Smart Cities

Industrial Mini-ITX carrier is designed for COM Express Type 10 mini modules

Mon, Mar 08, 2021

The ITX-M-CC452-T10 carrier board has been designed by Winsystems for Type 10 mini module designs and COMeT10-3900 cards.

This is the company’s first Mini-ITX form factor carrier board to complement and support its COMeT10-3900 COM Express Type 10 mini modules. The ITX-M-CC452-T10 carrier platform has industrial components for testing products in development. The reliable carrier board operates at a temperature range of -40 to +85C degrees and with a wide input range of 5.0 to 20V DC.

The industrial COM Express carrier can be used by as a reference point to test and troubleshoot customers’ own or another COM Express Type 10 carrier design, explained George T Hillard, technical sales director, Winsystems. “And, because it supports all interfaces from our recently introduced COMeT10-3900 COM Express modules, these two products can be readily deployed as a complete embedded edge computing platform,” he added.

As an industrial-rated reference board, the ITX-M-CC452-T10 carrier is designed to operate over the full specifications of the COMeT10-3900 COM module so the combination can be proven at temperature. The carrier features dual Ethernet (USB 3.0 and 2.0),  four serial ports, three Mini-PCIe expansion options and multiple display options. These are increased when the board is combined with the COMeT10-3900 Express module.

The carrier also has multiple processor options for single, dual or quad CPU cores and various RAM and on-board solid state device (SSD) sizes.

The ITX-M-CC452-T10 carrier supports up to two independent displays: one DisplayPort with 4K resolution and one LCD with backlight and touch control. Additional connectivity and I/O capabilities include four GPIs and four GPOs. There is also built-in storage for microSD, SATA and mSATA.

“The ITX-M-CC452-T10 COM carrier satisfies the rigorous quality and security imperatives for Industrial IoT applications within the medical, industrial automation, military/aerospace and transportation markets,” said Hilliard. “Equally important, it provides product designers with abundant connectivity to distinguish their products in the market and the cost-effectiveness and predictable delivery they require to reduce development risk.”

The ITX-M-CC452-T10 carrier board is supported with technical guidance and BIOS customisation.  The ITX-M-CC452-T10  Mini-ITX form factor carrier will become available Q1, 2021, and will ship with access to the accompanying product manual, a carrier design guide, COM modules and thermal solutions (the latter two items sold separately).

http://www.winsystems.com

> Read More

ISO 17025-certified sensors protect drugs in transit

Mon, Mar 08, 2021

Calibrated and ISO 17025-certified temperature, and humidity and temperature sensors from Sensirion are used by customers to achieve cost-efficient GDP-compliant supply chain monitoring of drugs, vaccines and perishable goods.

Highly regulated products, such as pharmaceutical or perishable goods, typically require special handling along their distribution chain to comply with directives. Manufacturers need to adapt to ensure they adhere to current good distribution practices.

Temperature is the most regulated parameter and determines the lifetime of the product and usability of a product. Reliable temperature monitoring requires reliable dataloggers, which are increasingly changing, for example, the introduction of EN 12830 and accepted only with certification from accredited laboratories (ISO 17025). Dataloggers typically have several electronic components and often analogue temperature sensors, which makes accredited calibration of the complete device necessary. This step take time and adds expense but could be avoided using temperature sensing strategies, said Sensirion.

The STS32 and STS33 digital temperature sensors are ISO 17025-certified and optimised for cold and frozen chain applications. Both rely on CMOSens technology, which is claimed to enable increased computational power, reliability and improved accuracy specifications compared to earlier temperature sensors. The sensors have enhanced signal processing, two distinct and user-selectable I2C addresses and communication speeds of up to 1MHz.

The DFN package has a footprint of 2.5 x 2.5mm2 and a low height of 0.9mm.

Every STS32 or STS33 is identified by a unique serial number and is supplied with an ISO 17025-accredited calibration certificate. The calibration certificate comprises three temperatures, -30, +5 and +70 degrees C. In addition to the certified temperature sensors, Sensirion has introduced the SHT33 humidity and temperature sensor. This is based on the proven SHT3x series and is claimed to offer high accuracy and quality standards combined with ISO 17025-certified temperature sensing on one chip.

Calibration certificates and data for the STS32, STS33 and SHT33 sensors are available for download. STS32 users can not only embed sensor hardware into a product but are also merge the calibration data from the sensor with the calibration information needed for dataloggers. This simplifies the manufacturing process, as the typically expensive and time-consuming calibration of the assembled device is replaced and completely covered by using a digital, pre-calibrated temperature sensor, while meeting the stringent quality requirements of pharmaceutical and medical industries.

Picture credit: Parcel transport by truck / Source: Istockphoto

http://www.sensirion.com

> Read More

Software upgrade meet industry 4.0 with open platform communications

Thu, Mar 04, 2021

The latest version of Belden’s Hirschmann Operating System (HiOS) enables open platform communications for factory automation.

The software has an embedded Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) server and provides a seamless, brand-agnostic solution as industrial automation moves towards industry 4.0. Belden says it is the only manufacturer to offer switches that can natively run this communication protocol.

Universal communication capability allows customers to reap the benefits of a more tightly integrated network within the factory automation system, including openness, interoperability and scalability. OPC is the de-facto communications standard for industry 4.0; it provides a communication bridge between all levels of the automation architecture, from embedded components on the factory floor to the enterprise.

“Industrial communication is extremely fragmented with various manufacturers or user groups promoting proprietary solutions,” said Mark Cooksley, product line manager at Belden. “We’ve embedded OPC UA directly into our HiOS software to promote interoperability between manufacturers. Now, our hardware speaks a common communication language and can be managed directly within existing industrial applications,” he explained.

The upgraded HiOS software is industry 4.0-ready, providing a future-proof system that ensures existing products will continue to support future technologies. It also offers seamless integration into existing OPC UA-based applications. It is also less complex and provides higher network availability as there is no requirement for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to OPC gateways.

HiOS is suited to any industrial setting that requires immediate, reliable communication between devices, especially for machine-to-machine (MM) communication and motion control applications. Comprehensive security features also make it ideal for high-risk industries, such as power transmission and distribution, oil and gas, general manufacturing, automotive, transportation and mass transit, rail-rolling stock, and aerospace markets.

Belden offers a portfolio of interoperable products for seamless, secure and future-proof solutions that address the challenges of its industrial customers.

https://www.belden.com

> Read More

SMARC 2.1 industrial modules employ NXP i.MX 8M Plus processors

Wed, Mar 03, 2021

At Embedded World 2021 digital, congatec unveiled its latest SMARC 2.1 modules based on the NXP i.MX 8M Plus processor. The conga-SMX8-Plus modules feature four quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 based NXP i.MX 8M Plus processors and are intended for low power, embedded vision and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

The low power SMARC 2.1 Computer-on-Modules have machine and deep learning capabilities, which allow industrial embedded systems to see and analyse their surroundings for situational awareness, visual inspection, identification, surveillance and tracking as well as gesture-based contactless machine operation and augmented reality.

The Arm Cortex-A53 based quad-core processor platform includes an integrated neural processing unit (NPU) for AI computational power and an image signal processor (ISP) for parallel real-time processing of high resolution images and video streams from the two integrated MIPI-CSI camera interfaces.

The ecosystem includes application-ready 3.5-inch carrier boards, Basler camera and AI software stack support. The credit card sized modules are intended for use in smart farming and industrial manufacturing, retail, as well as transportation, smart cities and smart buildings.

The i.MX 8M Plus processor-based SMARC modules enable responsive embedded vision and AI applications with a low power envelope. The neural processing unit (NPU) adds 2.3Toperations per second of dedicated AI computational power to the four multi-purpose Arm Cortex-A53 processor cores.

The integrated ISP processes full HD video streams with up to 3x 60 frames per second for video enhancement. There is also a DSP for local speech recognition without any cloud connection.

The module’s Cortex-M7 real-time control together with a time synchronised networking capable Ethernet port.

In addition to the encryption module (CAAM) for hardware-accelerated ECC and RSA encryption, the Arm TrustZone also integrates the resource domain controller (RDC) for isolated execution of critical software. The secure high assurance boot mode prevents the execution of unauthorised software during boot.

The SMARC 2.1 modules operate at the industrial (0°C to +60°C) or extended (-40°C to +85°C) temperature ranges. They also have in-line ECC for up to 6Gbyte LPDDR4 memory.

The modules can drive up to three independent displays and provide hardware accelerated video decoding and encoding including H.265 for high resolution camera streams delivered by two integrated MIPI-CSIs to be sent directly to the network.

For data storage, there is up to 128Gbyte eMMC, which can also operate in safe pSLC mode. Peripheral interfaces include one PCIe Gen 3, two USB 3.0, three USB 2.0, four UART as well as two CAN FD and 14 GPIO.

For real-time networking, the module offers 1x Gbit with time sensitive networking (TSN) support plus conventional GbE.

An optional M.2 WiFi and Bluetooth LE card adds wireless connectivity. Linux, Yocto 2.0 and Android operating systems are supported.

https://www.congatec.com

> Read More

About Smart Cities

This news story is brought to you by smartcitieselectronics.com, the specialist site dedicated to delivering information about what’s new in the Smart City Electronics industry, with daily news updates, new products and industry news. To stay up-to-date, register to receive our weekly newsletters and keep yourself informed on the latest technology news and new products from around the globe. Simply click this link to register here: Smart Cities Registration