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In the footsteps of da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci derived his creativity, in part, by embracing the
concept of connessione. The reality behind this idea — that
all things and phenomena are interconnected — is why today’s
engineers should be serious about raising their interdisciplinary
intelligence and developing their mechatronic design skills.
Where single-discipline solutions are hitting walls exposed by years
of traditional engineering optimization, mechatronic design offers hope,
creating new paths through, over, under, and around the apparent
obstacles. By adding more variables to the design equation, especially
through software, interdisciplinary approaches dramatically expand
solution space and open entirely new routes from concept to reality.
What you do with this new freedom is your business, but we will
continue to make it our business to help you achieve it. Keep an eye on
our exclusive mechatronic blog, PowerOn, and mark your calendars for October 15,
when we will host the Mechatronics Web Conference and Expo.
— Larry
Berardinis
Build
Your Next Company Around Robotics
Ever Googled the term “robotics”? The only major company and
product that show up in the top 100 hits are Microsoft and its Robotics
Studio, a development tool that leaves a lot to be desired. (Not one of
the dozen or so folks interviewed for this article uses it.) In fact,
most of the search results include news, collegiate research, education,
and events.
Developers
Refine Their Embedded Wares For ESC
Keep two watchwords in mind when you head to next month’s Embedded
Systems Conference—more and better. Scheduled for April 14-18 at the
McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, Calif., this year’s show will
reveal a number of incremental improvements as companies deliver systems
based on established standards and product lines. For example, Intel
will offer its latest Xeon processor chip sets with an eye on power
management.
Embedded
Systems go on a Power Diet
It used to be the case that embedded systems just had to be small
enough to fit in the space available, and powerful enough to handle the
processing job at hand. Not anymore. Increasingly, embedded electronics
are designed with power consumption in mind. The reason, of course, is a
combination of new “green” power-efficiency standards and an
explosion in battery- powered uses where operating life carries a
premium.
Everlight Introduces Wide Range
Triac Driver Optocouplers
Everlight’s Electronics Co. Ltd.'s EL30XX triac driver optocouplers
offer an inexpensive alternative to using costly discrete driving
circuitry requiring multiple components that consume board space. The
zero-cross versions of the triac driver optocouplers provide added
protection in the form of a zero-crossing detection circuit connected to
the gates of the individual Silicon-Controlled Rectifiers (SCR). This
eliminates current surges, reduces electromagnetic interference (EMI)
and significantly improves transient immunity (dv/dt). Additionally, the
800 V series of zero-cross devices provides a better safety margin for
control of off-line voltages of 380 V.
More Information:
EVERLIGHT ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
Inductive Encoders From
HEIDENHAIN
Improvements on the ECI/EQI 1300 series of inductive rotary encoders
from HEIDENHAIN Corporation allow a 19-bit singleturn resolution version
to provide improved machine control performance. This results from the
addition of a new ASIC being implemented in 2008 on these encoders first
introduced to the market about 10 years ago. This ECI/EQI series also
offers a multiturn encoder with a resolution of 31 bits. Typical
applications of these types of rotary encoders are in servo
applications.
More Information:
HEIDENHAIN Corporation
Microchip
Technology Expands PIC24F Microcontroller Family
Microchip’s latest 16-bit PIC® MCUs provide customers with a new
level of integration for general-purpose applications. Large code
space, low power, and a powerful peripheral set expand the
general-purpose capabilities of their cost-effective PIC24F family.
More Information:
Microchip Technology Inc.
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