Smart Cities Archives - Page 263 of 568 - SmartCitiesElectronics.com

Wireless microcontrollers support Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy specification

Fri, Oct 22, 2021

Microcontrollers that will support the recently released Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy specification will be part of the Renesas Advanced (RA) family of 32-bit Arm Cortex-M microcontrollers. They will join the RA4W1 Bluetooth 5.0 LE device introduced last year.

The Bluetooth 5.3 specification was released on July 13, 2021. It includes new features, such as allowing receivers to filter out messages without involving the host stack to improve the receiver duty cycle. It also enables peripheral devices to provide preferred channels to a central device in order to improve throughput and reliability. There are sub-rated connections which improve switching time between low and high duty cycle connections for applications that occasionally need to switch to burst traffic, explains Renesas.

The new microcontrollers will support these features. In addition, they will support the direction-finding functionality introduced in Bluetooth 5.1 as well as the isochronous channels added in Bluetooth 5.2 for stereo audio transmission. Software-defined radio (SDR) capabilities will allow customers to migrate to new specification releases at a later date.

The new products will be supported by the RA family’s Flexible Software Package (FSP) for development of applications and the Renesas QE for Bluetooth LE plug-in. This is a dedicated Bluetooth profile and application development support tool. They will also include the RA family’s security and safety mechanisms, including TrustZone support.

Roger Wendelken, senior vice president in Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit, commented: “By offering early, robust support for the Bluetooth 5.3 LE specification, we will enable our RA customers to be first to market with their next-generation products.”

Renesas reports that the new microcontrollers are being developed using an advanced manufacturing process that will enable high-performance, low power consumption and small package options. Samples are expected to be available in Q1 of 2022.

Renesas Electronics specialises in microcontrollers, analogue, power and SoC products for a broad range of automotive, industrial, Infrastructure, and IoT applications.

http://www.renesas.com

> Read More

Single-instrument test brings cost-efficient 5G IoT UE verification

Fri, Oct 22, 2021

Claimed to be the only test station in its class to offer user equipment (UE) repair facilities, test houses and basic UE/IoT developers affordable LTE, FR1 and FR2 support, the MT8000A is a 5G entry model instrument by Anritsu.

The single instrument radio communication test station MT8000A 5G entry model supports multiple radio access technologies (RATs) of LTE through 5G NR. The 5G entry model is claimed to be the only model in its class that can perform LTE, NR FR1 sub-6GHz and FR2 millimeter wave (mmWave) measurements. These characteristics, says Anrtitsu, make it a cost-efficient solution for mobile device developers, repair facilities and test laboratories.

The high-speed performance of the MT8000A 5G entry model means critical testing across numerous test combinations can be performed in a lower timeframe, despite the increasing number of wireless device channels and use cases, says Anritsu. The MT8000A 5G entry model has been developed to support the market need to provide stable and reliable wireless evaluation functions of advanced smart IoT devices at low cost.

It is claimed to be the only test instrument in its class that has a simple upgrade path from low-, mid- and high-range capability when advanced test functionalities are needed.

The all-in-one 5G device test platform supports RF and protocol testing, functional and application testing and beam characteristic validation. It supports non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode base station emulation functions for development of 4G and 5G chipsets and devices, as well as mobile services frequency ranges FR1 and FR2. The MT8000A is used for performance evaluation of LTE and NR devices in conducted and over the air (OTA) measurements.

Anritsu provides communications test and measurement equipment and engages customers as partners to help develop wireless, optical, microwave/RF, and digital solutions for R&D, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance applications, as well as services for network monitoring and optimisation. Anritsu also provides precision microwave/RF components, optical devices, and high-speed electrical devices for communication products and systems. The company develops products for 5G, M2M, IoT, as well as other emerging and legacy wireline and wireless communication markets.

http://www.anritsu.com

> Read More

Nvidia unveils Isacc ROS GEMS with AI perception

Fri, Oct 22, 2021

At the robotics event, ROS World 2021, Nvidia unveiled Isaac ROS GEMS, graphic processing unit (GPU) programming examples. They provide packages that include image processing and computer vision, including deep neural network (DNN) -based algorithms that are optimised for Nvidia GPUs and Jetson.

As autonomous machines move around their environments, they must keep track of where they are using visual odometry which estimates where a camera is relative to its starting position. The Isaac ROS GEM for stereo visual odometry provides this functionality to ROS developers. According to Nvidia, this GEM offers the best accuracy for a real-time stereo camera visual odometry solution. In addition to being highly accurate, this GPU-accelerated package runs extremely fast. It is now possible to run SLAM on HD resolution (1280 x 720) in real-time (more than 60 frames per second) on an Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier.

Developers can use any of Nvidia’s inference models available via Nvidia’s website or provide their own DNN with DNN Inference GEM. Pre-trained models or optimisations of developers’ own models can be tuned via Nvidia’s TAO toolkit.

After optimisation, TensorRT or Triton, Nvidia’s inference server, deploy these packages. Optimal inference performance will be achieved with the nodes leveraging the inference software development kit, TensorRT, advises Nvidia. If TensorRT does not support the desired DNN model, then Nvidia Triton should be used to deploy the model, says the company.

The GEM includes native support for U-Net and DOPE. The U-Net package, based on TensorRT, can be used for generating semantic segmentation masks from images; the DOPE package can be used for 3D pose estimation for all detected objects.

According to Nvidia, this tool is the fastest way to incorporate performant artificial intelligence (AI) inference into a ROS application.

The GA release of Isaac Sim, which will be available in November 2021, with improvements in the user interface, performance and useful building blocks to improve simulations which are built faster. There are also planned to be an improved ROS bridge and more ROS samples.

Nvidia has a virtual booth at ROS World 21, with technical presentations on Isaac.

http://www.nvidia.com

> Read More

Secora Pay on 40nm process offers new applets contactless payments

Thu, Oct 21, 2021

Contactless payment has been gaining in popularity and Infineon says its Secora Pay portfolio on 40 nm technology addresses many of the new payment card and devices. It uses the company’s Solid Flash chip and offers new applets and customised value-added products for standard payment cards (Secora Pay S) as well as multi-application cards (Secora Pay X) and components to turn any device into a payment device (Secora Pay W).

The product portfolio also provides applets of global (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express) and domestic networks. It offers state-of-the-art contactless and personalization performance, allowing MasterCard contactless transactions of 200ms.

Secora Pay options on 40 nm technology offer backward compatibility to existing Secora Pay products in terms of card production antenna designs, personalisation and product certification. The family uses a security controller including certified software integrated in coil on module (CoM) chip modules and fine-tuned inlays for seamless card production.

Infineon uses inductive coupling technology and wire embedded card antennas for the CoM system which is claimed to offer high flexibility in card designs. It can be integrated into environmentally friendly cards from recycled and ocean-bound plastic or wood, high performance dual interface metal or LED cards, says Infineon.

According to Infineon, Secora Pay products support the highest throughput in card production with minimum consumable material for manufacturing highly robust dual interface cards. As well as saving resources, new value added services based on Secora Pay’s NFC tag functionality are offered, allowing additional use cases like initial card activation.

The pre-certified Secora Pay W with SPA2.1, a small antenna on 35 mm film tape, addresses the growing demand for payment accessories and new payment form factors. In combination with payment and tokenisation services provided by partners, Infineon explains that it allows the easy integration of payment functionality into end-customer applications, for convenient contactless payment functionalities for wearables like wristbands as well as key fobs or other form factors.

Product versions supporting the latest Visa and MasterCard applications are available now. Additionally, applets supporting American Express, Discover and others will become available in Q1/2022.

http://www.infineon.com

> Read More

Wireless microcontrollers support Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy specification

Single-instrument test brings cost-efficient 5G IoT UE verification

Nvidia unveils Isacc ROS GEMS with AI perception

Secora Pay on 40nm process offers new applets contactless payments

About Smart Cities