SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

KUALA LUMPUR: Mimos Bhd believes its wireless sensor network (WSN) for precision agriculture can help the local industry to produce quality crops.

“The sensors monitor micro-climate changes and soil nutrients within a specific area very effectively,” said Yusri Alias, head of technology portfolio management at Mimos.

WSN is a wireless network consisting of spatially distributed devices that use sensors to monitor environmental conditions.

Although it is a generic technology that can be applied in many fields — such as the monitoring of infrastructure, slope management, and environment watch — Mimos is focusing in the area of precision agriculture.

Source: The Star

MIT team experimentally demonstrates wireless power transfer, potentially useful for powering laptops, cell phones without cords

Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate.

A team from MIT’s Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future.

The team members are Andre Kurs, Aristeidis Karalis, Robert Moffatt, Prof. Peter Fisher, and Prof. John Joannopoulos (Francis Wright Davis Chair and director of ISN), led by Prof. Marin Soljacic.

Realizing their recent theoretical prediction, they were able to light a 60W light bulb from a power source seven feet (more than two meters) away; there was no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The MIT team refers to its concept as “WiTricity” (as in wireless electricity). The work will be reported in the June 7 issue of Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science.

Read more: MIT News,Nikola Tesla,Wardenclyffe Tower

Doctors’ offices may soon become much less crowded. AT&T is developing a software tool and networking platform that will use wireless devices to record a patient’s health measurements at home and send the data to the doctor. AT&T’s system runs on both Wi-Fi — enabling videoconferencing — and a second wireless technology named ZigBee, which receives data from medical sensors. ZigBee consumes considerably less power than Wi-Fi, so monitoring devices, including thermometers, pill dispensers, blood-pressure monitors, and pulse oximeters, can use small batteries to transmit data over long periods of time.

Home-based monitoring services like AT&T’s — which is approaching the trial stage — could transform how doctors interact with their patients. “The health-care industry is under a lot of stress,” says Bob Miller, executive director of AT&T’s communications-technology research department, “so there’s a drive to explore ways of delivering better care at lower cost.” And greater convenience for both doctor and patient: If a physician notices, for instance, that a blood-pressure medication isn’t working, or if the patient isn’t taking the drugs regularly, she’ll be able to arrange a videoconference with the patient to discuss solutions.

Source: Fast Company

Looks like Zigbee still has some time before taking off… “From a revenue standpoint, the volume of metering applications should remain limited to field trials in 2009 with a larger production ramp in 2010″

ZigBee is a hot topic on the RF DesignLine, so I had a virtual “sit down” with some leaders in the industry to see where the technology is, and where they think it is going. The following article includes some of the thoughts and remarks of Emmanuel Sambuis, marketing manager for TI’s Low Power RF products; Jeff Miller, Product Manager, Tanner EDA; and Ravi Sharma, Director of Marketing for Ember.

After the interview, I’ve included some links to some of the most popular ZigBee articles on the site.

RFDL: What is the status of the technology? Sharma: ZigBee has matured into a robust and reliable standard and has become the wireless technology of choice for the utilities in implementing smart metering for demand response and energy management as well as in home automation, monitoring and security. ZigBee shipments in the past two years have been in the millions, in applications including in-home displays, light, climate and media controls, smart meters and home security to name a few. The ZigBee Alliance now boasts a membership in excess of 300 companies from around the world.

Source: RFDesignline

A SMART vibration sensor with wireless communication for recording and analysing train vibration has been developed in the country.

Alka Dubey and Ashish Verma of Sagar University brought this innovation to light, while presenting their paper at the fourth international Wireless Communication Sensor Networks concluded at Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A) on Monday (Dec 29).

Dubey said that high speed trains are one of the most impressive developments of the recent years having brought a new degree of comfort for travelers. These trains posed serious accidents because of the high level of vibration, which are generated. Therefore to make the train speed smoother, a smart vibration sensor is developed. It is a self sensation device equipped with recording and wireless communication interface.

Source: Merinews

As everyone who’s had a ref make a bad call at their team’s expense knows, NFL refs aren’t perfect. But footballs and gloves with built-in sensors? Those might just make coach’s challenges history.

Dr. Priya Narasimhan of Carnegie Mellon University has developed the football and gloves, loading them up with wireless sensors that can precisely determine whether or not a ball hit the ground before being caught or whether or not someone had control of the ball before fumbling. It could also, using GPS, determine whether or not the ball cross the goal line. But the applications don’t stop there.

Eventually, the same kind of sensors used in the gloves could be adapted to shoes, to measure stride and running patterns, or even shoulder pads, to calculate blocking positions and force.The current version of the glove has 15 touch sensors on the fingers and palm, running to a wireless module on the back of the arm, said Adam Goldhammer of Richboro, Bucks County, a master’s student in electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

Source: Gizmodo.com

Alanco Technologies has announced that its subsidiary Alanco/TSI Prism, a provider of real-time RFID tracking technologies, has won a $3.3 million contract to create an RFID-based inmate tracking system for the Washington D.C. Department of Corrections.

The Alanco/TSI Prism system, which will combine Alanco’s TSI Prism RFID system with Wi-Fi compatible RTLS technology from AeroScout, will be installed at a Washington DC jail complex housing over 2,000 prisoners and staffed by 450 DOC employees. The system is intended to increase safety and improve inmate accountability.

Source: RFID News

1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first human-made object to pass outside Pluto’s orbit and leave the central solar system.

Pioneer 10 must be considered one of the most successful spacecraft of all time. Designed for deep-space exploration, which at the time of its launch in 1972 meant pretty much anything beyond the moon, Pioneer 10 achieved a number of firsts while sending back valuable data along the way. Among the milestones:

• Following liftoff, Pioneer 10 achieved a breakaway speed of 32,400 mph, making it the fastest human-made object to leave the Earth. It shot past the moon in a mere 11 hours and crossed Mars’ orbit in just 12 weeks. By the time it reached Jupiter on Dec. 3, 1973, Pioneer 10 was moving along at a crisp 82,000 mph.
• On July 12, 1972, Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt. NASA described this as a “spectacular achievement” and, considering that asteroids the size of Alaska hurtle through the belt at 45,000 mph, there’s no reason to dispute the claim.
• Upon reaching Jupiter, Pioneer 10 sent back the first direct observations and close-up images of the solar system’s largest planet. It was data from Pioneer 10 that confirmed that Jupiter is mostly a liquid planet.
• After clearing Pluto’s orbit (considered the boundary of the planetary solar system in the decades before astronomers decided Pluto isn’t really a planet), Pioneer 10 continued to send back valuable data regarding solar wind, until its scientific mission ended in 1997.

All attempts to contact Pioneer 10 were terminated following the spacecraft’s last transmission of telemetry data on April 27, 2002. Nevertheless, NASA’s Deep Space Network received a final, faint signal on Jan. 22, 2003. It’s been silence ever since.

Although lost to contact forever, Pioneer 10 continues its endless journey through interstellar space. It’s headed in the general direction of Aldebaran, the brightest star in constellation Taurus, forming the bull’s eye. According to NASA, it will take about 2 million years for Pioneer 10 to reach Taurus.

So Pioneer 10’s mission, originally intended to go 21 months, lasted 25 years and change. As project manager Larry Lasher said, “I guess you could say we got our money’s worth.”

Source: NASA

Urmet Domus have introduced a simple solution for when audio communication is required as part of a door entry system but where it is not possible to install cables.

Domus Cell is compatible with all major mobile networks and provides GSM connection to Sinthesi door entry panels. The default programming enables users to have the system up and running within minutes and it can provide communication through analogue PABX systems, providing all the benefits of a standard telephone system, without the cost of installing fixed lines.

Domus Cell is a particularly practical and cost effective solution for installers of automated gates and barriers although it is also ideal for site and mobile office applications as the same contact numbers can be used for each new project. Read more about this

Some overview of Wibree vs Zigbee features:

• Wibree is a PAN (Personal Area Networking) technology
• Zigbee is a mesh networking technology
• Wibree is more power efficient
• Zigbee has got more range
• Wibree’s data transfer rate is 1 Mbps
• Zigbees Data transfer rate is 250 Kbps
• Wibree has got a star topology
• Zigbee has got a mesh topology
• Wibree uses bluetooth radio and can co-exist with bluetooth
• Zigbee needs its own special radio and has got no relationship with bluetooth