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Mouser Electronics has announced a new eBook produced in collaboration with STMicroelectronics that explores strategies for overcoming challenges facing designers of smart home devices. In 7 Experts on Designing Commercially Successful Smart Home Devices, subject matter experts from industry-leading companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Ingersoll Rand offer their perspectives on the most important factors for developing new Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

Homes and commercial buildings have evolved to incorporate intelligent design across a wide range of applications, with smart devices controlling everything from lighting and climate to HVAC and security. These interconnected systems require carefully planned design engineering as well as detailed knowledge into the specific needs for a successful connected device. Smart buildings and cities bring together a network of sensors, processors, artificial intelligence (AI), and connectivity solutions, challenging engineers to maintain mastery of an extensive range of technologies and products.

7 Experts on Designing Commercially Successful Smart Home Devices, the new eBook from Mouser and ST, offers plenty of food for thought for developers and engineers, covering topics including edge processing, user experience, and life cycle design. The eBook also includes product information for several useful ST solutions, including the STM32 L5 ultra-low-power microcontroller series. Part of the STM32 family of microcontrollers, the STM32 L5 series is based on an Arm Cortex-M33 processor with TrustZone for Armv8-M, and is ideal for IoT applications requiring high security and low power consumption. ST’s BlueNRG-M2 application processor modules provide a complete RF platform in a minuscule form factor, supporting IoT and smart home devices with Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 connectivity and BQE qualification. ST’s VL53L3CX time-of-flight ranging sensor embeds the company’s third-generation FlightSense patented technology, combining a high-performance proximity and ranging sensor with multi-target distance measurements and automatic smudge correction for use in a variety of robotics and automation applications.

Agile innovation in the area of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will be the key in driving forward digital transformation in industrial applications into 2021 and beyond.

That was the message delivered by Advantech IIoT President, Linda Tsai, to more than 2,000 delegates at the company’s first ever Global IIoT Virtual Summit, entitled ‘Connecting Industrial IoT Innovation’.

Ms Tsai explained: “Figures from IDC suggest that by 2025, there will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in use worldwide, generating 79.4 zettabytes of data. Connected devices will pervade every aspect of our personal and business lives, and a complex mix of technology and infrastructure will be more crucial than ever to harnessing the power of the data generated by these devices.

“As a leader in embedded computer systems for industrial applications, Advantech is leading the way in developing more powerful edge computing solutions which are compatible with all types of IIoT devices as well as data centres and cloud providers and can aggregate these vast quantities of data, allowing users to optimise operational effectiveness in their facilities.”

Much of Advantech’s pioneering work in this area centres on its strategy of co-creation: collaborating closely with systems integrators and developers to create edge solution-ready platforms (Edge SRP’s) or IApps (Industrial Applications) to make digital transformation as rapid and simple as possible. Advantech can support optimisation in areas from iFactory to industrial equipment manufacturing (IEM), industrial AI, smart automation, transportation, energy & environment and iLogistics.

Ms Tsai went on to identify six key technology trends for 2021: digital transformation, 5G, decoupling, device-to-cloud digitalisation, empowered edge and artificial intelligence (AI).

“According to the GSMA Mobile Economy 2019 Report, 5G will contribute more than US$2 trillion to the global economy up to 2035, of which 35 per cent will go to the manufacturing and utilities sectors. Meanwhile, research from MarketsandMarkets estimates the value of AI in the manufacturing at US$17.2 billion by 2025.

“Advantech has developed an extensive portfolio of AI platforms including edge AI systems, sensors and inference servers, as well as deep learning training servers, to assist customers in exploiting the potential of AI. Meanwhile, in the area of device-to-cloud, we are again at the forefront of innovation, with solutions including private cloud solutions, industrial APP, edge intelligence software and cross-platform middleware – all specifically developed to combining optimised computing with robust and reliable performance in even the most demanding environments.”

“There is no getting away from the fact that digital transformation will impact every manufacturer in the world in the years to come, and harnessing the power of data will be critical to competitiveness as we move from Industry 4.0 and towards Industry 5.0.

“Our global Summit has brought together partners from across the world to find the best ways to collaborate and exploit the power of new and emerging technologies, to optimise efficiency, performance and commercial success.”

Jash Bansidhar, managing director of Advantech Europe, added: “The macro strategy of driving Industrial IoT development through the adoption of AI, 5G and edge computing is central to the further adoption and exploitation of IoT technologies. Our mission continues to be to work with ecosystem partners to deliver sustainable success in the post-pandemic era.”

Microtest Corporation has signed a UK distribution agreement with test instrument and power supply specialist, Telonic Instruments.

Microtest’s extensive test and measurement portfolio is now available in the UK from Telonic Instruments.

Founded in 1993, Microtest has established itself as a supplier of high precision and automatic measuring equipment for customers in the electronics, information and communications industries. The ISO-9001-certified company holds many patents and has received R&D and innovation awards for their products.

Microtest’s extensive portfolio includes component testers – including LCR meters, impedance analysers and DC bias current test systems; safety testers, including Hipot testers; transformer testers, cable and motor testers and automatic test equipment, together with a wide selection of fixtures and accessories.

Telonic Instruments’ Managing Director, Doug Lovell, commented on the Microtest signing: “We are pleased to be teaming up with such a prestigious company, which is a leader in its field,” he said.

Partnering with Telonic Instruments will develop the business, agrees Mike Chou, CEO of Microtest. “It’s been a great start,” he observed. “Working with Telonic Instruments is going to increase Microtest competitiveness in the UK electronics measurement market,” he added.

There is a special promotion running until the end of 2020: a 15% discount on the price of two Microtest LCR meters, the LCR Meter 6365 and LCR Meter 6366.

The LCR Meter 6365 and LCR Meter 6366 are ideal for synchronous tests in production lines, automated testing, quality assurance and incoming quality control. Both have multi-step functions, USB storage and basic accuracy of ±0.05%.

The LCR Meter 6363 operates at 10-200kHz and the LCR Meter 6366 operates at a frequency range of 10-500kHz.

A new single axis accelerometer for vibration monitoring from Kistler delivers reliable results at temperatures up to 700 degrees Celsius over the long term and up to 1,000 degrees for short periods of time. The 8211A sensor is certified to ATEX and IECEX for use in explosion protection making it suitable not only for monitoring purposes, but also for use under extreme conditions in a wide variety of applications.

Measuring vibrations inside the combustion chambers of gas turbines, rocket or aircraft engines ambient temperatures are often in the high three-digit range. Under extreme conditions, these measurements must provide exact data as the basis for further developments, for example on instabilities in the combustion process. However, only a few sensors are able to withstand the extreme heat and temperature fluctuations and still deliver reliable measurement data. The new 8211A sensor from Kistler has been designed specifically for such conditions in order to measure vibrations in various extreme industrial environments.

Maximum accuracy even at extreme temperatures

The sensor owes its heat resistance primarily to the PiezoStar crystal at the heart of the accelerometer, which is especially suitable for these applications. Kistler grow the artificial crystal in its own laboratories to eliminate quality fluctuations and supply bottlenecks which are common with natural materials such as tourmaline. Kistler’s artificial crystal is produced to a consistent quality standard and is not subject to variable availability. The robust hardline cable used with the sensor is insulated with magnesium oxide and is equally resistant to heat:

Enduring temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius is not a problem for the new sensor or cable.

Differential measurement chain ensures reliable results

The core technology of the 8211A accelerometer is based on the piezoelectric effect: the accelerometer generates an electrical charge that is proportional to the acceleration. In combination with a differential charge amplifier this provides a complete and stable differential measurement chain that is not influenced by environmental factors such as electromagnetic interference.

With worldwide social distancing and restrictions on travel, gas measurement and control experts Chell Instruments have accelerated the inclusion of remote support capabilities into their products and systems.

The high-precision gas experts have sped up the integration of planned technologies to help them remotely assist customers in the setup, monitoring and diagnostics of new systems.

“As a high-tech sector, we need to find new ways to support clients at a distance. Though it has accelerated development, connectivity was only ever going to be more important and we were well placed to lead our sector with this new technology” says Jamie Shanahan, Chell Instruments’ Sales Director.

To ensure the correct setup, many of the systems Chell provide have traditionally required either the client to visit their ISO-accredited calibration lab or a member of Chell’s technical staff to visit the customer’s site.

The remote support technology has recently been successfully deployed in a gas meter test system for a major manufacturer in Singapore. Instead of a technical representative of the customer visiting Chell’s headquarter to conduct a ‘factory acceptance test’, the checks were conducted in the Singapore factory with Jamie and his colleagues remotely supporting the process.

“We’re very customer-service orientated, so not being able to jump on a train or plane to support a customer is a culture shock. However, we’re actually finding our clients achieve the same peace-of-mind, whilst establishment times are reduced. It’s a win-win in many situations” states Jamie.

Established over 40 years, Chell Instruments has become one of the global leaders in high-precision gas measurement and control equipment. Their systems are employed in aircraft development, Formula 1 and various industries which blend gases with high precision, such as pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals.

Chell Instruments’ products are used across the world where the coronavirus pandemic has meant many countries have imposed travel restriction and asked businesses to restrict physical visitors to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Many of Chell’s products already feature high connectivity to allow the data gathered to be shared and analysed. However, their new remote-support integrations make even more critical information available so that parameters can be affected in real-time from anywhere in the world.

Accurately measuring the usage of expensive industrial gases such as argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and helium, is easy with the new SD range of high-performance flow sensors from ifm electronic. And because they maintain high accuracy over their full measuring range, the new units also function as an invaluable aid to leakage detection. Typical applications include bottling and packaging machines in the food industry and welding, cutting or soldering processes in which protective gases are used.

An important benefit of the new monitors is that, in addition to flow rate, they measure flow quantity, pressure and temperature. In many applications, this means that they eliminate the need for additional sensors, saving money, minimising complexity and reducing the number of control system I/O channels needed.

The sensors feature an IO-Link interface which provides access to all measured values and which can also be used for parameterisation and for simulating the operation of the sensor before putting it into service. A colour display provides convenient local indication of the measured values, and the sensors also provide conventional analogue and switching outputs.

ifm electronic offers its SD flow sensors for gas consumption measurement in two configurations. The first is for use with argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and air. To ensure maximum accuracy, it is pre-programmed with the characteristics of each of these gases and it can be supplied in versions to measure flow rates from 0.05 to 225 Nm3/h. The second configuration is specially adapted for use with helium and available in versions to measure flow rates from 0.05 to 10 Nm3/h.

All versions have excellent dynamic performance with a T09 response time of 0.5 s, and all can be used with media over the temperature range -10 to +60 ºC.

Optical Surfaces is a producer of large diameter, high precision windows for wind tunnel aerodynamic testing.

Aerodynamicists and engineers use wind tunnels to test models of proposed aircraft and engine components. During a test, the model is placed in the test section of the tunnel and air is made to flow past the model. Schlieren imaging is a valuable technique to provide diagnostic information about the ‘invisible’ flow of air around the model.

Benefiting from an ultra-stable production environment and proprietary polishing techniques – Optical Surfaces is able to routinely produce optical windows up to 600mm in diameter with typical wavefront error of lambda/10 and surface finish of 40/20 to 10/5. This precision manufacturing capability in optical materials including BK-7 and fused silica, which offer good homogeneity and transmission from the UV to the Near-IR, combines to provide the perfect wind tunnel optical window to ensure superior Schlieren image quality.

Optical Surfaces has been producing top quality optical windows for more than 50 years and is now accepted as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of these vital optical components for demanding imaging applications. The company’s ISO 9001-2015 approved manufacturing workshops and test facilities are deep underground in a series of tunnels excavated in solid chalk where temperature remains constant and vibration is practically non-existent. With such stable conditions testing, particularly with long path lengths, becomes quantifiable and reliable. Working with these natural advantages is a highly skilled team of craftsmen with a commitment to excellence in both product quality and customer service.

It’s time to take control cabinets out of industrial control and automation applications. This is the view of industrial technology specialist Beckhoff Automation UK, who has published a new whitepaper laying out the company’s view of the future of automation and exploring the concept of automation without cabinets. The whitepaper is available via the Beckhoff Automation UK blog.

 The control cabinet is a staple of modern factory environments, used to supply necessary power to automation systems and equipment. However, Beckhoff UK argues that as plants invest in a growing number of automated systems, these cabinets are limiting the productive capabilities of businesses. According to the company, modern automation and cabling technologies can minimise the footprint of control cabinets, or even remove the need for them entirely.

“Put simply, automation without cabinets is the idea that we can develop machines and equipment that fit onto the factory floor and operate without the need for a control cabinet,” explained Stephen Hayes, managing director of Beckhoff Automation UK. “Simply by addressing the issues around cabinets, we can reduce transport and installation costs for machine builders and system manufacturers and provide higher output per square metre of production space for industrial businesses.”

In the whitepaper, Beckhoff explains the background of the concept, the technology that makes it achievable and the benefits for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end-users alike. For OEMs, the benefits are lower system complexity, reduced shipping costs and shorter installation times that can reduce project costs. For industrial businesses, the benefits are a higher output per square metre of production space, reduced maintenance requirements and a greater degree of flexibility in production.

“Beckhoff has been developing technologies and products in the past few years that have made this concept a plausible reality,” explained Bradley McEwan, business development manager at Beckhoff Automation UK.

“The IP65 and IP67 rated industrial PCs allow for direct integration onto machines. We have also developed the AMP8000 distributed servosystem to unify the servomotor and servo drive in one compact footprint with the same mounting dimensions as a standard servomotor. The AMP8000’s distribution modules allow several systems to be powered from a single module, reducing the need for cabinets.

“On top of this there is the advent of EtherCAT P, which allows EtherCAT communication data and power to be transmitted via a single, four-wire Ethernet cable. This means that we have consolidated much of the wiring associated with automation systems. When we use several of these technologies together, we can substantially reduce the footprint and complexity of machines.”

The whitepaper outlines the range of products that can make the concept a reality. Beckhoff Automation is launching these products to the UK market throughout 2020 but businesses can register their interest with Beckhoff representatives prior to the official launch.

Plant managers, engineers and machine builders interested in learning about the automation without cabinets concept can download the whitepaper here.

Modern manufacturing has become very data intensive, which has made choosing where to store data critically importance. Here Neil Ballinger, head of EMEA at automation equipment supplier EU Automation, explains the trade-offs and opportunities of hybrid cloud storage.

In June 2020, IBM suffered a global cloud outage, but this was not the first of its kind. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Salesforce all experienced service disruptions in 2019, as a result of their cloud storage provider suffering an outage. As manufacturing companies have come to rely more on cloud storage,  the inability to access data has become a looming threat that could disrupt an entire facility.

Difficult decisions

Cloud computing has centralised data storage on large servers and edge computing moved it closer to the point of use. The different options of storage raise the question of how to balance centralised and decentralised data storage? The answer is a trade-off between a series of difficult choices.

The first consideration is cost. Local servers are expensive to buy, install and maintain. They also require on-site troubleshooting when problems arise. Cloud services offer cheaper ways of storing data, can be scaled, serviced remotely and payed on a usage basis.

The second consideration is accessibility. With a local server, users can retrieve data faster, including backups and older file versions. Uploading and downloading files from cloud storage depends entirely on the internet connection, which can suffer from network jitter.

The third consideration is security. A local server gives companies physical control of their data but requires investment into equipment and IT specialists to keep the server secure.

Opportunities

The choice is not only about mitigating risks though. There are also opportunities here to make the data architecture stronger, more secure and ensure reliable access to data. For industries where traceability is imperative, such as food and beverage, these solutions could prevent downtime and save throwing away large batches of otherwise faultless products.

The ideal data storage architecture combines the advantages of both technologies and minimises the downside of each option. Such a hybrid solution initially processes data on an edge server, close to where the data is generated, and then analyses it in an aggregated form in the cloud.

A hybrid model combines the visibility gained by combining information in the cloud with the responsiveness of storing data that is needed immediately close to where it is used. Such a data architecture reduces the cost of data transmission and lowers the risk of network problems. Moreover, having operations data on an edge server insulates day-to-day operations from disruptions that could come from cloud outages.

To begin the process of integrating edge and cloud computing, it is best to talk to a specialist in data management solutions and to an industrial automation supplier. They need to align their solutions to make sure that the data generated from sensors is integrated with the processing of the resulting signal and the storage of the data.

Industry 4.0 increased the dependence of manufacturing on effective data storage and at the same time made it susceptible to cloud outages. A good enterprise data architecture needs to find ways of ensuring that disruptions to data access do not result in factory downtimes.

Gloucestershire based engineering technologies company, Renishaw, recently hosted free virtual science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) workshops for key stage two and three children to give students more opportunities to gain hands-on engineering experience. The children had the opportunity to take online courses on 3D printing and coding with Scratch to help them gain new skills and bring real-world context to their STEM curricula.

The 3D printing courses, hosted on Microsoft Teams Live, included a session on printing a fridge magnet or phone stand. In each session, the children were given an explanation of 3D printing and examples of how it is used in industry and by Renishaw. The children then used software to experiment with designing an object in 3D and slicing the design ready for printing. Renishaw will print and post every student’s design so that they can see the result of their hard work. Renishaw also hosted a virtual coding course using Scratch software to learn the basics of block code, create a game and learn a fundamental engineering skill.

Both workshops ended with a question and answer session with the Renishaw education team. Students had the opportunity to hear about real-world engineering projects at Renishaw, giving students real insight into the variety of opportunities in engineering and encouraging them to consider it as a future career option.

“We’re investing in education because our future engineers are students in school today,” explained Simon Biggs, Education Outreach Officer at Renishaw. “We may not be able to physically visit classrooms and host practical workshops at the moment, however, we can still provide a hands-on environment in these virtual workshops that gives students an insight into the vibrant world of engineering.”

Renishaw is committed to sharing positive messages about engineering. Its education outreach programme supports parents and teachers across Gloucestershire, Bristol and South Wales, offering a range of activities aimed at students between Years 5 to 13. The range of hands-on activities are designed to get students excited about engineering and inspire them to consider STEM careers in the future.

For more information on Renishaw’s commitment to education outreach, visit https://www.renishaw.com/en/education-outreach–34713