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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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ON Semiconductor’s digital image sensor enables AI vision systems

Thu, Sep 12, 2019

Intelligent vision systems for viewing and artificial intelligence (AI) can be implemented using the low power 0.3Mpixel image sensor announced by ON Semiconductor.

The ARX3A0 digital image sensor has 0.3Mpixel resolution in a 1:1 aspect ratio. It can perform like a global shutter in many conditions, with up to 360 frames per second (fps) capture rate, yet with the size, performance and response levels that relate to being a back-side illuminated (BSI) rolling shutter sensor, explains ON Semiconductor. It has a small size, square format and high frame rate, making it particularly suitable for emerging machine vision, AI and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications, as well as small supplemental security cameras.

To meet the demands of applications that provide still or streaming images, the ARX3A0 is designed to deliver flexible, high-performance image capture with minimal power. It consumes less than 19mW when capturing images at 30 frames per second, and just 2.5mW when capturing one frame per second.

The 1/10 in square format enables low height modules and the 3.5 mm die size helps maximise the sensor’s field of view. It can therefore be used in emerging applications where orientation is not fixed but space is limited, such as AR/VR goggles, monitoring the wearer’s eye movement. Eye movement data can be used to adjust the image viewed and possibly mitigate motion sickness. Another application is simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM), which can also capitalise on the ARX3A0’s size and low power.

The monochrome sensor is based on a 560 by 560 active-pixel array featuring ON Semiconductor’s NIR+ technology, giving it high sensitivity at near IR wavelengths for performance in no-light conditions or when lighting is used that is non-detectable by the human eye.

Power management features include the ability to automatically wake from a low power mode when detecting motion or lighting changes in the scene. This allows the sensor to become the main source of wake for an entire camera system saving even more system power.

Gianluca Colli, vice president and general manager, Consumer Solution Division of Image Sensor Group at ON Semiconductor said: “As we approach an era where AI is becoming an integral part of vision-based systems, it becomes clear that we now share this world with a new kind of intelligence. The ARX3A0 has been designed for that new breed of machine, where vision is as integral to their operation as it is ours.”

The ARX3A0 is available in both chip scale package and reconstructed wafer die. Evaluation boards running on ON Semiconductor’s industry leading PC-based DevWare system and prototype modules are also available through ON Semiconductor and authorised distributors.

http://www.onsemi.com

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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

ON Semiconductor’s digital image sensor enables AI vision systems

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