The next issue of Circuit Cellar is coming next week! Time for a sneak peek at what’s in June Circuit Cellar. Embedded intelligence for transportation systems, smart paddle sport device project, sensors, PCB design tips, AC-DC supplies, FreeRTOS, mag-lev globe project and more! This 84-page magazine paves your road toward a rich destination of embedded technology articles just for you!
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Here’s a sneak preview of June 2021 Circuit Cellar:
EMBEDDED AND IoT TECHNOGLIES IN ACTION
Embedded Intelligence in Transportation
By Jeff Child
Transportation systems—ranging from railway systems to trucking fleets—are relying on advanced embedded PC technology for both the control side and passenger entertainment side of systems. Transportation systems need sophisticated networking, data collection and real-time control, all while meeting safety standards. Circuit Cellar Chief Editor Jeff Child looks at the latest technology trends and products relevant to these applications.
Build Your Own IoT Platform (Part 1)
By Dhairya Parikh
In this 3-part article series, Dhairya explains how you can build your own IoT platform. In Part 1 he covers how to setup a virtual server, install the necessary software and setup some required components. He details the steps to create a minimalistic and functional IoT platform.
Sensor Integration Trends
By Jeff Child
As the IoT phenomenon kicks into high gear, sensor innovations have had to keep pace. That’s driven manufacturers of sensors and sensor interface devices to develop highly integrated, high-performance devices. Circuit Cellar Chief Editor Jeff Child explores the latest technology trends and product developments in sensors.
RESOURCES FOR SYSTEM DESIGNERS
Understanding Proper PCB Design (Part 3): Controlled Impedance Routing
By Robert Lacoste
Robert wraps up his article series on how to properly design printed circuit boards. Here in Part 3, he looks at how to handle PCB trace impedance and shares techniques for dealing with high-speed digital signals.
Datasheet: AC-DC Power Supplies
By Jeff Child
Power supply manufactures are meeting today’s demands with devices designed to suit applications like industrial control, medical and IoT—and even multipurpose needs. This Datasheet section updates readers on these technology trends and provides a product gallery of representative AC-DC power supplies.
FreeRTOS (Part 4): FreeRTOS Inter-Process Communication
By Bob Japenga
Bob continues his article series about the open-source FreeRTOS. One of the essential elements of an RTOS is a rich set of Inter-Process Communication (IPC) APIs. In Part 4, Bob looks at the IPCs available in FreeRTOS and how they stack up against Linux.
FUN PROJECT ARTICLES WITH ALL THE DETAILS
Create a Calendar File Building App: Using Liberty Basic
By Jeff Bachiochi
Used by all major platforms—including Microsoft, Google and Apple—the .ics file format allows you to import, export and share calendar entries with other users. In this article, Jeff explains how .ics files work, and details his project using Liberty Basic to develop an app that generates .ics files.
Mag-Levitated Spinning Globe Project: Arduino-Controlled Décor
By Herwig Taveirne
A spinning globe of the Earth is a common enough piece of home décor. But Herwig decided to kick things up a notch and build a magnetically-levitating, spinning globe. Based on the Arduino Nano, the system is designed to hang in a stable state of levitation while spinning at a constant controllable speed.
MICROCONTROLLERS EVERYWHERE DOING EVERYTHING
Build a Sonar Echolocation Ranger
By Evan Kravitz and David Yang
In this article, learn how these two Cornell students built a biologically-inspired multimode echolocation system that can detect object distances and the rate of change of the surface-normal vector of an object. The Sonar Echolocation Ranger (SER) is implemented using a Microchip PIC32 microcontroller, which sends out ultrasonic pulses to an analog amplifier and then to a central speaker module.
Build a Smart Paddle Sport Device: Using Espressif’s ESP32 MCU
By Sandy Charlton, Rylen Enger, Dave Hodgson and Miles Krakowec Tickner
The need for connected smart devices can be found anywhere these days, and that includes paddling sports. In this project article, learn how these Camosun College students built an ESP32 MCU-based device that collects information from paddlers out on the water, and streams data via Bluetooth to an app on the paddler’s phone.
