Arrow Board Raffle: looking for a free FPGA dev board?

Walabot Creator is an extraordinary 3D sensor that can detect objects up to 6 meters way using high-frequency radio waves (think radar). But also medical applications such as checking the breathing of a person are within its capabilities.

One of my free spaces within the Elektor editorial team goes by the motto: one man’s grot is another man’s gem meaning I am out and about collecting discarded electronic equipment, which gets restored and/or written about for the general amusement of my readership. Recently on one of my friendly pillaging tours in the Eindhoven area I got two Tektronix 2235 oscilloscopes thrown in – literally – when I was just about to shut my car booth, having loaded half an e-workplace ground to a halt I guess around 1990 and then quietly left to collect dust. Fortunately these Tek 2235 scopes are made for field use hence lightweight. BTW they’re 100 MHz dual trace.

To debug a simple microcontroller program usually all you need is a serial port, an LED, a couple of printf statements, and some grey matter. However, when programs grow bigger and become more complex having a good debugging tool at hand will make life much easier.

A PiCAN 2 HAT provides your Raspberry Pi with full CAN-Bus capability: CAN v2.0B at 1 Mb/s and high-speed (10 MHz) SPI Interface. It uses the Microchip MCP2515 CAN controller with MCP2551 CAN transceiver. The connection is made via DB9 or through a 3-way screw terminal. The SocketCAN driver is easy to install. To the application, it appears as can0. Programming can be done in Python or C.

In his workshop, the author of this video removed the bodywork and all the awkward bits for his examination of the Tesla Model 3. Then he put it all back together, so that it works, to film it. He writes in effect that the information he gives comes from his intense personal study of the external and internal electrical and electronic systems of this model. For that, he did what all curious DIYers do – he took it apart to find out how it works!

Edition 3/2018 of Elektor Magazine has this project which scrolls text on a pretty row of eight 8 × 8 LED matrix displays. Its ESP-12F Wi-Fi module (based on the ESP8266) is easily programmed with the Arduino IDE. So, from your mobile phone or any other Wi-Fi device, it suffices to send the text to display and the speed and brightness controls to an ESP8266 webserver.

Software Defined Radio allows you to create receivers for any radio signal. You just need a single peripheral connected to your personal computer. HackRF One, is such a SDR peripheral, connected through USB. It receives or transmits signals from 1 MHz to 6 GHz. Designed to enable test and development of modern and next generation radio technologies, HackRF One is an open source hardware platform that can also be programmed for stand-alone operation.

Accurate, reliable sensors (e.g., position and temperature) are key component for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. Pete Smith (Senior Manager, Sensor Product Knowledge and Training, TE Connectivity) tells us about fascinating new sensor products and shares his thoughts on the future of the IIoT.

Much like they say about spiders, you’re likely always within 6ʹ of a microcontroller. That’s because billions of microcontrollers are deployed throughout the Internet of Things. Regrettably, few nonengineers know much about these remarkable, ubiquitous devices. Here are a few key facts about microcontrollers that everyone should know.

Securing Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints is a difficult task. Engineers cannot simply repurpose PC security solutions for the IoT environment. Pim Tuyls shares his thoughts on securing the chips deployed in the IoT and introduces Intrinsic ID’s SRAM physical unclonable function (PUF) technology.

Semiconductor companies have been posting big gains in 2018 Fujitsu has a new Supercomputer CPU in the works, and the CTIA has a new cybersecurity certification program. Check out these news items and more.