Maxim claims MAX17852 is first ASIL-D-compliant data acquisition system

Claimed to be the industry’s first data acquisition system to achieve ASIL-D compliance for voltage, current, temperature and communication of a battery management system, the MAX17852 battery monitor IC from Maxim Integrated offers both cost and space savings.

The MAX17852 14-channel, high-voltage, ASIL-D data-acquisition system is for use by designers of automotive battery management systems (BMS).

The 14-channel battery data acquisition system integrates a current sense amplifier so that current information is acquired at the same time as cell voltage and temperature. The MAX17852 allows both hall effect sensor and shunt resistors to be used as sensing components.

It is designed to be integrated into electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and other transportation systems and can also be used for smart junction boxes, 48V and other automotive battery systems which can realise voltages of 400V and beyond.

OEMs and electric vehicle manufacturers require that all battery systems meet the highest safety requirements set by the ISO26262 guidelines. Through diagnostics and a safety-driven architecture, the MAX17852 enables customers to design systems to meet the highest ASIL-D standards for voltage, current, temperature and communication. It is claimed to offer the highest accuracy for delivering voltage, current and temperature data with tight time synchronisation. It allows a typical cell voltage measurement of ±0.45mV at room temperature and a maximum of ±2mV error in a temperature range of 5.0 to 40 degrees C, enabling car OEMs to get the most mileage range out of batteries. With a current sense amplifier capability of ±300mV, and a gain setting up to 256 times and 0.3 per cent current sense gain error, the MAX17852 provides the fastest, most accurate data for calculating power management, state of health and state of charge, says Maxim.

The high level of integration enables up to 16 per cent smaller form factor than a discrete solution to save board space. The integrated current sense amplifier provides up to 20 per cent cost savings.

The MAX17852 is available now. Maxim Integrated also offers the  MAX17852EVKIT# evaluation kit.

http://www.maximintegrated.com

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AI from iBase is based on Nvidia Jetson TX2

Based on Nvidia’s Jetson TX2, the BoxPC EC-3200 is the latest compact embedded PC for use in industry, medical technology and smart cities. The industrial embedded PC is by iBase and available from TFT flat screen specialist, Distec.

The industrial embedded BoxPC EC-3200 is for applications with artificial intelligence (AI). It is based on the energy saving and powerful Nvidia Jetson TX2 processor. This fast and energy efficient processor has a dual core Denver 2 and a quad core Arm Cortex-A57 processor. “Compared to the Jetson TX1, the energy efficiency and performance has more than doubled,” explained Thomas Schrefel, product manager for Embedded at Distec. This is due to the Nvidia Pascal architecture with 256 processing units and up to 1.33T floating operations per second (TFLOPS). The EC-3200 is able to offer real AI computing power for edge applications with 8Gbyte memory and 59.7Gbyet per second memory bandwidth, he continued.

The robust design of the EC-3200 makes it suitable for use in industrial robots, medical devices, and smart cities and for devices that support collaboration in companies, said Distec.

For edge- and cloud-based AI products which require computing performance and video analysis to perform real time data processing and to overcome latency problems, the EC-3200 uses the Jetson TX2’s GPU-accelerated parallel processing to handle data-intensive and mission-critical workloads, such as deep learning applications.

The fanless EC-3200 is designed for uninterrupted operation and an extended temperature range from -20 to +60 degrees C. The Jetson TX2 has low power consumption, and is claimed to be 25 times more energy efficient than comparable desktop graphics processors.

The compact EC-3200 has 8Gbyte LPDDR4 memory and 32Gbyte eMMC. HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports are available as I/O interfaces.

The housing has a DB9 connection for RS232 or CAN bus, a micro USB slot and an external 10-pin GPIO connection. Two M.2 expansion sockets are available for expansion with optional SSD storage (2280 Key-M) and WAN modules (3042 Key-E). The operating system is based on a specially made Ubuntu 16.04 with Jetpack 3.2.1 and L4T 28.2.

https://www.distec.de/en

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Fanless embedded Rudi-AGX is for advanced AI applications

A thermally-optimised, fanless embedded system from Nvidia hardware partner, Connect Tech, the Rudi-AGX is based on the Nvidia AGX Xavier. This is claimed to be the most powerful system on module (SoM) in the Nvidia Jetson family and enables customers to deploy computationally heavy artificial intelligence (AI) workloads at the edge.

The Rudi-AGX unleashes the full potential of the Jetson AGX Xavier module, capable of running AI programs at maximum performance (Max-N), says Connect Tech, while maintaining a safe operating temperature. The edge device is designed to seamlessly deploy the next generation of autonomous vehicles, smart city applications, and intelligent video solutions.

It is equipped with an AGX Xavier SoM embedded, together with a Volta GPU with 512 Cuda cores, 64 Tensor cores. It is able to achieve an AI performance of 32Terra operations per second. Connect Tech explains that the Rudi-AGX‘s thermal optimisation allows access to the module’s full AI performance capabilities.

Rudi-AGX can be customised to specific I/O needs with both small and large batch manufacturing services available.

Connect Tech also provides other Jetson edge device options. There is the Rudi-NX, an embedded system designed to channel the performance power of the Jetson Xavier NX SoC. Pre-configured to support a variety of AI, vision, and sensor applications, Rudi-NX is a field-ready device.

Sentry-X is a ruggedised Jetson AGX Xavier powered edge device. It is tested to meet MIL-STD-810G as well as DO-160G for shock and vibration, and provides ingress protection of IP67. Sentry-X is designed with a quick-remove I/O dock for rapid extraction of the compute system, making it particularly well suited to aerospace and defence applications.

https://connecttech.com

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SiP integrates cellular and GNSS technology

Swiss positioning and wireless communication specialist, u-blox, has integrated low power wide area (LPWA) connectivity and a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology into a small system in package (SiP) form factor. The Alex-R5 is a miniature cellular module designed for size-constrained asset tracking, wearable and healthcare applications.

It features the secure u-blox UBX-R5 LTE-M / NB-IoT chipset with Secure Cloud functionality and the u-blox M8 GNSS chip for location accuracy.

Alex-R5 has a small footprint of 14 x 14mm footprint. The SiP design reduces its size by half, compared to the functionally equivalent u-blox SARA-R5 module.

Its 23dBm cellular transmission power guarantees that end devices operate effectively in all signal conditions, even at cell edges, underground, or in other challenging scenarios. A dedicated GNSS antenna interface enables fully independent, simultaneous operation of the u-blox M8 GNSS chip, matching the performance of a stand-alone u-blox M8 module. To further enhance positioning, there is the u-blox IoT Location-as-a-Service with CellLocate and AssistNow (online, offline, and autonomous).

Alex-R5 is optimised for power-sensitive and battery-dependent applications, says u-blox, including wearables and connected medical devices. The lower power modes of the u-blox UBX-R5 and UBX-M8 chipsets give users options to balance power consumption and performance using GNSS Super-E mode.

The rugged SiP construction is suitable for harsh environments, where moisture or vibration would be a concern for conventional modules, says u-blox. Alex-R5 is rated at moisture sensitivity level 3 (MSL 3), offering reduced handling and device production complexity.

u-blox guarantees long-term device availability and provides lifetime support for the entire platform, down to the chipset level. Secure Cloud functionality supporting IoT-Security-as-a-Service based on an internal, hardware-based secure element enables a pre-shared key management system specifically designed for LPWA devices.

In addition, Alex-R5 futureproofs IoT devices and networks by enabling customers to software upgrade deployed devices for compatibility with 5G networks in a seamless transition as 5G networks are rolled out by mobile operators.

Engineering samples of the Alex-R5 SiP will be available by Q1, 2021.

http://www.u-blox.com

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