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Ingress Protection: Where and Why It Matters Sep 17, 2018 Electronics are like a grumpy neighbor: Neither can tolerate wet and dirty contaminants (kids) in their enclosures (yards). The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has developed a set of Ingress Protection (IP) ratings that serves as a unified system of designating electronic enclosure wet and dry contamination resistance. This article discusses why electronics are particularly averse to contaminants and how contaminants enter electronic enclosures, as well as discusses IP ratings and examples.
Check Your Local Cell Phone Tower: 5G is Almost Here! Aug 20, 2018 As you are retrieving the kids from summer camp or rather heading out on a late summer vacation, you may notice a flurry of activity around the ubiquitous symbol of the Connected Age, your local cell tower. The next revolution in wireless communication—5G—is almost here, and this summer marks the beginning of the preparations.
Exoskeletons Present Mobility Solutions Using an Array of Sensors Aug 15, 2018 Although most of us have never seen an exoskeleton beyond those in pop culture, they’ve been around for decades. The first examples appeared at the end of the 19th century when a running and jumping apparatus was developed using pneumatics for power.
Where Golf and Science Converge Aug 10, 2018 For people who haven’t played, the premise behind golf is simple: You stand there and use a metal club to hit a round ball (that isn’t moving) in the direction of a hole located a few hundred meters away (that also isn’t moving). What’s so difficult about that?
Almost Everyone Thinks LIDAR is the Technology Choice for Self-Driving Cars Aug 06, 2018 Like it or not, self-driving vehicles in one form or another represent the future of automotive transportation, potentially saving lives and allowing many more vehicles to share a crowded highway system. Even today, technologies that warn drivers about lane departure and that can even control speed and steering are in limited use.
Wi-Fi Will Soon Provide Position Accuracy of One Meter Aug 03, 2018 Realizing the full potential of location-based services requires much better indoor accuracy than is available today. As Global Positioning System (GPS) doesn’t work indoors, the only alternative is Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi’s accuracy is too low to provide the precision that many services require.
Supercapacitors: a New Hero in the Spotlight May 26, 2018 Until recently, supercapacitors (ultracapacitors) worked at fairly mundane tasks such as circuit protection and as short-term back-up supplies, but applications have expanded to electric/hybrid vehicles, renewable energy; and with energy harvesting, wearables and the Internet of Things come into play.
Digital Twinning and the Future of Transportation Safety Apr 24, 2018 The tragedy that befell Southwest Flight 1380 in April 2018 is thankfully a rare event in modern air travel. But one tragedy is still one too many. Complete system safety may be a goal that is always just out of reach. However, the desire to attain such perfection is what drives engineers, scientists, and technicians in many fields of technical pursuit. No doubt, modern aircraft are wondrous engineering feats. But future technologies, now still in development, might help bring us one step closer to even safer, more reliable aircraft and other systems where human life hangs in the balance.
Why IoT Success Hangs on Interoperability Mar 29, 2018 The Internet of Things (IoT) offers a compelling vision of applications able to distill raw data from hundreds of thousands of sensors into meaningful information. For IoT developers, however, that vision becomes dulled by the reality of interconnecting the many local devices and cloud-based resources that make up an effective IoT application. Although standard mechanisms exist to create the foundation of an IoT system, the greater framework that ensures interoperability among the pieces of an IoT application remains weak at best.
Lithium, Cobalt, and Lithium-Cobalt Prices, Demand Drive EVs Mar 21, 2018 According to Metalary, a metal price-tracking portal, the cost of lithium has jumped from $9,100 per tonne to $16,500 in just 12 months. As recently as 2014 the lightest metal sold for just over $5,000 per tonne.
Tax Reform Keeps the Sun Shining on Solar Energy Feb 28, 2018 Inverters, connectors, and panels may be the hardware that delivers solar energy to homeowners and utility giants alike; however, it’s the tax breaks that often justify installing solar energy in the first place. Tax incentives are typically aimed at supporting technologies that may otherwise encounter market-entry barriers. They often yield benefits by supporting job creation, driving innovation, and advancing public policy goals, such as reducing air pollution.
Collaborative Robots: Combining Machine Muscle with Human Dexterity Feb 26, 2018 When men first imagined robots, they visualized automatons that looked and moved like humans and who served their mortal masters by undertaking the tedious work of the day.
USB 3.2 Doubles Type-C Cable Speed, Adds To Naming Confusion Sep 27, 2017 Scheduled for release any time now, the anticipated USB 3.2 spec will double the number of lanes for data transfer. The USB 3.0 Promoter’s Group, in a press release earlier this year to pre-announce USB 3.2, stated, “USB Type-C cables were designed to support multi-lane operation to ensure a path for scalable performance.

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