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dSpace simulation environment supports autonomous vehicle development

Tue, Oct 29, 2019

Autonomous vehicles rely on sensors to detect their surroundings correctly. The validation of camera, lidar, and radar sensors are critical in this task. dSpace offers developers high-performance simulation environments with which the sensor systems can be validated simply in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, virtually in model-in-the-loop (MIL) simulations, or cloud-based in software-in-the-loop (SIL) simulations.

dSpace Sensor Simulation offers its users models for the sensor environment in library menus. These models can be used to create 3D environments that allow for inserting road users, traffic signs, or roadside structures into the environment of the autonomous vehicle. The menus also let the users access a material database that contains more than 1,300 objects and 170 pre-defined materials. The users can also add more objects and materials. The software provides sensor models for radar, lidar and camera sensors as well as suitable models for testing perception, fusion, and application logics.

The simulation environment enables an easy and flexible integration of customer-specific sensor front ends, hardware components and driving algorithms. According to dSpace, this makes the scenarios more realistic and the sensors adaptable to the individual use case.

“Sensor Simulation from dSPACE offers a complete simulation environment for accelerating the development process for autonomous driving,” says Christopher Wiegand, product manager at dSpace.

Sensor Simulation supports the reuse of models and test scenarios on various platforms. Tests that the developer creates and uses on the PC can be executed on a HIL or SIL simulator or in the cloud. This allows for simple scaling letting the developer perform numerous tests in a short period of time.

It runs on high-performance PC hardware platforms. For maximum performance, dSpace offers the Sensor Simulation PC equipped with a high-performance graphics processing unit on which the complex, highly accurate sensor models can be executed.

dSpace will demonstrate how the sensor systems can be tested in various scenarios at the dSpace World Conference in Munich, Germany (19 and 20 November).

https://www.dspace.com

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PathWave Test 2020 suite accelerates 5G, Iot and automotive design

Fri, Oct 25, 2019

Keysight Technologies claims to accelerate the time-to-market of leading 5G, IoT and automotive electronics, using the PathWave Test 2020 software suite. It is developed on the Keysight PathWave software platform.

The suite enables 5G, IoT and automotive engineers and managers to streamline test data processing and analysis to speed product introductions and secure a competitive advantage in the market, explains Keysight.

PathWave Test 2020 software provides data sharing and management between platform software tools including test automation, advanced measurement, signal creation and generation, as well as data analytics. According to the company, the integrated software platform allows application-tailored solutions to be developed and deployed to “significantly accelerate electronic test workflows and product introductions”.

The PathWave Test 2020 software suite includes the PathWave Desktop Edition, providing users with access to the platform for launching and managing applications in the design and test ecosystem. It enables engineers to manage instrument discovery and installed design and test software, share data with a common user experience across all design and test software, accelerate development and deployment and improve insights leveraging powerful new analytics and measurement science.

PathWave runs on both Windows and Linux and provides immediate access to design and test tools. The interoperability of the design and test tools and advanced data management speeds the product development cycle and eliminating the need to re-create individual measurements and test plans at each discrete stage of the process.

PathWave Test 2020 also includes PathWave Test Automation which leverages the OpenTAP open source test sequencer. For design verification, validation, and test engineers under extreme deadline pressures, the PathWave Test 2020 suite supports efficient test flows including shared data and analysis for making fast, informed decisions.

Keysight Technologies helps enterprises, service providers and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. Keysight’s solutions optimise networks and bring electronic products to market faster and at a lower cost with offerings from design simulation, to prototype validation, to manufacturing test, to optimization in networks and cloud environments.

Customers span the worldwide communications ecosystem, aerospace and defence, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics end markets.

http://www.keysight.com

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Monolithic thin-film image sensor boosts SWIR range

Tue, Oct 22, 2019

Holding out the promise for high-resolution applications in surveillance, biometric identification, virtual reality, research, and industrial automation, a thin-film monolithic image sensor developed by Imec captures light in the near-infrared (NIR) and short-wavelength infrared (SWIR).

Based on a monolithic approach, the process promises an order of magnitude gain in fabrication throughput and cost compared to processing today’s conventional infrared imagers, while enabling multi-megapixel resolution, claims Imec. It means that the use of infrared imagers can be extended to surveillance, biometric identification, virtual reality, machine vision and industrial automation.

Conventionally, infrared image sensors are produced through a hybrid technology of the crystalline semiconductor detector and the electronic readout fabricated separately and then interconnected at pixel or chip periphery level. This is an expensive and time-consuming process with low throughput. Sensors have a restricted resolution that often requires cooling to reduce the signal noise under dark conditions.

Imec’s infrared imagers consist of a novel thin-film photodetector pixel stack based on quantum dots deposited directly on top of an electronic readout. They are manufactured in a monolithic process compatible with wafer-based mass production, confirms Imec. The pixels embed newly developed high-performance, low bandgap, quantum dot materials that match or surpass the performance of inorganic light absorbers. The stacks can be tuned to target a spectrum from visible light up to two-micron wavelength. Test photodiodes on silicon substrate achieve an external quantum efficiency above 60 per cent at 940nm wavelength and above 20 per cent at 1450nm, allowing for uncooled operation with dark current comparable to commercial InGaAs photodetectors.

The prototype imager has a resolution of 758 x 512 pixels and five-micron pixel pitch.

“This result opens up many new applications for thin-film imagers,” commented Pawel Malinowski, imec’s thin-film imagers program manager. “Our imagers could be integrated in next-generation world-facing smartphone cameras coupled with eye-safe light sources, enabling compact sensing modules for augmented reality. In inspection, they could be used for food or plastics sorting, and in surveillance for low-light cameras with better contrast. Additionally, by enabling feature distinction in bad weather or smoke conditions, one can envision firefighting applications and, in the future, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS),” he added.

http://www.imec-int.com

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Receiver antennae wirelessly transfer power for EVs

Tue, Oct 22, 2019

Wireless charging for electric vehicles (EVs) is possible, says Premo, as it launches the WC-RX-Series of receiver antennae (secondary coil).

The antennae provide a flexible magnetic core combining flex-ferrite blocks with PBM (soft-polymer bonding magnetic).

Initially handling 3kW to 11kW, the company announced that a 22kW version will be available soon.

Currently, the market for hybrid and electric vehicles is growing fast. These are alternative and improved solutions to common internal combustion engine vehicles to reduce global pollution, especially in terms of CO2 emissions or other NOx pollutants and other thin particles that are toxic for our health and endanger our planet.

The EV market is driving the demand for more convenient and reliable means to recharge the onboard battery. Most of the motorised EVs have a plug for direct AC or DC slow or fast charging, explains Premo.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) requires no physical contact between the vehicle and the charging station, offering convenience and avoiding the hazards caused by traditional direct-conductive methods.

The challenge is to replace the conductive charging method with WPT technology while maintaining a comparable power level and efficiency. The long-term goal is to dynamically power the moving vehicles on the road, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) on a factory floor and/or autonomous robots and forklifts in a warehouse.

This may lead to a significant size reduction in battery packs and extended driving range while also addressing the cost of batteries and range anxiety.

For the past three years, Premo has been investing in inductive components design applying both the 3DPower concept (for the magnetics involved in WPT) and the Alma concept (for long-range antennae using flex-magnetic core).

A team of scientists from Madrid’s CSIC (Superior Council of Scientific Research), researchers of UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Andaltec (Instituto Andaluz del Plástico) and a team of materials scientists and technologists at Premo’s Innovation Center in Malaga have developed a technology aimed at inductive WPT in the range of 90kHz. This technology deals with the limits of conventional ferrite cores that are both fragile and brittle and cannot be manufactured reliably in the long, large and thick formats required by this application. The team has announced that it has realised an improvement in performance of Premo’s WC-Rx-Series (secondary coils). The magnetic core technology provides high-efficiency (above 95 per cent) power transfer due to the combination of an optimized coil (Litz wire) and a flexible core that avoids air gaps and reduces heating areas. The result is a compact secondary coil with a high Q-factor (very low losses) and high reliability, reports Premo.

Samples of the WC-RX @ 22kW) will be available by Q1 (2020).

WC-TX-Series (emitters) will be available in Q1 (2020).

http://www.grupopremo.com

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dSpace simulation environment supports autonomous vehicle development

PathWave Test 2020 suite accelerates 5G, Iot and automotive design

Monolithic thin-film image sensor boosts SWIR range

Receiver antennae wirelessly transfer power for EVs

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