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Battery-operated video camera systems add AI for cloud IoT devices

Thu, May 25, 2023

InnoPhase IoT adds AI and solar panel augmentation to battery-operated video camera system via the Talaria TWO ULP (ultra low power) Wi-fi-optimised reference kit for cloud-connected IP video IoT devices.

In addition to applications such as battery-operated video cameras, smart video doorbells, wearables, smart appliances, home security cameras and in-vehicle dashboard monitoring devices, OEMs and ODMs are introducing new categories of video devices with designs that use solar technology and AI, said InnoPhase IoT.

Based on the Talaria TWO ULP Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) platform, the reference kit consists of dual stack, power optimised software combined with an advanced digital polar radio design to address the challenges involved with yesterday’s power-hungry processing of video IoT designs with a multi-protocol, cloud connected camera system, said the company.

The InnoPhase IoT Talaria TWO wireless platform for video supports up to 2K camera resolution and has an integrated microcontroller which enables off-loading of TCP-IP networking and cloud connectivity stack when ISP (image signal processing) is powered down. An always on, always connected enables low latency and mitigates image loss issues and the low power Wi-Fi at BLE power levels enables a two to four times improvement in battery life.

Until now, untethered wireless cloud connectivity and a long battery life were major design barriers for video IoT. Approximately 10 per cent of video cameras are currently battery-operated primarily because of battery life limitations, reported InnoPhase IoT. Moving to a wireless format wasn’t possible since ubiquitous Wi-Fi is inherently power hungry, rapidly draining video camera’s batteries. The possibility of adding even more features such as AI would mean an even shorter battery life.

The new InnoPhase IoT video reference kit address all of these challenges and provides 40 per cent lower power consumption and a battery life in excess of one year. The company also said it offers device developers a variety of market ready solutions from OEMs and ODMs.

“Using InnoPhase IoT Talaria TWO and an Ingenic T31 integrated reference design, we have been able to build an AI-enabled smart video camera with battery life two to three times longer than today’s solutions. We’re also achieving multi-year battery life when augmented with a solar panel”, said Larry Yang, product manager of smart product line at CE-Link, a wireless video camera OEM. The reference design can be customised, enabling customers to quickly bring branded wireless camera systems to market, he added.

According to Jason Lim, CEO at Kenxen, Taiwan, a smart video camera ODM, the Talaria TWO Wi-Fi / BLE module enables low power, direct-to-cloud connectivity for battery operated cameras. “This allows us to offer quick time to market video products for our end customers,” he added.

InnoPhase IoT president and COO, Wiren Perera, said: “InnoPhase IoT’s Talaria TWO untethers cameras from all wired power and network connections, resulting in more accurate data for cloud processing. It supports the addition of enhanced features such as artificial intelligence and unleashes design creativity only possible with the low-power, long battery-life model.”

The reference kits are currently available for evaluation. Each includes hardware and software integration with an image signal processor, cloud connectivity software and access to ODMs.

http://www.innophaseiot.com

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SigmaSense partners with NXP Semiconductors for future sensing systems

Fri, May 19, 2023

Texas company, Sigma Sense has developed a sensing technology which it says will improve the performance of practically anything with a touchscreen, for example mobile phones, automotive, industrial, gaming, wearables, digital signage, industrial / IoT and even improve the performance of EV batteries.

SigmaSense’s technology intends to ‘shake up’ the industry in which the underlying technology behind most of today’s touch sensing devices has changed little in decades.

It said its approach captures more granular data from the physical world making interactive advances possible. The technology makes possible high speed touch interfaces of all sizes and shapes, new surface materials beyond glass, operation in rain and with gloves, economical large format interactive displays with the speed of a mobile experience.

SigmaSense has announced a license and co-development deal with NXP Semiconductors to transition from traditional touch interfaces to multi-dimensional sensing. It has licensed its technology to NXP, and the companies will collaborate on high-performance sensing products for specific applications, in particular those with demands for faster, more robust, fully immersive software-defined experiences.

“The next generation of smart devices and applications are demanding data for enhanced functionality that requires an entirely new software-programmable approach to sensing,” explained Lars Reger, CTO of NXP Semiconductors.

Rick Seger, CEO of SigmaSense, added: “Our co-development with NXP marks the transition to a universe of new data-centric design options driven by software-defined sensing.”

SigmaSense’s multi-dimensional sensing works through many different surfaces, shapes, and materials, enabling previously impossible designs. It makes it possible to extract “vastly more” data from the physical world for a wide range of products and systems, said the company. With the ability to measure current direct-to-digital, SigmaSense claimed to deliver an industry first of low voltage, frequency domain sensing. Fast, continuous, high-fidelity data capture with intelligent digital signal processing moves analogue challenges to the digital domain, where design flexibility can deliver orders of magnitude improvement, continued SigmaSense. The technology has the potential to change system designs “from foldable displays to EV batteries,” said the company.

SigmaSense invented software-defined sensing which achieves breakthrough levels of speed, accuracy, resolution, and noise immunity previously deemed impossible for sensing systems. Sensing through the noise, SigmaSense products increase the depth and quantity of data that can be captured from the physical world to enable exciting new experiences in a wide range of devices including mobile, automotive, battery sensing, digital signage, wearables, and all sizes of IoT touch displays.

SigmaSense is headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA, with offices in Boise, Idaho and Taipei, Taiwan.

https://sigmasense.com

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Thin magnetic sheets have high permability for NFC

Wed, May 17, 2023

Noise suppressing / magnetic sheets by TDK have high permeability and low magnetic loss for NFC (near field communication) applications. The IFQ06 thin magnetic sheets are flexible and can be easily formed to a desired shape, said the company.

The sheets are suitable for 13.56MHz NFC applications and protect the system from metal objects located directly behind coils.

The latest addition to the Flexield family of magnetic shielding materials, the IFQ06, has high permeability and low magnetic loss, said TDK and provides highly effective protection against performance-reducing design features that can complicate NFC designs, such as metal objects directly behind the antenna.

These hazards are becoming increasingly common as electronic devices evolve to be smaller and more multi-functional, making it increasingly difficult to keep advanced functionalities from interfering with each other. NFC uses electromagnetic induction where the antenna receiving a carrier wave from a reader / writer allows the on-board IC chip to perform signal processing.

Metal objects, in particular, can absorb or disturb the magnetic flux lines of the generated H field, creating eddy currents which reduce effective range. These disturbances can also shift the inductance value and self-resonance frequency, reducing performance because of tuning issues between the two antennas. In some cases, metal close to the antenna will carry an induced current that produces a countering magnetic field, shortening the communication distance and making communication impossible.

Placing the IFQ06 material between the antenna coil and any metal surface confines the magnetic flux within the magnetic shield generated by the reader / writer. As a result, the generation of an induced current on the metal surface is eliminated and optimum 13.56MHz communication conditions can be maintained.

TDK lists other benefits of the IFQ06 series as its ability to shape / direct the magnetic H field, influence the quality factor (Q) of the inductive antenna, increase the coupling factor (K) between two antennas, help set the inductance value (Ls) for resonant tuning, complete the magnetic field path and to improve security by encapsulating the magnetic field and its respective information.

TDK’s IFQ06 flexible magnetic sheet materials are offered in a choice of three formats: roll or sheet materials for prototyping, lower volumes or where large areas need to be covered and custom cut parts which exactly match design requirements for higher volume or automated assembly options.

Standard thicknesses available are 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2mm. Thicknesses of 0.065 and 0.075mm are available on request.

High surface resistivity is above 10 MOhm allowing for direct contact to metal antennas.

The material is available with an optional high temperature resin [IFQ06S] that supports applications up to +125 degrees C.

http://www.tdk.com

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Nordic Semiconductor disrupts IoT with low power wireless SoCs

Thu, Apr 13, 2023

A fourth generation, low power wireless SoC has been introduced by Nordic Semiconductor. The first SoC in the nRF54 series is the nRF54H20 and suitable for disruptive IoT applications demanding high processing power, excellent energy efficiency and security, said Nordic Semiconductor.

The nRF54 series of Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) SoCs add to Nordic’s portfolio of the nRF51, nRF52, and nRF53 series. At the same time it introduces a new hardware architecture fabricated on the GlobalFoundries 22FDX process node.

Capable of supporting Bluetooth 5.4 and future Bluetooth specifications, plus LE Audio, Bluetooth mesh and Thread, Matter, the nRF54H20 will be the foundation for a new wave of revolutionary IoT end products, promised Nordic Semiconductor. Its combination of advanced features will enable complex end products that have previously been unfeasible, claimed the company.

The nRF54H20 comprises multiple Arm Cortex-M33 processors and multiple RISC-V coprocessors. The processors are clocked at up to 320MHz and each processor is optimised for a specific type of workload.

The dedicated application processor features double the processing power (2x CoreMark) of the application processor in the nRF5340 SoC. The nRF54H20’s computing resources are supported by integrated memory comprising 2Mbyte non-volatile memory and 1Mbyte of RAM. The SoC’s level of integration will enable developers to shrink designs by replacing multiple components, such as application microcontroller, external memory and wireless SoC, with a single, compact device. In addition to advanced wearables, smart home, medical and LE Audio applications, the nRF54H20 SoC can be used for applications demanding complex machine learning (ML) and support for sensor fusion at the edge.

The nRF54H20 features several new digital and analogue interfaces, including a high performance external memory interface (400Mbytes per second), high speed USB (480bits per second), two I3C peripherals, a CAN FD controller and a 14-bit ADC. These interfaces are in addition to analogue and digital interfaces integrated on the nRF54H20.

The multi-protocol 2.4GHz radio ensures the nRF54H20 SoC is the first in the world to offer -100dBm RX sensitivity when receiving a 1Mbit per second Bluetooth LE signal, according to Nordic Semiconductor. Combined with up to 10dBm TX power, the nRF54H20 offers an ample link budget for enhanced robustness and longer range. The radio RX current consumption is just half that of the nRF5340, said Nordic. For applications that are mainly receivers, such as earbuds and wearables, the low energy consumption allows for more compact batteries or extended battery life, explained Nordic Semiconductor.

The nRF54H20 is a secure low power, multi-protocol SoC and is designed for PSA Certified Level 3, the highest level in the Platform Security Architecture (PSA) Certified IoT security standard. The SoC supports security services such as secure boot, secure firmware update and secure storage. It has cryptographic accelerators that are hardened against side-channel attacks and tamper sensors that detect an attack in progress and take appropriate action.

The nRF54H20 SoC is available for sampling now to selected customers.

http://www.nordicsemic.com

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Battery-operated video camera systems add AI for cloud IoT devices

SigmaSense partners with NXP Semiconductors for future sensing systems

Thin magnetic sheets have high permability for NFC

Nordic Semiconductor disrupts IoT with low power wireless SoCs

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