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Elbit Systems protects vehicles from drones

Fri, Sep 13, 2019

Elbit Systems meets demand for an affordable vehicular protection against hostile drones with the introduction of the ReDrone vehicular tactical system.

The vehicular configuration of the company’s operational anti-drone protection and neutralisation system is based on the field-proven and operational ReDrone system. ReDrone vehicular tactical system detects, identifies and neutralises all types of drones (at any radio frequency) within a radius of several kilometers, providing any vehicle with a 360 degrees protection shield against hostile drones, says Elbit. Suitable for on-the-move or stationary operations, in day and night and in all weather conditions, the system is offered for all types of military and para-military vehicles.

Rapidly deployable, the ReDrone vehicular tactical system works automatically or manually, with no setup or operator control required. Its open architecture enables a full data flow to the vehicle’s control system and an effective interface with command and control centres, explains Elbit.

Upon detecting a hostile drone, the ReDrone vehicular tactical system neutralises all communications between the drone and its operator, including radio, video and GPS signals. The system is also capable of separating a drone’s signals from its operator’s remote control signals in order to locate and track each of them separately.

Elbit Systems UK (ESUK) holds four wholly-owned subsidiaries as well as two joint ventures. Over 500 personnel are employed by the ESUK companies in the UK, in high tech roles in the defence, aerospace and rail sectors. The two joint ventures were formed in order to deliver the Watchkeeper programme for the British Army and to supply and support three fleets of aircraft within the UK MoD Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS) programme. Elbit Systems UK was also recently selected by the UK MoD to provide the Morpheus battlefield management for the British Army.

Elbit Systems is an international technology company engaged in a wide range of defence, homeland security and commercial programmes throughout the world. The company, which includes Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, operates in the areas of aerospace, land, and naval systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR), unmanned aircraft systems, advanced electro-optics, electro-optic space systems, EW suites, signal intelligence systems, data links and communications systems, radios and cyber-based systems and munitions. The company also focuses on the upgrading of existing platforms, developing new technologies for defence, homeland security and commercial applications and providing a range of support services, including training and simulation systems.

http://www.elbitsystems.com

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Soil sensor increases crop yield; minimises environmental damage

Fri, Sep 13, 2019

Incorporating three sensors in one package, a soil sensor from Murata is intended for the agricultural and horticultural industries. The sensor enables growers to increase the yield and quality of crops while experiencing lower costs associated with reduced water and fertiliser usage, explains Murata, citing these as the most important application areas for the sensor.

Murata has initiated projects using the soil sensor with partners all over the world. One example is a collaboration with Vietnam’s Can Tho University and a research project in the Mekong Delta, conducting field trials of a soil monitoring system to observe the condition of agricultural land in the delta.

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region is subject to the salinity impact from the infiltration of seawater during the dry season as a result of a decline in the volumetric flow rate of the Mekong River, and the action of the tides under the impact of climate change driven by global warming. In addition to salt damage, the environment for agriculture has become harsher due to the increasing severity of droughts and floods.

Murata developed a compact 130mm sensor to measure the condition of agricultural land and to channel water with high precision. Using independently-developed monitoring tools environmental conditions were visualised and analysed with a view to making improvements. The sensor contributed to the implementation of IT in agriculture in the Mekong Delta region by preventing salt damage to rice paddies and orchards, ameliorating salt and sulphur contamination of agricultural land and water channels, and creating a mechanism to comprehensively manage fertilisers, crops and irrigation systems.

The sensor monitors two types of electrical conductivity (EC), temperature and the moisture content of the soil. EC level data enable growers to realise fertiliser timing, and water content of the soil for timely watering.

The sensor operates from a 3.0 to 6.5V, 50mA (maximum) supply and has an EC measurement range of 0 to 5.0dS/m with an accuracy of ± three per cent full scale. Its moisture measurement range is 0 to 60 per cent VWC at an accuracy of ± three per cent full scale, and its temperature range is -20 to 70 degrees C with an accuracy of ± one degree C.

The sensor was protected to IP68 dust and water resistance including reliable rust proofing for use in harsh environments. Interface options are UART, RS232E, RS485 and SDI-12 and maximum cable length is specified as 3m at UART, 10m at RS232E and 300m at RS485.

In the project, the wireless transmitter receiver system used consisted of a gateway, a router and several sensor nodes. Each sensor node is made up of a transmitter and three sensor units to measure the soil, field and channel water quality, and the sensing data is accumulated in the cloud. The sensor provides high-precision analysis of conditions by using a shaped sensor element and a proprietary algorithm. It is able to run for over a year of continuous operation on three size AA batteries.

http://www.murata.com

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QuickLogic partners with Nuance Communications for voice recognition

Fri, Sep 13, 2019

Multi-core, voice-enabled SoCs, embedded FPGA IP, and endpoint AI provider, QuickLogic is partnering with conversational AI and ambient intelligence specialist, Nuance Communications, to deliver low power, wake word and voice command technology for power-sensitive applications, such as hearable and wearable devices.

Nuance’s voice recognition technology and QuickLogic’sEOS S3 voice and sensor processing platform will provide customers an end-to-end, reliable hardware and software voice recognition solution, says QuickLogic.

The low power Nuance voice recognition technology has been integrated with QuickLogic’s advanced EOS Voice and Sensor Processing SoC. The SoC’s architecture is claimed to enable the industry’s most advanced and compute intensive sensor processing capability at a fraction of the power consumption of competing technologies.

The Nuance technology provides the performance and low power consumption required for always-on wake word detection, and specifically supports the Alexa wake-word protocol. Technical enhancements enable it to improve voice recognition accuracy in difficult or noisy environments.

The integrated system supports always-on, always-listening fixed triggers, user defined triggers and phrases, and commands that can be accurately detected in silent to extremely noisy environments.

Scott Haylock, director of product marketing at QuickLogic, explains:”In response to customer demand, and the growing hearables market, we’ve augmented the EOS S3 OPEN Software Platform to include Nuance’s technology. This addition helps QuickLogic address the largest possible product mix of new and existing voice-controlled end-products.”

The EOS S3 platform with integrated Nuance voice processing is available now.

QuickLogic is a fabless semiconductor company that develops low power, multi-core semiconductor platforms and IP for artificial intelligence (AI), voice and sensor processing. It supplies embedded FPGA IP (eFPGA) for hardware acceleration and pre-processing, and heterogeneous multi-core SoCs that integrate eFPGA with other processors and peripherals. The Analytics Toolkit provides sensor algorithms using AI technology.

http://www.quicklogic.com

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Synopsys claims industry’s first CXL IP for data-intensive SoCs

Thu, Sep 12, 2019

Low latency and high bandwidth are assured for artificial intelligence (AI), memory expansion and cloud computing, says Synopsys at the introduction of its DesignWare Compute Express Link (CXL) IP.

It is, according to Synopsys, the industry’s first CXL IP for data-intensive system of chips (SoCs). The IP suite consists of controller, PHY, and verification IP for AI, memory expansion, and high-end cloud computing system-on-chips (SoCs). The CXL protocol enables low-latency data communication between the SoC and general-purpose accelerators, memory expanders, and smart I/O devices requiring high-performance, heterogenous computing for data-intensive workloads. The DesignWare CXL IP is compliant with the CXL 1.1 specification and supports all three CXL protocols (CXL.io, CXL.cache, CXL.mem) and device types to meet specific application requirements.

The CXL IP is built on Synopsys’ DesignWare IP for PCI Express 5.0, which has been adopted by semiconductor companies across all key market segments, reports the company.

“Compute Express Link is a key enabler for next-generation heterogeneous computing architectures, where CPUs and accelerators work together to deliver the most advanced solutions,” said Dr. Debendra Das Sharma, Intel Fellow and director of I/O Technology and Standards at Intel.

Synopsys’ DesignWare CXL Controller helps designers achieve timing closure at 1GHz and provides a robust 512-bit architecture that supports x16 links for maximum CXL bandwidth. The CXL controller offers reliability, availability, serviceability (RAS) capabilities to help maintain data reliability, as well as successfully debug and resolve linkup issues. The 32GTerabytes per second PHY allows more than 36dB channel loss across power, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations for long-reach applications. The VC Verification IP for CXL verifies I/O, memory access, and coherency protocol features with built-in sequences, checks, and coverage for all link configurations up to 16 lanes and 32GTbytes per second data rates. SystemVerilog test suites for CXL accelerate verification closure and are available as source code.

Synopsys’ 32G PHY IP for CXL is available now in 16-, 10-, and 7nm FinFET processes. The CXL Controller and VC Verification IP for CXL are available now.

http://www.synopsys.com/designware

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Elbit Systems protects vehicles from drones

Soil sensor increases crop yield; minimises environmental damage

QuickLogic partners with Nuance Communications for voice recognition

Synopsys claims industry’s first CXL IP for data-intensive SoCs

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