Analog Devices at European Utility Week; Enabling the Smart-Energy Future

European Utility Week 2019 (Paris, 12–14 November) is the meeting point for key players in the Smart Energy sector, where the latest developments in the transition to a fully integrated, low-carbon energy ecosystem will be revealed and discussed.

Analog Devices (ADI), on stand Q130 in the Utility Week Exhibition, will showcase the special expertise its technologies can contribute in areas such as smart metering, power quality analysis, and energy storage.

Global issues of climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, and pollution, set against an ever-growing demand for energy, are rarely out of the news: the need to migrate to a low-carbon, intelligent energy infrastructure is pressing. Operating a truly “smart” energy grid will require new capabilities in measurement, monitoring and control at all scales, bridging the analogue world of the power grid itself and the digital domain of analysis and control – a key interface where ADI can offer an unrivalled wealth of experience.

ADI Energy Analytics Studio; Maximising the potential of the Smart Meter

A demonstration on the stand will feature Analog Devices’ cloud-based analytics service receiving periodic meter health data from mSure® enabled meters. The meters are based on an energy metering IC with mSure technology and licensed firmware to efficiently pack the data for network transmission. The analytics service monitors the accuracy of the meters, analyses drift, and predicts when meters will become out-of-spec enabling utilities to better plan meter asset replacement. In addition, the analytics service continuously detects meter tampering allowing utilities to prioritize investigations and protect revenue from electricity theft.

By combining cloud-based analytics with edge-based sensing and processing, the company delivers a powerful solution for electricity utilities to protect revenue and manage equipment cost-effectively.

Waveform analysis for power quality monitoring

A further demonstration highlights the issue of power quality and harmonic content. Renewable sources on the generation side of the network, and complex loads on the consuming side, can lead to high level of reactive loading and harmonic waveform content, both being inefficient and even hazardous to the infrastructure. Analog Devices’ fundamental capabilities, developed over decades, in the area of signal capture, analogue-to-digital conversion, and signal analysis, are an exact match for this problem. The demonstration is based around a high-integration multi-phase energy/power quality measurement IC that combines A/D conversion, digital signal processing and waveform buffering. Using the latter feature, the demonstration will show extraction of resampled waveform data plus basic harmonic analysis based on one line cycle of data for both the current and voltage channels, requiring only an Arduino Due card as a host and development platform.

Ecosystems for battery-based energy storage

As the balance of generation shifts towards renewable sources, energy storage assumes ever-greater importance. A series of demonstrations will feature the work of industrial partner companies who have selected Analog Devices technology to optimise battery-based designs. The semiconductor manufacturer offers a range of solutions that enable precise monitoring and control of battery systems from the individual cell level, up to the system level. Partners participating in this exhibit include Stercom Power Solutions, showing state of the art battery management systems, tailored for battery energy storage systems (ESS). The ESS specialist will also showcase a full set of products for energy storage and electric vehicle charging infrastructure, implementing ADI’s latest technology on isolated gate driver and power management ICs.

European Utility Week 2019 takes place from 12-14 November 2019, at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, Paris, France. (Event details here.)

About Analog Devices

Analog Devices (Nasdaq: ADI) is a leading global high-performance analogue technology company dedicated to solving the toughest engineering challenges. We enable our customers to interpret the world around us by intelligently bridging the physical and digital with unmatched technologies that sense, measure, power, connect and interpret. Visit http://www.analog.com.

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GaN-based FET supports lidar systems

Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)’s campaign to introduce enhanced-mode gallium-nitride on silicon (eGaN) FETS as replacements for power MOSFETs continues with the announcement that its EPC2216 GaN transistor has been qualified to AEC Q101 for automotive use.

The 15V EPC2216 is designed for lidar applications in self-driving cars and other time-of-flight (ToF) applications including facial recognition, warehouse automation, drones and mapping.

It is a 26 mOhm eGaN FET with a 28A pulsed current rating. It is used for firing the lasers in lidar systems to improve positioning accuracy. The FET can be triggered to create high-current with extremely short pulse widths. According to EPC, the short pulse width leads to higher resolution. Its 1.02mm2 footprint is small and inexpensive, suitable for an array of ToF applications from automotive to industrial, healthcare to smart advertising, gaming and security, advises EPC.

The AEC Q101 testing involves rigorous environmental and bias-stress testing, including humidity testing with bias (H3TRB), high temperature reverse bias (HTRB), high temperature gate bias (HTGB) and temperature cycling (TC).

The WLCS package passed the same test standards created for conventional packaged parts, demonstrating that the chip-scale packaging does not compromise ruggedness or reliability, according to EPC.

The eGaN devices are produced in facilities certified to the Automotive Quality Management System Standard IATF 16949.

The automotive-qualified FET joins an expanding family of EPC transistors and ICs designed to enable autonomous driving, improve resolution and reduce cost in ToF applications, commented CEO, Alex Liddow.

The EPC2216 eGaN FET is available for immediate delivery from Digi-Key.

http://www.epc-co.com

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Meter-level positioning technology enhances GNSS, claims u-blox

For automotive and high-end telematics, u-blox has introduced the NEO-M9N module, based on its M9 global positioning technology. The meter-level M9 global positioning technology platform is designed for demanding automotive, telematics, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications.

The GNSS chip, UBX-M9140 and the NEO-M9N can receive signals from up to four GNSS constellations (GPS, Glonass, Beidou, and Galileo) concurrently, for high positional accuracy even in difficult conditions, such as deep urban canyons, says u-blox. M9 offers a position update rate of up to 25Hz, enabling dynamic applications, like UAVs, to receive position information with low latency.

The M9 technology has a special filtering against RF interference and jamming, spoofing detection and advanced detection algorithms that enable it to report fraudulent attacks quickly. A surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter, with a low noise amplifier (LNA) in the RF path, is integrated in the NEO-M9N module. According to u-blox, this guarantees normal operations even under strong RF interferences, for example when a cellular modem is co-located with the NEO-M9N.

u-blox advises that users can design a single PCB and migrate to a different positioning technology, such as dead reckoning augmenting GNSS technology, with very little change to the board design.

In support of the M9, the company offers the Explorer Kit M9 (XPLR-M9) development board. The miniature device is supplied with u-start software, which includes a number of pre-set scenarios to enable users to explore the performance of the new device.

The M9 technology complies with the ISO/TS 16949, ISO 16750, AEC-Q100 standards. The NEO-M9N is the first module based on the M9 platform. It is sampling now. The UBX-M9140 high performance chip and the Explorer Kit are available now.

u‑blox provides positioning and wireless communication technologies for the automotive, industrial, and consumer markets for people, vehicles, and machines to determine their precise position and communicate wirelessly over cellular and short range networks. The company’s portfolio of chips, modules, and a growing ecosystem of product supporting data services are designed to help customers develop solutions for the IoT.

http://www.ublox.com

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Battery monitor IC is ASIL-D-compliant

Believed to be the only single chip, ASIL-D-compliant IC for mid-to-large cell count configurations, the MAX17853 battery monitor IC is by Maxim Integrated.

Designers can now achieve ASIL-D compliance for automotive applications using just a single chip, says the company, for a safer, more cost-effective battery management system.

It is intended for mid-to-large cell count configurations for automotive applications, such as battery packs for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). It is based on the Flexpack architecture which allows customers to rapidly make changes to module configurations in response to market demands.

Achieving safety compliance in automotive applications can require adding redundant components to the system, explains Maxim. The MAX17853 enables customers to create a system that meets the highest level of safety for voltage, temperature and communication and contribute to higher safety via its battery cell balancing system, which automatically balances each cell by time and voltage to minimise the risk of over-charging. Customers can achieve all this without adding extra components, such as redundant comparators, confirms Maxim. The MAX17853 reduces system bill of materials cost by up to 35 per cent compared to competitive solutions, claims Maxim.

Typically, engineers must design and qualify separate boards and bills of materials for each different module configuration, but the MAX17853 is the industry’s only IC to support multiple channel configurations (eight to 14 cells) with one board, says Maxim. This enables customers to reduce design time by up to 50 per cent through reduced validation and qualification time. 

A MAX17853EVKIT# evaluation kit is also available.

Maxim Integrated develops analogue and mixed-signal products and technologies to make systems smaller and smarter, with enhanced security and increased energy efficiency. It has automotive, industrial, healthcare, mobile consumer, and cloud data centre customers.

http://www.maximintegrated.com

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