Many attempts have been made and are underway for implementing energy harvesting systems for powering the low power wireless sensor networks. It will be really interesting to explore a bit on these systems too
There are lithium batteries that have non-rechargeable operating lives of 25 years. They are already used in wireless devices such as utility meters and wireless sensors by the millions.
Chuck, I hear different numbers all the time, but I think people expect a fairly functional (8-bit? 16/32? ADC?) microcontroller available in high volume for well under $1, say in the 30 to 50 cent range. Whether the low end is feasible....
Loring, I agree that one of the main things holding back widespread use is the competing standards. When I worked for an OEM, the customers always had some other idea in mind (and a lot of times it was whatever was "hot" at the moment".
I still think the other issue is the power source. Once battery technology evolves to where you can get a reliable long-term (i.e., year+) or self-recharging source, this tech will really take off.
Loring: In the RFID world, we used tto hear about "nickel tags." The belief was that when nickel tags arrived, millions of products would suddenly use RFID. Is there a similar price-point goal for microcontroller-powered dust?
Probably the biggest problem in universal adoption is that there is no single protocol that is the equivalent of 802 LANs and the seven-layer OSI prototol stack in wireless sensor nets. ZigBee is the most common physical and data-link protocol, though there's a lot of RFID, Wireless HART, NFC, etc. Eventually, probably all such nets will use TCP/IP and have an IP address. But the IP connection is not obvious because the cost of nodes needs to be so low. Until the cost of microcontroller-powered "dust" drops, we may have quite a protocol mess out there!
UK-based Plastic Logic and French company ISORG have created what the pair tout as a first in flexible printed electronics: a large area, conformable, organic image sensor printed on plastic.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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