are able to recognise various useful on is similar to the ones used in 48

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information like human actions and faces from video input, and provide the analytics needed for a surveillance system. The convolutional neural network models are first trained on GPU based Cloud computers using a tool called Caffe with labelled sample data. Uncanny Vision’s UncannyDL software uses these models in the camera where the hardware equipped with CPU, GPU and brewed models inside the endpoint device detects any anomalies, and pushes out a photo, video, metadata or a decision to the central Cloud platform. Caffe is a deep learning framework made with expression, speed and modularity. Uncanny Vision uses Caffe for training convolutional neural network models with maximum accuracy and specificity of whatever it sees and identifies. Once the images from video footages are in, deep learning Caffe models kick in and refer to 1000 or more objects it has been taught to recognise. The system can also be taught to recognise animals, human poses and defects.

For machines, deep learning has just began It may sound like science fiction, but in its simplistic form, deep learning is a sub-field of machine learning that works on the learning levels of representations. Representation can be of any form of digital data in form of images, audio, text and the like. For machines to better understand this part, an artificial neural network could be employed to identify physical objects in a multi-level hierarchy of features, factors and concepts. A convolutional neural network is a kind of deep neural network in the deep learning concept used in this innovation. It has the capability to study and identify various www.EFymag.com

InnovatIon objects concurrently. Uncanny Vision is mimicking ways in which human vision and thoughts work through its IoT-Cloud platform for identifying anomalies rather than performing a direct image-to-image match for decision-making. Using this technology, it could be proved that such systems could be used to make our lives easier and secure.

Use cases in retail surveillance and analytics Retail space has some interesting use cases for visual analytics based IoT systems. Visual data could be used to track movement of people across the display unit in the store and create heat-maps, paths or position-tracking. Path tracking could help a store manager to know the places where more people would possibly frequent and create a heat-map. Apart from those, reactions and interests towards specific products could also be studied. This would sound advantageous for the retailer as he or she can position the products giving better visibility and thereby maximising probability of the customer buying the right product. The system could be taught to track multiple people and objects just in case there is a huge rush in the store.

The Uncanny Vision team

handheld mobile device. A phenomenal amount of time is saved using Uncanny Vision as the end point device is intelligent enough to send out only processed decisions to the IoT-Cloud infrastructure, because 90 per cent of the time nothing interesting happens in front of a surveillance camera.

More than just sensing

In surveillance, most of the current 300 million cameras worldwide are blind and can only record video for post-mortem analysis when unexpected incidents happen. In some cases, there are basic analytics that are performed on servers using traditional image-processing algorithms like motion detection in high-security locations, people Being informed detection and so on. Uncanny Vision’s artificial Uncanny Vision’s IoT-Cloud infraintelligence/deep learning based structure is wired to send out decialgorithms can analyse videos a lot sions and opinions in the form of deeper and understand what acnotifications to a human with the tions humans perform, unexpected available interfaces and media such visual anomalies and the like. as emails or push notifications on a In addition, Uncanny Vision’s optimised surveillance software can run on high-performance cameras like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon based wireless IP camera and carry Action analytics People counting Path tracking (Ex: looking, picking) out analytics on the device Fig. 4: Retail analytics itself, making the system 50

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more scalable. Security and surveillance are incomplete without an intelligent system like Uncanny Vision in the days to come. There has been a lot of interest in this field and a multitude of applications are being developed to bring machines to a point of understanding intentions and act in unison with the biological world. Predictability and machine learning are helping self-driven cars navigate and judge events on the road in real time. Streets could have night-vision-equipped cameras for pointing out crime and eventually eradicating such events. In a hospital this system could monitor movement of a patient who needs long hours of observation and may need medical attention at will. Uncanny Vision is more than a vision and can learn more than it can see. It is like having an eye at the back of the head with a mind of its own. Uncanny Vision provides surveillance solutions on a monthly subscription basis, depending on customer requirements. With availability of more data and fine tuning of convolutional neural network models, accuracy of artificial intelligence systems is expected to improve over time. www.EFymag.com

futuristic

Dream machines Of The fuTure: Computers Based On Cutting-Edge Technology “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.4 tonnes.” —Popular Mechanics, 1949 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” —Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. Deepak Halan is currently associate professor at School of Management Sciences, Apeejay Stya University

Fig. 1: A screen shot from an emotion diagnostic software at work (Image courtesy: http://hothardware.com)

T

he two quotes show us how unpredictable the future is and that we probably have no idea what is in store for us in terms of the size, power, capabilities, etc of computers in, say, 50 years from now. However, let us try and imagine how computer technology is likely to shape up in about 15 years. Let us try and be as creative as possible to paint a possible future scenario, perhaps based on our wish lists, needs and fantasies. Computers with an emotion chip could find their way into everyday things used by us. For example, your mirror could sense that you are in a bad mood, communicate this to your best friend and request her to give you a call to comfort you.

The year is 2030. Your computer has an emotion chip, which, with the help of various sensors like optics, heat and heartbeat rate, is able to gauge your mood. For example, your computer knows when you have a frown on your face; tone of your voice is irritated and your heart is beating faster than normal. This chip then triggers some useful actions that could lower the temperature of the room, and delivers a voice message in the kitchen that a glass of cold water should be sent to you quickly, and so on.

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Your personal network In the future, it is expected that a strong personal network will evolve. Mostly, the personal network will comprise one or more computing devices in communication with one another with the help of various permanent and transient communication links. One or more devices would be very high-end laptops—the basic portal through which you, as a user, will access the network. Once disconnected from the personal network, this portal will work just like a standalone device. The speed of wireless Internet would be so high that actual computing and data processing will not be on your personal device, but on a far off, more powerful machine connected via the Cloud. Such a technology will enable you to process data at lighting speeds. For example, you could be researching the way proteins take certain shapes, called folds, and how that relates to what proteins do. This problem that typically takes months at present will be completed in just a few seconds. Problems could range from breaking codes to searching data sets and even extend to the creation of new materials. Now, close your eyes, step into the time machine and take yourself to the 2030s. Your personal network has notified the navigation computer in your car about your departure time and destination, today morning. Just as you are backing out of the driveway, the navigation computer is informed of a traffic jam, and it informs you of an alternate route, estimates your new arrival time, notifies your office staff of your situation and reschedules your early meetings. You are now driving to work. Howwww.EFymag.com

futuristic anchor the network by performing ber devices in the network will often ever, you are also able to do various computationally-intensive services work together. Just as players come tasks such as read the newspaper, for less powerful computers on the to play individually, each network talk on the mobile phone with your network, will manage the personal device will operate some of the time business associate in Mumbai, or networks and their data stores. without linking to other devices in use your laptop—just as safely and These servers will be shared among conveniently as train or bus commut- the network. Some of these india number of personal networks, but vidual devices within the personal ers do. A combination of expressway individual personal networks will network will be dedicated to you, sensors, global-positioning systems remain logically separated. and in-car computers are actually do- their owner, whereas, others will be The personal networks can conshared with other users, via their ing the driving for you on limited-acnect among themselves, especially personal networks. cess roadways. Your car PC provides those of family members, friends Similarly, primary means for you door-to-door driving instructions and and groups having a common interto access the personal network will routes you around accident sites. It est or those who are together in a be a portable computing device reeven finds restaurants and books shared environment such as home sembling a high-end laptop that will hotels on vacations for you. or office, thus making the system be dedicated to you. Other parts of You arrive at your office and settle very powerful. A combination of down at your desk, your personal net- the network can include computing wired and wireless communications devices embedded in your home, in work links with your wife’s personal makes it possible to establish links your appliances or in your car. It is network to get her arrival schedule to any personal network anywhere inevitable that your family mem(she is away on a business trip to in the world, if required. bers will have their own personal Kolkata) and to make a dinner resernetworks and, hence, some of these vation at your favourite restaurant. Some challenges individual devices could be part of As you prepare to leave work, your multiple personal networks. personal network replicates the inforOne of the biggest technology chalVarious servers, which are mation that you need to take home, lenges is the user interface. The persynchronises calendars and learns that relatively powerful computers that sonal network is required to comyour wife’s flight is about half-an-hour municate with people in a humanlate. It reschedules the dinner reservato-human manner, which comes tion and also notifies your car. naturally to us. It means making Tomorrow’s personal networks adjustments as per our computer will be as invisible to you as, say, literacy. Also, voice identification the networks that work quietly in the and speech synthesis by the comback-end to provide the Internet to puter are some areas on which a lot residences. And generally, the netof research is happening. There are works will require little intervention many complexities such as speech during operation. patterns that could change for the In a traditional PC, the CPU, same individual depending on his or Fig. 2: The personal network will comprise many memory and I/O devices are linked her mental condition, mood, physicomputing devices in communication with one another (Image courtesy: www.brunel.ac.uk) via one or more buses, that is, paths cal health, etc. in circuits that provide the Speech recognition is communications link, makbased on identification of ing it feasible for the differphonemes—the smallest ent components of the PC to acoustical components of share data. In the personal language, and spoken English network, the network itself comprises approximately 80 is actually the bus. Network phonemes. Human speech architecture allows data flow is sampled by the computer in any and all directions, with with digitised audio signals individual computers fully and compared with those aware of the network and that it has stored. There is its constituents. some scope to accommodate Like the members of a disparities in individuals’ cricket team interacting with pitches and word duration. Fig. 3: Dashboard view of Google’s self-driving car (Image courtesy: each other during play, mem- www.slashgear.com) In addition, probability of a 54

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futuristic Traditional protection particular word following ansuch as passwords will exother will lead the computer ist but only to supplement towards finding a match. biometrics. However, publicFinally, the need is that you key cryptography—a mathshould be able to interact ematical system that will be with your personal networks used to secure owner control simply by talking and listenover the personal network ing to these. and allow for intra- as well Apart from human-toas inter-network privacy— machine communication, will form the hub of the reliable machine-to-machine security system. Encryption communication is also systems known as RSA and important, especially if the personal network is to be Fig. 4: A prototype of a new speech-controlled nutrition-logging system PGP are examples of publicallows users to verbally describe the contents of a meal. The system key cryptography. able to interact effortlessly then parses the description and automatically retrieves pertinent Public-key cryptography with other people’s personal nutritional data (Image courtesy: http://news.mit.edu) works by assigning each pernetworks. Channels of comson two different keys, which munication comprise chiefly really are two numbers the physical links between linked with each other. The machines like home LANs, two keys are several digits infrared links among devices in length and next to imposlocated in very close proximsible for most humans to ity, short-range radio links memorise. These are generused in cordless phones, ally saved on the computer’s long-range radio links as in hard drive or on a disk. The mobile phones and cable or public key is accessible to high-speed connections to the anyone who wants to send rest of the world. you a secure message. The Wireless communicaprivate key, however, is only tion techniques form the available with you. Publichub to the personal network key cryptography guards mobile computing. While Fig. 5: Access to personal network devices will be increasingly protected by biometrics (Image courtesy: www.scoop.it) with encryption and ensures for in-room communication privacy. A sender can eninfrared systems offer links rupted when a skyscraper, vehicle crypt a message to you that could be of up to 4Mbps across a distance of or some other large object comes an account number or a debit card about one metre, wide-area usage between the transmitting and receivnumber using your public key. Howdemands radio links. ing devices. Therefore transmission ever, this message can be decoded Complexities of wireless commuspeeds available in wireless comonly by using both the public and nications are far greater than those munications tend to be much lower the private key, and only you have posed by wired links. Key commuvis-a-vis wired links. the private key. nication parameters such as transmission speed, error rate, reliability Security issues Other issues and delay can change considerably and rapidly during the course of a Access to personal network devices Apart from security, another critical single wireless communication. This will be increasingly protected by aspect is software. Programs need to instability is driven by the variabilbiometrics—use of physiological be such that these cater to multiple ity of radio frequency noise and the features such as pattern of a voice, computers and operating systems. signal attenuation that is caused by fingerprint or iris to permit activaSoftware will need to be written in a natural phenomenon such as storms tion. Biometrics are unique to an language like Java that can translate or due to interference from various individual. For example, no other commands into readable instrucelectronic devices. human being on Earth has the same tions and is device agnostic. Mobility further brings in more fingerprint as yours and, hence, your Maybe one of the biggest chaluncertainty. For example, radiothumb or finger swipe allows you lenges to the development of the wave propagation is abruptly interand only you to access your laptop. personal network (as it is also for 56

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futuristic Drugs will no longer be designed by mixing chemicals and testing on animals, as scientists will do the efficacy testing on a computer. Personal computers will be able to recognise the current user and visually present customised interfaces. For example, interface for a young child will be different from an interface Fig. 6: RFID tags in each of the purchased items will automatically for a parent. debit the required amount (Image courtesy: https://adcsolutions. Endpoint wordpress.com) There are no physical limits to improvements and One of the most important progress in computer techmeasures of technology nology. Various aspects such advancement is how much as bandwidth, storage and easier and simpler it makes compute power are likely to life for us. Dream machines evolve, and you can expect to of the future, that is, PCs see several manifold improvebased on cutting-edge ment. One of the main reasons technology, will ensure that for this optimism is that the your refrigerator orders the amount of power required in orange juice when it is about a compute step is not as much to finish. You will not need as thought earlier. to waste time standing in Fig. 7: Deep-computing techniques will be used in various sectors, The quantum of energy queues at supermarket cash for example, in simulations of new medicines (Image courtesy: www.atelier.net) needed to execute one comcounters—radio frequency pute operation is close to the identification tags in each of energy of the atom itself, and the items will automatically it is conceivable to store sevdebit the required amount eral bits in an atom. In times from your account. to come, personal computing Your car service centre will evolve into intra-personal will be able to detect car and intra-cellular beings. problems remotely using diThere will be a time when, agnostic software, and rectify perhaps, each human neuron these by downloading repair will be commandeered by a software straight on to your molecular network that grows car using the Internet. Perand repairs itself. haps, most of your commuComputers will become nication and interaction with networks of polymer filaments appliances will be via voice growing inside and together using speech recognition and, with a human being. Probamoreover, digital assistants bly, elements of these polymer will be available to provide filament based networks will you with useful guidance. be inserted into embryos in Deep computing, a techthe first month itself of their nology that emphasises on growth. These will grow to analysing data patterns and Fig. 8: In future, our PC network could very well be growing in our brain itself (Image courtesy: www.futuretimeline.net) develop into an enormous extracting valuable informanetwork inside the brain. tion from very large databasHence, computers will be inside each deep-computing techniques will es, is likely to become quite popular, of us from birth, and thereafter these and will be accessible by even small be used in various sectors such as will unite all living beings into an enterprises. With its origin in IBM simulation of new medicines and integrated computing network. chemical processes. chess-playing computer Deep Blue, the most sophisticated and high-end smartphone or best electric car) is the invention of super-efficient and longlasting batteries. Systems known as uninterruptible power supplies will also serve the purpose of safeguarding vital constituents of the personal network in case of a power loss.

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design

Some Techniques For Lowering Power ConsumPtion

W Saurabh Durgapal is working as technology journalist at EFY

hile very-large-scale integration (VLSI) and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies have had an exponential growth, energy-storage technologies have grown slowly, requiring improvement in electronic circuit designs. Today, such ICs are embedded in all kinds of electronic devices. These devices work on direct current (DC), which is often derived from alternating current (AC) mains supply. The conversion process using an AC adaptor, or a battery itself, consumes significant amount of power.

High power consumption areas

A lot of power is lost through heat

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Power consumption is often directly related to performance. Higher the power available for consumption, the better can be the performance of the device. Hrishikesh Kamat, chief executive officer, Shalaka Technologies, says, “Optimising speeds and performance is a challenge.” A wearable device performing powerful functions, for example, would result in high power consumption. Lowering power consumption would limit its functions. Losses through heat are a significant part of power consumption. “For smaller devices, heat losses are negligible or sometimes almost non-existent,” says T. Anand, managing director, Knewron Technologies. This becomes a problem in bigger devices where lot of power is lost through heat, requiring heat-sinks. Although higher speeds also cause higher power consumption, it is better to work faster in a short span of time. The device can go to sleep mode, whenever feasible, to reduce power consumption. A step in this regard has been the

introduction of low-power microcontroller modules. “Cortex M4 architecture based controllers are coming with deep sleep and hibernation,” says Kamat. “You can increase power consumption temporarily with an interrupt, and the system goes back to using lesser power.”

CMOS circuits for low power With increase in integration, size and complexity of chips, thermal management is adding significant cost to the electronic products. Dynamic power dissipation in ICs does not increase much beyond 65nm, while static or leakage power also more or less remains the same. Localised dynamic power consumption can be reduced by providing different frequency clocks to different blocks of an IC. Threshold voltages in CMOS cells also govern IC’s characteristics. Sub-threshold current in a CMOS IC reduces when threshold voltage is increased. Cells with a higher voltage can help in the reduction of sub-threshold current. Combining low- and high-voltage cells to reduce leakage current, while maintaining the desired frequency of operation, is a typical design trend. High-voltage cells are used as ‘sleep’ transistors, which gate the supply to further low-voltage based designs when the block is in standby mode. Sleep transistors are turned on, resulting in low-voltage blocks downstream, during active mode. Design trends, with a catch. By varying bias voltage using a control circuit, voltage can be dynamically changed as per the required application. It requires much complex MOS fabrication in twin-well or triple-well fabrication techniques, more commonly known as variable threshold CMOS (VTCMOS). Lowering voltage, however, compromises with the reliability of the chip, causing voltage swings. These voltage swings can arise due to various process or environmental variations. electronics for you | January 2017

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design Dynamic voltage can also be reduced for supply voltage, which again has its downside. Reduction in supply voltage increases the delay of the cell as well. A balance has to be maintained between supply voltage and device performance. Static voltage scaling presents a few constraints while operating electronics. It does not allow changes in the supply blocks once designed, hence, is not adaptive. Adiabatic circuits are interesting in this regard. Here, energy spent to flip a bit can be reduced to very small values by externally controlling the length and shape of signal transitions. An IC to reduce power consumption by 90 per cent. An adiabatic logic circuit can use AC voltage as its power source without converting it to DC voltage. Yasuhiro Takahashi, department of electrical electronic and computer engineering, Gifu University, Japan, has built a prototype that could be installed in healthcare products. The 155µm×172µm chip operates on AC. The need arose from central processing units (CPUs) operating at high frequency levels of 500MHz, thereby rendering the circuits not advantageous for computing purposes. Interestingly, such a circuit could be used in healthcare devices or wristwatches that did not process at high speed. However, there are other methods for regular applications.

Low-power design techniques Transistors are usually arranged in a plane structure, but applying a spatial structure and the adiabatic logic circuit could reduce power loss and thus power consumption. “Powering down various modes, not adding unnecessary parts and others must be taken care of while designing the circuit,” explains Anand. He adds, “Besides the hardware design and supporting components, overall functioning and the firmware code also contribute to power saving of the device.” Either through architecture design 60

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Major sources of power dissipation Power dissipation in electronics can be classified into three major categories: Leakage current. Diode leakages, sub-threshold leakage, gate leakage and tunnel currents are the major areas of current leakages that occur even in standby mode. Dynamic power consumption. Logic transitions cause gates to charge/discharge load capacitance. Short-circuits. Logic gate state changes in CMOS result in momentary short-circuits, leading to power dissipation to the extent of ten per cent of the total power.

that uses low-power techniques, or by adopting a process that can reduce consumption, designers always look for ways to reduce power consumption. Kamat explains, wireless systems consume a lot of power in transmission. He says, “The rate of transfer of information can be controlled and helps in minimising power consumption. Sampling rate of power consumption is reduced to increase power capacity.” Some of the solutions come at an expense in performance, reliability or chip area. Making compromises in system design. Changing system architecture has been the most common technique for reducing power consumption. Clock gating is a very popular dynamic power-reduction technique. Power consumed during device logic switching and charging load capacitance are the major areas of concern. Latch based clock gating is an interesting technique that saves designs from hazards that can lead to additional power consumption. The clock can be turned off when not needed. Modern EDA tools identify the circuits where clock gating can be inserted. Traditional methods control the selection on a multiplexer. Latch based clock gating adds a levelsensitive latch to circuit design. It enables signal from the active edge of the clock until the inactive edge of the clock. Interestingly, clock gating does not require modifications to the RTL description. Selection of components. “Selection of components for low-power devices involves two critical parameters,” explains Anand. Low quiescent current as well as lower

operating power need to be calculated, and the component’s power should be controllable. “Controlling the component allows turning off the device, put it into lower-power mode or disable it using external control.” Multiple voltages. Another trick to save power is to operate different areas of the circuit at different voltages. In any circuit, there are specific areas that operate at high voltages, whereas other parts can work well at lower voltages for major power savings. This also reduces leakage power. Power gating is a technique implemented in devices with sleep mode. In certain instances, only part of the device is required to function. It makes sense to switch off non-functional blocks to save power. Leakage power and dynamic consumption can be reduced in such power-gated blocks. However, power coming from power-reduced blocks should not affect the functioning blocks. Hence, the design has to incorporate isolation blocks, so that functionality corruption does not occur.

The demand Mobile device consumers require longer talk and standby times with extended battery life at lower cost. Demand for smaller and sleeker devices has been resulting in higher levels of silicon integration in advanced processes. However, higher leakage current in advanced processes requires a reduction to reduce power consumption. Losses through heat are also being managed with some ingenious solutions. “Energy dissipation in the form of heat can also be used to generate power,” says Kamat. www.efymag.com

embedded Part 2 of 2

7nm IC TeChnology Trends And Challenges

I

n the previous part of this article we started learning about the trends and challenges of 7nm IC technology. Let us learn more about the same.

How EUV is different from older lithography technologies V.P. Sampath is a senior member of IEEE and a member of Institution of Engineers India. He is a regular contributor to national newspapers, IEEE-MAS section, and has published international papers on VLSI and networks

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There are multiple ways that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) differs, mostly associated with the methods to create and transport the short-wavelength light. Traditional lenses cannot be used with EUV as these absorb light. A mirror with a highly-specialised coating, called a multilayer mirror, must be used. Even these special mirrors absorb about 30 per cent of light, so it is advantageous to use as few as possible. Any gas in the light path, such as air or nitrogen, will also absorb the light, thus, the entire light path is inside a vacuum chamber. While source power is the chief concern due to its impact on productivity, significant changes in EUV mask infrastructure, including blanks, pellicles and inspection, are also under study. Particle contamination would be prohibitive if pellicles were not stable above 200W, the targeted power for manufacturing. Without pellicles, particle adders would reduce yield, which has not been an issue for conventional optical lithography with 193nm light and pellicles. Current lack of any suitable pellicle material, aggravated by the use of hydrogen plasma cleaning in EUV scanner, is preventing the adoption of EUV lithography for volume production. Some issues not specific to EUV such as resist collapse and stochastic effects (including photon shot noise) also currently bar EUV from exceeding resolution limits of immersion lithography in highvolume manufacturing. Double patterning is expected for EUV for random logic patterns at 7nm node (32nm pitch) due to the need for dipole illumination. 5nm node (22nm pitch) would likewise be expected to use multiple pattern-

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

ing already being developed for immersion lithography. However, IBM must hope it can reduce the cost by the time 7nm chips are ready to be manufactured in a few years. IBM is expected to go beyond 7nm by the end of the decade, but it also recognises that it will be a much harder task. Scaling to 7nm and below is a terrific challenge, calling for deep physics competencies in processing nano materials affinities and characteristics. New materials such as carbon nanotubes or graphene will be necessary to go beyond 7nm. The alternative could be to start developing other types of computers such as quantum, cognitive or neuromorphic. Currently, state-of-the-art lithography has a wavelength that is 193nm wide, which makes it quite difficult to design chips with much smaller transistors. EUV lithography, on the other hand, has a wavelength of only 13.5nm. EUV lithography is still much more expensive to use because it must operate for longer periods of time and is sensitive to the smallest vibrations when designing chips.

Self-aligned quadruple patterning As 193nm immersion lithography is reaching its optical resolution limit using single exposure, advanced multi-patterning concepts are being studied to reach lower nodes. Targeting the node, self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP) is an advanced patterning approach that uses pitch splitting to extend the capability of double-patterning 193nm immersion lithography. Using parallel interpretation of multiple scatterometry targets with slightly variable pitches, researchers have revealed that scatterometry is capable of measuring different space populations, and developed metrology solutions can be utilised to monitor and control each process step of SAQP patterning. www.EFymag.com

embedded terning process. With 193nm Intermediate focus immersion and multiple patterning, there are 34 lithography steps Illuminator and 60 metroloCollector gy steps at 7nm. This compares to Projection optics just six lithography steps and Wafer stage seven metrology Source steps for 28nm. Fig. 5: EUV lithography With EUV, there are just nine lithography steps and 12 metrology Next-generation transistor is steps at 7nm. Even so, chipmakers called nanowire FET, which is Finstill require both EUV and multipleFET turned on its side with a gate patterning at 7nm and beyond. And wrapped around it. Nanowire FET, ultimately, the decision to put EUV sometimes called a gate-all-around into production depends on the FET, is said to meet the device rematurity of the power source, mask quirements for 5nm, as defined by infrastructure and resists. International Technology Roadmap Today, oft-delayed EUV source for Semiconductors. It has paved can generate 80 watts of power. the idea of making switch-in-tranBut chipmakers want 250 watts sistor architectures down the road to bring EUV into mass producand is developing technologies in tion. It has to show reliability and the arena. availability. There are other issues Chipmakers see a path to extend as well. As lines become nartoday’s FinFETs to 7nm, but 5nm rower at each node, the industry is far from certain and it may never faces a growing and problematic happen. Indeed, there are a multiissue called line-edge roughness. tude of technical challenges at 5nm. Basically, line-edge roughness is a And the cost for 5nm is expected to deviation on the edge of a line. It is be astronomical. Performance and a line-width variation that does not cost concerns are the big challenges scale with feature size. Meanwhile, in scaling to 5nm, and addressing as before, lithography is tied to these will involve extension of curthe photomask. rent approaches as well as introAt 7nm, photomask makers may duction of new technologies and need to prepare for both traditional materials. If the industry moves optical and EUV masks. Optical forward with 5nm, and so to help masks are complex and expensive the industry get ahead of the curve, at 7nm. Because of the increased semiconductor engineering has asdemand on the process window sembled a list of some of the more for the wafer, shapes drawn on challenging process steps at 5nm. masks are becoming smaller. EUV Patterning and mask making mask shapes are less complex than ArFi (193nm ArF immersion) at For 7nm and beyond, patterning is those nodes. the biggest challenge. This technolBut EUV brings other issues on ogy has to be production worthy, the mask. For example, correction with the right uptime of tools and for shadowing and other effects an economic throughput per day. at wafer level has the potential to In theory, EUV simplifies the patReticle stage

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ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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embedded explode mask data volumes. Another example is mid-range correction that becomes necessary for EUV masks because of wider dispersion of electrons during the mask-making process as these hit the multi-layer reflective mask.

Fab flow and variation Patterning, CMP, deposition, etch and other process steps are challenging at 7nm and 5nm. Future devices would require structures with thin, precise and conformal films. And chipmakers would continue to grapple with structures that consist of only a finite number of atoms. It almost seems like a lot of technologies are all being worked on in parallel. Manufacturing with yield and having reliable devices would be difficult to do. With those factors in mind, chipmakers face a sometimes-overlooked challenge, namely, process variation. Variation can be defined as any deviation from intended goal. There are various sources of variation in the fab, including within the die, within the wafer and between one tool chamber and another chamber. Variation control is really dropping down to atomic scale. Gate’s critical dimension uniformity requirements are in angstroms not nanometers.

Selective processes At current and future nodes, chipmakers would require newfangled technologies called selective deposition and selective removal. Combining novel chemistries with atomiclayer deposition or molecular-layer deposition tools, selective deposition involves a process of depositing materials and films in exact places. Basically, most of our processing today is done based on line-of-sight capability. But soon, these would begin to tunnel through structures and build structures that you cannot see through from the top. So the industry needs to find a way to do selective deposition. Those tech64

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niques are somewhat there, but are not mature enough. Chipmakers, R&D organisations and universities are all working on selective deposition. Materials must also be removed using a related technology called selective removal or atomic-layer etch. This is a nextgeneration plasma etch technology that enables layer-by-layer, or atom-by-atom, etching. Atomic layer processing is the norm now for many applications.

Interconnects In chip production, back-end-ofline is where interconnects are formed within a device. Interconnects and tiny wiring schemes in devices are becoming more compact at each node, thereby causing a resistance-capacitance delay in chips. Back-end-of-line would require new tools and materials. But if you make it taller, you may have more resistance-capacitance. At 5nm, problems become worse. These occur due to the way wiring is done in the interconnect. It is not just in resistance and capacitance, but in how to wire up the transistor. We are seeing a lot of congestion. For that reason, the industry may need to consider an alternative path. This argument pushes us into doing 3D stacking.

Inspection and metrology Optical inspection, the workhorse technology in the fab, is struggling to detect defects at 20nm and below. e-beam inspection can find tiny defects, but the technology is slow. Optical inspection tools operate at wavelengths down to 190nm. Seeking to capture more defects, a sub-190nm wavelength technology is used. In addition, the industry is working on next-generation technology called multi-beam e-beam inspection. But this technology might not be ready until 2020. Exact timing will depend on how www.EFymag.com

embedded quickly the core technology can be scaled in terms of the number of beams and beam current. Meanwhile, metrology, the science of measuring structures and films, is another concern. Today’s metrology tools are capable of measuring structures in two dimensions, and in three dimensions to some degree. But that is not nearly enough for the complexity of current and future devices. In fact, there is no single metrology system that can measure everything. So chipmakers must use several different metrology tools in the flow. As the industry moves to 7nm and 5nm, there will be a drastic decline in signal-to-noise ratio of metrology tools. To compensate this uncertainty of measurements from each tool, there would be an even greater need for a multiple metrology approach. This means hybrid metrology is inevitable. In hybrid metrology, chipmakers use a mix and match of several different tool technologies and then combine data from each. Hybrid metrology, however, is still in developing stage. Fortunately, this silicon alternative does not have any major physical flaw like most other materials. Silicene and germanene, for example, degrade within a few minutes or hours, while graphene is not suitable for all transistor types and is still extremely challenging to use in the production of integrated circuits due to fragility of its structure. InGaAs and InP based devices can be manufactured using existing techniques in combination with silicon. The main issue remains to be yield and cost. Beyond 14nm, as we move to 10nm and 7nm, a new fin material will be required— probably silicon-germanium (SiGe), or perhaps just pure germanium. SiGe and Ge have higher electron mobility than Si, allowing www.EFymag.com

for lower voltages and, thus, reducing power consumption, tunneling and leakage. SiGe has been used in commercial CMOS fabrication since the late 1980s, too, so switching from silicon would not be too painful. The primary reason that we have been using silicon for so long is that the entire industry is based on silicon. The amount of time, money and R&D that would be required to deploy new machines for handling new materials that we know relatively little about would be astronomical. SiGe would take us to 7nm, but after that we are probably looking at a new transistor structure. Just as FinFET created a larger surface area, mitigating the effects of quantum tunneling, both gate-all-around FETs and vertical tunneling FETs would again allow for shorter gates and lower voltages. Gate-all-around FET essentially consists of nanowire source and drains, surrounded by a gate. A vertical tunneling FET is similar in a way that it uses nanowires, but the actual method of operation is very different from conventional FETs. TFETs allow for lower operating voltage. Another option is a somewhat conventional FinFET, but with fin constructed out of III-V semiconductors such as gallium-arsenide (GaAs), which again have higher electron mobility than silicon. There may be better gains to be had from moving sideways, to materials and architectures that can operate at faster frequencies and with more parallelism, rather than brute-forcing the continuation of Moore’s law. Meaning, the pitch or distance between major features on the chip are still scaling at an expected rate. Reduction in distance between fins, the raised channels behind the name FinFETs, is right on target (0.70x), the distance between gates ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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embedded on top fell just short (0.78x), but the interconnects scaled further than expected (0.65x), thanks in part to the introduction of a new feature, airgaps, that reduces cross-talk between interconnects spaced so closely together. The result is that overall logic area scaling continues.

IP reuse and foundry business All semiconductor companies develop intellectual property (IP) that they use in their own products or licence to others. For example, 3G and 4G technologies are not just for smartphones and tablets. Development of IP also helps semfab with development partners and with its growing foundry business. Today, these customers are bringing their own designs using their IP, supplemented with technology, but eventually plan to offer their own IP to customers. As semiconductor manufacturing grows more difficult and expensive, and the number of players dwindles (from 18 a decade ago to just four today in advanced logic), manufacturing edge grows more compelling to other companies. Enterprise IT hardware is still big and important, but other customers include Cloud service providers, telcos and technical computing. Growth drivers are Cloud architectures, software-defined networks and network-functions virtualisation for communications, high-performance computing and, of course, Big Data and analytics. And it is getting an increasing share of its revenues from other data centre technologies including storage controllers and Ethernet switches, silicon photonics to replace fibre and copper, fabrics and switches and communications gear. The Internet of Things (IoT), software and services and memory sometimes get lost in the shuffle, but each is on track for more than US$ 2 billion in sales this year. Although gadgets like MICA 66

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bracelet, Basis Peak smartwatch and SMS audio smart earbuds get lots of press, the IoT business is growing quickly due to applications such as retail, automotive and manufacturing. The software business is growing more strategic and Intel has said, it believes that mobile devices based on its silicon will be the first—other than Nexusbranded ones—to get Android 5.0 Lollipop update. The memory business, a joint venture with Micron, is shifting from selling memory chips to developing clients and enterprise SSDs, which are increasingly important to close the widening performance gap between CPUs and hard drive based storage.

Transistor options You must select the right transistor architecture for 5nm. Today, there are two leading options: finFET and nanowire FET. Scaling FinFET to 5nm is challenging. In a 5nm FinFET, for example, fin width is projected to be 5nm, which is supposedly the theoretical limit for this structure. That is why chipmakers are exploring nanowire FET. Nanowires have good electrostatics. But these come with other issues such as device width of nanowires and how much current you can get out of devices. Those are the areas that people are flushing out.

Mask making In process flow, meanwhile, photomask manufacturing is one of the first steps. As before, lithography determines mask type and specs. So if 5nm happens, the photomask industry will likely need to develop masks for two lithography types— optical and EUV lithography. Making an optical mask will be daunting at 5nm. Bringing up EUV mask line is also difficult, as these are very different from 193i masks in many ways. www.EFymag.com

embedded Because it is such a massive change, it will have a huge impact on features or capabilities of every product in the supply chain. This includes resists, masks and pellicles, as well as equipment like e-beam writers and even software. On EUV mask front, the industry is making progress in some areas, but not in others. Mask blank inspection is a bright spot. EUV mask inspection and pellicles are question marks. For 5nm, though, mask write times will be the biggest challenge. Today’s single-beam e-beam tools are unable to pattern complex masks fast enough and in a costeffective manner. There is a solution. Two groups, IMS/JEOL duo and NuFlare, are separately working on a new class of multi-beam e-beam mask writers. The tools, which promise to accelerate write times, are expected to ship soon. Reports have surfaced, however, that development of these tools is taking longer than expected due to technical issues. Any disruptive new technology like this will take time to mature before it reaches high-volume production.

Patterning After the mask is made, it is shipped to the fab. The mask is placed in a lithography tool. Then, the tool projects light through the mask, which, in turn, patterns images on a wafer. Needless to say, patterning is one of the big question marks at 5nm. For this, chipmakers hope that EUV is finally ready for 7nm and 5nm. This, of course, depends on the status of the power source, resists and mask infrastructure. In theory, EUV will simplify the patterning process, thereby reducing cost. But even if EUV happens at 7nm and/or 5nm, chipmakers would require a form of multiple patterning. Here is a worse-case scenario. If EUV misses the window at 7nm and/or 5nm, chipmakers will hit a www.EFymag.com

roadblock. It is possible to extend today’s 193nm immersion to 7nm and beyond, but chip-manufacturing costs will become even more astronomical. A 5nm process with EUV should be cheaper than a 5nm process without it, but either version may be so expensive that increasingly fewer companies could afford it. At 5nm, though, chipmakers would likely implement a mix-and-match strategy. EUV will not mean the end of multi-patterning. EUV is ready for primetime, and you will most likely see a mix of 193i single- and multi-patterning, single-pattered EUV and potentially multi-patterned EUV. It will be layer-specific. Some of the very simple, large-dimension layers will still be printable with singlepatterned 193i. Double-patterned 2LE 193i will still be cheaper than single-patterned EUV. Potentially, even triple-patterned 3LE 193i may be cheaper for some layers. Self-aligned double patterning will also be cheaper than single-patterned EUV. EUV should be cheaper than 4LE or 5LE. So it would be used in place of those on appropriate layers. It may be used in place of SAQP alternatives as well. The most critical of layers may have dimensions so tight that it would require double-patterned 2LE EUV. There are other issues as well. To extend EUV beyond 7nm, the technology may require a high numerical aperture lens as a means to boost magnification of the scanner. For this, ASML is developing an anamorphic lens for EUV. The two-axis EUV lens would support eight times magnification in the scan mode and four times in the other direction. It would support 0.5 to 0.6 numerical apertures. EUV scanner could take a throughput hit. It would expose the wafer at only half the field size, as opposed to full-field sizes with today’s EUV scanners. ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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test & measurement

Power AnAlysers Becoming Portable And Power-Efficient

T Saurabh Durgapal is working as technology journalist at EFY

he shift to handheld equipment has been going on for a long time. We now have handheld power supplies, multimeters and thermal imagers, among others. This is just one of the many changes test and measurement (T&M) equipment have undergone over the past few years. Low power consumption is another. In the process of developing and testing such equipment, power analysers have been very useful. So in this issue, we take a look at some of their latest features.

Custom logging is just one of the features Traditional power meters were discrete products. “Those were designed to test basic power parameters at a nominal accuracy. Most of these were designed for testing active average power and did not have high enough sampling rates or bandwidth to handle modern non-linear power-converter signals,” says Nitin Nigam, application engineer, Tektronix. Compared to those, recent power analysers offer much more. Today we have “custom logging features, waveform,

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harmonics and trend graphs to address all modern power analysis needs,” adds Nigam. Power analysers offer insulated current input, measurement of harmonics, alternating and direct current (AC/DC), voltage, frequency, phase-rotation, and idle, apparent and effective power measurements. Basically you get almost all the power measurements of the device under test from a single piece of equipment, which is very convenient. Flexibility of testing single- , two- and three-phase applications has also been an area of focus. You can perform testing in three-wire two-wattmeter method, fourwire three-wattmeter method or two-wire one-wattmeter method. Integrated software enhances application and flexibility of use, too. These equipment can measure accurately even at low power factors such as 0.1 with up to 0.1 per cent basic accuracy. Usage of 16-bit microcontrollers and 24-bit analogue-to-digital converters allows accuracy and calculation of voltage, current, power, power factor, crest factor, form factor and frequency.

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test & measurement Factors to consider in a power analyser Anuj Rohilla, deputy general manager-products, SPI Engineers Pvt Ltd, has listed out some points to be considered when going for a power analyser:  Instrument should have high accuracy and sampling rate.  Handheld power quality analysers are fairly lightweight (generally 2kg to 2.5kg) and measure a variety of parameters. Typical parameters include voltage, amperage, frequency, dips (sags) and swells in voltage values, power factor, harmonic currents, and resulting distortion and crest factor, power and energy, voltage and current unbalance, inrush current values and light flicker.  Recorded data should be downloaded in an easy way to detect problems and carry out the challenging measurements.  It should easily generate reports that can be sent from one place to another.  For certain applications, you should be able to plug in the device to the mains directly or connect to the power supply module provided. Some other applications may need a battery that can support the device for significant periods of time.  Some devices are handheld and others have to be placed on a surface or stand. The size and weight of power quality analyser should be considered if it is to be used frequently and for longer periods.

Apart from being used as energy-measuring devices, power analysers can also be used for network analysis and determination of harmonics and phase rotation. Incorporation of digital displays adds to the ease of use. PA900 from Vitrek delivers multichannel, wideband performance and its coloured touchscreen user interface is easy to use.

Handling controls remotely: safety or ease Electronic circuitry is improving day by day. New materials are under research to overcome attenuation and loss issues in electronic devices. Specs are getting better, resulting in handing over more and more control to the user. Madhukar Tripathi, senior manager - marketing and channel sales, Anritsu India Pvt Ltd, highlights some of these controls as, “user settings to control measurement speeds and noise floor.” KM2200 from Kusam-Meco allows connection through local area network for remote control and measurement. Remote connections also have a safety angle. Better safe than sorry. Safety with electrical equipment has always been an issue. Equipment often blow up, either due to short70

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ing or overload, causing personal injury and equipment damage. The good news, however, is that these misfortunes are avoidable. Some features are built in the system, like CAT rating requirements. Others are basic guidelines for safety. Tripathi says, “Connection of cable and antenna need special attention.” These should not be too loose or tightly connected. He adds, “After use, all cables and connectors must be kept safely, and caps should be used to cover connectors. This helps to save connectors and improve their life usage.” KM2100 from Kusam-Meco features CAT III 1000V/CAT IV 600V for safety in addition to a protection shield in the multifunction harmonic and power analyser.

Equipment capture data, while the computer processes it On an average, T&M equipment cost a lot. These have to be calibrated at regular intervals, as well. Proper maintenance, usage and precautions add to the confusion for an improperly-trained professional. Certain steps have been taken in this regard recently, with a spread of over-the-air testing. Proper procedure still has to be followed, but testing gets easier. As a test engineer you can have your test results pro-

cessed and ready for use. Analysis of test data through a computer by logging it directly into the system makes testing easier. Universal series bus (USB), LAN, general-purpose interface bus (GPIB), RS232C are some of the remote connectivity options available with the latest equipment.

No need of unnecessary measurements Tripathi says, “Traditional power meters are broadband and have limited power ranges, so engineers and technicians are using spectrum analysers, which include many unneeded features, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take up half the test bench just to make simple, frequency based RF amplitude measurements.” A longstanding trend has been to make the equipment and readings as easy as possible. Nigam adds, “It is important that the chosen equipment has a bandwidth and sampling rate that is at least ten times the highest frequency to be measured so that high-frequency signals are not filtered out.” This helps in high-frequency noise and harmonic content being taken into account while measuring root mean square values (RMS) and the actual heating effects of the signals. Powermaster from Anritsu is a portable, USB-powered millimeterwave power analyser, which enables frequency based measurement of RF power from 9kHz to 70GHz with capabilities as low as -90dBm. All this is available in a USB-powered device slightly bigger than a smartphone. PA3000 from Tektronix allows for a one mega-cycle per second sampling rate and 1MHz bandwidth, thus, helping high bandwidth to combat most power applications. There is also the option of injecting an external signal as a source of frequency where measured signals are extremely distorted and direct frequency detection is challenging. www.EFymag.com

test & measurement Diverse application areas Digital power analysers are used to measure voltage, current, wattage, apparent power, frequency and power factor of any electrical and electronic appliance, compact fluorescent lamps, light emitting diode bulbs, transformers, fans, air-conditioners, motors, auto parts and so on. High-accuracy, true-RMS, digital-readout and light-duty meters are used in general industrial maintenance, production, quality control and laboratories. Anuj Rohilla, deputy general manager - products, SPI Engineers Pvt Ltd, points out “production and diagnostics in load industry as well as actuators and contractors” as another area of application of power analysers. He adds, “These serve as very efficient tools for increasing productivity and life expectancy of load devices and machine analysis with load impact.” With increasing focus on electric vehicles, energy consumption efficiency of quick chargers is an important measurement and evaluation criteria that is being sorted out by power analysers. 3390 from Hioki displays voltage, current, active power, apparent power, power factor, frequency, loss, efficiency, distortion factor and voltage imbalance rate (when measuring three voltages and three currents), all at the same time. Energy is one of the most precious resources. Design engineers are under constant pressure to increase efficiency and reduce power consumption down to the last milliwatt. Challenging programmes like light-emitting diode and high-intensity discharge lighting, solar panel energy output, efficiency testing on inverters and pulse-width modulation motor drive systems on electric vehicles, all require fast, precise and reliable power measurement. GPA62 from PCE allows energy measurement in symmetrically-loaded three-phase systems. Power analysers PCE-PA 8000, PCE-360 and PCE-830 support professional power and energy measurements in single- and three-phase systems.

Benchtop versus handheld With the shift to handheld equipment, benchtop equipment were supposed to take a serious hit. However, “Benchtop instrument will always remain the choice for lab (R&D) and production testing,” says Tripathi. Due to portability, handheld equipment can be taken out in the field and real-time tests can be performed more efficiently. With the added over-the-air functionality and use of computers for processing data, the ease has been significantly increased. May be, sometime in the future, the only thing you would need to take out in the field would be probes. www.EFymag.com

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IntervIew Autonomous Robots:

“TheoreTical calculaTions Only Take You So Far” Rajeev KaRwal

foundeR and diRectoR, MilagRow HuMantecH

Engineers have been hard at work developing products that can be considered as ancestors to a future Rosie, an autonomous robot maid from the popular animated sitcom Jetsons, in which humans live with robots in the future. This interview takes a look at the biggest development challenges these designers face today. Rajeev Karwal, founder and director, Milagrow Humantech, speaks with Dilin Anand from EFY

Q. what has been the most challenging area when it comes to designing autonomous robots? A. For the floor-cleaning robot, while we can design for a generalised area (of say, 92.9sqm, or 1000sqft), for targeting dust we cannot predict the customer’s home layout within that area. This leads to an incalculable number of possible permutations and combinations that we need to design around.

Q. what technology did you use to get around this challenge? A. In our case we have built a Zprogramming algorithm that uses orthogonal movement, combined with a few more sub-routines (dependent on data processing from multiple sensors) to ensure that not only does the robot function on all areas of the room and around each obstacle it detects, in some cases it also goes into edge-to-edge mode if certain conditions are met in the algorithm.

Q. How are algorithms like these typically solved? A. Theoretical calculations only take you so far since every mathematical model attempts to approximate the real world. In the real world, the engineering team has to go through a lot of iterations and empirical testing. The best way to improve on that part of the algorithm is to test the robot in the real world, create different obstacle courses, see 74

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how the algorithm behaves in that scenario, and tweak it accordingly.

Q. How have robots been improved on from a design perspective? A. We have upgraded the tyre treads to tackle harsher surfaces such as thicker carpets and cords. In addition to this, a lot of models have a switch that detects when the suspension bottoms out. This switch, in combination with the tyre treads and the wheel encoders, enables us to write what we internally refer to as escape sub-routines, which allows the robot to bring itself out of situations that would normally cause it to get stuck. The maximum force the device experiences is in the case of a collision or fall.

Q. How do you prevent collisions? A. To avoid collisions, we equip the robot with two sets of sensors. One is the infrared to detect objects that are at a certain distance, and the other is the bumper sensor. If the infrared sensor is out of range, the bumper sensor actuation triggers the obstacle-detection sub-routines in a similar manner to the infrared sensor. The bumper sensor is a series of switches along the length at front of the robot. This is done so that the robot knows where it has been bumped and can move out of the situation accordingly.

Q. what about outright falls? A. Optical fall sensors are present

at the bottom of the device. These continuously send signals to the robot to let it know that it is present on a surface. Locations of these sensors are based on how long it takes the robot to move at its maximum speed (0.28 metres/second for most models) and how long it takes to stop. Once the robot detects a ‘0’ (floor not detected) from the front sensors, it stops and backs out, and continues with its Z-programming, treating that area as an obstacle. This ensures that the robot can both avoid stairs and continue with its orthogonal movement without one affecting the other.

Q. How does the dirt-detection feature work? A. We have different ways of solving this problem. In some cases, the problem is solved by two piezoelectric plates present on the inside of the robot that come into contact with the main brush. When unwanted particles like dust or dirt come into contact with the sensors, these trigger a specific sub-routine that causes the robot to reduce its speed slightly and also increase suction power to tackle the area. The alternative is to use an optical sensor present in the inlet before air enters the dust filter. There is a transmitter and receiver on either side of the hole. If dirt or dust is detected, optical signal from the transmitter and receiver is lost, triggering similar behaviours as mentioned earlier. www.EFymag.com

Industry News Make in india

New scheme being introduced to boost electronics manufacturing The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is planning to bring in a reworked flagship incentive scheme for electronics manufacturing, with an aim to boost local production. The revised policy is aimed to accelerate investments in the country and simplify the disbursement process for the companies setting up units under the scheme. Modified Special Incentive Package

Scheme (M-SIPS) was launched in July 2012 for a three-year period and was revised to include white goods manufacturers and extended till 2020. According to Aruna Sundarajan, IT Secretary with the ministry, ease of doing business and stable fiscal regime which Goods & Services Tax (GST) would bring, would make India an overall attractive place for manufacturing.

Consumer electronics to grow at a CAGR of 9.5 per cent The Indian consumer electronics industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.5 per cent, from 2015 till 2021, as per a report by industry body Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) and Frost and Sullivan. The report states that, while the industry currently employs 152,000 people, there is still a wide gap between required and available workforce, which might threaten the pace of growth. It also mentioned

that industry growth shall necessitate investment in the workforce employed in installation, service and repair. According to Manish Sharma, president of CEAMA and CEO of Panasonic India, due to the gap in demand and supply of engineers, technical incompetency of fresher engineers, lack of soft skills, high attrition rate and rise of new technologies, the industry will witness an avoidable opportunity loss.

India’s IoT market to grow at 28.2 per cent India’s Internet of Things (IoT) market is expected to grow exponentially over the next six years. Major drivers of this market in India are initiatives taken by the government, growing acceptance of smart applications and increasing Internet penetration across the country. The government of India has launched various projects such as 100 Smart Cities project and organisations for the adoption and implementation of the IoT. According to 6Wresearch, India’s IoT market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 28.2 per cent from 2016 to www.efymag.com

2022. For the growth of the overall market, the smart cities project is expected to play a vital role. World Bank and Asian Development Bank are anticipated to provide loans of US$ 500 million and US$ 1 billion, respectively, to India for the development of the project. Among all applications, industrial application contributes the maximum revenue share in Indian IoT market due to its growing usage in energy management, smart building, manufacturing, conserving energy and environment.

On The Move Pulkit Trivedi joins Facebook India Facebook has appointed Pulkit Trivedi as industry director for e-commerce, retail, travel and financial services verticals, to lead building and maintaining of strategic relationships with clients in India. Trivedi has 18 years of experience and has worked with Google India, Microsoft, IBM and HCL in the past.

Sumit Sehgal joins Intex as CMO Intex Technologies has appointed Sumit Sehgal as chief marketing officer to lead brand transformation and conceptualise marketing initiatives across various business lines of the company. Sehgal has more than two decades of experience in sales and marketing with companies such as JWT, Bharti Teletech, ITC and Max Life.

Myntra CTO quits Myntra’s chief technology and product officer Shamik Sharma has moved into an advisory role at the Flipkart-owned fashion e-tailer. He will continue as technology adviser and play a key role in Myntra’s product and technology growth. Sharma is succeeded by Ajit Narayanan as chief technology officer of Myntra. Narayanan is a former SAP Labs executive.

Ravi Bhaskaran quits Twitter India Ravi Bhaskaran, Twitter’s head of business development/platform partnerships, South Asia, has quit to join Uber India as head of partnerships. He joined Twitter in March 2014, after a three-year stint at telecom company Aircel, and around 2.5 years at Reliance Communications, where he was product head - app stores and social media, 3G and new-age VAS. electronics for you | January 2017

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Industry news Calendar of Forthcoming Electronics Fairs/Exhibitions/Seminars/Events Name, Date and Venue

Topics

Contact address for details

CES 2017 January 5-8, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Gathering place for those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies

Consumer Technology Association Website: www.ces.tech

Electronics West February 7-9, 2017 California, USA

Cutting-edge solutions for electronics manufacturing needs

UBM Americas Website: http://ubmamericas.com, www.electronicswestshow.com

Convergence India 2017 February 8-10, 2017 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

South Asia’s ICT expo that demonstrates convergence of technologies in telecom, IT, broadcast and digital media sectors

Exhibitions India Group Website: www.exhibitionsindia.com

India Medical Device 2017 February 9-11, 2017 Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, Bengaluru

Platform for medical electronics and equipment manufacturers to showcase their products and technology to Indian and international business visitors from the healthcare sector

India Medical Device 2017 Website: www.indiamediexpo.in

Converting Technology Exhibition 2017 February 15-17, 2017 Tokyo, Japan

Combines six specialised exhibitions, namely, Convertech JAPAN, neo functional material, Printable Electronics, 3D Surface Decoration Technology Exhibition, Advanced Printing Technology Exhibition and Prototype and Contracted Manufacturing Exhibition

Converting Technical Institute Website: www.convertechexpo.com

India Electronics Week March 2-4, 2017 Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, Bengaluru

An exhibition for the global electronics industry showcasing concurrently seven events: Electronics For You Expo, DIY Expo, Electronics Rocks, T&M India, LED Asia, Raksha India and IoT Show

EFY Enterprises Pvt Ltd Phone: +91-11-40596605 Website: www.indiaelectronicsweek.com

Embedded World 2017 March 14-16, 2017 Nuremberg, Germany

Fair with the focus exclusively on embedded technologies, it reflects the trends in the sector

Embedded World 2016 Website: www.embedded-world.de/en

IoT Summit 2017 March 16-17, 2017 Convention Center, Santa Clara, California, USA

Forum to present and highlight the latest trends, products, applications, development and business opportunities in the IoT

Iot Summit 2017 Website: www.iot-summit.org

Convergence Africa World 2017 April 5-7, 2017 Kenyatta International Convention Centre, Nairobi, Kenya

Showcases innovation and merger of technologies in telecom, IT, broadcast, security and surveillance, mobile money, smart/digital cities, the IoT, Big Data, Cloud computing and many more

Exhibitions India Group Website: www.exhibitionsindia.com

Hannover Messe 2017 April 24-28, 2017 Hannover, Germany

Trade fair for industrial technology

Hannover Messe 2017 Website: http://www.hannovermesse. de/home

Windergy India 2017 International Conference & Exhibition April 25-27, 2017 The Ashok, New Delhi

Wind power event in India that provides networking opportunity for members of the wind industry

Windergy India 2017 Website: www.windergy.in

China Coil Winding and Electronic Professional exhibition for small motor, magnetic material, electronic transformer, coil Transformer Expo 2017 winding and insulation material May 18-20, 2017 Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, China

Wise Exhibition (Guangdong) Co. Ltd Website: www.motor-expo.cn/En/

Computex Taipei 2017 May 30-June 3, 2017 Taipei, Taiwan

B2B ICT/Internet of Things trade show

Computex Taipei organising team Website: http://www.computextaipei. com.tw

E3 2017 June 13-15, 2017 Los Angeles, California, USA

Annual video game conference and show

Entertainment Software Association Website: www.e3expo.com

IFA 2017 September 1-6, 2017 Berlin, Germany

Meeting place for key retailers, buyers, and experts from the consumer electronics industry and the media

The German Association for Entertainment and Communications Electronics and Messe Berlin Website: http://b2b.ifa-berlin.com

Since this information is subject to change, all those interested are advised to ascertain the details from the organisers before making any commitment.

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Telecom sector attracts US$ 4.19 billion in FDI The government of India has recently released achievement reports on the three relatively more vibrant sectors of the Indian economy, namely, textiles, telecom and automobiles, that make a sizeable contribution to Indian merchandise exports. According to this report, India, with 275 million smartphone subscribers, recently outpaced the USA to become the second largest smartphone subscriber base in the world. With 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) allowed in the telecom sector, 49 per cent of which is permitted through the automatic route, total FDI in the sector during 2014-16 was around US$ 4.19 billion.

Apple seeks incentives to set up manufacturing unit in India Tech giant Apple has sought incentives from the government of India to set up a manufacturing unit in the country. In a communication to the government, Apple has asked for incentives related to Department of Revenue and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The company had earlier sought exemption for the 30 per cent domestic sourcing norms, on the ground that it makes state-of-theart and cutting-edge technology products for which local sourcing is not possible.

Halonix gets BIS certification for LED streetlights Halonix Technologies, one of India’s leading lighting companies, has become the first lighting brand in the country to get Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification for its range of LED streetlights. The certification was awarded by BIS after rigorous assessment of the performance, quality, safety and reliability of Halonix’range of streetlights. www.efymag.com

Industry news

Snippets Electronics For You and electronicsforu.com emerge as winners

As expected, Electronics For You and www.electronicsforu. com have emerged way ahead of all other publications and websites for media consumption in the Indian electronics industry. These findings are based on a survey done by IMRB on behalf of ELCINA—India’s leading electronics industry association. A group of 367 people comprising professionals, entrepreneurs, academicians, students, hobbyists, influencers and others participated in this survey.

Microsoft Accelerator, Wipro join hands Information technology major Wipro has said that it will work with select startups in India that are associated with Microsoft Accelerator programme to help them scale their businesses and take them to customers globally. Wipro will also look at startups to identify innovative solutions and products that they can build in their offerings and help generate value for its customers.

Infosys invests in ideaForge Infosys has made an investment from its Innovation Fund in ideaForge, an Indian startup focused on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) solutions. The startup’s UAVs have been widely deployed by Indian Armed Forces for surveillance, crowd monitoring and rescue operations, and offer a compelling solution for commercial applications in verticals such as energy, utilities, telecom and agriculture.

Thirty eight new mobile handset units set up since September 2015 As many as 38 new mobile handset manufacturing units with a combined capacity of over 20 million units per month have been established in India since September 2015, which include the units of Micromax and Lava International. These units have generated jobs for 38,300 people, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has stated in its Make in India Electronics & IT Sector Achievement report.

Panasonic plans local manufacturing of air purifiers Home appliances and consumer electronics company Panasonic India has plans to manufacture air purifiers in

The company’s state-of-art LED streetlights with wattage ratings of 25W, 45W, 60W, 72W, 90W and 120W have been awarded BIS certification, and these will have the ISI marking henceforth. BIS certification conforms to Indian Standard IS 10322 (Part5/Sec3): 2012, which means the functional performance, safety and photometry of the company’s product line in this segment meet the top standards set by BIS. www.efymag.com

India starting this year. Panasonic, which is currently the number three player in the air purifier category, is expecting ten times growth in next five years with a revenue of ` 1.5 billion by selling over 100,000 units by FY 2020-21. The Japanese firm has 15 manufacturing units in India.

Micromax plans big with Make in India Micromax Informatics is planning to make smartphones on a completely knocked-down basis in India, by March 2017. Micromax co-founder, Vikas Jain, said that the firm was on the verge of importing its first set of such units. He added, the new facilities will either be set up at Telangana or Bhiwadi, Rajasthan.

USAID clears US$ 75 million loan for Indian solar sector RBL Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has recently announced a loan guarantee programme worth US$ 75 million to support off-grid and rooftop solar power projects in India. The programme is also expected to cover energyefficiency projects pursued by small- and medium-sized enterprises.

World’s largest solar farm is now in Tamil Nadu The southern state of Tamil Nadu has overtaken California, USA, and now has the largest solar farm in one location in the world. The enormous solar farm, spread across a vast 2500-acre site in Tamil Nadu, comprises 380,000 foundations, 2,500,000 solar modules, 27,000 metric tonnes of structure, 576 inverters, 154 transformers and 6000 kilometres of cables.

India solar power tariffs hit new low Solar power tariffs have dropped to a new low in India, from ` 4.34 per unit. This is a third of the going rate a few years back, and was the bid for a project in Rajasthan. The latest quote is lower than the price of power from several thermal power plants built by private firms, and slightly higher than tariffs offered by others like NTPC’s tariff for thermal plants.

Electronics firm, Elecom, exits India Elecom Co., a Japanese manufacturer of peripheral products and accessories for personal computers and other digital equipment, has closed its Indian unit after less than four years in the country, because it failed to gain traction in the price-sensitive market. Elecom India had targeted a US$ 3 million turnover in the first year of operations and US$ 30 million by 2017.

Crompton ties up with UK firm Gooee for the IoT Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals has tied up with UK based Gooee to be the latter’s launch partner in India. Gooee connects lighting manufacturers and their customers to the IoT. Under the agreement, Crompton will be able to use the British firm’s new lighting ecosystem to provide additional functionality and value to customer lighting and IoT solutions.

With this partnership, Crompton plans to foray into the world of the IoT and connected lighting in a big way. The Gooee ecosystem provides sensing, control and communication components that integrate with an enterprise-scale Cloud platform. This offers a service-driven, scalable framework that can be integrated into LED lighting installations, significantly increasing control, monitoring and data analysis while driving performance and efficiency. electronics for you | January 2017

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make in india Business Opportunity

For A Successful Vertical Farming Tech Business Put Farming First

I Janani Gopalakrishnan Vikram is a technically-qualified freelance writer, editor and handson mom based in Chennai

f you wish to sell technology to verticals like healthcare and education, you have to learn to push technology to the background. What is more important is to understand the market, sync with its psyche and build a mutual trust with the customer base. Technology will automatically fall into place and earn you the due profits. Well, the emerging space of vertical (indoor) farming is no different. Although a lot of exciting technology goes into controlling the environment and managing the crop, the key to succeeding in this business relies on how well you are able to forget that you are a technologist and focus on the farming requirements instead, so you can eventually provide the customer with the right amount of the right tech. Overdo it, and you will not get your next customer!

Getting down to business Fig. 1: Growing crops vertically in trays at Spread, Japan (Image courtesy: Spread Co. Ltd)

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Vertical farming seems to be a fast emerging business worldwide, especially in urban areas that yearn for safe, organic and fresh food. The modern notion

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

of vertical farming or controlled-environment farming involves growing crops and sometimes even fish and other food products in indoor spaces, using technology like LED lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, sensors and smart software to maintain total control over the environment. “The Internet of Things (IoT), drones, mobile apps and social technologies can be brought together to create value concepts that empower farmers with timely information about crop cycles and health. This is pertinent in the context of indoor vertical farming since walking around to check how things are, is rarely an option. Data-driven knowledge, delivered in real time and based on location context is what farmers will need for making decisions in almost the same way that the Japanese made an art of just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, since Japan lacked space to build big factories loaded with inventory,” adds Sunil Malhotra, chief executive officer of Ideafarms, an Indian design-in-tech company focused on innovation and social impact. Vertical farms grow food in such tech-enabled setups and take it to the market through regular supply chains. Over time, they become preferred vendors because their food is organic, of high quality and the supply is predictable. Several tech-enabled vertical farms have proven to be successful. Some examples include Aerofarms and Green Sense in the USA; Deliscious in The Netherlands; Sharp’s strawberry farm in Dubai; Spread, Toshiba and over 100-plus vertical farms in Japan; and not to forget Packet Greens of Singapore. According to news reports, vertical farming is doing well in Singapore. In the past decade, the number of licensed vertical farms there has risen from one to seven. www.EFymag.com

make in india This emerging vertical opens up several business opportunities for technopreneurs. One of the most obvious options is to set up a tech-enabled vertical farm, grow stuff and sell it, like Aerofarms and Spread. Other options include designing and implementing tech solutions for emerging vertical farms, or selling individual technologies for the same. Off-the-shelf products for individuals and farms. Developing a vertical farming solution need not necessarily be complex. Look at what Bengaluru based startup Greenopia has done. They sell kits with smart self-watering pots, enriched soil and the right seeds. The sensor-embedded pots replenish moisture in the soil on a need basis, and notify you when you need to refill water externally (once in a few days). The solution comes with a mobile app, which not only helps you be in control of your plants—be it flowers or herbs—but also share information with a growing community. For example, if somebody has managed to consistently grow the perfect mint in their kitchen garden, they can share the parameters that led to the perfect crop, so others can replicate it. You could start with a simple product and, as your business gains traction, you could expand your portfolio with more products. One well-known example of this model is Wyoming (USA) based Bright AgroTech. They sell a variety of technology products ranging from vertical growing towers and LED lights to software. They also offer consultation, which is very important for a nascent vertical like this. Focusing on one of the supporting technologies. You can develop and sell solutions focused on any one aspect of vertical farming, like air-conditioning, lighting or intelligence. However, you need to think carefully before entering into a www.EFymag.com

Known benefits of vertical farming Predictable. Total control over environment ensures reliable and high yields, unaffected by the vagaries of nature. Profitable. Although investment and cost appear to be high, experts feel that this is offset by reduced labour requirement and absence of equipment like tractors, seed dispersers, sprinklers and other farming equipment. Returns are also assured. Aerofarms, the world’s largest indoor vertical farm, claims that given the same seed, they can grow it in half the time as a traditional field farmer, and achieve 75 times more productivity per square foot than a commercial field farm. Safe. Indoor farming is clean and hygienic. The sterile environment keeps pests away, and also keeps unclean farming practices at bay. Eco-friendly. Although the carbon footprint of the tech gadgetry appears high, evangelists of vertical farming say that it is compensated by reduction in transport and pollution, economical use of water, greater efficiency in usage of land and so on. Healthy. Some doubt whether the vegetables grown indoors, devoid of natural sunshine, will be as nutritious as natural field-grown vegetables. But, Caleb Harper who drives CityFARM project of MIT Media Lab, explains that, there is absolutely no nutritional difference between plants grown in sunlight and under an LED because plants only harvest ten per cent of the sun’s rays, which can be recreated in the lab. Socially beneficial. Like in the case of Vertical Harvest, a social organisation based in Jackson, Wyoming, USA, vertical farming can be a source of livelihood for physicallychallenged people and other less-privileged individuals.

business that covers only one tech component, because your success might depend on the availability of other supporting technologies in that region. In most cases, you might have to supply your tech to a larger player, who offers an end-to-end platform. That is, you become a vendor. Plus, in an emerging market like India, you cannot expect a large enough market to sustain your business if you plan to sell only to vertical farmers. This option makes sense if vertical farming is a logical extension to an already existing product line; like when Philips or Illumitex forayed into horticultural lighting solutions. Platform approach. A more holistic business would be to aggregate all the technologies required for vertical farming onto one platform. To achieve this, you would have to put together a multi-disciplinary team to design and implement the solution. When doing so, it is clear that you cannot succeed if you focus only on technology aspects. You need to pay more attention to farming aspects

and use technology as it is meant to be—merely an enabler. Dr Dickson Despommier, author of The Vertical Farm, hits the nail on the head, when he says, “Chances are, none of the fanciful, futuristic Jetsons vertical farms that you will find on Google Images [will] be built, as they are not considering the reality of farming on a commercial scale. Many of these designs are proposed by architects and designers, not the farmers themselves.” So if you want to succeed, ensure that your team has a farmer or two. This is a good business model, which has worked for companies like Houston (USA) based Indoor Harvest Corp. They partner with companies like Illumitex, Dosatron and Hort Americas to work out all aspects of a vertical farm, right from watering, nutrient delivery, lighting and HVAC, to constructing expandable and upgradable modular infrastructure to house it all. Technology as a service. Vertical farming need not always be on a commercial scale, conducted ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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make in india in specially-architected greenhouses. It can even be done in a common room, on the terrace or basement of an apartment complex, office or factory, just growing enough to feed the folks who live or work there. However, if you look at the time-pressed urban population, they will hardly be motivated to Fig. 2: Each crop has an ideal light recipe for best quality, taste and yield (Image courtesy: Philips) implement vertical farming if its maintenance is produce be sold in the market, but too tiresome. So Sanjay Aggarwal, once the systems are fine-tuned, founder and chief executive officer these can be sold to several vertical of Clover Organic, a pioneer in farms, worldwide. vertical farming in India, suggests, Tech based enablers. There are “It would make sense for a person technologies that can help all kinds to sell the infrastructure and then of vertical farmers, whether or not charge a monthly fee for looking they use technology to control the after the infrastructure.” environment. If you can think up This kind of facility would also innovative technologies that can be very helpful for a traditional help this segment, say a mobilefarmer who decides to try out enabled sensor network to monivertical farming. The farmer might tor the nutrient levels or a mobile be great at farming, but might not app to exclusively shop for vertical know technology. So if you are able farming needs, then you have an to install and maintain the tech inexisting market to tap, and might frastructure, the farmer can put his get quicker returns. farming knowledge to great use. Set an example and sell the Raising money to raise crops tech. Factory farming seems to be the fad now. Tech industry majors In India, tech based vertical farmlike Toshiba, Sharp and Fujitsu are ing is a greenfield. Internationally, all into vertical farming. Fujitsu startups in this space are hopeful of grows lettuce in a former silicon being very profitable, but most are chip manufacturing plant, and still in their first year of operation. Sharp grows strawberries in Dubai. So there is no clear business model Interestingly, Fujitsu’s facility for you to follow; no black-andis less than 100km away from the white instruction on what is right location of the 2011 Fukushima or what is wrong. nuclear disaster, and it grows Here are some tips gleaned 3000 heads of lettuce a day, which from here and there, for those who sell for three times the price of wish to foray into this unexplored other lettuce. terrain: Toshiba has a high-tech vertical 1. If you are developing off-thefarm near Tokyo where it grows letshelf products for vertical farming, tuces—it projects that the produce you can start small by crowd-sourcwill be around three million heads ing funds. After developing one or of lettuce per year. Basically, these two successful products, you can vertical farming setups have a expand your product range later two-fold benefit. Not only can the with the profits earned from initial 80

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products. Greenopia, for instance, raised funds on Wishberry. They crossed their funding goal in just two months, raising ` 958,500, contributed by 17 backers from six countries. Their campaign was backed by popular names like Rajan Anandhan, managing director and vice president of Google India, Sarad Sharma, former chief executive officer of Yahoo India, Dori Tunstall, a renowned professor in design anthropology, Diana Greenberg, a well-known user experience designer, and Margaret Atwood, the famous writer. 2. If you want to do vertical farming yourself, in a tech-intensive setup, a small terrace area will not make sense because the volume of business will not justify the heavy investment. You need to go for a larger infrastructure, preferably situated close to a city. Learning from their past mistakes, Paul Lightfoot, chief executive of BrightFarms, stated in a Wall Street Journal story that, “Building farms on city rooftops is a foolish endeavour because of higher costs and additional time for permitting.” The firm, which has raised more than US$ 25 million in equity and more than US$ 15 million in project finance, is now focusing on greenhouse farms in locations outside of urban centres. Speaking of city terrace based farms, Lightfoot says, “You would scale very slowly, and waste investors’ money.” 3. AeroFarms, one of the global pioneers in this space, has raised US$ 70 million in corporate and project financing. The company is not yet profitable, but expects to become cash-flow positive in its first year of operation. In a financial news report last year, chief executive officer www.EFymag.com

make in india of Aerofarms quipped that, they are always in capital-raising mode due to the nature of the business. When planning the finances of a vertical farming startup, you need to remember that even business activities like planning and hiring need money. 4. Funding experts suggest that if you wish to go into the business of vertical farming or vertical farming technology, you would have to start small and set a track record, while gradually increasing the size and complexity of projects. That way, your funding model will also be more manageable, as your growth can be partly organic and partly funded. Second, you need to remember that most investors do not fund farms; they fund farming mechanisms and infrastructure! 5. Being an emerging field and one that the government is interested in promoting, you can expect funding from industry bodies like Confederation of Indian Industry, too. Some of the organic farming startups in the North East, for example, are funded by Confederation of Indian Industry-Ahmedabad and organisations like Village Capital, USA.

The wait before the cash register chimes “I think commercial viability of vertical farming, its reliability, potential to scale to meet demand and the like are yet to be proven. Not to mention proof-of-value of soil-less agriculture from nutrition and health perspectives. Consequently, like any other revolution, we need both an abundance of timely resources and a good measure of restraint. We also need a concerted effort from several stakeholders, especially the government—not just subsidies, but rather complete ownership of infrastructure and policy pieces with respect to space, power, regulation, www.EFymag.com

Tech recipe for vertical farming Grow lighting. Most commercial vertical farms use LED lights to provide plants with exactly the spectrum, intensity and frequency they need for photosynthesis in the most energy-efficient way possible. Philips is a key player in grow lighting. Conditioning the air. Smart and energy-efficient large-area HVAC systems make it possible to grow veggies anywhere in the world, by maintaining humidity and temperature within a range that is optimal for photosynthesis. Sensors, data and intelligence. Sensor networks are used to monitor and replenish nutrient levels in water or air. Other environmental aspects are also constantly monitored and studied remotely using predictive analysis to control the systems and to minimise the risks associated with traditional agriculture. For example, data scientists from Harvard University, USA, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, analyse data collected at Aerofarms using machine-learning software, to optimise the growing algorithms of 250 different types of plants. These growing algorithms can be replicated to ensure constant yield every time.

policy and tax breaks. This is about creating the ecosystem, not just funding pieces of the puzzle. The business model, ideally, should be a private and public partnership, for it to work in the long term,” says Malhotra. The good news is that the government is in favour of vertical farming. Last year’s Vertical Farming Conference in Bengaluru was a step towards getting hi-tech agriculture within the reach of local farmers. Speaking to The Hindu at the conference, N.K. Krishna Kumar, deputy director general of ICAR, mentioned that the scope of vertical farming goes far beyond terrace gardening. It involves cultivation of various horticultural crops—fruits and vegetables, besides rare varieties of flowers such as orchids in multiple layers—with the help of proper supporting structures. He said it is possible to grow enough vegetables and fruits or flowers even in apartments through vertical gardening. Urban residents can grow their own food, or even take up commercial farming. Irrespective of the business model, Malhotra has a word of caution for technopreneurs, “Technology players will fail regardless of the amount and term of funding if they continue to be siloed in their approach, as has been endemic in the sector. Technology companies,

including information technology, try to avoid solving the larger business problem and are reluctant to go beyond the scope of their own narrow expertise. “Additionally, technology can help in forecasting demand and understanding customers’ real needs. Focus has to be more on the consumer. Put simply, any technology needed to support the vertical farming business must be oriented to the customer (farmer), and prototype solutions should be quickly tested for efficacy. “A design-thinking intervention, done seriously at the beginning of each exercise, will ensure a holistic view to bring out a coherent and sustainable solution, tested beforehand for efficacy and need fulfilment.” Vertical farming is fresh pasture for technopreneurs in India. Its benefits have, however, been proven abroad, especially in landscarce regions like Singapore. With the right team and tech in place, it is possible to enter this segment profitably in India, too. But as Malhotra says, the key would be to set the business up in partnership with the right government bodies, to lower the risk and improve market reach. Even more important is the technologist’s mindset—the ability to put aside technology and think like a farmer. ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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Software That Can fly your uaVs And DroneS ShanoSh Kumar

BRL CAD

Some popular resources

BRL-CAD is an open source combinatorial constructive solid geometry (CSG) modelling system. According to its legacy, the US military also used this software to simulate weapon systems for vulnerability and lethality analyses. Interestingly, solid modelling is frequently used in academia and industries apart from defence simulations. This software packs itself with interactive 3D solid geometry editing, high-performance ray-tracing support for rendering and geometric analysis. With network-distributed frame buffer support, image- and signal-processing tools, path-tracing and photon mapping support, the software helps simulate realistic images of events. As an add-on, there is an embedded scripting interface and libraries for robust high-performance geometric representation and analysis in this tool. Some interesting simulations with this software include radiation dose planning, medical visualisation, computer graphics education, CSG concepts and modelling education, and system performance benchmark testing.

OpenDroneMap. Do you love ariel drone imagery or, to simply put across, looking at the visual perspective provided by drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)? OpenDroneMap is that open source toolkit for processing aerial drone imagery that gives you better imagery than typical drone point-and-shoot cameras. It turns simple images into 3D geographic data that can be used in combination with other geographic datasets. Paparazzi UAV. Paparazzi is a popular open source drone hardware and software project that focuses itself on autopilot systems and ground station software for multicopters/multirotors, fixed-wing, helicopters and hybrid aircraft. This utility was designed with autonomous flight as the primary focus and manual flying as the secondary, and to be made compatible with the ability to control multiple aircraft within the same system. Featuring a dynamic flight plan system defined by mission states, Paparazzi makes it easy to create complex automated missions without the operator or pilot’s intervention.

Magic VLSI Magic is an open source EDA tool that directly competes with other commercial tools in providing features for streamlining product design flow. The simplified design rules and circuit structures take manufacturing and designing process a step ahead in time, while the interactive editor and built-in layout rules, circuits, transistors and efficient routing support intuitively assist in last minute modifications and 82

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dissolve the complexity involved in the design process. Magic was originally coded to focus on tool command language but, over time, its engineers optimised it to process designs and fabrications.

myNetPCB If you ever wanted a PCB application that has all the convenient features to support your design, the search would end with myNetPCB. This Java based Windows application helps you create schematic circuits using custom symbols, inserting wires, drawing buses, junctions and connections. The software could be stored on any USB flash drive and launched from the same location, unlike other software that are not portable in a USB. Being a Java application, it enables you to carry your designs anywhere, and plug and play from what has been saved to the utility. The software gives the freedom to import data from XML file format and export the gener-

ated design to extensible markup language (XML), portable network graphics (PNG) or joint photographic experts group (JPG) file format. It contains editing options to load symbols of inductor, LCD, diode, ground, resistor, resonator, transistor or jumper, along with the possibility to create user-defined symbols using various drawing tools, such as rectangles, ellipses, arcs, lines, triangles, pins and labels.

IndigoSCADA Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) are dedicated software application programs for process control and real-time data gathering from remote locations to control equipment and conditions. With IndigoSCADA you can capture real-time and historical graphical representation of data in your manufacturing unit.

PX4 This open source package of software introduces you to setting up and flying PX4 drones while learning all that there is about flight control and configurations. With this software, learn how to tune a multicopter, sync flight controller with autopilot software and much more. PX4 ground control station is called QGroundControl, bundled into the package, which is an integral part of the autopilot system. QGroundControl runs on Widows, Linux and other platforms, and gets you started with real-time flight information, fully autonomous missions and drone racing. Shanosh Kumar is technology journalist at EFY. He is BCA from Bangalore University and MBA from Christ University, Bengaluru www.EFymag.com

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Osmond: A Feature-Rich PCB Designing Tool AnkitA k.S.

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he most important part of embedded system design is the development of printed circuit boards (PCBs). PCB designing has always faced constraints in the development of an efficient design. A lot of design software is available in the market but there are just a handful with engineering excellence and the freedom to customise. This article focuses on Osmond, which banishes all restrictions and artificial limits, and paves new ways to design a PCB. OsmondCocoa is a simple Macintosh app that helps design PCBs before starting to build the actual circuit board. It is designed using the latest Cocoa application framework. Algorithms and methodologies are enriched with design research from over a decade, whereas the user interface is maintained as modern and sophisticated. It is compatible with Intel and Power PC machines running MacOS X 10.5 or later.

Combining freedom and flexibility In Osmond, it is very easy to get things on the same grid; all one has to do is type the ‘i’ key in Osmond, then click at the required new origin. By setting the x-y grid size, parts can be aligned on the new grid. In terms of precision, Osmond provides a spatial resolution of ten nanometres (0.00001mm), thereby helping design highly-precise PCBs. Here, there is the liberty to design pads of different shapes like circular, rectangular or oval. Also, the parts can be placed anywhere on the board in any orientation. This extent of design freedom often gives rise to errors, which are www.efymag.com

Fig. 1: OsmondCocoa

minimised by automatic clearance checking, and manual and semiautomatic routing features, thus making it an efficient software.

Inside Osmond Osmond lets you design a PCB structure meeting specific design rules. It has a set of tools that keep the design error-free. Once a design is complete, standard output like Gerber (RS274X) or Excellon drill files can be produced, which can be forwarded to PCB fabricators. If you desire more control over the fabrication process, there are options provided to define own panels containing either multiple copies of the one design or several different designs.

Segregating the functionalities The newest update OsmondCocoa 1.1.33 fixes the bug that restricted rotated pads in Gerber solder paste files render incorrectly. Osmond is free for simple designs and is fully functional, and allows you to design boards up to 700 pins without re-

Overview        

Latest release: OsmondCocoa 1.1.33 Tool for: Designing PCBs Cost: Free for small designs Board options: Vir tually unlimited board shapes, sizes and layers Units: Metric and imperial Scripting support: Lua Output: Gerber(RS-274X), DXF, Drill file (Excellon) or Encapsulated PostScript Resolution: 10nm

striction. For designs over 700 pins, you will need to purchase a licence to print or to output Gerber or Postscript files. About units and layers. When it comes to PCB designing, designers shuttle between metric and imperial units depending on the particular design or application. Osmond provides both of these units and also helps in switching seemlessly between these two units according to the need. It is also equipped with two silkscreen layers, two solder mask layers and two auxiliary layers in addition to signal layers. These can be used to electronics for you Plus | January 2017

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efy show dimensions or special fabrication notes. A powerful scripting language, Lua, backs up the advantages of Osmond. A lazy man’s shortcut. Tools to move and reorient parts, connect and route traces, modify existing traces, and edit pad and pad stacks are available. Traces can be curved, and PCB labels can be made using characters from Mac font library. It is very easy to partially retrace an existing design or match the design with an existing mechanical drawing. To extend the capabilities, it supports circular, rectangular and oval pads, as well as variable trace widths and trace spacing. Flexibility of the tool. A flexible grid is provided to guide the work. Any PDF document can be imported and saved as a background image. This feature helps in retracing specific models much easily. A wide range of ground or signal planes using several methods is supported by Osmond. It also allows you to define arbitrary copper flood areas. It is always the designer’s way. Each time you start a new project, you can define the requirements with a variety of available options. Options to choose a number of layers, working areas width/height/margin, outerlayer trace width, inner-layer trace with, outer-layer spacing, inner-layer

Fig. 2: PCB designing in Osmond

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Example: Lua Script for Current Transformer or Helical Antenna The script has 13 parameters as listed below. Alterations in these parameters can be done to make a custom coil. --Custom Coil Parameters CTSecondaryCenterX = 50 * mm CTSecondaryCenterY = 50 * mm CTSecondaryTraceWidth =6 * mil CTSecondaryViaDiameter = 50 * mil CTSecondaryHalfTurns = 20 CTSpacing = 6 * mil CTSecondaryLayerA = 1 CTSecondaryLayerB = 3 CTPrimaryTraceWidth = 4 * mm CTSecondaryDirection = 1 -- +1: clockwise, -1: counter clockwise CTSecondaryRotation = 1 -- 1 for up to down, 0 for across CTViaTypeName = “VIA”-- “VIA” is the OsmondPCB default via, you may create new via types and put its name here CTViaNamePrefix = “CTVIA” The coil shown above is designed for a four-layer bond. The colours corresponding to top, second and third layers are red, blue and light-green, respectively. The script does not draw a primary (blue) trace. Parameters should be designed with care because the script assumes the width of secondary traces to be smaller in diameter. Spacing should be increased if traces are larger than via diameter.

spacing and solder mask ring are provided to help you design a PCB perfectly suiting your requirement. Customisable, powerful predefined templates. Major and minor grids help create new designs. The main window is reserved for the PCB canvas, which contains a toolbar on top with basic tool buttons like select, zoom, rotate, attach traces, add pegs to a trace, wrap traces around pegs or pads, draw freehand traces, add text content, create pins, add elements from a library, select, swap and connect signals and more. Text based PCB files and library files in the software are easily readable by humans and programs. Simple and efficient inbuilt

parts editor. A parts editor is integrated into Osmond, which helps to easily define new part types or modify existing parts. Part types can be either through-hole or surface mount. If a design from schematic capture application is brought into focus, Osmond imports part and net lists to maintain adherence to specified design rules throughout the process. Designs can also be completely informal, in an ad-hoc manner, without part or net lists at all. In other words, Osmond supports any design style. Even experienced engineers sometimes make silly mistakes while designing, but an automated tool like Osmond and its supportive platform makes PCB designing a cakewalk. A variety of options provided by Osmond supports even the out-of-the-box ideas of designers, making the design flexible and efficient. Ankita K.S. is an engineering graduate and a volunteer with IEEE. She is currently based at EFY, Bengaluru, where she writes technical articles on engineering and technology www.efymag.com

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Meet MRPT: The C++ Robotic Destination Priya ravindran

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ou wake up in the morning and your cup of hot, steaming coffee is brought right up to your bed. Breakfast is just the way you like it, the house is clean and your car is ready for you. Your 24/7 staff at the office is all charged up and working at a pace you can only begin to comprehend. Everything is in its right place, your schedule fixed and presentations complete. Sounds like your personal assistant is too good to be true! Right? But what if this is not a scene out of the page of the life of the businessman on the cover of Forbes? What if all you need to do

is put together some hardware, play around with a few lines of code and lo behold, you have someone who can do anything you ask it to do?

Specs at a glance Software

: Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit Developer : The MAPIR group, Jose Luis Blanco Stable release : MRPT 1.3.2 : C++ Written in Operating system : Linux, Windows Type : Robotics Suite Licence : New BSD licence Website : www.mrpt.org —Courtesy: Wikipedia

Oh yes, we are taking about the robot you have always dreamt of! This article discusses Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit (MRPT), a cross-platform and open source C++ library designed to help you program your dream robotics application. Earlier distributed under GPL licence, versions 1.0 and above now come under the new BSD licence. MRPT is based on OpenMORA, the Open Mobile Robot Architecture for mobile robots. Portable, well-tested applications and libraries come as part of MRPT package, which covers data structures and algorithms employed

Fig. 1: MRPT particle filter localisation using ROS

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efy in common robotics research areas. While dealing with robotics, basic functioning can be broadly grouped into location, vision and motion. Advanced techniques for each of the above is what forms the basis of MRPT.

Go the fast and furious way Ask a robotics engineer and he will tell you about one of the classic robotic problems: the navigation problem. The more creative ones call it the piano mover’s problem. Complicated though it sounds, it is not too difficult to comprehend—just imagine trying to make your robot play the Harry Potter theme song. Pause and dissect. Motion planning involves breaking up motion into discrete steps, each satisfying movement constraints and even maybe optimises some aspects of the same. Be it in autonomy, automation, animation, video games or robotic surgery, this is what is done. MRPT uses holonomic algorithms for depicting nearness diagrams and virtual force fields to help set your robot into action. Plan and connect. Path of the robot is fixed by you via planning algorithms and path planning with occupancy grid maps that iterate to find the shortest route possible. The robot is aware of its path with the reactive navigation mechanism kicking in on encountering an obstacle. All of this can be observed clearly on your computer screen with help from Navigation Viewer, making analysis all the more easy. You can even export the robot trajectory and point clouds of obstacles to MATLAB for generating high-quality graphs. Metric map can be represented as landmark map, beacon map, coloured point map or even gas concentration map to aid you to convert observations into meaningful data. www.EFymag.com

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Why we need a new library “Many good scientific programs and programming libraries exist out there. When working with matrices, vectors and graphical representations, applications like MATLAB or Octave excel. If your needs are efficient image algorithms under C and C++, OpenCV or VXL are good bets. Other libraries provide Bayesian inference or random number generators for a variety of probability distributions. When interfacing a variety of sensors, a low-level language such as C is probably one of the best ways to develop a robust and efficient implementation. A problem arises only when a project requires performing many or all of these tasks under a single and sensible development framework, since each library declares its own data structures. For example, an image grabbed by an OpenCV program cannot be directly sent to a MATLAB program that detects features. Development of mobile robotics software is one of those complex projects that require having at hand a variety of heterogeneous tools: a robot may capture an image from an IEEE1394 camera, extract features from it, read odometry information from wheel encoders through a serial port and then fuse all the data using a Kalman filter in matrix form. This contains tasks that range from low-level code (close to hardware), up to linear algebra. To face the development of such software, we have created Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit, or MRPT.” —Taken from ‘Development of Scientific Applications with the MobileRobot Programming Toolkit,’ the MRPT reference book

Enhance the viewing perimeter Computer Vision (CV) is one feature no robotics application is complete without. Understanding digital images and video, and translating data to process automatic visual tasks forms the core of CV, and this task of MRPT is largely supported by OpenCV. Images can be stored as grayscale or RGB bitmaps; tracking video feature lets you detect and track features of a video stream in real time. Post better pictures on Instagram. A commonly disregarded fact is the radial and tangential distortion introduced by cameras. With interest in photography on the rise, everyone wants ideal projective camera images, and this is easily recovered by performing an undistortion of image pixels. The same applies even for video files, which are sequences of images, afterall. You can calibrate camera sensors using tools like Program camera-calib, Complete Kinect calibration and Program stereo-calibgui, which help calibrate individual cameras, accurately reconstruct

Fig. 2: The CMesh

depth and RGB information, and calibrate stereo cameras, respectively. Do you want to rectify stereo maps? Worry not, as MRPT lets you do that, too!

Locate and map on the same shot Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping, commonly called SLAM in robotic circles, is defined by Wikipedia as the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment, while simultaneously keeping track of an agent’s location within it. The way to do this is, of course, to use algorithms for a given time and environment. The purpose defines the choice. MRPT provides you with a set of algorithms that can be readily ElEctronics For you Plus | January 2017

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efy applied to different environments, to achieve operational compliance rather than perfection. Choose the right SLAM algorithm for your purpose depending on the kind of observation to be made, that is, sensor data and map type required. The sensor could be anything, like a 2D laser scanner or a range-only sensor, while mapping types range across occupancy grids, point maps, landmark maps and even graphical representations. Algorithms aplenty. You have Bayesian range-only SLAM, iterative closest point (ICP) SLAM, particle filters like Rao-Blackwellised particle filtering (RBPF) SLAM, visual SLAM based on maximum likelihood estimation like BundleAdjustment, extended Kalman filter, so on and so forth; mix and match to get the right results. SLAM being a popular research area, published algorithms find

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Fig. 3: COctoMapVoxels on MRPT

implementations in self-driving cars, drones, autonomous underwater vehicles, planetary rovers, domestic robots and even inside the human body.

Make your own robot Common robotic platforms and sensors, Monte Carlo localisation, reac-

tive navigation and such details have their own off-the-shelf modules that come as part of this open source suite, forming the perfect base for beginning a new robotic application from scratch.The toolkit also comes with Robot operating system (ROS) wrapper packages, coming as a boon to designers working on ROS. Before you begin, have a look at the list of sensors and platforms supported by the toolkit, on their website. The only thing that now limits your robot becoming a super robot is the code. Priya Ravindran is M.Sc (electronics) from VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. She loves to explore new avenues and is passionate about writing

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SmartSoft: The Framework For Robotic Systems Priya ravindran

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rtificial intelligence, mechatronics, robotics—these are fields in demand in today’s world, thanks to the dreams of living luxurious lives, having automatic facilities Implementation

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all around and having to put in less manual effort. But one fact remains; although the process of developing such a solution has eased in comparison, complexity still stays intact.

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Fig. 1: Internal realisation of SmartMDSDToolchain. Figure shows artefacts of the toolchain (models and code), their relationships and their handover (red arrows) through the workflow

For curious minds  SmartSoft assists the component developer, the application builder and the end user in building and using distributed components in such a way that semantics of the interface of components is predefined by communication patterns, irrespective of where these are applied.  At the moment, the most prominent implementations of SmartSoftare are based on ACE/TAO named CORBA/SmartSoft and on adaptive communication environment (ACE) named ACE/ SmartSoft.  CORBA/SmartSoft runs on Linux out-of-the-box. Others use it on Windows. ACE/SmartSoft runs on Linux and Windows out-of-the-box. Since it depends only on ACE and relies on its operating system abstractions, it requires only minor efforts to get it into operation on all operating systems supported by ACE.  Other implementations of SmartSoft are: • SmartSLAM is an open source C++ library for simultaneous localisation and mapping algorithms in robotics based on probabilistic methods • SmartSoft ROS gateway • SmartSoft-Morse simulator  SmartSoft Component Model is underpinned by a unified modelling language (UML) profile. Thus, SmartSoft approach is accessible via model-driven software development approach (MDSD).  In order to reuse existing components and algorithms on your robot, install an implementation of SmartSoft (ACE/SmartSoft installation guide). However, you do not need to install the eclipse based SmartMDSDToolchain.  In order to start developing your own components and deploying these on your robot, you will additionally need to install SmartMDSDToolchain. —Source: SmartSoft website, www.servicerobotik-ulm.de/drupal

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In this article we introduce a framework for developing component based robotic systems. To put it in a sentence, SmartSoft is an open source integrated model-driven development environment for robotics software. Built with a vision of creating a business ecosystem for robotics software, SmartSoft takes the service-oriented software component model and model-driven toolchain approach. The software is presently under Service Robotics Research Center of University of Applied Sciences Ulm, Germany, with the team headed by Prof. Dr Christian Schlegel.

What SmartSoft provides The software aims at assisting the researcher, the robotics professional, the system integrator, the application domain expert and the end user, in realising their ideas. The package offers model-driven tools for component developers, system integrators and professional end users. The designer can make use of component selection guides, and automatic generation of component hulls for wrapping algorithms and ensuring system-level composability. Further, the kit provides component repositories for navigation, vision, human-machine interface, task coordination, manipulation and a lot more that go into the simplest of robotic designs.

The SmartSoft approach The factor that serves as a differentiator for SmartSoft is its approach towards robotics. Adopting a component based view, SmartSoft looks at each component model in terms of communication patterns, which electronics for you Plus | January 2017

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Fig. 2: Structure of SmartSoft and what it means to you

include clearly-defined semantics for interfacing these components. While the component based approach gives the robotic engineer flexibility in achieving software complexity, the catch is in having a system that can assist putting together a complete setup and providing software architecture without enforcing a specific robot architecture. It is precisely this fact that SmartSoft stands for. Quoting from SmartSoft website, “The basic idea is to provide a small set of communication patterns, which can transmit objects between components and then squeeze every component interaction into those predefined patterns. Components interact solely via those patterns.” The entire process is segregated into components, communication patterns and objects, and services. Components are technically implemented as processes containing multiple threads and interacting via predefined communication patterns. Patterns define the communication mode, doing away with all communication and synchronisation issues, and acting like the master-slave protocol. Content of the packet is the communication object that is always transmitted by value, to avoid intermittent inter-component communication while using other methods. Every time a packet is instantiated, a service is provided. Sensorimotor systems. SmartSoft is built keeping in mind sensorimotor systems, but you can exploit the concept to suit any domain you choose. This tool looks at decoupling as the way of mastering the overall complexity of software of sensorimotor systems. You have templates for standardised communication patterns. Viii

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From the bottom-up. The main problem behind looking at things from a component perspective is the integration to form a whole. Many components might be manufactured concurrently and independently, and sometimes at different sites. How does one account for communication between these? This is where the component interfaces come into the picture; these need to be powerful enough to decouple external behaviour from internal implementations, and this is what SmartSoft sets out to do. It allows you to focus on a single component, go into depth and perfect it, regardless of the internals of other components. You then simply compose a system out of these approved components. The same is extended to components that are being reused, avoiding the need for designing or analysing from scratch. Internal state automation has at least three states representing neutral, alive and fatal states. Be it software or hardware, with lack of implementation standards at the former level, the bottom-up method turns advantageous. The wiring pattern. The approach allows for dynamic wiring of components during run-time. Thus, loosely-coupled parts can easily be put together and adjusted according to the current context and environment, paving the way for designing distributed systems with ease. Control and data flows are configurable from outside a component. Asynchronicity, simplicity. Decouple components to avoid passing on tight time dependencies and exploit concurrency to reduce latencies—these are the two mantras that are rigorously followed in any robot-

ics application, the base of which is asynchronicity accessed without involving the framework user. Usage allowances of a tool is what decides if a robotics engineer can work on his or her application without being dependent on the software counterpart. SmartSoft takes this into consideration, addressing challenging topics like location transparency of components, synchronisation parameters or thread safety.

Model-driven software development SmartMDSD Toolchain aims at providing a well-laid path from codedriven designs towards model-driven systems. The strict component based approach of SmartSoft separates middleware aspects from algorithmic solutions, paving the way for reuse and composability of software building blocks. Developers claim that special focus is put on service-oriented architectures for service robotics on top of quality of QoS middleware.

Set up from scratch, or do it the easy way You can choose to install SmartSoft package the code way, manual way or just copy VMWare image from this month’s DVD and get on with it. The initial setup is straightforward—unpack and install VM package, followed by SmartSoft MDSD Toolchain. The team has put together tutorials that guide you right from taking the first step to running a pioneer 3DX robot. Another shows how to deploy a simple joystick navigation to RobotinoXT. They have also provided a collection of SmartSoft components that can be downloaded and used right away. Look for the component store at www.servicerobotik-ulm.de/ drupal/?q=node/81. Sourceforge also hosts an adaptive communication environment (ACE) based implementation for Windows and Linux. Priya Ravindran is M.Sc (electronics) from VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. She loves to explore new avenues and is passionate about writing www.efymag.com

make in india Market Survey:

The IndIan elecTronIc componenTs IndusTry: An Outlook

T Sudeshna Das is senior executive editor at EFY. This article is authored with inputs from ELCINA

30%

27%

Others Active

he Indian market for electronic products is poised for significant growth in the next few years. According to an ASSOCHAM-Ernst & Young (E&Y) study, the Indian electronics and hardware industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13 to 16 per cent during 2013-18, and to reach US$ 112 to US$ 130 billion by 2018 from the previous year’s level of US$ 75 billion. This growth will be driven by rising local demand and growing disposable incomes. Moreover, adoption of high-end technology devices, technology-driven transformation such as roll out of 4G/LTE networks and the Internet of Things (IoT), policy and incentive boost from the government, government initiatives like Digital India, Smart Cities, wider broadband connectivity, e-governance programmes and so on are driving accelerated adoption of electronic products. Growth of the electronics products industry has started driving the expansion of electronic components industry as well. Local brands under Make in India initiative as well as global manufacturers looking to relocate their manufacturing base from China to alternate locations such as India, Vietnam and Indonesia due to mounting labour costs provide a strong impetus to the Indian electronics and hardware industry. This, in turn, presents an opportunity to the electronic components manufacturing industry of the country. Over the next 20% five years, accelerated local manufacturing of electronic products for catering to growing domestic demand 22% will drive the market for electronic components in India.

Passive Electro-mechanical

Fig. 1: Indian electronic components revenues by sub-segments (US$ 13.5 billion, 2015) (Source: EY analysis) www.efymag.com

Market mix The electronic components market can be broadly bucketed under the follow-

Electronic components industry: Value addition Value addition in electronic components is extremely limited as most of the raw materials are either imported or are purchased at a high cost. Most manufacturers believe that value addition in the electronic components industry would not exceed 40 per cent. With the increase in imports of components from China, value addition achieved in India is expected to reduce further.

ing sub-categories: 1. Passive components: capacitors, resistors, wound components, crystals 2. Active components: diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, light-emitting diodes 3. Electromechanical components: printed circuit boards, switches, relays, cables, connectors 4. Associated components/other components: optical disks, magnets, radio frequency tuners, heat-sinks, magnetrons, magnetic tapes In 2015, the total market revenue for electronic components was US$13.5 billion (Fig. 1). The market was dominated by electromechanical components, which accounted for 30 per cent of the total demand, followed by passive components with 27 per cent market share. However, in recent times, active components and associated components have also witnessed significant growth. While the industry composition is not predicted to change substantially, there is a rapid decline in products such as cathode ray picture tubes and CDs/DVDs, which had till recently constituted a significant share of the manufacturing base and market. This is an outcome of advancing technology and consumer preferences. According to an ELCINA study, electronic components produced in India include, among others, wound components such as transformers and coils, diodes, transistors, resistors, capacitors, switches, relays, connectors, magnetic heads and so on. Components such as picture tubes and magnetic tapes electronics for you | January 2017

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make in india components, printed circuits boards and light-emitting diodes. For components that do not require sophistication, India has established a near self-reliance. These components include cables, speakers, cathode ray tubes and so on. India has also been exporting these components to other countries (Table I).

Table I

The IndIan elecTronIc componenTs markeT market Electronic components

production

exports

Imports

2014-15

2015-16

2014-15

2015-16

2014-15

2015-16

2015-16

Amount (US$ million)

16,189

18,857

6869

6933

4923

5395

17,322

Growth rate (per cent)

15

16.3

15

16.3

10

8.5

—

Amount (US$ million)

2972.2

3239.7

111.1

118.8

596.0

607.9

3728.8

Growth rate (per cent)

7

9

5

7

2

2

—

Amount (US$ million)

3958

4789

1931

2375

1354

1557

3971

Growth rate (per cent)

20

21

22

23

16

15

—

Segment-wise: Active components

Passive components

Market drivers

Consumer durables and telecommunication (including moGrowth rate 16 17 15 15.5 10 9 — (per cent) bile devices) account for a major demand Associated Amount 4617 5402 760 885 1079 1165 5682 components (US$ million) for electronic components in India. This is Growth rate 16 17 15 16.5 8 8 — (per cent) followed by information technology and Source: ELCINA Study office automation and automotive industries. Other Table II application industries like industrial elecTronIc componenTs manufacTurIng: electronics, medical electronics, advanTages and challenges strategic electronics and lighting advantages challenges industry contribute to the balance of • High capital cost • Strong local demand for consumer the market. Industries like lighting • Inefficient supply chain for raw materials durable and mobile devices and strategic electronics are expect• Non-availability of advanced manufacturing equipment • Growth of niche market, specialised ed to witness substantial growth in • Unfair level playing due to high cost of finance as comEMS players in automotive, strategic the near future (Fig. 3). pared to other countries and medical electronics Electromechanical components

Amount (US$ million)

4642

• Rising labour costs in western countries and now also in Asia • More outsourcing of manufacturing by Indian and global OEMs who are looking for a larger share of the Indian market

5431

3556

1895

2066

• Logistics inefficiencies and infrastructural bottlenecks • Lack of access to new technology and state-of-the-art capital equipment • Lack of availability of skilled labour • Capability limitation • Inverted duty structure

have become almost extinct due to changes in technology. India had a strong industry for these components and we have not been able to upgrade to new technologies such as LED/LCD and solid-state storage devices to keep our market share. Nearly 70 per cent demand of electronic components (Fig. 2) is fulfilled through imports. Increasing reliance on imports for sourcing 84

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electronic components used in electronic products makes it crucial to enhance/strengthen India’s electronics manufacturing capabilities. Countries that account for a major portion of India’s imports include China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and some European countries. Share of imports is higher for specialised and precision components like integrated circuits, chip

3940

Market trends The electronics industry is going through an exciting phase with

30%

70%

Import Indigenous production

Fig. 2: Demand versus supply scenario (Source: ELCINA study) www.efymag.com

make in india growth in demand and importance of electronics as well as revolutionary changes in technology, launch of innovative products and the challenge of global competition. This has necessitated the electronic product and component manufacturers to focus on continuous improvement in their products in order to stay ahead of the pack, resulting in the following trends: Convergence of technologies. Convergence allows a single device to use multiple technologies/services. Convergence of technologies has become a reality in the last couple of years with the launch of main-line products enabling it. A smartphone is one of the key examples of the advent of convergence as it allows communication and computing to use the same device. Convergence is moving beyond mobile phones to several other electronic devices like music players, IPTV, iPads and the like. This trend is expected to convert most electronic products into multi-utility products, thereby requiring high-tech electronic components and technology. Miniaturisation. This refers to the creation of smaller-scale devices or components for mechanical, optical and electronic products. The dawn of convergence has led manufacturers to integrate multiple devices. At the same time, demand from consumers to reduce the size of products to make these easy to manage has led to these products becoming smaller in size or miniaturised. Miniaturisation results in greater density of components that is usually possible through very-large-scale integration designs. This also enables lower cost of production, resulting in reduction in overall product pric-

38%

22%

18% 14% 8%

Consumer Durable

Telecommunication

IT and Office Automation

Fig. 3: Electronic components market share (Source: ELCINA study)

ing. Miniaturisation is expected to increase and impact the traditional component market as most of the traditional components will be replaced by chip components and integrated circuits. Artificial intelligence. Consumers are becoming increasingly technology-conscious and are demanding products with built-in intelligence. This is resulting in electronics and consumer durable products being manufactured with intelligent functions and logic. For example, washing machines available now can sense the load and decide the appropriate washing cycles. Intelligence has moved beyond consumer products, and is also available in several medical and industrial electronics products with computer-numericalcontrol functions.

Moving forward Above changes in technology are expected to change the landscape for electronic components manufacturing. Apart from the above, manufacturers across the globe have started moving towards green electronics and sustainable development with the implementation of Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)

Components manufacturing hubs Most of the large electronic components manufacturing companies (Indian or multinational) are located around six cities of the country, namely, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. Delhi-NCR (which includes Noida, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Faridabad region) is the largest manufacturing hub, as it hosts a large number of component manufacturers. This is followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru. Apart from these, cities like Ahmedabad, Pune and Baroda are some of the upcoming manufacturing hubs in India (Fig. 4). www.efymag.com

Others*

Automobile

7%

7% 24%

18%

8%

Others Delhi-NCR Mumbai

26%

Bengaluru Pune Chennai

Fig. 4: Share of component manufacturing hubs in India (Source: ELCINA study)

and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations. In line with this trend, the Indian government, too, has issued notifications to regulate the use of hazardous substances (like lead, cadmium and mercury) and proper disposal of WEEE. Similarly, rules have also been notified with respect to energy-efficiency norms and labelling of most consumer electronics and durables. Traditional components will increasingly face stiff competition from passive chip components, integrated circuits and surfacemount technologies that will replace these in several electronic products. Therefore in the near future, it is important for component manufacturers to shift focus from discrete components manufacturing to integrated components manufacturing so as to be able to benefit from the changing landscape of the country. electronics for you | January 2017

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New Products Make in india

test & measurement Test probe

Dust density meter

Anritsu expands its field test portfolio with the introduction of PIM Hunter, a passive inter-modulation test probe that helps field technicians more

Toshniwal Sensing Device offers a dust density meter, DDM-fc, for effective detection and measurement of dust. This system is developed for high temperature conditions such as in India. It automatically measures dust density continuously as relative density using the light-scattering method. This method allows continuous measurement and display of relative density proportional to the quantity of dust. It is an air-contamination monitoring instrument with current output (4-20mA) and RS232C output.

of amplitude accuracy. Features of PXIe-5164 are: • Two 14-bit channels sampled at 1GS/s with 400MHz bandwidth • Two category II-rated channels with voltage input range up to 100Vpp with programmable offsets allowing measurements up to ±250V • Up to 34 channels to build parallel, high-channel-count systems in a compact form factor • 3.2GB/s streaming data rate enabled by eight lanes of PCI Express Gen 2 bus communication

Toshniwal Sensing Devices Pvt Ltd www.tsdpl.com

National Instruments www.ni.com

Temperature controller

COmPOnents

quickly discover the precise location of external PIM sources at cell sites. Designed for use with Anritsu’s PIM Master, Spectrum Master and BTS Master handheld analysers, PIM Hunter test probe enables field professionals to use traditional interference hunting techniques to accurately locate external PIM sources for optimum wireless network performance. Anritsu India Pvt Ltd www.anritsu.com

Imaging multimeter FLIR DM284 imaging multimeter with IGM is a professional, all-in-one trueRMS digital multimeter with built-in 160 x 120 FLIR thermal imager that can show you exactly where an electrical problem is, to speed up troubleshooting. DM284 visually guides you to the precise location of an electrical problem and helps you to pinpoint hot-spots faster and more efficiently. Other features include VFD mode, LoZ, NCV, test probes and type K thermocouple input. FLIR Systems India Pvt Ltd www.flir.in

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January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Key features include: • Universal measuring input • Digital input filter: timer settable from 0 to 999.9 seconds • Control type: PID and on/off • Onsite mode selection: auto/manual • Timer function with five functional selections • Onsite programmability: heating/ cooling • Output on failure function Rishabh Instruments www.rishabh.co.in

Oscilloscope NI has announced PXIe-5164 oscilloscope, which includes a user-programmable FPGA to help aerospace/ defence, semiconductor and research/ physics applications that require highvoltage measurements and high levels

Microcontroller MAX32560 embeds all security features required to address stringent PCI-PTS requirements including active tamper protection, scrambling keypad for pin handling and a secure cryptographic engine. It integrates a number of analogue interfaces to reduce the PCB footprint, including a full EMV contactless reader interface, two EMV smartcard interfaces, a DSP based high-performance magnetic stripe reader, two-channel anologue-to-digital converter and a digital-to-analogue converter. Maxim Integrated www.maximintegrated.com

Connector Mil-spec connectors (entire MIL-C5015 series) are in accordance with www.EFymag.com

New Products military specifications. Coupling can be of straight plug, angled plug, cable

accessories and smarthome or Internet of Things (IoT) devices. STMicroelectronics www.st.com

Flash memory cells plug, thru-bulkhead, box-mount receptacle and bayonet types. Indian Sales Corp. [email protected]

Thermal printer mechanism The thermal printer mechanism is pin-to-pin compatible with Fujitsu FTP-638 MCL101/ MCL103. Specifications are as follows: • Printing method: Thermal dot-line printing • Dots/line: 576 • Resolution: 8 dots/mm • Printing width: 72mm • Paper width: 76mm to 80mm • Feed resolution: 0.125mm • Operating temperature: 0°C - 40°C • Operating humidity (RH): 20% to 80% Rajguru Electronics www.rajguruelectronics.com

Multi-sensor module STMicroelectronics’ 13.5mm x 13.5mm SensorTile is the smallest turnkey sensor board of its type, containing a MEMS accelerometer, gyro-

Renesas Electronics has announced the world’s first split-gate metal-oxide nitride oxide silicon (SG-MONOS) flash memory cells employing transistors with fin shape for use in microcontrollers with on-chip flash memory having a circuit line width of 16 to 14 nanometres (nm) or finer. SG-MONOS technology is reliable for use in automotive applications. Renesas Electronics Corp. www.renesas.com

Peripheral touch controller Microchip Technology has added an enhanced version of the periph-

eral touch controller (PTC) to their microcontrollers including ATtiny817/816/814. The PTC is a small and cost-effective core-independent peripheral that enables high-performance capacitive touch on standard microcontrollers. It features superior water tolerance, and is configured through START code configurator for ease-of-use. Microchip Technology Inc. www.microchip.com

mIsCeLLaneOus scope, magnetometer, pressure sensor and MEMS microphone. With the onboard low-power STM32L4 microcontroller, it can be used as a sensing and connectivity hub for developing products such as wearables, gaming www.EFymag.com

Systems on modules Colibri iMX7S and Colibri iMX7D are SODIMM-sized systems on modules that are based on NXP/Freescale i.MX 7Solo and i.MX 7Dual systems on chips (SoCs), respectively. The

dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 runs a peak frequency of 1GHz, while the single-core ARM Cortex-M4 has a peak frequency of 200MHz. In Colibri iMX7S, the single-core Cortex-A7 has a peak frequency of 800MHz, while the single-core Cortex-M4 runs at 200MHz. Both SoCs support asymmetric or heterogeneous multi-core processing, in which real-time applications can run on Cortex-M4, while user applications are taken care of by Cortex-A7. The SoCs consume very low power and support advanced security features. Toradex Systems (India) Pvt Ltd www.toradex.com

Heat transfer compound Key features include: • Very high maximum operating temperature (-68°C to +200°C) • Good thermal conductivity • High dielectric strength • Non-bleeding • Non-conductive • Long service life • Safe on plastics • Provides excellent corrosion resistance Progressive Engineers www.progressiveengineers.co.in

Solar inverter Servotech has launched a compact 12V, 100 watt, pure sine-wave solar inverter, with MPPT charge controller conforming to IEC 60068-2- 1, IEC 60068-2- 2, IEC 60068-2- 14, IEC 60068-2- 30, IEC 60529 and IEC 62093:2005 standards. Main features are: • Customised LCD with simultaneous display of PV voltage and current, battery voltage with status in ElEctronics For you | January 2017

87

New Products

•

• • •

• •

percentage, battery charging and discharging current, and output voltage, load current and frequency Pure sine-wave output with voltage THD less than three per cent and current less than eight per cent on 0.8 PF load Inverter efficiency greater than 87 per cent on 12V operation MPPT charge controller rated at 14.5V@ 10A Advanced MPPT algorithm, incorporating bulk, absorption and float mode MPPT efficiency of more than 93 per cent Full protection against reverse polarity of PV and battery

Servotech Power Systems Pvt Ltd http://servotech.in

Industrial trainer Dyna-iDCS is designed around ADAM3600, an intelligent remote controller

88

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

with multiple wireless function capability, multiple I/O selection, wide temperature range and support for flexible communication protocol for real-world industrial applications. ADAM-3600 is designed for use in the IoT for remote diagnosis, maintenance, visual management and strategy development. DynaiDCS can also be seamlessly integrated with SCADA for remote monitoring and control. Dynalog (India) Ltd. www.dynalogindia.com

PCB cleaner Some specifications are as follows: • 170V to 245V AC, 50Hz one-phase electric supply • 100W ultrasonic power

• 40kHZ or 33 ±3kHz ultrasonic frequency • Protection to prevent over-heating; cleaner should automatically shut down in case of over-heating • PZT sandwich-type transducers Leela Electronics www.leelaelectronics.in

IoT platform Bolt is an IoT platform that makes IoT development quick and easy. Bolt takes care of all common IoT tasks such as security and scalability so that you can focus on the use case. It lets you do the following: • Remotely communicate • Customise dashboard • Access management Inventrom www.boltiot.com

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First Look estyle

EFY BUREaU

LatestOne.com launches smartwatch Multifunctional mobile device designed to be worn on the wrist

Smartphone from Motorola Elegantly designed, all-metal smartphone

The smartwatch comes in a metal case with a silicon strap. It has a 240×240 pixels resolution, highlysensitive capacitive touch, built in 0.3MP camera and microSIM card slot. Other features include Bluetooth 3.0, 3.7V/380mAh lithiumion battery, support for TF card up to 32GB, MTK6260A AMR7 CPU, and it can make or receive calls, text and read or send emails. The 0.3MP rear camera comes with a remote camera function for taking photos. The watch supports iPhones and Android smartphones.

Moto M comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system, 64-bit MediaTek Helio P15 octa-core 2.2GHz, or 64-bit MediaTek Helio P10 1.8GHz CPU and Mali T860mp2 GPU, 3GB or 4GB LPDDR3 RAM, 32GB or 64GB ROM with microSD card support (up to 128GB), 16MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, built-in 3050mAh battery that supports 5V/2A rapid charge, 13.97cm (5.5-inch) full-HD (1920×1080) 401ppi Corning Gorilla Glass display, water-repelPrice ` 15,999 lent nano-coating and many more exciting features. Connectivity options include USB-C port for charging, data transfer and OTG 3.5mm headset jack and Bluetooth version 4.1, among others.

Smart speakers from Amkette

Noble Skiodo launches smart Android TV

For a unified acoustic experience

Uncover the magic of true colours, contrast and detail

S-50 is a multi-connected device that can also be controlled with smartphones by downloading the app from Google Play store. The app helps control speaker functions such as FM radio, USB/SD card playback and alarm clock. It is loaded with features like aux, USB, microSD, USB DC and on/off button, and gives a playback time of 12 hours. Developed to give an ultimate home entertainment experience, the 10W reflective bass speakers have an imperial design with a clock display, making the speakers an item of home décor, too. With simple and easy functions to use, the speakers have built-in FM radio and USB charger with 1.5A output for fast charging. With a smart MP3 player, smart radio system and smart alarm clock, it aims to give you a hassle-free experience to enjoy music.

Equipped with a host of functionalities, unwavering pictures and a super-slim design, Noble’s smart Android TV 32SM32N01 not only upgrades your living room but demands to be admired. It comes with a display resolution of 1366×768 and delivers breathtakingly real and immersive viewing experiences. The TV runs on Android 4.4.4 operating system with 1GB of Price DDR3 RAM. ` 19,999 Boasting dual 10W drivers, Noble Skiodo’s avant-garde sound technology lets you enter into a new dimension of audio quality. The TV is bestowed with two remotes; one for all TV functioning and the other, a magic remote, which is an inbuilt keyboard and a motion sensor remote that makes navigation easier and quicker. The motion sensor controls allow you a lot of freedom when playing games, too.

Price ` 3499

www.efymag.com

Price ` 1299

electronics for you | January 2017

89

first look Price ` 3290

Car speaker from Pioneer Designed for the young generation TS-R6951S’s progressive flex suspension system allows it to provide clear sound and impactful bass. A fully-covered mesh grille provides it high reliability and prevents it from dust, which makes it perfect for installation in the rear tray of the car. It is made of multilayer mica matrix cone with a water-resistant coating at the back for loud sound reproduction, efficiently engineered to handle up to 400W power input from a shallow design. The three-way speakers feature three different drivers for effectively recreating separate sound frequency.

Portable headphone amplifier from FiiO

Price ` 8999

PhotoScan by Google Photos This new application from Google allows you to scan your paper photos with the camera of your smartphone. Using it is really very simple: launch the application and let it guide you. In a few seconds you can get photos of your childhood on your smartphone to immortalise these on the Internet, or simply just keep on your device.

Super Mario Run launched for iOS

Longer battery life backed by smart charging FiiO has launched a new audio amplifier, the A5, in India. Weighing about 168 grams, the device has a sandblasted finish. The amplifier can be considered an upgrade from the earlier-launched E12 series, with added features. It continues to use FiiO E12A’s MUSES02 and LME49600 op-amp combination. It uses high-precision metal-film resistors to offer a total harmonic distortion rating of almost zero per cent. With an improved signal-to-noise ratio of 115dB, FiiO A5 has a low-resistance power management system with dual ±11V supplied power. The device offers an output of almost 800mW at 32 ohms. With a battery backup of 880mAh, the device has a playtime of about 13 hours on a single charge. It is also designed with an LED indicator, making it easy to determine when the device is about to run out of battery or when it is fully charged.

GizMo ByTes

Price ` 999

Xiaomi launches VR headset Time travel or jet set to a world with endless possibilities Virtual reality (VR) is the best way to explore the world without limitations. Carefully designed and crafted from quality materials, Mi VR Play is full of innovation that extends from product design to the smallest details. Immerse yourself in an alternate, panoramic or 3D universe brought to life on Mi VR Play. Explore scenes in front of your very eyes by moving from left to right, up and down. Designed for ultimate comfort and immersion, it is the portal to discovering a whole new reality. Mi VR Play is compatible wth Google Cardboard, and gives you access to an amazing library of videos and apps on Google Play. Relive precious memories in VR with Google Cardboard Camera, which records panoramic videos and photos. Share these with family and friends so anyone can truly experience your surroundings as if they were there!

The eagerly-awaited Super Mario Run game has been launched for iOS by Nintendo. The game takes the Super Mario Bros format, where the character sprints from left to right, collecting coins, jumping over obstacles and squishing enemies, and tweaks the game play to make it easy to play one-handed on a touchscreen.

Enable fingerprint actions using Fingerprint Gestures Fingerprint Gestures app allows you to configure your device so that it reacts when you tap, double-tap or touch it. Among the possible actions, you can choose to associate an action with a button, to open the notifications panel, manage music and more. It requires Android device running Marshmallow or higher with a fingerprint sensor. A fingerprint sensor is supported if the device manufacturer has implemented Google’s fingerprint API.

Ivy, the sidebar launcher Ivy allows you to access your favourite applications instantly, from any application. Simply grab the menu bar on the right side of your screen to open it. You can configure it to access not only shortcuts to applications but also to different information. By default, the launcher is on the right, and has a white background. You can make various changes, including changing the background or transparency.

The prices, features and specifications are based on information provided to us, or as available on various websites and portals. EFY cannot vouch for their accuracy.

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January 2017 | electronics for you

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do-it-yourself estyle

GooGle Drive Features You Need To Know efy bureau

W

to edit and format it. When you are e all know Google Drive done, delete the original image/PDF as a safe place for all our from the tab and save the new text files. You get 15GB of document. space to begin with, which you can Voice typing. To use this feause to keep photos, stories, designs, ture, open any document from drawings, recordings and video, Google Docs in Chrome browser. among others. Let us learn about the other exciting features that Google Drive offers us, apart from the usual. Drag-and-drop files. Usually, when you eStyle DIY: Google Drive Features You Need To Know want to upload a file to Google Drive, you click on New, select File upload and then navigate the folders on your computer to grab the file you need. Google allows you to simply drag the Voice Typing in Google Docs file(s) from Windows Go to Tools and select Voice Typing. Explorer or MacOS Finder into your Then, click on the microphone, start Google Drive file list. Google’s dragspeaking and Google will transcribe and-drop icon will appear and you what you say, including punctuation will see a progress bar showing you marks. Interestingly, Google will the upload status. censor profanity. Convert PDFs and images into Templates. Google’s productivity text. You can use Google’s built-in tools now come with well-designed OCR technology to convert non-text templates that help you quickly credocuments like images and PDFs ate a resume, budgets, slideshows into editable text. Right-click on the and much more. Go to individual file you want to convert and select sites for Docs, Sheets and Slides, Open with→Google Docs. A new and you will see several featured browser tab will open with the imtemplates at the top of the page. age or PDF within a document surClick More button to see extra oprounded by a blue border with the tions, organised by type, such as raw text beneath it. Resize the blue work or school. border to capture only the text you Research from Google Docs. In want; then use any of Docs’ tools

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Google Drive Android app, there is a new Research tool for Docs that lets you search Google without leaving your document. You can use this to find and read information, copy and paste text from online into your document, insert images you find on Google and insert links. This feature has been available on Google Drive’s website. Offline mode. You can view, create and edit docs, sheets and slides without Internet connectivity. All your changes will automatically be updated the next time you connect to the Internet. Bookmark individual sections. For this, place your cursor at the place you want to bookmark and then click Bookmark under Insert menu. Track new changes. In shared documents, you can easily see what changes have been made by collaborators and contributors. See New Changes button will pop up in the toolbar that you can click on to get a run-down of the additions and adjustments made since the last time you opened the document. These are some of the new and exciting features of this amazing application produced by the technology giant. Try these; Google keeps adding features every now and then. electronics for you | January 2017

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Buyers’ Guide estyle

Flying Drones Can Be Great Fun

D Shanosh Kumar is technology journalist at EFY. He is BCA from Bangalore University and MBA from Christ University, Bengaluru

rones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, were originally developed for military purposes. These are aerial vehicles without a pilot, which are controlled either from ground using radio controllers or are programmed for autonomous flights. Now, besides military action, drones are being built for various kinds of applications that are usually boring, routine or too dangerous for human beings. Just like aero modelling, flying drones can be a great fun. However, their use is restricted by law in most countries. So before buying a drone, do check the law pertaining to use of drones in your region. Fortunately, many small-size drones are now available in the market to experiment with. But because of their large variety and variance in size, it can be confusing to select the one most appropriate for you. Hope the hints below will be of some help to you.

Types of drones

Phantom 4 drone by DJI

Most drones are designed for specific purposes. There are drones that do anything from home delivery, photography, videography, racing or surveillance. Based on their functionality and build these can be divided into three main types: 1. Ready-to-fly drones that come fully equipped but require a clear fly zone and enough battery power to fly. 2. Bind and fly drones that do not come with a receiver. The compatible transmitter is brought in by you. 3. Almost ready-to-fly drones for DIY enthusiasts.

Propulsion Drones meant for DIY enthusiasts generally have four or six propellers with separate motor for each. The motors and the propellers have to be exactly identical for a proper lift92

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

off and movement in the air. Bigger drones use brushless motors while the smaller ones use brush motors. These differ in architecture as brushless motors have spinning magnets instead of spinning coils. Brushless motors can deliver more torque and are longer lasting that the brushed ones. For a stable flight, everything including the motor and speed controller must work in unison.

What to look out for Carbon fibre is one of the most desirable materials for the frame. It is lightweight and strong. Other materials are titanium, aluminium and steel. However, metals are heavy as compared to fibreglass and other polycarbonate materials. Apart from carbon fibre, Balsa wood frame is also light, tough and cost-effective. Sensors. Almost all drones come with an accelerometer for measuring linear acceleration. It allows a radio-controlled drone to remain stable in the air with the help of a gyroscope that detects angular changes. There is also an inertia measurement unit, which is a small board that houses the gyroscope and accelerometer. Higher-end drones also include a compass, barometer or GPS. Battery life. Lithium-polymer rechargeable batteries power almost all drones. These are lightweight and pack a lot of power. These need to be charged regularly and also need to be handled cautiously. Smartphone connectivity. Most commercial drones come with their proprietary remote controllers. Only some give you the freedom to connect to a smartphone in case you forget the controller at home. Make sure that your phone is compatible and syncs with the requirements for flying the drone in virtual mode. Some drones are also Wi-Ficompatible and come with a setting to switch and select connectivity options within their respective mobile applications. www.EFymag.com

buyers’ guide Camera. The need for a higherresolution camera mounted on the drone gradually increases as you shift from being a beginner to a professional. At the entry level, a 2MP HD camera with 4K resolution is a good enough option. However, it is the gimbal and anti-shake features that determine stability of the footage. Gimbals come in 3- and 2-axis, and 3-axis does a better job of filmmaking and photography. First-person vision. This is simply video plotting on a screen that is used to pilot drones. Some drones have a screen mounted on the remote control. Head-mounted firstperson vision can give you a more immersive experience of piloting a drone, but it can be expensive.

Major drones in the market Beginner-level drones. Blade Pico drones are equipped with a sensor called sensor-assisted flight envelope (SAFE), which helps it understand if the flight attained is stable, and if not, it stabilises itself. For beginners, this is a great buy as the drone does not spin off and crash. It works at 2.4GHz frequency, has a 6-axis gyro and weighs about 200 grams with a sustainable flight of seven minutes. Drones from Hubsan have durable build and come with detachable propeller guards to protect the propellers from breaking in case of crash. These come with one-click flip in forward and backward directions; these level themselves in mid-flight, if these sense no human control. These weigh around 340 grams—a little heavier than Blade—while giving up to nine minutes of flight and a control distance of over 100 metres. Intermediate-level drones. Drones from UDI are designed to be wind-resistant so that these can work in rough outdoor conditions. Falling under intermediate segment, a UDI drone houses an HD camera of up to 720-pixel resolution for better visual recordings and a microSD card slot. It comes with an LCD display that www.EFymag.com

shows the vitals of the drone such as battery power for sustained flight, areas for safe landings and one-key return to bring the drone back to its original take-off site. With cameras capable of delivering up to 1080-pixel video quality, Syma drone would be a winner in terms of cost and agility. Its frame is sturdy and light, giving 10 to 12 minutes of flight time for extended videography or photography. Capture videos in a 360-degree eversion (inside-out movement) and all you will see is key metrics on the LCD screen. Professional-level drones. Drones from Parrot can be regarded as ariel gymnasts. Parrots are designed for speed, and almost all drones in the segment are fast enough to handle speeds up to 18 kilometres an hour. These link up easily to Android or IOS smartdevices. Pressure sensors and altimeters, in addition to ultrasound sensors and accelerometers, are integrated for evaluating safer zones to fly in their flight path. These have far greater flash memory storage. Applications to control the drones are immersive enough to ignore the remote control. If you want a drone with vision sensors, a long range of about 4.3 kilometres, real-time first-person vision on the smartphone, virtual joystick, satellites connectivity for location locking and auto-return by itself, your search would end with a futuristically-designed drone from UTI. This drone, small enough to fit in your backpack or pocket, demonstrates intelligent flight modes once you unwrap it and switch it on. Perfect for hi-definition videography, the UTI drone has flow-mode setting that automatically locks on the object it is looking at and follows it intelligently through an ascend or descend, while it captures vision in 2.7k resolution. With a control distance of one kilometre, this is one drone that packs the punch. ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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hi Nid ria hu Kat

Do-it-yourself

IoT-enabled aIr PolluTIon MeTer With Digital Dashboard On Smartphone Biswajit Das

P

resented here is a project to monitor air quality on your smartphone using Blynk application and Arduino board. Blynk is an Internet of Things (IoT) platform to control Arduino, Raspberry Pi and the like over the Internet. In this project Blynk provides a digital dashboard on your smartphone that displays real-time air quality readings for the immediate surroundings. Blynk is not meant for a Fig. 1: Blynk gets connected with embedded hardware specific board or shield. It will get you online and ready for the IoT, irrespective of whether Arduino or Raspberry Pi is linked to the Internet over Wi-Fi, Ethernet or an ALRMS indication ESP8266 chip.

How Blynk works

Parameters display (PM, date, time, temperature, humidity, light intensity, dew point)

Appliance control Blynk can control hardware using push button and on/off button remotely. It can display sensor data, store and visualise it, among other cool things. There are three major compo- Fig. 2: Digital dashboard on Android phone nents in the platform as given communication with the server, below: and process all incoming and Blynk app. It allows you to outgoing commands. create amazing interfaces for your When you press a button on projects using various widgets. Blynk app on the phone, the signal Blynk server. It is responsible travels to the Blynk Cloud, where for all communication between the it finds its way to the hardware. It smartphone and hardware. You can works the same way in the opposite use Blynk Cloud or run your private direction, and everything happens Blynk server locally. It is open in a blink of an eye. The concept is source, and can handle thousands of shown in Fig. 1. devices. It can also be launched on Raspberry Pi. Air pollution meter Blynk libraries. Libraries are available for all popular hardware The following hardware components platforms. The libraries enable are used in the air pollution meter:

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Controller and sensors. Arduino Uno is used as a control and measuring unit, and Arduino Uno Ethernet shield for connection to the Blynk Cloud. The sensors include nova PM sensor SDS011, gas sensor MQ135, and temperature and humidity sensor DHT11. Smartphone and digital dashboard. Android phone is used as a smartmeter. Blynk app is a well-designed interface builder. It works on iOS and Android, and provides easy-to-use widgets for the LCD, push buttons, on/off buttons, LED indication, RTC and more. Using Blynk digital dashboard features in a smartphone helps reduce the cost of the project because traditional LCD display, mechanical buttons, LEDs, RTC and so on are not required. The digital dashboard or smartmeter display is shown in Fig. 2.

Circuit and working Circuit diagram of the IoT-air pollution meter with digital dashboard is shown in Fig. 3. Heart of the circuit is Arduino Uno board with Arduino shield. Other components used are voltage regulators 7805 (IC1 and IC2), temperature and humidity module DHT11 connected to connector CON3, gas sensor MQ135 connected to connector CON2, PM2.5/ PM10 sensor connected to connector CON1 and a few others. PM2.5/PM10 sensor (SDS011). Particle pollution, also called particulate matter (or PM), is a mixture www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself

2

− CON7 12V

IC1 7805

1

2 C3 1u, 25V

5V GND RX TX CON1 SDS011 (PM2.5/PM10)

3

R1 1K

AREF

CON3 DHT11 (TEMP& HUMIDITY)

P N CON4

RL1 1C/O T1 BC547

ARDUINO

CON5 LIGHT ON / OFF

N/O

N/C

7 6 5 4 3 2 TX 1 RX 0

DIGITAL

ANALOG

A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5

N/C

GND 13 12 11 10 9 8

ATMEGA328

IOREF RST 3.3V 5V GND GND Vin

CON2 MQ135 (PPM)

N/O

USB

DRIVER

DATA

H

C1 10u 25V

BOARD 1

POWER INPUT

H

A or B

C2 10u 25V

Vcc

3

GND

IC2 7805

1

+

R2 1K

RL2 1C/O T2 BC547

CON6 FAN ON / OFF

ARDUINO UNO WITH ETHERNET SHIELD GND

Fig. 3: Circuit diagram of the PM2.5/10 air pollution meter

of solid particles and liquid droplets floating in the air. Some particles are released directly from a specific source, while others are formed in complicated chemical reactions in the atmosphere. The PM2.5/PM10 sensor connected across CON1 was developed by INOVAFIT, which is a spin-off from University of Jinan, China. It uses the principle of laser scattering in the air, and can detect suspended particulate matter concentration ranging from 0.3 to 10 microns. Data collected by the sensor is stable and reliable. SDS011 sensor is connected to UART port (TX and RX) of Arduino Uno board. Gas sensor (MQ135). Sensitive material of the sensor is tin-dioxide, whose conductivity increases with the concentration of gas. Change www.EFymag.com

in conductivity is converted into output voltage signal, which varies corresponding to the concentration of combustible gas. MQ135 is highly sensitive to ammonia, sulphide and benzene steams, smoke and other harmful gases. It is a low-cost sensor, suitable for different applications. Output of the gas sensor is connected to analogue input pin A3 of Arduino Uno board through connector CON2. Temperature and humidity sensor (DHT11). This composite sensor contains calibrated digital signal outputs of temperature and humidity. Connected to connector CON3, it includes a resistive-type humidity measurement component and an NTC temperature-measurement device. Its output pin is connected to digital pin 5 of Arduino Uno board.

It is a relatively inexpensive sensor for its performance. Additional features. Additional alarm indication and control through relays RL1 and RL2 have been provided. The two appliances (light and fan) can be connected to connectors CON5 and CON6, but you can add more as per your requirement. Connector CON4 is used for connecting 230V AC mains to drive the lamp and fan connected at CON5 and CON6, respectively. Power supply. A 12V battery or supply is connected to connector CON7, which is regulated to 5V using 7805 regulators (IC1 and IC2). When the system is powered on, the device takes one minute to preheat the gas sensor before it is ready for operation. The whole sensor circuit can be powered by 9V or 12V adaptor or battery. Here, IC1 and IC2 have been used for driving various parts of the circuit. Enclose the whole sensor circuit (Fig. 3) in a suitable box, which should be placed where you want to monitor air quality or pollution. Ethernet shield. Arduino Ethernet shield allows you to easily connect Arduino to the Internet. This shield enables Arduino to send and receive data from anywhere in the world, with an Internet connection.

Digital dashboard setup Step 1. Mount Ethernet shield on Arduino Uno and connect Board1 to PC using a USB cable. Step 2. Change the IP address in IPAddress IP (your IP address) in Arduino sketch ethernetclient.ino. This sketch/program code is included in this month’s EFY DVD. Compile and upload the code into Arduino Uno from Arduino IDE. This code shows you how to make an HTTP request using an Ethernet shield. It returns a Google search for the word Arduino. Results of this search are viewable as HTML through Arduino’s serial window. Step 3. Compile ethernetserver. ElEctronics For you | January 2017

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Do-it-yourself

Fig. 4: Creating a new account in Blynk

Fig. 6: Selecting the hardware

Fig. 8: Pressing Create button

Fig. 5: Creating a new project window

Fig. 7: Typical authorisation token

Fig. 9: Widget Box window

ino sketch and upload it to Arduino Uno board. Change your IP address in IPAddress IP (your IP address) in the sketch. In this example, use your Ethernet shield and Arduino board to create a simple Web server. Using the Ethernet library, your device will be able to answer an HTTP request with the Ethernet shield. After navigating to the Ethernet shield’s IP address, Arduino will respond through HTML browser and will be ready to accept input values from analogue pins (A0 through A5) of Board1. Step 4. Connect your mobile with Wi-Fi. Download and install Blynk app from Google Play store. Then, create a new Blynk account (Fig. 4). This account is separate from the accounts used for Blynk Forums, in case you already have one. An account is needed to save your projects and have access to these from multiple devices anywhere in the world. It is also a security measure. We recommend using 98

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Fig. 10: LCD widget setting

Fig. 11: Play button

a real email address because it will simplify things later. Step 5. After you have successfully logged into your account, start by creating a new project (Fig. 5), and give it a name. Step 6. Select the hardware model you intend to use. In this

case it is Arduino Uno (Fig. 6). Step 7. Authorisation (or Auth) token is a unique identifier that is needed to connect the hardware to your smartphone. Every new project you create will have its own Auth token (Fig. 7). Click email button and the token will be sent to the email address you used for registration. Use this token in auth[] = “your token” in pollution.ino file. Download Blynk library (Blynk_ v0.3.4.zip) from https://github.com/ blynkkk/blynk-library/releases/tag/ v0.3.4, and include it in Arduino IDE. Compile and upload pollution. ino code to Arduino board. Step 8. Press Create (Fig. 8). Step 9. Your project canvas is empty at the moment. Tap anywhere on the canvas to open the widget box; all available widgets are located here. Add widgets (Fig. 9). Add the following widgets in the settings and make the screen look like a digital dashboard as shown in Fig. 2. This includes adding the LCD (Fig. 10), LED, on/off switch, pushbuttons and RTC widgets. Step 10. Run the project. When you are done with the settings, press Play (Fig. 11). This will switch the display from edit to play mode where you can interact with the hardware. While in play mode, you will not be able to drag or set up new widgets. Press Stop and get back to edit mode. In play mode, you will find the screen shown in Fig. 12. EFY notes. 1. The source code of this project is included in this month’s EFY DVD and is also available for free download at source. efymag.com 2. Use different Wi-Fi networks for your Android mobile and Arduino sensor board for a proper IoT based test.

Biswajit Das was manager R&D, EFY Labs, till recently Fig. 12: Play mode www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself

Sa Th ni eo

Simple Dual-Way amplifier For Microphone And Guitars Petre tzv. Petrov

Table I

MaIn paraMeTers of audIo power aMplIfIers relevanT To The projecT

Circuit and working

ZD1 20V 1.3W

TP2

R1 220E

CON2 FOR INPUT2 (GUITAR)

CON3 FOR INPUT3 (GUITAR)

pout(typ)/rl/±vee

+150°C

20W/8-ohm/±25V

TDA2030

±18V (36V)

3.5A

20W

+150°C

14W/4-ohm/±14V

TDA2040

±20V (40V)

4A

25W

+150°C

30W/4-ohm/±17V

TDA2050

±25V (50V)

5A

25W

+150°C

35W/4-ohm/±18V

Note. Pd is power dissipation, Tjmax is maximal junction temperature, Pout is output power and RL is load resistance for the IC

R24,R25=10K D1 1N4148 C22=100u,63V

R8 22K

C8 470u 63V

R13 1K

C11 0.33u

C10 4.7u 63V

R15 22K

IC1 LM1875 3

R16 22K

R17 22K

TP5

R18 680E

C16 22u 63V

C18 0.22u R21 2.2E 3W

T3 BC547C

C4 0.33u T2 BC547C

1

C12 4.7u 63V

2

R9 22K C9 150p

2

IC2 LM1875 3

R11 120K

TP6 4

R20 680E TP0 GND

C20 2200u 63V

POWER

CON5 FOR LS1

C21 2200u 63V

C19 0.22u

R19 22K

R12 1K

C6 4.7u 63V

+ CON4 FOR 30V DC

CON7 FOR LS3

5

S1 MODE

R23 C15 20K 1000u 63V LED1

4

TP4

R7 2.2M

VR2 4.7K

C13 C14 0.33u 1000u 63V

1

2

R10 100K

TP1

5

1

C5 150p R4 10K

Tjmax

20W

C7 4.7u 63V

R6 22E

R2 330K R3 330K

pd

3A

TP3

R5 810K

C3 2.2n

Iout peak

±30V (60V)

R14 430E

T1 C2 4.7u BC547C

CON1 FOR INPUT1 (MIC)

VR1 4.7K

Max power supply ±vee

LM1875

C22

C1 0.33u

Ic

R24

Circuit diagram of the simple dualway audio power amplifier for a microphone and two guitars built around three transistors and two LM1875 ICs is shown Fig. 1. The amplifier has two different

or more peak-output power. Even though some of these ICs produce sufficient power for small guitars and violins, it is a good idea to combine two ICs for more output power and the possibility to drive one or two systems with loudspeakers. When a single load is driven, both the amplifiers could be bridged.

input stages that use transistor T1 for a microphone and T2 for two guitar inputs. The mixing stage is built around T3 and two power amplifiers around IC1 and IC2. You can use any of the power amplifier ICs listed in Table I. There are many low-cost power amplifier ICs having 10W - 50W

R25

A

self-made audio power amplifier for a guitar or violin should be simple, low-cost and reliable. It is good to have two separate loudspeakers pointing in different directions. It is better when the amplifier has two separate channels working independently, either paralleled or as a bridged amplifier. This article presents a simple twochannel outputs amplifier using two LM1875 audio amplifiers.

C17 22u 63V

CON6 FOR LS2

R22 2.2E 3W

LS1,LS2 = 4−OHM, 20W LOUDSPEAKER LS3 = 8−OHM, 40W LOUDSPEAKER

Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the simple dual-way amplifier for a microphone and two guitars www.efymag.com

electronics for you | January 2017

99

_

Do-it-yourself

Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB layout of the simple dual-way amplifier for one microphone and two guitars

Fig. 3: Component layout of the PCB

Theoretically, if two power amplifiers are bridged, the output power increases four times. Practically, there are limitations imposed by the parameters of the ICs. More information about bridging is provided in the datasheets of respective ICs. 100

January 2017 | electronics for you

Selection of ICs from Table I will determine the minimum and maximum power supply, minimum output load resistance, maximum output and maximum power dissipation of the semiconductors. Connectors. The amplifier has

seven connectors (CON1-CON7). There are three inputs (CON1CON3), three outputs (CON5CON7). CON4 is for power supply. Input signal from a microphone is applied to CON1 and is amplified through T1. Gain of the stage is www.efymag.com

Do-it-yourself Parts List Semiconductors: IC1, IC2 - LM1875 audio amplifier T1-T3 - BC547C npn transistor LED1 - 5mm LED D1 - 1N4148 signal diode ZD1 - 20V, 1.3W Zener diode Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon, unless stated otherwise): R1 - 220-ohm - 330-kilo-ohm R2, R3 R4, R24, R25 - 10-kilo-ohm R5 - 810-kilo-ohm R6 - 22-ohm R7 - 2.2-mega-ohm R8, R9, R15-R17, R19 - 22-kilo-ohm R10 - 100-kilo-ohm R11 - 120-kilo-ohm R12, R13 - 1-kilo-ohm - 430-ohm R14 R18, R20 - 680-ohm R21, R22 - 2.2-ohm, 3W R23 - 20-kilo-ohm - 4.7-kilo-ohm potmeter VR1, VR2 Capacitors: C1, C4, C11, C13 - 0.33µF ceramic C2 - 4.7µF, 100V non-polar capacitor C3 - 2.2nF ceramic - 150pF ceramic C5, C9 C6, C7, C10, C12 - 4.7µF, 63V electrolytic - 470µF, 63V electrolytic C8 C14, C15 - 1000µF, 63V electrolytic - 22µF, 63V electrolytic C16, C17 C18, C19 - 0.22µF ceramic C20, C21 - 2200µF, 63V electrolytic - 100µF, 63V electrolytic C22 Miscellaneous: S1 - Single-pole, two-way (SPDT) switch CON1-CON7 - 2-pin connector terminal LS1-LS2 - 4-ohm, 20W loudspeaker LS3 - 8-ohm, 40W loudspeaker - 30V, 3A DC power supply - Heat-sink for IC1 and IC2 - Microphone - Guitar

above 100 and depends on potmeter VR1 and resistor R6. CON2 and CON3 are for inputs to guitars. Resistance of a single input is above 1-mega-ohm. Values of R2 and R3 are selected according to the guitar pickups. T2 works as emitter follower with gain close to unity. T1, T2 and T3 should be of low-noise and high-gain type such as BC109C, BC547C or BC550C. Signals from all inputs are summed in T3 stage, which provides two output signals with the same amplitude but with opposite phases. These signals are applied www.efymag.com

Table II

TesT poInTs Test point

details

TP0

0V (GND)

TP1

30V

TP2

20V

TP3

12V

TP4-TP6

15V

to two identical output stages built around IC1 and IC2. Switch S1 gives the option to select the same or opposite signals for the stage using IC2. Both output stages are identical. These can be driven with the same or with opposite signals. Gain of the output stage is around 33 and can be readjusted with feedback resistors as needed. Mode-control switch S1. The amplifier has several configurations depending on the position of S1 and connection of loads. S1 has two positions, 1 and 2. When S1 is in position 1, both output stages have the same input signals. Loads have two configurations. In the first configuration, two separate loads (loudspeakers) can be connected to CON5 and CON6. In the second case, CON5 and CON6 can be paralleled through small equalisation resistors (usually 0.05-0.1-ohm load resistance) and a common load can be applied. This is possible because output stages have very close parameters. Gain-control resistors should be matched to better than ±1%. Care must be taken about polarity of signals and polarity of connections of loudspeakers. When S1 is in position 2, output channels are driven by opposite signals. Here also, there are two possible configurations for loads. In the first case, two separate loads can be connected to CON5 and CON6. In the second case, CON5 and CON6 are not used, and only a single load is connected to CON7. In both cases, load can be from 4-ohm to 16-ohm (sometimes even

more), and its resistance and power depends on the ICs selected from Table I. Power supply. DC power supply is applied to CON4 as per power amplifier ICs selected from Table I. Power supply can be regulated or unregulated. Values of capacitors C11, C13, C14 and C15 can be increased or paralleled with additional capacitors. Power supply for the transistors is additionally filtered and regulated with Zener diode ZD1, capacitors C1 and C8 and resistor R14. Zener ZD1 is BZX85 type with maximum power of 1.3W, depending on the selected power supply. Heat-sink. IC1 and IC2 are mounted on appropriate common heat-sinks, depending on the required output power. It is preferable to use heat-sinks with thermal resistance lower than 1.5oC/W. Bigger heat-sinks are better.

Construction and testing An actual-size, single-side PCB pattern for the simple dual-way amplifier is shown in Fig. 2 and its component layout in Fig. 3. The loudspeakers can be 4-ohm to 16-ohm, peak-output current can go up to 3A or even 5A in some cases, and peak-output power is from 10W to more than 40W, depending on the selected ICs, heat-sinks, power supply and configuration of output (dual-way or bridged amplifier). This power amplifier usually does not need any adjustment, but it is important to have the gains of the output stages as mentioned earlier. For troubleshooting, check voltages at various test points listed in Table II.

Petre Tzv Petrov was a researcher and assistant professor in Technical University of Sofia (Bulgaria) and expert-lecturer in OFPPT(Casablance), Kingdom of Morocco. Now he is working as an electronics engineer in the private sector in Bulgaria

electronics for you | January 2017

101

Do-it-yourself

. S.C Di e v i Dw

Electronic Eye Security SyStem Pamarthi KanaKraja

T

and a relay. This concept is very useful as a burglar deterrent in places like banks, malls, jewellery stores, hotels and homes. Fig. 1 shows the author’s prototype.

he electronic eye security systems available in the market are expensive, and programming is very difficult for a microcontroller based system. Here is a simple and inexpensive electronic eye security system that you can build easily. Main objective of this project is to design a security system based on a photo-sensing arrangement. It uses dual comparator LM393 that is widely used in many commercial applications. Here, it is used to sense the input signal through a light-dependent resistor (LDR). Comparator output drives a buzzer

Circuit and working Circuit diagram for the electronic eye security system is shown in Fig. 2. It is built around 12V-0-12V, 750mA secondary transformer (X1), 1N4007 rectifier diodes (D1 through D3), LDR (LDR1), filter capacitors C1 and C2, 5V voltage regulator 7805 (IC1), dual comparator LM393 (IC2), 12V multi-tone high-gain buzzer (PZ1), transistor TIP122 (T1) for driving PZ1, transistor BC547 (T2) for driving 12V, 1C/O relay for controlling an electrical appliance or bulb (B1), and 10-kilo-ohm potmeter VR1. When light falls on LDR1, its resistance drastically decreases, which leads to triggering an alarm to alert the user.

Fig. 1: Author’s prototype

This system is suitable for securing cash boxes and lockers. The circuit is placed inside the cash box or locker in such a way that, when the burglar opens it and uses a torch light to find the valuables, light falls on LDR1, which acts as an electronic eye. Parts List Semiconductors: IC1 - 7805 5V regulator IC2 - LM393 dual comparator T1 - TIP122 power transistor - BC547 npn transistor T2 D1-D3 - 1N4007 rectifier diode Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon): R1-R4 - 1-kilo-ohm - 10-kilo-ohm potmeter VR1 Capacitors: C1 - 1000µF, 40V electrolytic C2 - 0.1µF ceramic disk Miscellaneous: LDR1 - Light dependent resistor RL1 - 12V, 1C/O relay B1 - 40W, 230V AC bulb - 12V multi-tone high-gain PZ1 buzzer CON1 - 2-pin connector X1 - 230V AC primary to 12V-0-12V, 750mA secondary transformer - 3-pin connector for X1 - 8-pin IC base - 2-pin power cord for AC mains

RL1 12V, 1C/O RELAY 1

X1

P

D1 1N4007

N

PZ1 BUZZER

3

C2 0.1u

D2 1N4007

VR1 10K C1 1000u 40V

N/O

R2 1K

R1 1K

2

230V AC 50Hz

IC1 7805

D3 1N4007

1

OUT1

Vcc

8

2

IN1

OUT2

7

IN2

6

3 4

A1

A2

IN1 GND

LDR1

X1 = 230V AC PRIMARY TO 12V−0−12V,750mA SECONDARY TRANSFORMER

IN2

IC2 LM393

N/C

B1 40W,230V AC 50Hz

P N R3 1K

R4 1K

5

T1 TIP122

T2 BC547

CON1 FOR 230V AC 50Hz

GND

Fig. 2: Circuit diagram of the electronic eye security system

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January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself same time, bulb B1 glows as a visual alert to thwart the burglary attempt. Case 1. If reference voltage at pin 3 of IC2 is less than Fig. 3: Actual-size PCB layout of the electronic security system sensor voltage at pin 2 of IC2, output goes low automatically. This indicates that no light is falling on LDR1. Low output of IC2 is fed to T1 and T2. As a result, Fig. 4: Component layout of the PCB both are in cutoff state and so no current flows through the buzzer, Signal output from LDR1 is fed keeping it in silence mode. Similarly, to IC2. Output from IC2 activates no current flows in the relay, and so the alarm when light falls on LDR1 B1 does not glow. during a burglary attempt. At the

www.EFymag.com

Case 2. If reference voltage at pin 3 of IC2 is greater than sensor voltage at pin 2 of IC2, output goes high automatically. This indicates that light is falling on LDR1. High output of IC2 is fed to T1 and T2. As a result, both transistors are in on (active) state. Current flows through the buzzer and relay. The buzzer produces a loud alarm to alert you or people around you and, at the same time, B1 glows as the circuit completes through relay RL1’s contacts.

Construction and testing An actual-size, single-side PCB for the electronic security system is shown in Fig. 3 and its component layout in Fig. 4. After assembling the circuit on the PCB, enclose it in a suitable plastic box. Pamarthi Kanakaraja is assistant professor in Usha Rama College of Engineering and Technology, Andhra Pradesh

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Do-it-yourself . S.C Di ive Dw

OptOreflective Sensor D. Mohan KuMar

H

ere is a simple optoreflective sensor circuit based on TCRT5000 module. It is ideal for projects like robotics, position sensing, proximity sensing, detection of reflective materials and many more. Its range is 2mm to 10mm, and the best response range is 5mm. The circuit uses an optoreflective sensor module that has an infrared (IR) LED and a phototransistor in a common package. The IR LED is the transmitter and the phototransistor the receiver. The TCRT5000 in the circuit is a highly-sensitive optoreflective sensor module that has many applications in proximity-de-

tection circuits. It gives two types of outputs (analogue and digital) based on the intensity of the reflecting IR rays falling on the phototransistor. Analogue output is in terms of DC voltage. That means, when the phototransistor is not receiving the reflected IR rays, output is low, and when the phototransistor gets reflected IR rays, output voltage increases from low to around 3V, based on the intensity of reflected light. The reflective sensor also has digital output. That means, when the phototransistor is not getting reflected IR rays, output remains in logic 0 (low), and when it gets reflected light, output turns to logic 1 (high). The author’s prototype is shown in Fig. 1.

Circuit and working Circuit diagram of the optoreflective sensor is shown in Fig. 2. Output from

Fig. 1: Author’s prototype

the optoreflective sensor (IC1) is used to trigger the monostable circuit built around NE555 timer (IC2.) Resistor R1 limits the current through the internal IR LED of the sensor module. In standby mode, IR LED emits continuous IR rays. Phototransistor remains non-conducting since it is not receiving any IR rays. Timer circuit built around IC2 also remains disabled since its trigger pin 2 is held high through resistor R4. When a reflective object comes in front of IC1 sensor module, the phototransistor inside the module conducts. This makes transistor T1 to conduct, and its collector voltage goes to ground potential, taking trigger pin 2 of IC2 also to ground. This triggers IC2 and its output pin 3 goes high for around one second, based on the values of resistor R5 and capacitor C1. LED1 indicates activation of the timer and presence of the object in front of the optoreflective sensor. When output of IC2 goes high, transistor T2 conducts and the piezo buzzer sounds. Parts List Semiconductors:

IC1 TCRT5000 3

7 DIS

2

CON1 1 9V

4

R3 470E R1 470E

R2 10K

C1 100u 25V

T1 BC547

GND

Fig. 2: Circuit diagram of the optoreflective sensor

104

IC1

R5 10K

R4 1K

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

6

2 1

8

TH

Vcc

TRI

O/P 3

IC2 NE555

GND

PZ1 PIEZO BUZZER

RESET 4

CV

5

C2 0.01u

Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon):

R7 470E R6 470E

IC2 T1, T2 LED1

- TCRT5000 optoreflective sensor - NE555 timer - BC547 npn transistor - 5mm LED

T2 BC547

LED1

R1, R3, R6, R7 - 470-ohm R2, R5 - 10-kilo-ohm - 1-kilo-ohm R4 Capacitors:

C1 C2

Miscellaneous:

CON1 CON2

- 100µF, 25V electrolytic - 0.01µF ceramic disk - 2-pin terminal connector - 4-pin connector - 9V PP3 battery

www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself

Fig. 3: Actual-size PCB pattern of the optoreflective sensor

Fig. 4: Component layout of the PCB

Construction and testing An actual-size, single-side PCB pattern for the optoreflective sensor is shown in Fig. 3 and its component layout in Fig. 4. Assemble the circuit on the PCB. Use connector CON1 for batE TCRT 5000 tery connection Reflective Sensor K C and connector A CON2 (shown in Fig. 4) for connecting the TCRT5000 sensor module. Photo Use a 9-volt Transistor IR LED PP3 battery or a suitable DC Fig. 5: Pin configuration of TCRT5000 sensor power supply. Even though the phototransistor has a filter casing, sunlight triggers the circuit. So test the circuit inside a room where only artificial light is present. Output from the optoreflective sensor can be interfaced with a microcontroller or similar circuits. Refer Fig. 5 for pin configuration of TCRT5000 sensor before using it in the circuit. Use a 4-wire cable for interconnection between the sensor and the PCB. Connect pins K, C, A and E of the sensor module to pins 1, 2, 3 and 4 of CON2, respectively. Fix the sensor module on the front panel of the cabinet or enclosure. D. Mohan Kumar was associate professor at Government College for Women, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

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Do-it-yourself

. S.C Di e v i Dw

Sound-Operated Timer PradeeP G.

T

multivibrator. Sound signal, like clapping, sensed by condenser microphone MIC1 is amplified by IC1.

his sound-operated timer is based on LM324 quad-operational amplifier and NE555

S1 ON/OFF SWITCH

R1 10K C1 0.1u

R2 1K

R3 1M

MIC1 COND. MIC

IN4

A1

A4

IN1

IC1 IN4 LM324

5

C2 10u 25V

OUT4

IN2 A2

6

IN3 A3

IN2

IN3

7 OUT2 11

C6 100u 25V

D1 1N4007

4

13 12

7 DIS

VR2 1M

6

2 10 9

OUT3 8

GND

R5 1K

14

IN1

2

VR1 1M

Vcc

1 OUT1

3

CON1 6V − 12V

R4 10K

C3 0.1u

Amplified signal is fed to trigger pin 2 of IC2. Output pin 3 of IC2 goes high and relay RL1 gets ener-

1

C4 100u 25V

TH

RESET 4

IC2 Vcc NE555

TRI GND

8

O/P 3 CV

R6 1K D2 1N4007

5

CON2 LOAD

N/O

N/C LED1

N RL1 CON3 6V−12V,1C/O 230V AC RELAY 50Hz L

C5 0.01u

GND

Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the sound-operated timer

timer. Time delay can be set from a few seconds to 30 minutes. It can also be used as a sound-sensitive burglar alarm.

Circuit and working Circuit diagram of the sound-operated timer is shown in Fig. 1. Output pin 1 of LM324 (IC1) is fed to pin 2 of NE555 (IC2) through capacitor C3. IC2 is configured as a monostable

Fig. 2: Solder-side PCB layout of the sound-operated timer

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January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself Parts List Semiconductors: IC1 - LM324 quad op-amp IC2 - NE555 timer - 1N4007 rectifier diode D1, D2 LED1 - 5mm LED Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon): R1, R4 - 10-kilo-ohm R2, R5, R6 - 1-kilo-ohm R3 - 1-mega-ohm VR1, VR2 - 1-mega-ohm potmeter Capacitors: C1, C3 - 0.1μF ceramic disk C2 - 10μF, 25V electrolytic C4, C6 - 100μF, 25V electrolytic - 0.01μF ceramic disk C5 Miscellaneous: CON1-CON3 - 2-pin terminal connector S1 - On/off switch MIC1 - Electret microphone - 6V-12V, 1 C/O relay RL1 - 230V electric bell or 100W, 230V AC lamp - 6V-12V DC power supply

gised for a time delay set by potmeter VR2. Time delay can be set from a few seconds to 30 minutes. Energisation of the relay is indicated by the glowing of LED1. Relay RL1 is de-energised after

Fig. 3: Component layout of the PCB

the time delay. NE555 can source 200mA current; so, an ordinary relay can be directly connected to IC2’s output without an extra transistor driver. Use a good-quality microphone for maximum sensitivity.

Construction and testing An actual-size, single-side PCB layout for the sound-operated timer is shown in Fig. 2 and its component layout in Fig. 3. After assembling the circuit on the PCB, enclose it in

a suitable plastic box. The circuit needs a 6V-12V DC power supply. When MIC1 captures the sound made by an intruder, RL1 gets energised. An electric lamp may be connected via N/O contacts of RL1 along with a bell or an alarm. Pradeep G. is B.Sc. (Physics) and a regular contributor to international magazines. He is also a small-business owner in south India

Would You Like More DIY Circuits?

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ElEctronics For you | January 2017

107

Do-it-yourself

hi Nid ria hu Kat

Ultrasonic distance meter Using Raspberry Pi 2 ArnAv BAnsAl in Figs 1 and 2, respectively. When the processor gives a high signal to trig pin of the senComponents required for this sor, the sensor emits out eightproject are Raspberry Pi (or Raspi) cycle sonic bursts at 40kHz. After 2, HC-SR04 module, 330-ohm sending the sonic burst, the sensor and 470-ohm resistors, and some sets echo to high till the sonic jumper wires. burst returns to the sensor—after Working of HC-SR04 ultrareflection from the object. Hence, sonic sensor is fairly simple. Circuit length of this pulse is proportional diagram of Raspi with HC-SR04 to how far the object is. is shown in Fig. 3. The HC-SR04 Now, distance covered by the module and its working are shown pulse is twice the distance that has to be measured, and speed CON1 FOR of sound is roughly 340 metres HC – SR04 MICRO per second. Calculations can be SD CARD SENSOR 5V 3.3V carried out using the following 1 2 POWER GPIO2 5V 3 4 GPIO3 GND relationship: 5 6 GPIO4 GPIO14

HDMI

GPIO5 GPIO6 GPIO13 GPIO19 GPIO26

ETHERNET

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

GPIO15 GPIO18 GND GPIO23 GPIO24 GND GPIO25 GPIO8 GPIO7 GND GPIO12 GND GPIO16 GPIO20 GPIO21

Vcc

GND

GND GPIO17 GPIO27 GPIO22 3.3V GPIO10 GPIO9 GPIO11 GND

TRIG

Circuit and Working

ECHO

U

ltrasonic ranging module HC-SR04 provides 2cm to 400cm non-contact distance measurement range. Its accuracy can reach ±3mm with a cycle period of 50ms, which is the minimum time delay recommended before measurements are taken. The module includes ultrasonic transmitter, receiver and control circuit. Raspberry Pi 2 is a second-generation Raspberry Pi board, which was released in February 2015. It is a Linux based computer with a powerful Broadcom BCM2836 ARMv7 900MHz quad-core processor and 1GB SDRAM. It runs on 5V DC at 200mA and has 40 GPIO pins, along with HDMI, micro-SD card slot, Ethernet, USB 2.0 and 3.5 audio (out) ports.

R1 330E R2 470E

USB

RASPBERRY PI 2

Fig. 1: HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor module

Fig. 3: Connection of HC-SR04 module with Raspi

Trigger

340 =

Echo 10µS

25µs

Width proportional to distance Fig. 2: Working of HC-SR04 January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Distance Time

2×Distance Time

, or

, or

Distance = 170 × Time

Hence, distance between the object and the sensor in metres can be determined. To calculate in centimetres, multiply it by 100. Connect HC-SR04 to Raspi as indicated below (also refer Fig. 3): HC-SR04 VCC (+5V) TRIG ECHO GND

Sonic Burst

108

Speed =

Raspi pins Pin 2 (VCC) Pin 16 (GPIO 23) Pin 18 (GPIO 24) Pin 34 (GND)

Resistors R1 and R2 are used to balance out the output as the sensor’s high signal is at +5V, whereas Raspi works on +3.3V level. Hence, the voltage divider helps in reducing the output voltage level. www.EFymag.com

efy Note

The source code of this project is included in this month’s EFY DVD and is also available for free download at source. efymag.com

Do-it-yourself GPIO-0.6.1.tar.gz // Extracts the package pi@raspberrrypi ~$ cd Rpi.GPIO-0.6.1 //This should change the directory to Rpi GPIO folder pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo python setup. py install // This will install GPIO package on Raspi

Fig. 4: Output screen of Raspi terminal window

Software There are many operating systems designed for Raspi 2, but the most widely used are Raspian (Linux based) and Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Core. If you are a newbie to Raspi 2, check out the link: www. raspberrypi.org/help for information on Raspi. In this project, the compiler used is Python and operating system for Raspi is Raspbian. The objective is to measure the distance between the sensor and an object that is kept at an unknown distance from the sensor. There are some packages that are required for interfacing of HC-SR04. In order to download these packages, start Terminal on Raspi and execute the commands given below. Make sure that your Raspi is hooked to the Internet, otherwise the commands will not work. After logging on, update Raspi using the commands given below. This ensures that you have the latest software and drivers installed.

To make sure things are in order, reboot your Raspi by typing the following command: pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo reboot

Now all packages required for interfacing of HC-SR04 with Raspi have been installed.

Python code Start Raspi and create UltraTest folder. For this tutorial, libraries used are RPi.GPIO and time. Create a new file (Ultra_Test.py) in nano editor using the commands given below: pi@raspberrrypi ~ $ cd ~/Desktop/ UltraTest // Change Directory to UltraTest pi@raspberrrypi ~/Desktop/UltraTest $ sudo nano Ultra_Test.py // Write python script as Ultra_Test.py

Press ctrl+o to save your Python script followed by pressing ctrl+x to exit.

Construction and Testing

pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo apt-get update

After saving the code and connecting HC-SR04 to Raspi, boot Raspi. From the terminal, type the following commands to execute your program. Destination folder is UltraTest and file name is Ultra_Test.py as shown in Fig. 4.

pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo apt-get upgrade

pi@raspberrrypi ~/Desktop/UltraTest

Following commands get you some common Python tools:

pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo apt-get install python-dev // This should install python development tools

$ sudo python Ultra_Test.py

This Python script should measure the distance between the desired object and the sensor in centimetres. Refer Fig. 4 for the output screenshot of Raspi.

pi@raspberrrypi~$sudo wget http://pypi. python.org/packages/source/R/RPi.GPIO/ RPi.GPIO-0.6.1.tar.gz // Downloads the GPIO package

Arnav Bansal is an electronics hobbyist and loves to tinker with circuit designs

pi@raspberrrypi ~$ sudo tar zxf Rpi. www.EFymag.com

ElEctronics For you | January 2017

109

Do-it-yourself

hi Nid ria u h t Ka

GUI Based Error CorrECtion in Data CommuniCation Using MATLAB Sanjeev Kumar

E

rror correction and detection has great practical importance in maintaining data and ensuring that information is transferred intact from source to destination. Also, MATLAB based graphical user interface (GUI) for convolutional code (CC) provides basic concepts of CC, its encoder structure, and classification and decoding techniques. CCs are widely used as channel codes in practical communication systems for error correction. Encoder design consists of current bits and previous bits that are stored in shift registers. Encoded output sequence is generated from present and previous message bits. Encoded output is passed to the

START

decoder and the decoding algorithm, which is used in Viterbi decoding algorithm. Presented here is a project in which we design CCs for various code rates. The encoder of the designed CC is based on the code rate chosen by the user. Once the code is encoded, random noise can be added to the encoded sequence. The decoder is used to decode the message; at output, original message is obtained. Performance is evaluated with bit errors, which are the number of errors after binary sequence is decoded. There are two major parameters on which CCs are based— code rate and constraint length. Code rate is defined as the number of current bits to the number of outputs, whereas constraint length is defined as the number of bits

stored in each shift register, including the current bit. Note. In order to run this application, a 32- or 64-bit operating system with MATLAB software is needed. The designed GUI panel/ program is user-friendly. Different buttons are used in this project, and the entire working of the project is performed through push buttons. Block diagram of CC under different code rates, which are used in this application, is shown in Fig. 1. It illustrates the working of this project using MATLAB.

Software program The application program is developed in MATLAB version R2013a. It has a GUI for CCs under different code rates. To open a GUI panel of the command guide, type on the command window. When bit1.m program is run, a

MESSAGE SELECT CODE RATE 1/2 1/3 2/3 2/5

CORRESPONDING TRELLIS DESIGN ENCODED MESSAGE NOISE DECODED MESSAGE

BIT ERROR CALCULATED

END

Fig. 1: Block diagram of convolutional code

110

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

Fig. 2: Main GUI panel of the project www.EFymag.com

Do-it-yourself screen will open up, prompting you to enter all the details. Key in the details in the GUI panel that appears on the screen, as shown in Fig. 2. Steps. 1. Press the different buttons as mentioned in the GUI. When the message button is pressed, input window will open, which means you need to enter a column size for random bit generation. Value of the column size can be any natural number of choice. By default, the value is ten. 2. After the message sequence is selected, message in the form of zeroes and ones is displayed on the screen. From the given code rates, you can select any code rate of your choice. This code rate will generate poly2trellis. 3. poly2trellis is used to accept the polynomial description of a convolutional encoder and return the corresponding trellis structure description. poly2trellis function includes constraint length and code generator. Trellis = poly2trellis (constraint length, code generator) 4. Constraint length indicates the number of bits stored in the shift register, including the current bit. The code generator specifies the output connections for each encoder input bit stream. Main parts of the GUI panel are shown in Fig. 2 and the description is given in the box. 5. The encoder will encode the message sequence and random noise will be added to the encoded message. At the decoder, the message is decoded using Viterbi algorithm. 6. At last, bit error is calculated, which indicates the number of errors in the decoded message sequence.

Steps for testing 1. Copy the complete folder (update) of this project from EFY DVD or the website to your system. www.EFymag.com

Fig. 3: GUI window with calculated bit error for code rate (1/2)

GUI Panel description 1. Click on the message button to select the desired column size. 2. Select the code rate of your choice from the given four code rates. 3. Trellis of corresponding code rate appears on the screen. 4. Message is encoded and random noise is added. 5. Click on Decoded button to decode the message. 6. Press Bit Error button to calculate the numbers of errors.

2. Run bit.m program. 3. The main GUI panel for CC opens up on the screen (Fig. 2). 4. Click on Message button. Input window will open, which asks you to enter the column size of any random message. 5. Select code rates out of the four defined. Select any one by pressing Code Rate button. Corresponding trellis design appears on the panel (Fig. 3). 6. Click on Encoder button to encode the message. 7. Click on Noise button to add random noise for inserting errors in the encoded message.

efy Note

The source code of this project is included in this month’s EFY DVD and is also available for free download at source. efymag.com

8. Here, the message is decoded by pressing Decoder button. Due to CC, errors inserted by noise are removed. 9. Finally, number of errors in the message is calculated by pressing Bit Error button.

Future application CCs are used to combat transmission errors caused by a noisy channel. These allow communication to achieve transmission reliability by reducing bit error rate. It reduces the amount of power needed for transmission of data. Viterbi algorithm allows safe data transmission via error correction. Original message can recover accurately without any noise. Sanjeev Kumar is head of department (ECE), Khalsa College of Engineering and Technology, Amritsar, Punjab

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advertisers’ index Client name

Page No.

Advertising Mantras ..............................................................................122

Client name

Page No.

Client name

Fusion Power Systems (www.amptek.in) ..............................................125

Page No.

Perfect Systems .....................................................................................127

Analog Devices (www.eandtechmedia.com) ...........................................25

Gala Electronics (www.vegakitindia.com) ..............................................43

Persang Alloy Industries Pvt Ltd (www.persangalloy.com) .....................15

Anant Enterprises (www.indiamart.com/anant) ..................................... 119

Gemalto Pte Ltd. ......................................................................................17

Progressive Engineers........................................................................... 114

AqTronics Technologies Pvt. Ltd .............................................................19

Good Will Instrument Co. Ltd.................................................................130

PSI Enterprises ......................................................................................125

Arham Electronics & Electricals (Nimra Products) ................................126

Green Vision Technologies ........................................................................3

Radiant Electronics ................................................................................ 118

ArTech Innovations ................................................................................127

HI Technology ........................................................................................126

Raj Electronics .......................................................................................127

Auro Controls (www.aurocontrols.com) ................................................. 118

Hicotronics Devices Pvt Ltd. .................................................................... 11

Rajamane Telectric (www.rajamanetelectric.com) ..................................49

Avnet Electronics India ............................................................................29

HK Wentworth (India) Pvt Ltd ...............................................................131

Rajguru Electronics ................................................................................ 112

Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.binayLED.com) .....................44, 45

India Electronics Week 2017 .............................................................72, 73

RDL Technologies Private Limited .........................................................121

Boolean Microsystems Pvt. Ltd. ............................................................127

Indian Sales Corporation .......................................................................105

REBUTOR Electronics Pvt Ltd ................................................................53

Bormonz Technologies........................................................................... 119

IOTshow.in................................................................................................37

Renesas Electronics India Pvt Ltd. ..........................................................27

Brisk Electrotech .................................................................................... 114

Kaytron Components Pvt Ltd.................................................................125

Rhydo Technologies P Ltd (www.rhydo.com)........................................ 113

CADD Centre Training Services Private Limited ...................................123

Keysight Technologies India Pvt Ltd (www.keysight.com) ........................5

Rishabh Instruments Pvt Ltd....................................................................40

Circuit Systems India Ltd ......................................................................103

Kits‘n’Spares ............................................................................................47

Rohde & Schwarz (www.rohde-schwarz.co.in) .......................................51

Circuitects Electronics Solution Pvt. ltd. ..................................................49

LEDasia.in ................................................................................................41

ROHM Semiconductor .............................................................................31

Cranes Software International Limited ..................................................120

LWI Electronics Inc. (www.livewireinfo.com) ...........................................23

Sagar Switch Gear ................................................................................. 119

Delta Solar Systems ..............................................................................127

Martin Electronic Devices & Instruments...............................................124

Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd ............................................................127

Digi-Key Electronics (www.digikey.com)....................................................2

Max Technology & Co. (www.maxtechnoloindia.com) ............................33

Sancon India Pvt Ltd. ............................................................................. 116

Digital Promoters (I) Pvt Ltd...................................................................125

Meco Meters Pvt Ltd (www.mecoinst.com) .................................63, 65, 67

Servokon Systems Pvt Ltd.....................................................................120

Dynalog (India) Ltd (www.dynalogindia.com) ...........................................9

Micro Controls (www.microcontrols.net) ................................................127

Servotech Power Systems P Ltd ..........................................................121

Edkits Electronics...................................................................................126

Minmax Technology Co. Ltd (www.minmax.com.tw)...............................55

Shavison Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.shavison.com).................................93

EFY Group: 3 Person ..............................................................................21

Montu Electronics LLP ...........................................................................127

Shrey Plastic Moulders (www.shreyplasticmoulders.com)....................125

EFY Group: EFYExpo..............................................................................61

Mornsun Guangzhou Science & Technology Co. Ltd. ............................35

SIGLENT Technologies Co. Ltd...............................................................39

EFY Group: Subscripton Form ..........................................................94, 95

Mouser Electronics (India) Private Limited ................................................7

Smec Electronics India Pvt Ltd .............................................................. 116

Eita Technologies ...................................................................................127

National Controlling & Equipments .......................................................125

Srishti Electronics (www.acedigital.co.in) ..............................................125

Electrical Research & Development Association ....................................57

Nippon India (www.nipponindia.com) .................................................... 117

Sudarrshan Tech Services (www.sudarrshantech.com) .........................42

Elektro Power Systems..........................................................................126

NMTronics India Pvt Ltd (www.nmtronics.com).......................................13

Toshniwal Sensing Devices Private Limited .......................................... 114

Element14 India Pvt Ltd.............................................................................1

Om Art Engineering Works ....................................................................124

Universal Electronic Agencies (www.easternradio.co.in) ...................... 116

Exide Industries Ltd (www.exide4u.com) ...............................................69

Pasternack .............................................................................................132

Velpa Technologies ................................................................................125

FLIR Systems India Pvt Ltd (www.flir.com) .....................................71, 117

Perfect Electronics (www.perfectelectronics.net) ..................................127

Yokogawa India Ltd (www.yokogawa.com/in) ....................................... 115

product categories index Products

Page No.

Products

Page No.

Products

Page No.

Products

Page No.

Automation & Robotics

Components (Including Active & Passive)

Display Systems

Plugs, Sockets & Connectors

Dynalog (India) Ltd ............................................... 9

ArTech Innovations .......................................... 127

Radiant Electronics............................................118

Auro Controls.....................................................118

Educational Training Kits

Services

Perfect Electronics ........................................... 127

Gemalto Pte Ltd.................................................. 17

Brisk Electrotech ...............................................114 Batteries & Power Supplies Digital Promoters (I) Pvt Ltd ............................. 125 Eita Technologies ............................................ 127 Elektro Power Systems ................................... 126 Exide Industries Ltd ............................................ 69 Green Vision Technologies .................................. 3 Minmax Technology Co. Ltd ............................... 55 Montu Electronics LLP ..................................... 127 National Controlling & Equipments ................... 125 Nippon India ......................................................117 Perfect Systems ............................................... 127 PSI Enterprises................................................. 125

Electrical Research & Development Association ..................................................... 57 Element14 India Pvt Ltd. ...................................... 1 Gala Electronics ................................................. 43

Industrial & Manufacturing Equipment

HI Technology ................................................... 126

Max Technology & Co. ....................................... 33

Indian Sales Corporation ................................. 105

NMTronics India Pvt Ltd ..................................... 13

LWI Electronics Inc. ........................................... 23 Martin Electronic Devices & Instruments ......... 124

Materials (Including Chemicals &

Meco Meters Pvt Ltd .............................. 63, 65, 67

Consumables)

Mouser Electronics (India) Private Limited .......... 7

Progressive Engineers ......................................114

Test & Measurement Equipment (Including Indicators & Monitors) FLIR Systems India Pvt Ltd .........................71, 117 Keysight Technologies India Pvt Ltd ..................... 5 Rishabh Instruments Pvt Ltd .............................. 40 Rohde & Schwarz .............................................. 51

Om Art Engineering Works ............................... 124

Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd ...................... 127

Rajguru Electronics ..........................................112

Optics & Optoelectronics

Transformers

Servokon Systems Pvt Ltd ............................... 120

REBUTOR Electronics Pvt Ltd ........................... 53

Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd ..................... 44, 45

Anant Enterprises .............................................119

Sagar Switch Gear ...........................................119 Cabinets, Enclosures & Accessories

Sancon India Pvt Ltd .........................................116

PCBs, Assemblies & Sub Assemblies

Wires & Cables

Shrey Plastic Moulders .................................... 125

Smec Electronics India Pvt Ltd ..........................116

Circuit Systems India Ltd .................................. 103

Sagar Switch Gear ...........................................119

128

January 2017 | ElEctronics For you

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EFY Magazine Attractions During 2017 Month

tEchnologY Focus

ElEctronics DEsign

MArkEt survEYs

January

Computer Vision

Lowering Power Consumption

Electronic Component Manufacturing

February

Smart Fabrics

Improving Wireless Signal Performance

Electronics Manufacturing Services

March

Exciting Technologies Powering the IoT

Building More Reliable Printed Circuit Boards

Industry Outlook for 2017-18

April

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Developer Boards: DIY and Hobbyist Applications

Printed Circuit Boards

May

Smart Robotics

Fight of the Processors: Ultra-Low-Voltage Computing The Internet of Things (Mobile and Portable Devices)

June

Artificial Intelligence

How to Get the Best Design for Manufacturing

Strategic Electronics

July

5G and Beyond

Developer Boards: Industrial Applications

Mobile Handset and Telecom Device Manufacturing

August

3D Printing

Improving Thermal Dissipation

LED Lighting

September Industrial IoT

Which Input Technologies Should You Use

Solar

October

The Brains of Mobile Devices

Ruggedising Hardware

Electronics Manufacturing Equipment (Both SMT and Non-SMT Categories)

November

Security of the IoT

Fight of the Processors: High-Performance Computing Test and Measurement

December

Implantable and Edible Electronics

Which Output Technologies Should You Use

www.efymag.com

Materials and Chemicals

electronics for you | January 2017

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