Mosaic modules by Septentrio bring GNSS positioning to UAVs

Collaborating with UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) auto-pilot manufacturer, MicroPilot, Septentrio supplies receivers for its UAVs.

Self-interference or self-jamming is a common occurrence in UAVs, where devices such as cameras, servos or antennas, which emit electromagnetic radiation, are located close to the GPS receiver. Incorporating GNSS technology, which is resilient to jamming and spoofing, in combination with reliable professional-level autopilots is key to safe and secure flight navigation, says Septentrio.

Its receivers include the mosaic multi-constellation GNSS receiver modules and the ,   AsteRx-m3 low power GNSS rover receiver. Septentrio says its GPS receivers are resilient to radio interference such as jamming and spoofing and add value to UAV applications by bringing security and robustness to high-accuracy RTK (real-time kinematic) positioning.

The mosaic-X5, multi-band multi-constellation GNSS receiver is a low power, surface mount module. It has AIM+ anti-jamming, anti-spoofing technology as part of the GNSS+ Technology Suite.

“Adopting new and resilient technology in UAVs is vital, and we want to ensure a smooth integration process into professional drone systems,” commented Gustavo Lopez, senior market access manager at Septentrio.

In addition to developing autopilots, MicroPilot provides supporting software and services to reduce time to market. 

Septentrio designs and manufactures multi-frequency multi-constellation GPS/GNSS positioning technology for demanding applications. Centimetre-level positioning enables machine automation improving efficiency and safety. Septentrio provides positioning solutions for industrial applications such as robotics, construction, survey and mapping, maritime, logistics and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Septentrio has its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium and offices in Los Angeles, Shanghai, Seoul and Yokohama.

Established in 1994, MicroPilot specialises in professional autopilots for UAVs and drones. MicroPilot is an ISO 9001 certified autopilot manufacturer that markets single-board autopilots, enclosed autopilots, and a triple redundant autopilot. MicroPilot offers a family of lightweight UAV autopilots that can fly fixed wing, transitional, helicopter, and multi-rotor UAVs. MicroPilot also provides complementary products such as the XTENDERmp, SDK, and trueHWIL2.

http://www.septentrio.com

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IoT LED streetlight controller shines a light on smart cities

Infrastructure specialist, Urban Control has partnered with Nordic Semiconductor to produce an IoT LED streetlight luminaire controller that can be networked for control by any central management system (CMS) based on the TALQ standard, the smart city standard developed by the TALQ Consortium.

Set for initial deployment in April 2022, each Urban Node 324 Cellular city streetlight LED luminaire controller includes a Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 multi-mode NB-IoT / LTE-M system-in-package (SiP). The controller plugs into an industry-standard Zhaga LED lighting socket. The controller is connected over the local cellular IoT network and remotely controlled by any smart city CMS.

The operational simplicity of each Urban Node 324 comes from them being engineered to work via a lightweight machine to machine (LwM2M) platform called Alaska from IoTerop. The platform leverages the two most common smart city IoT standards: uCIFI and TALQ and uses embedded design engineering to minimise on-air bandwidth and reduce power consumption to levels sufficient to support battery-powered smart city sensors and devices.

The use of standard cellular technology means that Urban Node 324 Cellular can be deployed immediately and is cost-effective for small and distributed lighting estates. It can be used to deliver intelligent control to streetlights in retail parks, hotel chains, office and warehouse developments, and across rail infrastructure such as stations, car parks and good yards.

Urban Control Urban Node 324 Cellular controllers allow the user the ability to precisely control brightness and therefore energy consumption and costs. It has the ability to dynamically respond to sudden changes in pedestrian numbers or road traffic, to monitor energy consumption in real-time and identify and even pre-empt faults to efficiently co-ordinate maintenance staff to reduce operating costs.

Intelligent, centrally controlled streetlights offer many benefits. Light output can be adapted to precisely what is needed, and they can respond dynamically to changes in pedestrian footfall or road traffic. In doing so, they reduce energy costs, carbon emissions and light pollution.

“Unlike traditional smart city lighting installations that require a specialised network to be built, the Urban Node 324 Cellular works straight out-of-the-box just like a smartphone,” says Miguel Lira, Urban Control’s innovation and development director. “This makes it commercially and technologically viable for any size installation because it does not require the operator to build their own wireless IoT network or become a wireless IoT network operator themselves.” The system is scalable with the capability to be used for small clusters of streetlights all the way up to massive, multi-million node capital city-sized installations, he says. “This is truly a game changer in the smart city streetlighting industry.”

Lorenzo Amicucci, business development manager at Nordic Semiconductor, agrees. “Moving away from proprietary solutions towards devices which are ready straight out of the box and leverage cellular networks that are already deployed in every town, city and significant population centre around the world, devices like Urban Node 324 can make anywhere smart more quickly and for less cost.” 

https://www.nordicsemi.com

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vPACE VPP-DPI engine identifies and classifies IP traffic

To drive network traffic visibility for cloud computing environments, Rohde & Schwarz has introduced the VPP (vector package processing) -native OEM DPI (deep packet inspection) engine, the R&S vPACE. Using VPP, it efficiently identifies and classifies IP traffic for VNFs (virtual network functions), CNFs (cloud native network functions) and 5G UPFs (user plane functions) for real time, deep traffic insights.

R&S vPACE combines traditional DPI techniques such as statistical / heuristical and behavioural analyses with metadata extraction and encrypted traffic intelligence (ETI) to accurately and reliably identify and classify protocols, applications, and services. 

Advanced ETI techniques include machine learning, deep learning and high-dimensional data analysis. They enable traffic inspection in the cloud to be extended to encrypted traffic, including using protocols and techniques such as TLS 1.3, TLS 1.3 0-RTT, ESNI, ECH, DoT and DoH. R&S vPACE can also handle network traffic that is obfuscated and anonymised, for example, traffic that is delivered via CDNs and VPNs, and traffic that is masked by randomisation and domain fronting.

R&S vPACE features a comprehensive, frequently updated signature library and well-defined APIs for seamless integration. It supports first packet classification using smart caching techniques. According to Rohde & Schwarz, the use of VPP pushes DPI processing speeds and improves average clocks-per-packet ratio to accelerate operation by up to three times, compared with the earlier generation of DPI engine. It also boasts a memory footprint of less than 400 bytes per five-tuple connection and 700 bytes per network endpoint. It also enables thread-safe endpoint access across multiple worker cores.

VPP’s vector-based batch processing using a locally-stored vertex memory cache, reduces CPU and energy consumption, allowing our DPI technology to deliver unrivalled performance and scalability in cloud and virtualised environments,” said Dr. Martin Mieth, vice president engineering at ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company, specialising in network analytics software for the communications industry.

Network functions ranging from policy control and traffic management to analytics functions are given application awareness by vPACE. This allows for granular traffic rules and policies to be applied not only to application types, but also to different services such as messaging, chat and video. It also provides cloud security tools such as firewalls, IDS / IPS and UTM with timely insights on suspicious and anomalous traffic patterns for an effective detection of cyberthreats and fraud.

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com

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Protocol trigger and decode software accelerates CAN bus development

Engineers can verify and debug CAN XL and other automotive protocols using the D9010AUTP oscilloscope-based automotive protocol trigger / decode option by Keysight Technologies.

D9010AUTP covers CAN XL (controller area network extra long) to verify and debug low-speed automotive serial bus protocols and simplify the development and troubleshooting of systems including CAN / CAN FD (flexible data rate) and CAN XL.

CAN XL is the third-generation CAN standard in development by the CAN in Automation (CiA) group which increases payload data and bit rate of the established CAN FD protocol. The CAN XL data phase speed is specified to reach 10Mbits per second or more, depending on the transceiver capabilities and physical layer components. CAN XL has two modes of operation – fast mode and SIC (slow) mode.

Keysight’s automotive decoder software triggers and decodes the SIC mode signal in the arbitration phase, as well as the fast mode signal in the data phase. It also handles the CAN XL protocols implemented with the CAN HS / FD / SIC transceivers.

In-vehicle networking is pivotal for transmitting data quickly and reliably from sensors to AI decision making units, as well as between safety relevant electronic control units and electronic systems, explains Thomas Goetzl, vice president and general manager for Keysight’s automotive and energy solutions business unit. 

Keysight’s D9010AUTP software is compatible with Keysight’s Infiniium oscilloscopes using software version 11.30 or higher for MXR / EXR / UXR models and version 6.72 or higher for other Infiniium scope models. The combination allows users to set up the oscilloscope to show CAN, LIN, CAN-FD, CAN XL, FlexRay and SENT protocol decode in less than 30 seconds and gain access to integrated protocol-level triggers. The offering also saves time and eliminates errors by viewing packets at the protocol level, advises Keysight while the use of time-correlated views can quickly troubleshoot serial protocol problems back to the timing or signal integrity root cause.

http://www.keysight.com

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