📟 Open-Source Fast Linear Actuator in one PCB

A fully integrated PCB linear actuator, with the motor driver, encoder and motor all on a single PCB.

There are many ways to make a linear actuator, a device for moving something is a straight line. Most of the easier to make ones use a conventional motor and a mechanical linkage such as a rack and pinion or a lead screw, but author has gone for something far more elegant.

His linear actuator uses a linear motor, a linear array of coils for the motor phases, working against a line of magnets. Even better than that, he’s managed to make the whole motor out of a single PCB. And it’s fast!

More information:
The main article
Software page
Hardware page

#projects

📰 Stanford engineers present new chip that ramps up AI computing efficiency

AI-powered edge computing is already pervasive in our lives. Devices like drones, smart wearables, and industrial IoT sensors are equipped with AI-enabled chips so that computing can occur at the “edge” of the internet, where the data originates. This allows real-time processing and guarantees data privacy.

However, AI functionalities on these tiny edge devices are limited by the energy provided by a battery. Therefore, improving energy efficiency is crucial.

Stanford University engineers have come up with a potential solution: a novel resistive random-access memory (RRAM) chip that does the AI processing within the memory itself, thereby eliminating the separation between the compute and memory units. Their chip, called NeuRRAM, is about the size of a fingertip and does more work with limited battery power than what current chips can do.

More information...

#news #artificial_intelligence

📟 Guide: Designing a Smart watch using ESP32

Super detailed guide of designing a custom smart watch using popular microcontroller.

People may access messages, alerts, health information, and other advanced information easily and quickly using smartwatches. While smartwatches are formally revolutionary as standalone devices, their capabilities essentially increase when used in conjunction with other devices that people carry, such as their smartphones or tablets.

In this project, we are going to build a feature-rich, customizable smartwatch from scratch. We are going to make this using the best affordable and easily available components. Since designing such a product is a lengthy time-consuming procedure, we are going to do this in parts.

More information:
Part 1: Making Watch Faces
Part 2: Ambient Light and Heart Rate Sensors
Part 3: Magnetometer and Gyroscope

#projects #esp32

🎚 EdgePro1 - tiny, open-source, 600-MHz, ARM-Cortex-M7 board with Wi-Fi & BLE connectivity and LuaJIT support

EdgePro1 is all about power and simplicity. The board was designed to fit between low-level microcontroller boards (think Arduino style) and full fledged Linux capable Single-Board-Computers or SBCs.

It is an IoT capable device with WiFi/BLE communication, some external storage (8 MB - mega bytes of it) and of course a security chip to protect sensitive data going in and out.

Main CPU is NXP i. MX RT1064 with 600 MHz Cortex M7, 4 MB of XiP Flash and 1 MB of static RAM, which includes a 512 KB of Tightly-Coupled-Memory (TCM). Later is capable of running at CPU speeds without the use of cache memory. The U-Blox Nina W102 communication module has additional two Tensilica 240 MHz cores together with 520 KB of RAM and 2 MB of Flash.

More information...

#boards

💻 Simple and Exponential Moving Averages in Embedded C++

Digital filtering is a handy tool for removing noise from an ADC signal. Digital filters come in two varieties: FIR and IIR. The simple moving average and the exponential moving average are two simple examples to let you get started.

In this article, you will look at two types of low pass filters one having an FIR and the other an IIR. The article also provides a repository which contains a couple more filter types.

If you learn about a few different filters (IIR high pass, Biquad), you can use this approach to have an excellent toolbox for manipulating all types of signals.

More information:
The main article
The repository with code

#articles #programming #cpp

🎬 How I hacked a hardware crypto wallet and recovered $2 million

I was contacted to hack a Trezor One hardware wallet and recover $2 million worth of cryptocurrency (in the form of THETA). Knowing that existing research was already out there for this device, it seemed like it would be a slam dunk. Little did I realize the project would turn into a roller coaster ride with over three months of experimentation, failures, successes, and heart-stopping moments. It reminded me that hacking is always unpredictable, exciting, and educational, no matter how long you've been doing it. In this case, the stakes were higher than normal: I only had one chance to get it right.

https://youtu.be/dT9y-KQbqi4

#video #electronics #security

📰 Companies Are Hacking Their Way Around the Chip Shortage

The supply chain issues have no end in sight, so manufacturers are being forced to improvise

As the global chip shortage stretches toward the two-year mark, manufacturers are pulling some unusual tricks to keep production lines moving. Carmakers are using semiconductors taken from washing machines, rewriting code to use less silicon, and even shipping their products without some chips while promising to add them in later. With the shortage of semiconductors now a new normal, everyone is being forced to adapt.

The crisis is also creating new opportunities for some companies. For instance, Smith & Associates, an electronic components broker, has hired 300 staff since the pandemic began, on top of a staff of 500, to keep production lines running.

More information...

#news

📟 Ztachip open-source RISC-V AI accelerator performs up to 50 times faster

Ztachip is an open-source RISC-V accelerator for vision and AI edge applications running on low-end FPGA devices or custom ASIC that is said to perform 20 to 50 times faster than on non-accelerated RISC-V implementations, and is also better than RISC-V cores with vector extensions (no numbers were provided here).

Ztachip, pronounced zeta-chip, is not tied to a particular architecture, but the example code features a RISC-V core based on the VexRiscv implementation and can accelerate common computer vision tasks such as edge detection, optical flow, motion detection, color conversion, as well as TensorFlow AI models without retraining.

The open-source AI accelerator has been tested on Digilent ArtyA7-100T FPGA board in combination with a PMOD VGA module to connect to a display and an OV7670 VGA camera module. The instructions needed could be found on Github.

More information...

#projects #fpga

📃 Guide to Modular Firmware

This article is for embedded software developers with a solid working knowledge of C or C++, but who struggle with large and complex projects

If you learn to develop embedded code, e.g. using the Arduino IDE, you find plenty of small example programs. It is helpful to get things started quickly, but as soon as your project begins to grow, help related to software design is rare.

In contrast, when you learn software development for desktop applications, project structures and software design is an integral part of the learning process.

In this short article, you will get a simple guide on how you can build a modular structure for your firmware. This will keep your code clean and maintainable for large and complex projects.

More information...

#articles #programming

📰 Arduino IDE 2.0 is now officially released!

After 18 months of debugging of the Beta version, the Arduino IDE 2.0 is now officially released and is available for downloading.

Some of the features:
▫️ There are some obvious changes in the user interface with quick access to your Sketchbook, boards, libraries, and live debugger on the left side, and auto-completion as shown above should speed up your code writing once you are used to it.
▫️ Code compilation has become significantly faster.
▫️ The serial plotter that can display data outputted to the serial terminal.
▫️ The Arduino IDE 2.0 now supports dark mode.
▫️ The IDE can now update itself when a new version is available.

More information...

#news #arduino

📃 Getting Started with LILYGO T-SIM7000G ESP32 (LTE, GPRS, and GPS)

Get started with the ESP32 and the SIM7000G LTE/GPS/GPRS module. Throughout this tutorial, we’ll use the LILYGO T-SIM7000G ESP32 board that combines the ESP32 chip, the SIM7000G module, microSD card slot, battery holder, and charger on the same board.

Besides Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, you can communicate with this ESP32 board using SMS. You can also connect it to the internet using your SIM card data plan and get GPS location.

More information...

#projects #esp32