Emerging Technologies for Virtual Instrumentation

SDR Architectures--Key Features

2010-06-11T06:51:00.001-05:00

The advances in SDR technologies require a new architectures to support the reconfigurability of those technologies. In this paper the authors show several architecture setups. Key features of any architecture includes variable bandwidth, sufficient dynamic range, fast retuning and reconfiguration, minimized cost, and energy efficient.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Primer on SDR continued--Cognitive Radio

2010-06-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

In continuing last week's post on SDR primer, this week we look at Cognitive Radio which is "a radio that senses or is aware of its operational environment and can dynamically and autonomously adjust its radio operating parameters accordingly" according to Joe Mitola. Basically, the Cognitive radio senses its envionment and learns how to adapt to its environment. While SDR and Cognitive Radio can be a potential panacea for every wireless problem, it appears to be ideally suited for interoperability of radios and reducing interference. A software defined radio can come in various forms such as reconfigurable (can be changed by the user), to policy -based (change is based on a predetermined set of configurations), to cognitive radio (can be changed based on the environment).

Best regards,
Hall T.

SDR Advantages and Disadvantages

2010-05-28T10:00:00.001-05:00

For those unfamiliar with software defined radio and related topics, here's a great tutorial by VT. The slide set does a good job in defining SDR by showing how the physical layer is moved from hardware into software and how the radio adapts to its environment although that part leans more to the Cognitive Radio side. The advantages of SDR include reduced component cost because hardware specific components are replaced by DSPs and FPGAs. The number of components tends to be lower. DSP components can compensate for problems in other areas of the system. Disadvantages include power consumption, security, and overall cost.

The key difference between traditional radios and software defined radios is that the latter senses their environment and adapt to it. This is important particularly to government agencies such as the FCC who is in the process of reallocating spectrum usage in the TV bands. There's a shift away from rigid, spectrum allocations to a demand-based approach to maximum the usage in that band. Currently, spectrum usage in most bands in the USA range from .3 to 3%. As the need for more spectrum grows, a new paradigm will be needed to supply this bandwidth.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Using SDR in Pico Satellites

2010-05-21T06:46:00.001-05:00

Software defined radio is not just for mobile phone communications. It finds applications in numerous other places and for different reasons. One of the more intriguing applications is that in pico satellites. Pico satellites are small satellites developed by university groups for research and education purposes which catch a ride on rocket and space shuttle flights. Once out of the earth's atmosphere, they are tossed out into the ether and start their mission. In this application SDR is used for positioning and navigation. By using SDR techniques, the positioning system was made lighter, smaller, and most importantly with lower power consumption.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Power Management in SDR

2010-05-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

SDR brings a great deal of resource-intensive processing to the application in order to handle the variety of waveforms, modulation schemes, and other RF functions. This additional processing comes at the expense of greater power requirements. This drives the designer to make performance/power tradeoffs in the design of SDR systems. Power management in Software Defined Radio is a major concern since most SDR applications use more power than hardware radios. Also, field deployed units need to conserve power since they typically run on batteries. The RF front ends are typically overpowered as they need to generate RF patterns across a wide range. Finally, SDR applications tend to generate excessive heat which needs to be dissipated.

Power management is a key success factor in software-defined radio applications due to the portable nature of most target systems. In this paper the authors propose a horizontal layering of the hardware along with software-specific APIs to provide component-level control over power management. By dividing the system into components, power consumption can be customized for the application. For example, a signal processing intensive application could shut down other functions while the FPGA/Processor works. The user can turn off functions to increase the battery lifetime in a mission critical operation.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Dynamic Spectrum Access Regulatory Models

2010-04-15T10:45:00.001-05:00

The current model of RF Frequency management is to assign frequency bands to groups and applications. This mitigates the problem of interference and controls to some extent the usage of the RF spectrum. In many of the allocated bands, the usage of the alloted spectrum runs from 0.03 to 3%. As spectrum becomes scarce due to a growing use of existing applications and new applications requiring additional bandwidth come on the market, the spectrum access model is coming under scrutiny. A newer Dynamic Spectrum Access Regulatory model is coming into focus. In this model, the spectrum is not allocated but rather users are allowed to make use of a frequency band if they can do so without interfering with other users in that band.

The key conference in this area is the IEEE Dyspan (Dynamic Spectrum Access Network ). The purpose of the group is

" to expand collective understanding of complex next-generation wireless systems focused on using RF spectrum more efficiently and dynamically. This includes advancing both cutting edge technical and multidisciplinary research as well as practical experience related to building a healthy industry/regulatory ecosystem for the commercialization of smart radio system technologies.

As networks and devices increasingly gain intelligence and "cognitive" capabilities, and as regulators around the world seek to enhance spectrum utilization through exploiting areas such as "white spaces", dynamic decentralized access is becoming one of the most important, but most complex topics in wireless communications development. IEEE DySPAN 2010 will continue investigation of decentralized spectrum access and focus on approaches for highly scalable dynamic optimization of wireless spectrum use. "

There are several initiatives to further the Dynamic Spectrum Access effort. One is the Potential Alliance for World-wide Dynamic Spectrum Access by the New America Foundation. The group seeks to foster better working relationship between military, consumer, and public-safety groups.

Best regards,

Hall T.

What will the "IBM PC" of SDR Look Like?

2010-04-09T06:48:00.001-05:00

The IBM PC revolutionized the personal computer industry by bringing standards to a low-cost personal computer platform. It became the dominant design drawing from several industry-proven technical solutions and covering many market segments. It held the right tradeoff balance between technical performance and market requirements. Up until the entry of the IBM PC the market was flush with competing standards and methodologies. An "IBM PC" solution will eventually come to the SDR world. Software defined radio will see much greater success if it can generate a dominant design solution rather than a splintered approach.

So what are the key elements that need to be synthesized into a dominant design? In this paper the authors argue that it will bring portability of waveforms, maintainability, and allow specialization of waveforms.

Another key factor will be size. It will be greatly reduced from what we see today. Just as the IBM PC took computing from the mainframe/mincomputer world down to the desktop so the next generation of SDR will go down in size. Here's one example using Gumstix.

Finally, the cost must be low and the tools widely available. Defacto standards available at low cost will drive SDR applications into new areas and create a richer set of tools for more sophisticated applications.

Best regards,

Hall T.

SDR for Public Safety Applications--Interoperability

2010-04-02T06:42:00.001-05:00

Public Safety (Fire, police, first responders, etc) are now looking at Software Defined Radio to generate interoperability among the first responders who have incompatible radios between groups. By bridging the gap through multi-band and multi-service radios. In addition to interoperability, cognitive radio techniques could also help first responder radios adapt to their environment. Consider a Katrina-situation in which the local telecom infrastructure is wiped out requiring radios to adapt to a new infrastructure. To address the issue the National Public Safety Telecomunications Council was formed to study and advise on the issues.

The key challenges in public safety applications are spectrum usage and multi-band bridging. Public radios do not use the spectrum efficiently and consequently runs out. Also first responder radios operate on different bands which must be bridged as described in this market research executive summary report.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Using SDR in base stations--No longer a Stealth Technology

2010-03-26T06:40:00.000-05:00

Software Defined Radio is no longer used as a stealth technology but has become common place in base stations roll-outs as one example in the wireless infrastructure. In this SDR Forum post one can see the long list of tools now using SDR in their technology offering. One of the original providers of SDR base stations solutions is Vanu who announced the rollout of a multi-operator radio acccess network for rural areas.

ZTE a Chinese manufacturer of base stations is currently shipping a new version of their popular base station but with SDR technologies. In addition to being more energy efficient, it will also provide SDR capabilities for working with different carriers. CSL is rolling out SDR Base Stations in Hong Kong for LTE applications using ZTE systems.

Best regards,

Hall T.

LTE Won the Race for the Next Generation

2010-03-12T06:39:00.000-06:00

Even though WiMax is rolling out in some portions of the country, LTE will be the next standard. By creating an all IP-based network it will unify mobile and fixed broadband worlds. Here's a great resource for information on 3G and 4G news.

The WiMax camp positions it the two as complementary and not competitive. In this post the author suggests that both will find a place in the market and that WiMax simply suffers from too much hype, too early in the process and is now paying the price while LTE appears to be a newcomer with all the "shininess" that comes with that role. WiMax was designed for backhaul applications and will continue in that role and LTE will find its applications as well.

While Wimax is seeing substantial growth now, the major carriers will role out LTE capabilities in the next 3 years. According to this post, the other major competitor will be HSPA.

Best regards,

Hall T.

X-Parameters--Nonlinear RF Component Characterization

2010-02-26T06:51:00.001-06:00

X Parameters ( a registered trademark of Agilent) are nonlinear network parameters that represent a superset of S-parameters. They extend S-Parameters to work with large signals and non-linear regions for characterizing RF components. To gain access to the fundamental equations, one must sign up in Agilent's partner program.

A common application is the Load-pull measurement.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Wireless TestBeds

2010-02-19T06:41:00.001-06:00

For those interested in testing out new wireless applications, the Federal Government under the Bush administration authorized the NTIA and FCC to set up a 10 MHz testbed in the 470 - 512 range as reported by the Benton Foundation. It's a common practice to carve out a portion of the spectrum to provide a testbed for developers. Clearwire did this with WiMAX in the Silicon Valley area.

University of Syracuse and Virginia Tech are leading the Wireless Grid Innovation Testbed (WGiT) with the goal of "coordinating knowledge sharing, defining key parameters for wireless grids network applications, dynamically connecting wired and wireless devices, content and users.

Another example is the Idaho National Laboratory established the Bechtel/INEEL Wireless Testbed. that offers end to end testing of next generation wireless including 3G/4G cellular and land mobile radios.

There's event a conference on the topic of building wireless test beds. You can see the current event here.

Best regards,

Hall T.

WhiteFI--WiFi Using Whitespaces

2010-02-12T06:42:00.001-06:00

Microsoft is one of the players using the whitespaces to deliver wireless access. They call it WhiteFI which is similar to WiFI but has several differences. For one it uses an adaptive spectrum assignment algorithm to handle spectrum variation. They launched the KNOWS initiative which stands for Networking over White Spaces to resolve the fundamental networking issues related to setting up base stations and forming networks. They have gone from concept to deployed system on the Microsoft campus last October. You can see more details about the project here. Microsoft has even submitted an FCC license request to take WhiteFI into the field for further experimentation. They are working with Harvard on the research. You can see their paper here.

WhiteFI has a good deal of support behind it as it promises to spur innovation to the tune of $15B/year. One example of innovation is how it will bring wireless connectivity to ever smaller nodes in further distances. For example, irrigation systems could leverage WhiteFI for wireless connectivity.

Best regards,

Hall T.

SDR Applications

2010-02-05T06:47:00.001-06:00

Software Defined Radio has been under development for many years -- primarily the military. In this whitepaper by Xilinx they position several applications on Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm model.

Smartphones follow Milcom and Satcom applications in the adoption curve. Some smartphones already use elements of SDR such as
Apple's iPhone 3G which uses the Infineon Baseband processor that has a reprogrammable DSP for baseband processing. Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, and LG are also using similar chip sets and processing to achieve the benefits of SDR.

In the wireless infrastructure world base stations are now considered a commodity and thus price pressures require a common engineering platform targeted a multiple applications and air interfaces. ASICs can only go so far in achieving cost reductions. The next step is to apply SDR techniques. While on a single base station the cost of materials may be higher, that cost goes down when spread over several models.

In the coming years, more commercial applications spurred by the availability of spectrum without prior licensing will cross the chasm and start drawing more investment dollars.

Best regards,

Hall T.

The Key to SDR is the RF Front End

2010-01-29T06:37:00.000-06:00

Software Defined Radio will come of age in the next five years. From a niche application in the military world to an academic research topic today, SDR will become main stream in five years throughout the commercial industry. Mobility will shift beyond the handful of standards that defines its role today into an open playing field where anyone can play. The key to SDR is the RF Front End. The solution must

--be ultrawideband to handle 20 MHz to 60 GHz
--work with any softrware
--work with any waveform
--use tunable filters

Some solutions are already coming to market such as

The IMEC research center in Belgium proposes a CMOS solution to this problem. The solution promises a low-power, low-cost solution.

Microtune offers a chip for car radio applications called the MT3511 that provides a generic hardware platform to support AM/FM, digital radio, CD audio, MP3 playback, navigation, as well as connectivity for iPod®, SD card, USB and Bluetooth.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Portable Waveforms--Some Design Considerations

2010-01-22T18:07:00.000-06:00

Waveforms are just waveforms, right? Well, in the world of software defined radio a waveform is more than just what meets the eye. In the recent SDR Forum, I learned that "Portable Waveforms" consist of more than just the signal. For the JTRS program, a portable waveform consists of

--Detailed design docs
--Simulators
--Test code and data sets

Guidelines are in place for how to create portable waveforms because as this paper points out it's easier to rewrite code than to import a non-portable piece of code.

Part of the challenge in making a waveform portable is partitioning the waveform into real-time and non real-time components and then matching each component to a processor resource such as an FPGA, GPU, CPU, etc. Since hardware platforms vary widely, it's not reasonable to expect a waveform to run on any platform without some modification. Documentation including code, code hierarchy, multi thread uses, etc is required. Also, emulators and debuggers are necessary to work out how the waveform is generated and can be modified.

It's also interesting to note that IP cores specific to FPGA vendors should not be used as target platforms may not have those specific FPGA components. Clocking is another concern in that the use of multiple clocks to achieve some objective -- say lower power consumption -- may cause problems due to the target platform not having sufficient clocking resources.

Portability brings more design concerns and issues than originally meets the eye.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Smart Radio Challenge

2010-01-15T09:16:00.001-06:00

The Smart Radio Challenge is a worldwide competition in which student engineering teams design, develop and test software defined radio (SDR) that address relevant in the wireless market. In the recent SDR Forum, several competitors described their projects and the challenges they encountered.

California State University talked about unmanned aero vehicle telemetry link. Their challenge was the lack of available spectrum since an air force base was nearby. They used the Ettus Research USRP with GNU Radio software. The students developed their packet data handling protocol in Python as GNU Radio didn't provide it. They could tell the UAV to take images, generate FFTs, etc. The system had a phone home function in the event it lost communication with the ground. They used an amateur radio transceiver so it could display spectral parameters and used SDR for all signal processing. The challenges in using SDR for this project is the students had DSP but no SDR background. They started from ground zero. No one had experience with Python and no experience with real communication systems which required heavy faculty involvement. GNU Radio Grand Canyon was a good start but only goes so far. The project came out well with a successful demonstration at Edwards Air Force base. The next step will be to add target recognition and to implement the SDR on an FPGA by using the USRP.2

Virginia Tech talked about lessons from the 2008 and 2009 competitions. Their 2007 challenge was spectrum access for first responders. They chose the GNU Radio/USRP over the Lyrtech SFF because they already knew the USRP. The 2008 Challenge focused on first responders in areas with no comms infrastructure such as the Katrina disaster. They used a wireless ad hoc network approach for this one. The lessons from these two are:

Play to your strengths
Choices have unintended consequences such as system integration
Make a decision and follow through with it

For 2009 the challnege will be to locate a first rsponder based on a 406 MHz packetized beacon signal.

Carnegie Mellon presented on their Spectrum Sensing for Dynamic Spectrum Access. It's a Cognitive Radio network that takes a crowded network and sets up a secondary network within it. They first map the spectrum to find unused channels and then setup their own network. They used GNU Radio, a USRP, and Ubuntu to implement their sensing algorithm running on a series of "sensing nodes" which pass the results to a "learning center" which identifies the open spectrum slots. It then issues a beacon signal that other nodes can lock onto and then use a sub channel for creating the secondary network. They ran video, text messaging and voice messaging through the network.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Challenges for Software Defined Radio

2010-01-08T08:39:00.000-06:00

At the recent SDR Forum in Washington DC (now called the Innovative Wireless Alliance), Dr. Christer Svensson of Linkoping University in Sweden gave a keynote presentation on the challenges facing software defined radio. In his address he listed the critical requirements for SDR as

Digital protocols
Digital baseband
Receiver analog/antenna frontends
Transmitter Power Amplifiers and antenna frontend

While the first two are progressing well, the last two are not. Frontends are insufficient and power amplifiers lack multiband solutions. What's more, there's little research going on for the last two. The primary challenge here is that the receiver needs the ability to receive a weak signal in spite of a strong interfering signal given that software defined radio applications are often targeted to operate in a crowded and noisy spectrum space. For antenna/RF front ends the problem relates to antenna basics not software or waveform. One potential solution is tunable passive filters or switched filter banks. There are examples of these in the market but they are under developed at this stage.

Best regards,

Hall T.

COGNEA -- a Consortium of Companies for Utilizing the Whitespaces

2009-12-18T06:51:00.001-06:00

With the advent of commercially available white spaces in the spectrum, a consortium has formed to help drive the definition and adoption of industry-wide standards for low-power personal and portable wireless devices to operate over the TV white spaces. The consortium board consists of ETRI, HP, Philips and Samsung, with contributions from Motorola and Georgia Institute of Technology. The consortia is named CogNeA for Cognitive Networking Alliance.

The group was born out of the IEEE-802.22 standards effort. In the blog post by Mobie Sands, the author argues that 802.22 will only be competitive in the rural areas and that the interesting standards work now resides in CogNea. Cognea contributed to the standard through ECMA for interference-avoidance mechanisms.

In addition to the usual challenges of creating a standard and driving adoption, the consortium must also wrestle with limited spectrum. While there are available channels in the "whitespaces" left by the move of the TV channels, there's still a limited number of slots. You can use this site called ShowMyWhiteSpaces to locate the open channels in your zip code.

Best regards,

Hall T.

SDR Applications--Solving the Interference Issue

2009-12-11T06:56:00.001-06:00

There's a saying in business--find the customer pain and then solve it. While it may be oversimplifying the case for building a business it's not a bad place to start. In the world of Software Defined Radio the corollary is find the interference and then solve it.

Solving interference in the wireless network seems to be one of the over arching themes for SDR companies today. If a technology can solve an interference issue, then there's a definite business opportunity for that technology. Governments around the world are trying to unify their networks to work with other countries and enable inter communications. This is another pain point that SDR could potentially solve.

Other applications include:

Ability to access spectrum during time of emergency.

Interfacing with non-public safety systems. The Minnesota bridge collapse is one example. Bystanders of that disaster could provide photos back to the public safety groups through the use of their cell phones giving first responders additional information.

-- Implementing lower cost broadband service in rural areas with little or no wireless infrastructure. Using SDR to reuse existing networks.

-- Expanding coverage indoors in large buildings through femtocells.

-- Managed access systems for prisons. These can capture cellphone calls and allow only legitimate calls to go through.

-- Assisting in harmonizing the regulatory treatment of satellite signals in countries around the world.

-- Providing backhaul for the satellite industry through broadband and mitigating wireless interference from Wimax systems.

These are just a few of the applications that SDR proponents hope to accomplish.

Best regards,

Hall T.

The SDR Forum -- December 2010 Conference

2009-12-03T15:43:00.001-06:00

The SDR Forum promotes the success of the next generation radio technologies with members from commercial, military, and academic circles. The group boasts of a 100+ members. The conference this year was held in Washington DC and grew in attendance to over 500 which is a 20% rise of last year and is remarkable given how most conferences shrank in size.

DannyWeitzman of NTIA gave one of the keynote addresses. In his talk he compared the innovation of the internet in the 1990s to the current state of the spectrum today. The internet was

--easy to add technologies

--cost of failure is low

--done without lawyers, in particular regulatory lawyers.

In an effort to foster the development and adoption of software defined radio tools and technologies he asked what would be helpful and proposed testbeds and structured testing environments. He noted that the internet was itself a platform for testing

The NTIA doesn't hear from the public enough and then threw open the floor for feedback. The resounding answer from the audience to his question was "money." There needs to be an investment of money into the industry to drive development further and faster.

Weitzman noted that the commercial success of the internet happened on the edges and while it was government sponsored in the basic infrastructure, the commercialization was driven less by government and more by the industry players.

Other members of the audience talked about the need for gauging sensitivity of current systems to noisy environments. As the specrum changes, can more users fit into the spectrum without disrupting existing systems? and can we improve those existing systems?

Another comment was the ability to transmit without a license if you're sure you won't interfere with the spectrum. This would speed up development time dramatically. Ironically, there was no wireless service in the keynote room. Why couldn't the engineers use that space without a license to test out their designs?

Best regards,

Hall T.

4G -- Next Wireless Technology Standard

2009-11-20T06:43:00.004-06:00

The next major wireless standard on the horizon is 4G with the promise of bringing 100 Mbps and connection speeds up to 50 times faster than 3G networks. Quality of Service (QoS) will be greatly improved in spite of new technical hurdles. In this article the author shows that one of the main benefits is location-based applications. I've heard of applications under development in which one can point a cell phone camera at a store front and through the use of location-based tracking and image processing, the system can tell you more about that store -- specials, operating hours, etc. The location-based market is probably one of the fastest growing markets in the wireless world today. 4G will enable more sophisticated rollouts.

Best regards,
Hall T.

4G -- Next Wireless Technology Standard

2009-11-20T06:43:00.001-06:00

Open Base Station project

2009-11-13T06:48:00.000-06:00

The Open Base Station Project is an open-source Unix application that uses the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) to present a GSM air interface to a standard GSM handset. This project seeks to provide mobile wireless communication for about 1/10 the cost of a commercially available option. The tools are such that graduate students can build their own GSM networks as seen in this blog post. According to their project blog they've made substantial progress in field testing it at Burning Man.

Best regards,
Hall T.

802.22 Standard -- Working Group on Wireless Regional Area Networks ("WRANs")

2009-11-06T08:25:00.001-06:00

The goal of the IEEE 802.22 Working Group is to develop a standard for a cognitive radio-based interface for use by license-exempt devices which must operate on a non-interfering basis with other devices in the frequency spectrum that is allocated to the TV Broadcast Service. The standards developed so far are available for download here. It is interesting to note that the FCC and the IEEE plan to managing the white space channels through a centralized clearinghouse approach. You can read more here about the structure.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Whitespaces--Rollouts Beginning

2009-10-30T06:50:00.000-05:00

White spaces refers to unused frequencies and has gained interest after the FCC allowed users to create their own devices and use the space unlicensed as long as they don't interfere with existing licensed users. In addition to academic research, technology vendors such as Microsoft, Google and others are lining up to make use of the space through software defined radio and cognitive radio techniques. Applications for the white spaces could be almost anything although commercially viable standards such as WiFi will play a prominent role.

Deployments have begun with the first one rolling out in rural Virginia called Claudville. Due to the lack of broadband access, the county setup a WiFi-like connection using the white space. Other applications include public safety usage, education and enterprise video conferencing, mesh and adhoc networks, video surveillance, and enterprise networking. Other applications include machine to machine communication, vehicle and asset tracking, and backhaul.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Broadband Wireless--WiMAX

2009-10-23T06:48:00.001-05:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about LTE rolling out and how it will compete against WiMAX. WiMAX also known as 802.16 is a wireless network for metropolitan areas. Similar to WiFI which covers a range up to 100 feet, WiMAX provides a wireless network but on a longer range anywhere from 3 to 30 miles. WiMAX has a first mover advantage over LTE as the rollouts are in advance of LTE's and is more open than LTE which could be the deciding factor in winning over LTE as the data driven market of the internet requires flexibility. The challenge for WiMAX beyond gaining traction with the market at a cost rollout that is reasonable (which everyone faces) is security. WiMAX doesn't mitigate the issues with security that WiFi faced but only extends the range of the signal a distance further. Clearwire is rolling out WiMAX service in the following ten areas: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Waco and Wichita Falls, Texas; Bellingham, Wash; or Boise, Idaho.

Femtocells and Personal Base Stations

2009-10-16T06:47:00.001-05:00

As mobile phones become more common, so do femtocells which are sometimes called personal base stations. They extend coverage and capacity indoors. Because users continue to cut their landline and rely solely on the mobile phone, personal base stations see increasing usage by making the mobile phone more productive in the residential setting. It will provide higher data performance, better voice quality, enhanced emergency services (it can provide your location more accurately), and convergence of VoIP services.

The key issue with femtocell adoption is the interference with macro base stations and with other femtocells. Additional capabilities will need to be installed with the femotcells to prevent this.

Femtocells are commercially available in Japan and are in trials throughout the US by most of the carriers. In the west, Femtocells are seeing cautious acceptance. In this post the author watches in horror as 3G dongles gain acceptance over femtocells in spite of high costs and limited bandwidth.

For all things Femtocell related check out this website.

Best regards,

Hall T.

3GPP Long Term Evolution--Higher Throughput

2009-10-09T06:49:00.000-05:00

LTE or Long Term Evolution is the last step toward 4th generation cell phones. It is designed to increase the speed and capacity of the wireless network. The specification calls for a 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink although in the final implementation it will be much slower. It should have lower latency and provide passing through of older standards such as GSM, CDMA, and CDMA2000.

Specifically, LTE offers the following:

- Low latency and high throughput

- Efficient always-on operation, with instantaneous access to network resources

- Support for real-time and non-real-time applications

- Flexible spectrum allocations

- Re-use of existing cell site infrastructure

- High spectrum efficiency for unicast, multicast and broadcast data

Since LTE does not meet the requirements for 4G, an enhanced version called LTE Advanced is under development.

The main competitor to LTE is WiMAX which is being rolled out to cover the "last mile" connectivity. In this article the author outlines the race to between LTE and WiMAX.

Best regards,
Hall T.

White Spaces Worth Some Money

2009-10-02T08:28:00.001-05:00

The recent move to digital TV opened up white spaces in the frequency spectrum. Some of these white spaces are worth quite a bit of money according to this article. The report was commissioned by Microsoft and points to wireless broadband usage in rural areas using the unlicensed 700 MHz spectrum as the market opportunity. Broadcasters are suing the FCC for letting the spectrum go to this application unlicensed as broadcasters have to pay for the use of their spectrum.

The FCC recently made the decision to leave the white spaces unlicensed much to the chagrin of broadcasters who currently use the spectrum for wireless microphones. Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft see this as the next generation wireless opportunity as they can provide tools and services more cheaply by leveraging this spectrum without the additional cost of licensing and managing the spectrum.

According to the report, spectrum sensing will soon become mandatory technology for those wishing to use the white spaces. For an overview of the report check out this site. You can find the full FCC order here.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Wireless Remote Control to Replace Infrared

2009-09-25T06:58:00.001-05:00

For years infrared was the established standard for remote control devices. With little data to transfer and battery power usage being one of the primary criteria, it was a good solution. Today, data bandwidth requirements are going up so wireless comes into play as an alternative.

Bluetooth 3.0 brings a higher data rate and a Unicast Connectionless Data (UCD) feature that helps wireless compete with infrared for remote control applications. This article points out the reduce power consumption of UCD extending the life of batteries in a remote up to 4 years. Also, the new version reduces latency. In general wireless brings other advantages over infrared such as two-way communications, a longer range, and no line of sight requirements.

Critics claim that Bluetooth is overkill for this application. The cost for a Bluetooth based remote control will be higher than an infrared one which currently costs about $1. Customers will have to decide if they are willing to pay the extra price for the additional features. In addition to TVs the chip manufacturers are targeting set top boxes and other devices.

One challenge for wireless in this space is the fact that wireless protocols are proprietary and creating standards can be challenging. Something the consumer electronics industry is slow to lead but quick to adopt when established. In this position paper from the Bluetooth consortium, they highlight this issue. With a standard in place, this key hurdle is removed.

Best regards,

Hall T.

1Gb/s Data Rates Coming Soon

2009-09-18T06:48:00.000-05:00

The wireless data market continues to boom. According to this report, the wireless data market grew over 30% year over year and and now exceeds $10B in revenue each quarter. The recession has done little to slow the growth in this area.

Currently WiFi data rates run around 600K but new technologies on the horizon will push those rates to 1 GB/s. In this article you can see how WiMAX and LTE compare to other wireless standards for data rates.

In this presentation the developer proposes WIGWAM Wireless Gigabit with Advanced Multimedia Support to improve RF, baseband processing, integration, and protocol and radio resource management to achieve it.

The paper presents an overview survey of emerging wireless technologies suitable for short reach (<100m) RF communication starting from the existing high bit-rate systems (802.11n, 802.15.3a) and ending with 60 GHz mm-wave radios. Basic principles, power dissipation levels and hardware realization challenges in silicon are discussed. Prospects of building technologies that achieve Gigabit per second data rates are investigated.

For a refresher in the basics, check out this article on Shannon's law and the impact of signal power, noise, and interference on data rates.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Emerging Technology -- Millimeter Wave Range

2009-09-11T06:54:00.000-05:00

The millimeter range covers the 30 to 300 GHz frequency range. The telecom world uses this range primarily for microwave data communications. The military uses it for a system Active Denial System which concentrates a beam of RF energy on a subject forcing them to flee. security systems at airports make use of the frequency band for detecting weapons on passengers passing through the screening system.

Reuters recently reported that telecom companies are relying increasingly on the microwave range for back haul traffic. While it's been in use for some time, wireline circuits are not able to keep up with the growing demand. Back haul is the term used by the industry for carrying data back to the central office.

In 2001, the FCC set aside 7 bands between 57 and 64 GHz as unlicensed bandwidth. For that reason the 60 GHz frequency range is of interest to researchers today. Research topics include mobile ad hoc networks, modeling the radio channel and optimizing its performance, developing low-power sensor networks, and developing high data rate systems as found here.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Semiconductor technology--Multiple radios on a Smartphone

2009-09-04T08:01:00.000-05:00

In reading about the future of Smartphone one theme that runs through is the need to connect to the cloud and that cloud contains many different sources of information. In fact, there will be an increasing number of information points to connect to and so we'll see more radios coming into the mobile device.

Today there are up to six radios on a smartphone. These include Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Cellular, TV, and perhaps WiMAX in the near future.
With so many radios on one phone, the next step is to start reusing the radios from application to the next. Here's one example of that concept. Several chip vendors are starting to combine multiple radios onto one chip such as Broadcom's combination of GPS, Bluetooth, and FM.

The next step in technology evolution is the migration of radios to other devices. This becomes possible the semiconductor circuitry surrounding the radios is becoming more integrated and thus cheaper to build into lower cost devices. For a complete history of wireless, please check out this site.

Best regards,

Hall T.

MIMO--Multiple Input Multiple Output

2009-08-28T06:41:00.000-05:00

In the development of 3G and 4G networks increasing the data rates of wireless networks is one of the top priorities.

MIMO refers to the use of multiple antennas on both the transmitter or receiver to improve throughput and performance . It uses the phenomenon known as multipath (a RF signal bounces off walls and other structures and hits the antenna at different times) and organizes the mulitple occurences of the signal to achieve better performance.

In this MIMO primer the author describes a basic MIMO system which uses two, sometimes three antennas, to receive an RF signal. By measuring multiple signals over time, the signal processing in the system can reduce noise or interference from the multipath fading effect. It is used as part of the 802.11n specification to improve bandwidth.

Areas of future research into MIMO related to multi-user environments with multiple access schemes. Also, a great deal of research has yet to be implemented in hardware. For a further review, please check out this article.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Radio Technologies -- OFDM

2009-08-21T06:48:00.001-05:00

OFDM stands for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing It is a digital modulation method that works well in challenging environments such as noisy or highly attenuated communication mediums. It translates multiple signals with each signal occupying its own frequency. A tutorial can be found here.

The technology has been around for over 40 years and patented in 1970 but found popularity in the early 2000s when bandwidth requirements for wireless demanded higher throughputs at a lower cost. In this article the author outlines a short history of OFDM and talks about why it was adopted. OFDM uses narrowband carriers with each signal transmitted in parallel but at a different frequency. By placing these signals called sub-carrieres closely but not overlapping. The term orthogonal refers to the mathematical relationship of the signals, and not the spatial. OFDM uses a guard interval to protect against multipath signal interference.

There are challenges with OFDM including a high average peak-to-average ratio. In this article the author indicates OFDM requires an outsized power amplifier and that power efficiency will be compromised and that heat dissipation will be an issue for the RF designer. OFDM also requires high linearity to avoid inter-modulation distortion and third order intermodulation products can pile up on the carrier. Non-linearity also shows up in adjacent channel interference. Also phase noise is an issue that must be controlled given the closely spaced carrier signals. These challenges impact the data rates one can achieve.

Best regards,

Hall T.

Finding Unused Spectrum in Your Area -- Show My White Space

2009-08-14T06:56:00.000-05:00

The switch to digital television this past year has freed up spectrum for other purposes. To find out more about the white space in your area you can go to this link showing unused TV channels which is run by Spectrum Bridge.

Even Google founder Larry Page registers interest in the use of TV White Space. Google wants to organize the world’s information but the world needs electronic access for them to achieve that.

In searching on my home address in Austin, Texas I found 12 channels between channels 2 and 51 that were available. The application does a nice job in highlighting channels that are currently being used and may be used by the local TV stations. Personal portable devices cannot use channels 2 through 20.

Wireless microphones appear to be a major concern due to the interference they can cause. There are a number of FCC papers and positions on the use of wireless microphones.

There are several applications in the consumer space for the unused channel s including WiFi for the home, in home media distribution, home security, and cordless telephones. All of these applications point to potential uses of software defined radio.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Coopers Law and Shannon’s Theorum – Revisited

2009-08-07T07:35:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to meet with Bill Bard of the University of Texas engineering department last week. Bill teaches a software defined radio course among other topics. During our discussion he posed the question – will we see more or fewer wireless standards in the coming years.

I made the prediction that we would continue to see new wireless standards emerge but that they would become less over time. The reason is that just as the web created the “long-tail” effect (the rise of many niches over the few hits) so software-defined radio would also create a “long-tail” effect but for wireless.

I’ve blogged before on Coopers Law which states that every 30 months the amount of information that can be transmitted over a given amount of radio spectrum doubles. This has held true since Marconi discovered the wireless signal in the late 1800s.

This is not to be confused with Shannon’s theorem which states in a mathematical formula the maximum information that can be transmitted over a communication channel.

While Shannon’s theorem refers to bits per hertz which has an upper limit, Coopers law takes into account frequency usage, spectrum allocation, and other variables related to wireless communication.

For those who don’t know the “long-tail” concept it was coined by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine who noticed that the web enabled niche players and gave them equal prominence as hit players. This applied to books, movies, etc. The internet distribution treated all equally unlike mass media (TV broadcasting for example) which favored hits over niche players.

Software defined radio levels the wireless field just as the internet leveled the media field. One no longer needs huge critical mass to create a standard and then adoption. Instead, software defined radio lets the user create their own wireless use case and with the power of standard PCs behind it, they can develop their own wireless protocols.

Changing the spectrum allocations is quite daunting given the government bureaucracy. But with some spectrum being used less than 0.3% of the time, pressure will mount to make use of that spectrum in some fashion. Software defined radio will provide a technical solution.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Software Defined Radio—the Basic Architecture

2009-07-31T06:50:00.001-05:00

A software defined radio basically runs a set of programs such as transmitter/receiver algorithms on a processor. The baseband signal processing is implemented on an FPGA or DSP. An antenna provides the RF signal which is then sampled by an analog to digital convertor.

In this article the basic concepts are outlined. The RF signal from the antenna goes through a bandpass filter and amplification. The resulting signal is mixed with a locally generated RF frequency to create an Inphase and a Quadrature phase (90 degrees shifted) signal. These signals go through a lowpass filter and then into an analog-to-digital convertor. The sampling rate is typically fixed so it must be set at a rate that can sample a sufficient number of samples to recreate the signal properly across the entire range.

For reception an FPGA or host computer processor takes the signals and applies signal processing to break the signal into its component bits and symbols or to find some other set of parameters. For transmission, the processor works to create the waveforms that go back through the chain to be transmitted.

The key to software defined radio adoption in today’s world is the standard PC is now sufficiently powerful enough to perform the waveform processing. Of course DSPs and FPGAs enhance the performance of the system, but still the cost of a PC-based solution is far cheaper than that of a dedicated, proprietary system which is commonly found in military applications such as the JTRS program.

The need for more spectrum raises the need for cognitive radio techniques. Cognitive radio techniques address this issue. To implement a cognitive radio system one needs the following components:

1. Location sensors—establish its position
2. Spectral monitoring—monitor the network for open channels
3. Control software—negotiate the use of the spectrum between users

Best regards,
Hall T.

SDR Architectures and Systems – Software Communications Architecture

2009-07-24T08:36:00.000-05:00

Software Defined Radio technology and open standards promise to drive down costs and increase the use of wireless technology in our everyday lives in the same way that the PC and standardized operating systems did for the computer industry.

In the world of software defined radio, the Software Communications Architecture developed by the SDR Forum and the Object Management Group defines how the system loads the waveforms, runs applications, and networks with other systems. The SCA focuses on the military’s JTRS program which seeks to combine the wide range of military radios into a common set using SDR techniques.

The SCA provides an open architecture that can handle multiple radios. These are interoperable over a wide range of frequencies and allow for other technologies to be included. The SCA also fosters software reusability.

The purpose of SCA is to provide portability of applications between different systems, leverage commercial standards to reduce development time, reduce software development through reuse of software modules, and build a set of architectures for commercial implementations. The SCA standard comes with an API to help define the relationship between waveform applications and the software defined radio system.

With additional standards and frameworks comes additional overhead. This additional overhead must be offset by additional increases in the performance of the core silicon. In this article, the author discusses the rise of high-level design tools and the rise of FPGA’s as the key to offset the additional overhead of frameworks in the SCA architecture.

Finally, reference architectures for SCA are numerous. One example can be found here and here.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cognitive Radio – the First Model of Spectrum Sharing—Command and Control

2009-07-17T07:50:00.000-05:00

As we blogged about two weeks ago (the 4th of July holiday intervened), there are three models of Spectrum Sharing - command and control, exclusive use, and unlicensed use. The first model is Command and Control. This has been the predominant form of spectrum usage. The governmental authorities divide up the spectrum in specific frequencies and place requirements and standards on the usage of that spectrum. Frequency allocation is an exclusive property of a national sovereignty in the same way as water, land, and mineral rights.

The command and control approach dates back to the early days of RF usage in which exclusive rights were given to a certain usage in order to achieve acceptable quality of signal given inherent interference. While this may no longer be necessary, there are benefits to the command and control approach in that it provides a level of standardization that many technologies require to be successful. Also, some technologies that may not achieve profitability on their own can still be provided through exclusive frequency licensing, if deemed necessary for the society.

Numerous papers describe the challenges that the command and control system faces, the most common being the ever increasing demand for spectrum by new users and new uses. The military provides a case study of the use of a command and control frequency allocation system challenged by the demand for more use of finite spectrum. In addition, the technical, geographical, and operational factors increase the need for awareness of the spectrum and its usage.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cognitive Radio – Three Models for Spectrum Sharing

2009-07-01T09:27:00.000-05:00

Continuing in our series on Cognitive Radio, I found a nice summary primer on Cognitive Radio and Software Defined Radio here. The emergence of DSP and higher speed analog-to-digital convertors gives Software Defined Radio techniques an advantage over the traditional demodulator block.

The paper goes on to describe three models for spectrum sharing. They are command and control, exclusive use, and unlicensed use. As for exclusive use, from time to time the US government auctions off spectrum to private companies who can do what they want with the spectrum – similar to property rights. Command and control has been the standard for spectrum usage in the US as bandwidth is licensed to specific users for a specific use case. Finally, the ISM band is an example of unlicensed use in which spectrum is made available on a first-come, first-served basis. There is no guarantee of interference protection.

The paper goes on to discuss how Cognitive Radio techniques must be able to work in all three of these cases. We’ll explore these three methods in the coming weeks.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cognitive Radio – Spectrum Monitoring is the Key to Practical Applications

2009-06-19T06:55:00.000-05:00

The key to developing practical application with Cognitive Radio is a greater awareness of the spectrum and how it’s currently being used. A thorough monitoring of the spectrum over a period of time (say weeks and months) will create a database of date/time/frequency stats that can be used to more reliably predict the future use of the spectrum. In this article paints a picture of a world in which all spectrum users rely on cognitive radio techniques to find and use spectrum without much regard for pre assignment.

Part of the solution is to develop devices and practices that cooperate with each other. In other words all devices on the network should check the spectrum and monitor it so it can share spectrum cooperatively.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Spectral Awareness – How to Implement

2009-06-12T06:55:00.000-05:00

Cognitive Radio promotes the concept of using unused spectrum to increase available bandwidth. The basic techniques for finding and managing a portion of spectrum are listed below:

Step 1: Find a frequency. Using Adaptive Frequency techniques, a series of frequencies are scanned.

Step 2: Find an unused time slot in between a periodic user. Typically an Adaptive TDMA technique is used to check the availability of the frequency by monitoring it through several cycles. Only measuring the energy in the channel doesn’t give an accurate reading as noise can appear to be a signal.

Step 3: Use spatial techniques to monitor the spectrum -= The two main techniques are - beam steering and null steering which changes the main lobe of the radiation pattern to focus in a specific area.

Step 4: Use Adaptive bit loading based on Signal to Noise Ratio to insert a signal into the unused spectrum. OFDM techniques can be used that fit the time-frequency/hole.

Step5: Perform interference suppression and multiuser decomposition.

Adaptive Power Control and Ad-Hoc Networks are important for managing the above steps.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cognitive Radio – The Need it Fills

2009-06-05T08:08:00.000-05:00

The need for Cognitive Radio techniques will always be with us as long as we’re short of RF bandwidth. In this article the author propose using licensed bandwidth while it is not currently being used. Game theory techniques can be used to monitor what the other users are doing. Of course, the licensed user gets first priority but if it’s not using the spectrum then others may be able to use it.

The FCC is actively studying Cognitive Radio to make better use of the spectrum and better devices that can adapt to the current conditions. In addition to increasing the spectrum, the FCC hopes to improve interoperability among public service units. Current systems give each public service a dedicated, full-time frequency band. Cognitive radio techniques could let one service use the unused bandwidth of another. It could also be used as a repeater between one public service to another. Cognitive radio could monitor and help translate signals to another public service.

The other advantage is increased reliability in terms of fewer dropped calls, blackout spots, and more. If the communication channel becomes noisy, a cognitive radio-based system could switch the call to a better channel.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cognitive Radio—the Basics

2009-05-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

Cognitive Radio according to Wikipedia is the dynamic modification of the RF signal based on the spectrum, the user behavior, or the state of the network. It’s the logical next step after software defined radio in which the radio usage adjusts to the user and network’s needs. The idea here is that some parts of the spectrum are underutilized. By using cognitive radio techniques, unlicensed users can make use of licensed frequencies that have unused capacity—which is called Licensed Band Cognitive Radio.

There are variations of cognitive radio. The first is called Spectral Sensing Cognitive Radio in which only the radio frequency is monitored. Spectral sensing has been applied to TV channels in order to provide more bandwidth for high definition as well as emergency networks. The technique requires more than just detecting the energy in a channel. It requires a series of nodes to exchange information which is why research is moving towards Cognitive Networking.

The four main functions of Cognitive Radio are

1. Spectrum sensing –finding unused spectrum.
2. Spectrum management – finding the best available spectrum to use based on quality of service criteria.
3. Spectrum mobility –allowing for the shift from one frequency to another
4. Spectrum sharing – scheduling and sharing spectrum in a fair manner

Best regards,
Hall T.

Batteries Use Nanostructure Materials to Generate Power

2009-05-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

As the need for portable power explodes due to the increasing number of mobile devices and the shift to alternative energies, battery technology receives substantial research funding and focus. In addition to improving safety, environmental impact, longevity, and power density, so battery makers seek ways to make the battery more malleable so they fit with portable devices and mobile applications.

Nanomaterials provide the structure for batteries. Using carbon nanotubes researchers are able to infuse paper with the ability to make a complete battery with the carbon acting as the electrodes. Medical device researchers are looking to sweat or blood as a potential electrolyte. Thus, by touching the paper, a person makes the paper a complete battery system. Medical researchers see applications in implantable devices in which the carbon nanotubes could be implanted just below the skin so the human body becomes the recharge mechanism for powering a defibrillator for example.

Another nano technique is to use copper nanorods as the active material and attach them to sheets of copper foil. This increases the energy capacity by increasing the surface area of the nanorods.

Application of these technologies can be done with fairly traditional machines. In this example the nanorods are treated like fibers that can be woven into the fabric of a soldier’s uniform and can recharge itself.

Another technology in the research phase is electrowetting which according to Wikipedia uses nanostructured materials to combine the electrolyte material into the electrode space. mPhase proposes to use the technology to power semiconductor based devices through the use of superhydrophobic techniques which combines a liquid electrolyte and active electrode material.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Higher Density Lithium-Ion Batteries for Hybrid Vehicle Use

2009-05-15T06:59:00.000-05:00

Lithium ion batteries use cobalt for the positive electrode to achieve higher density. You can see a more detailed diagram here of a typical configuration along with a range of other materials used.

The key challenge is controlling thermal runaway when the separator material fails. That’s when the battery overheats. One solution is to add phosphate or other materials into the battery to help stabilize it.

For the hybrid vehicle application, Lithium-Ion is the current choice with research effort going into increasing the density of the battery so it lasts longer at a lower weight and size. Across the board, vendors are making higher density lithium-ion batteries including Hitachi, and Panasonic, to name a few.

There are other ways of improving Lithium-ion battery capability. In this paper, the authors use nanostructures to coat the cathode to increase the discharge factor of a battery. Another approach uses organic materials for the cathode instead of lithium metal oxides which makes the battery lighter and more environmentally friendly.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Flexible Batteries That Never Need to Be Recharged

2009-05-07T20:35:00.000-05:00

Another vector in the development of batteries is the combination of thin-film organic solar cell with a new type of polymer battery, which lets the battery charge itself with natural light. This works well on portable devices that one carries around as it can charge while it’s being used. Called flexible batteries the technology combines polymers and fullerenes into an ultra-thin, low-weight package. This ensures the device can recharge at even low-levels of light.

Flexible batteries based on polymer technology have been around for some time. Japanese researchers were showing off prototypes over two years ago.

Another technique uses nanocomposite materials carbon nanotubes which can be embedded into sheets of paper.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Emerging Technologies for Safer, Longer-Lasting Batteries

2009-04-30T22:14:00.002-05:00

No doubt batteries will receive funding to improve performance, but safety is also an issue. With a string of battery recalls due to overheating, finding a battery solution that controls thermal runaway will be a priority as well. China’s BYD automaker beat Toyota to the market with its new iron-phosphate-based lithium-ion battery. In this article, the automaker shows cutting edge technology.

Silver -zinc has also been considered as a replacement for Lithium-ion has it holds 25% more power although experience by the Navy shows it has a shorter lifespan and the cost of silver can increase the cost of the battery but is inherently safer since the battery uses a non-flammable electrolyte.

BYD, the Chinese car maker continues to make headlines with its founder, Wang Chuan-Fu drinking the fluid of their batteries. Battery fluid in currently used batteries is highly toxic. By using alternative chemicals, the toxic nature of the fluid is mitigated.

For a side-by-side comparison of battery technologies both single use and rechargeable, please check out this site.

Best regards,
Hall T.

The Semantic Web – It’s Coming Sooner than You Think

2009-04-24T07:04:00.000-05:00

The Semantic Web has been under discussion ever since the web came into the commercial realm in the 1990s. The idea is to embed meta-tags into the information on the web that can allow computers to sort and categorize data.

If you want to see what this may look like, go to this site. I typed in “virtual instrumentation” and came up with a fairly cogent list of web links related to the topic. It clearly uses Wikipedia as its primary source.

For those who are not familiar with the Semantic web the Wikipedia definition defines it as “information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.”

Best regards,
Hall T.

Self-Assembling Batteries

2009-04-17T05:33:00.000-05:00

Continuing in the series on batteries, we look at self-assembling batteries this week. Researchers at MIT are able to have lithium-ion materials self-assemble which would be useful for nan0scale devices. You can see a video on the TED channel here. in which the MIT researchers refer to viruses as self-assembling tools.

In this paper, University of Maryland researchers use block copolymers to function as a polyelectrolyte for the metal oxide cathode materials.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Emerging Technologies for Batteries—Several New Vectors of Research

2009-04-10T07:08:00.000-05:00

Battery technology is coming to the forefront of the advanced research investment these days. The key drivers behind the research are energy density, safety, long life between recharge, ease of maintenance, and environmental friendliness.

Nickel Cadmium used to be the standard but due to environmental concerns about cadmium, Lithium Ion now holds 75% of the market.

Another technology on the horizon is the all liquid active materials which uses molten metals for the electrodes and a molten salt for the electrolyte. The resulting design generates 10x the power over a traditional power design.

Alternative energies such as wind are pushing the envelope on battery technology itself. In this example sodium sulfur batteries are used to reduce the intermittency problem with wind energy.

Another dimension of batteries is the environmental friendliness of the battery with respect to disposal. In this example, Fuji’s battery is free of cadmium, mercury, and PVC, which will soon be regulated out of landfills by some countries.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Siftables – a New Paradigm of Digital Technology Usage

2009-04-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

I first saw Siftables on a Ted Talk video. The first thing that hits you is the “coolness” factor. David Merrill takes a set of cube-sized blocks each representing a digital function (in some cases arithmetic and other cases color just to name a few examples) and then proceeds to place them next to each other to perform a calculation or some other function.

The goal of the project is to let people interact with information and media just as they do with real world objects. By placing their hands and fingers on the objects they can sort and work with the devices.

As computational power goes down and out – that means it continually evolves into smaller, more granular packages used in a wider range of applications – we’ll see computation going into every machine not just those dedicated as personal computers or mobile devices. The siftable concept simply shows what is possible in the next generation of computing in which a processor, memory, and wireless are embedded in the unit to provide additional functionality. In five years, the mobile phone device in your hand will look like the personal computer of today—a big, bulky device.

Best regards,
Hall T.

The World Wide Web is Twenty Years Old – An Industrial Technology for All

2009-03-27T07:01:00.000-05:00

In many posts in this blog I highlight technologies from the commercial space that can be used by the industrial user. The World Wide Web which is 20 years old this year was conceived by Tim Berners-Lee and is one example of an industrial technology that the commercial and private world adopted for their use.

It came about by Tim Berners-Lee writing a paper called "Information Management : a Proposal" which his managers found to be somewhat vague. Despite this fact, CERN decided to test out the concept and in 1991, an early version of the system was launched to the high energy physics community which included the simple browser, web server software and a library.

By offering it free the barriers to adoption were low. The other driving force was the growing presence of PCs in the 90s and mobile devices in post-millennium that offered access through a web browser. In this article the author distinguishes between the internet which is the basic infrastructure using IP addresses to connect computers and servers and the web which is the layer of software on top called a browser that lets users interface with the web to share information and documents.

This all raises the question, what other technologies could be provided by the industrial space for the commercial?

Best regards,
Hall T.

Gaming Technology -- Graphical Processing Units

2009-03-20T07:58:00.000-05:00

A Graphical Processing Unit is a dedicated graphical rendering device for the computer primarily related to 3D computer graphics.

The primary vendors for graphical processing units are Intel with their Laterbee due out in 2010, NVidia and AMD/ATI.

GPUs work particularly well for parallel programming which is where they come into use for virtual instrumentation. You can see more about the underlying architecture here. LabVIEW which provides parallel programming through a graphical interface needs an underlying hardware technology to realize the full potential of the language. While GPUs are not the only answer, they are part of it.

Applications for graphical processor units in the world of virtual instrumentation include parallel control of high performance applications such as found in a medical device for numerical computation, a large array of actuators for controlling an accelerator ring, or simulation of flow control system with a large number of variables to compute.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Gaming Technology—Multicore Processing

2009-03-13T10:52:00.000-05:00

The gaming industry pushes the envelope on several technological fronts. The first is the GUI. The graphical user interface on gaming applications is state-of-the-art. The renderings in today’s game has come a long ways and mimics reality to a high degree. For sports games, the developers use motion capture techniques to capture the realism of the human body. I’m sure this technology could also be applied to physiological measurements and simulation.

Gaming systems make use of multicore programming. In this paper, the company outlines how multicore improves the rendering of graphics.

For a list of tips and tricks in programming multicore systems, check out this blog which does a nice job of explaining the difference between multi-threading and multicore programming, reducing contention, and trashing.

For a counter-intuitive view of multicore programming check out this post which focuses on storage rather than processing power as the key to better programs. Since there’s not enough memory to hold the data infinite data storage becomes the key rather than faster processing.

An interesting source of information focused solely on multicore programming can be found here.

Best regards,
Hall T.

The Gaming Industry—No Recession Here with a 22 by 22

2009-03-06T06:55:00.000-06:00

I’ve blogged on the gaming industry before noting how it has surpassed the movie industry in revenue and most other industries in terms of technological developments. Now, in the midst of the worst economic environment since the Great Depression, comes the news that the gaming industry grew by 22% last year. According to the Entertainment Software Association the gaming industry topped $22B in sales in 2008 which represents a 22% increase over the year before. (Hence, the 22 x 22 in the title). Over 267M games were sold in 2007 across all platforms.
According to Ars Technica the gaming industry will hit $68B by 2012.

The early days of virtual instrumentation came with the advent of the personal computer. In the 1980’s which had its share of recessions and stock market drops, there was no recession in the PC-based software segment. The emerging gaming world at the time brought forth games such as Pacman, DonkeyKong, and others. Because of this market force, hardware and software vendors found it possible to continually expand and upgrade their systems to meet the demand for more computing power and usability. Virtual instrumentation applications caught a free ride on the back of gamers by using the personal computer hardware and software for measurement and automation applications.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Microsoft Silverlight vs Flash – Flash is Now Ahead

2009-02-27T09:29:00.000-06:00

A year ago I blogged on Microsoft’s Silverlight and the promise it held for generating animation and vector graphics and how far ahead of Flash it was.

Today, Flash has caught up. On Silverlights web site they describe how Microsoft lost the advantage to Flash which has caught up.

Silverlight was chosen by the Presidential committee for streaming the Inaugural address, but according to this source it was politically motivated rather than technically motivated.

Adobe no longer considers Microsoft’s Silverlight to be competition. The market push for online video and digitization of hard copy play to Adobe’s core strengths while Microsoft appears to be taking a casual approach to the endeavor. What started as a strong effort, now appears to be waning on Microsoft’s part.

Best regards,
Hall T.

What Will the Stimulus Bill Do for the Engineering and Sciences?

2009-02-20T09:33:00.001-06:00

The Stimulus Bill passed the sign off process with several earmarks for science and engineering. According to the Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) the stimulus bill will provide $18B in funding for federal R&D, $16B for conducting the research, and $2B for R&D facilities and equipment, and another $6B to $7B for biomedical research in the National Institutes of Health.

The focus will be on biomedical research, energy R&D, and climate change. Key institutes receiving the funding include NIST, NASA, NIH, NSF, DOE, NOAA, among others.

While many initiatives were funded there were cuts to achieve compromise including
--$70M for research into technologies with high-growth potential
--$57M for renovation of science facilities
--$1.54B for high energy physics

Clearly the Stimulus Bill will be a great boost to science and engineering. Many companies are rearranging their business plans to pursue the funds. Remember the sales mantra: “Go where the money is.”

Best regards,
Hall T.

Medical Device Startup Grant Program—Rare Funding in Today’s Financial Environment

2009-02-12T21:30:00.000-06:00

National Instruments recently started a grant program to provide $25,000 to aspiring entrepreneurs in the life science space developing medical devices. In this challenging financial environment it is rare to find funding for anything beyond bootstrapping.

The program covers class 1, 2, and 3 devices for any application related to diagnosing a medical condition. Just about anything is included.

Last years’ grant recipients included companies such as Techmed which makes a noninvasive imaging system to measure glucose during open heart surgery.

Kairos Instruments specializes in tools for live cell imaging with an emphasis on microscope stage top devices for environmental control and programmed manipulation of individual wells in multiwell plates.

Senior Scientific develops methods using magnetic sensors for early disease detection and cell localization

Best regards,
Hall T.

Emerging Technology Flexible Printed Electronics Gaining Recognition

2009-02-06T10:15:00.000-06:00

Printed electronics the term for a relatively new technology that defines the printing of electronics on common media such as paper, plastic, and textile using standard printing processes.

The common theme of flexible printed electronics is that it enables the production of electronic devices that can be readily integrated into all aspects of life in a seamless manner, at low cost, on large scales, using inherently green processes and materials.

The Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University seeks to “advance full-color, video rate, flexible display technology and catalyze development of a vibrant flexible display and flexible electronics industry to produce integrated electronic systems with advanced functionality.”

The US Display Consortium recently expanded its mission to include emerging flexible, printed electronics. Applications include Smart credit cards with embedded displays, e-packaging with printed RFID chips, and mobile devices with roll able, e-paper screens.

Plextronics recently won a military contract to provide flexible printed electronics for flexible solar panels for tent tops, solar-powered foldable blankets and helmet-mounted panels, printed lighting, flexible displays and printed circuitry.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Wireless Networking Through the Bathroom – Even Google Has a Sense of Humor

2009-01-30T06:55:00.000-06:00

In these grave economic times, it’s great to see even large companies with the ability to laugh in the face of layouts, downsizings, and economic rout. Google once again leads the way wit their new wireless networking solution called TiSP which utilizes the fiber optic cable in the sewer system (who knew it was there?).

My favorite part is the installation page from which I’ve drawn the key steps below:

#1 --Remove the spindle of fiber-optic cable from your TiSP installation kit.
#2 --Attach the sinker to the loose end of the cable, take one safe step backward and drop this weighted end into your toilet.
#3 ---Grasp both ends of the spindle firmly while a friend or loved one flushes, thus activating the patented GFlush™ system, which sends the weighted cable surfing through the plumbing system to one of the thousands of TiSP Access Nodes.
#4 --When the GFlush is complete, the spindle will (or at least should) have largely unraveled, exposing a connector at the remaining end. Detach the cable from the spindle, taking care not to allow the cable to slip into the toilet.
#5 --Plug the fiber-optic cable into your TiSP wireless router, which has a specially designed counterweight to withstand the centripetal force of flushing.
#6 --Insert the TiSP installation CD and run the setup utility to install the Google Toolbar (required) and the rest of the TiSP software, which will automatically configure your computer's network settings.
#7 ---Within sixty minutes -- assuming proper data flow -- the other end of your fiber-optic cable should have reached the nearest TiSP Access Node, where our Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) will remove the sinker and plug the line into our global data networking system.
#8 --Congratulations, you're online! (Please wash your hands before surfing.)

It’s a great spook on today’s technology product offering complete with FAQ, price lining, and limited support by calling it a “beta”. As the website says, “It’s in beta because when things go wrong, they really go wrong.”

Best regards,
Hall T.

The Winnowing --Google kills the iGoogle for iPhone

2009-01-23T07:04:00.001-06:00

You can file this post under the “bad timing” category. Last week I blogged on the iGoogle coming to the iPhone and how farsighted Google was for making their software work well on other company’s platform. Just as the post went live, I received word from a reader that the iGoogle for iPhone is now dead and that the user no longer gets an optimized version. Evidently, Google pulled the plug on Jaiku and Google Notebook as well.

It may be that the current economic climate is causing the moves. The local Google Austin office was recently shuttered for that very reason. Also, an Austin-made product called Dodgeball which was the hit of SxSW several years ago and then acquired by Google has been killed off. Other applications that just got dumped include Google 3D, Mashup editor, and Google catalog.

Last fall Google killed off Lively and Print Ads. Given the large number of beta projects Google floated I guess it should be unsurprising that many are meeting a timely death before full product launch. Such is the way of prototypes and pilots.

Best regards,
Hall T.

iGoogle for iPhone – the Google OS on the iPhone Platform

2009-01-16T07:13:00.001-06:00

One of the great things about an open source operating system is the ability to move elements of it to your competitors’ hardware platform. At first, one wonders about the sense of selling someone else’s hardware platform but then we remember Microsoft’s first OS was sold on the IBM PC. That PC platform came and went but the OS platform continues to this day.

As we watch the same war (different fighting tools) underway again, we see Google putting it’s iGoogle on the iPhone as you can see here. In addition, there’s Google Earth, Google Search, Google Chat and Reader and about a dozen other Google applications on the iPhone. String enough of these applets together and you have a toehold on a competitors’ platform.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Compiling Verilog from C code Right on the Web

2009-01-09T07:11:00.001-06:00

No doubt FPGAs bring greater performance to virtual instrumentation applications. The challenge is harnessing the power of this tool without getting lost in the complexity. One solution is the C-to-Verilog which lets the user paste a block C-code into a window on their website and then it automatically converts the code to Verilog. It lets the user choose the address bitwidth, the array size, the number of parts, and the target FPGA which includes both Xilinx and Altera product families.

. If you want to simply avoid an in-depth tutorial on how to write Verilog then this is the site for you. It’s not clear how efficient the generated code is, but it appears from the examples to provide a solid baseline from which the user can apply more efficiency

Here’s an additional list of Verilog tools that you may find useful.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Mobile Phone OS Comparisons to the PC World—Redux

2008-12-18T13:12:00.000-06:00

In my post two weeks ago, I matched today’s mobile phone OS with yesteryear’s PC OS. I found another take on it in this post.

Palm OS is the new CP/M, a bit past its prime as a holdover from the last decade.

Windows Mobile is the new DOS, struggling to clone and conquer yesterday's standard.

Apple's OS X is the new Mac, an intelligent rethinking of how things should work.

Linux is the new Amiga, a tinker fantasy that will ultimately go nowhere until it finds a driver.

Symbian is the new Unix: the commercial standard currently powering the majority of mobiles.
We all know what happened to CP/M. It went the way of the dinosaur although many people remember it fondly for its simplicity and low overhead. DOS, too had its proponents again for its simplicity. Amiga won a set of niches and hung on for a long time until the other OSes finally overtook it. Finally, Unix holds sway in academic circles to this day so maybe there’s hope for Symbian after all.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Android OS—Catering to the Developer

2008-12-12T06:48:00.000-06:00

As I wrote in my blog last week, Android’s claim to a premier position in the mobile phone OS battlefield is its openness. In this blog post, the author compares Android to the iPhone and other OSes. The Android OS is truly open while the iPhone is nearly there and Windows Mobile is not even close. Symbian plans to open up its OS in the coming two years which may be too late to catch up to the rest.

The range of developer sites is much more robust than other OSes such as HelloAndroid. Also missteps from the Apple developer program launch – check out this post --remind me of Apple’s original closed-box strategy in the 1980s in which they were developer-antagonistic to the point of legal action.

Usability is another vector to consider. In this blog post the author praises Android’s ease of use compared to all other OSes including Windows Mobile.

In the end it comes down to execution. The announced Google phones this year are having problems getting ready for launch. That’s not too surprising. Anyone doing anything of substance has problems getting it out the door. If you’re not having problems then you’re probably doing something incremental.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Mobile Phone Operating Systems – The Next Battlefield

2008-12-04T21:11:00.000-06:00

The Apple OS vs. the Windows OS raged as the dominant technology war in the 1990s. Today, the Windows OS appears to be going on social security with the failed launch of Vista and the hurried up release of Windows 7. Windows, once the up and coming darling is now the evil empire. Apple’s OS while suffering from many of the same legacy software issues such as security does a much better job in designing and marketing that most people don’t notice it much. But we grow weary of these players and look to the next battlefield – mobile phones where the operating system becomes equally important. But you ask why have mobile phones been around for twenty years and yet the OS has not been mainline news? The answer – computer-like capabilities are now on the mobile phone. When started, the mobile phone made calls and that was it. Today, they not only make calls, but also take and store photographs and video, play music, surf the web, and so much more that an operating system is now needed. Thus the battle begins – which OS? How much openness is needed? How much ease of use? What standards to set in applications? And the list goes on which defines the battle ground for the next step of technology wars.

Just as in the PC wars, so the operating system landscape appears to be shaping up in a similar way. In the PC days, we started with DOS. A basic, rudimentary, close to the iron software that worked well enough for simple tasks. In the mobile phone world, Symbian fits this role. Then came Apple’s OS with a better GUI and the landscape changed. The iPhone comes with a nice user interface from Apple. While Windows had a response with its Windows Mobile, it’s Google who provides the compelling response with its Android. In the PC days, Apple was closed and Microsoft countered with an open OS called Windows. In the mobile phone days, it’s Google’s Android that provides the openness developers require. Google will be the primary competitor to Apple, not Microsoft.

The operating system is core to the growth of the Smartphone – the segment of the mobile phone market that will grow from $39 billion in 2007 to $95 billion in 2013. While current efforts focus on the hardware – flip phone vs. multitouch screens vs. QWERTY keyboards, and more, the focus will soon shift to software, services, and content.

RIM is also a current player but they remind me of Lotus 1-2-3 for the early PC. Lotus defined the term “killer app” which is an application that drove both hardware platform sales as well as the application itself. RIM is the Lotus 1-2-3 of the mobile phone world in which users buy the phone so they can access their email, but that’s about it. The screen, layout, OS, and more won’t support them in the long haul.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Open Source Virtual Instrumentation—FPGA’s Leveraging the Design

2008-11-14T06:34:00.000-06:00

In my last post on Open Source Virtual Instrumentation we looked at how open source conditions can be achieved by simply opening up the LabVIEW code for an application such as seen by the Virtual Microscope project in which all the LabVIEW code is available on Sourceforge.

There’s also OpenG who provides a source of information on open source LabVIEW. Jeffrey Travis runs a site with open source tools.

With the advent of the FPGA, virtual instrumentation finds a new phase of development. The FPGA brings software closer to the task at hand (data collection, control, synchronization, etc.). In this paper the authors propose a set of blocks mapping to an FPGA-based system to create a reconfigurable virtual instrumentation system.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Mirror Actuators in Telescope Applications

2008-11-07T06:27:00.000-06:00

As discussed in previous posts, large telescopes today use a segmented mirror approach due to the deformation of mirrors larger than 5m. To this end, mirror actuators become a critical component of telescope design. A long-time National Instruments partner, Physik Instrumente uses nanopositioning techniques to provide 6 degrees of freedom control on the mirrors. Mirror actuators are critical as they represent a large portion of the failures in existing actuators.

The TMT telescope which stands for Thirty Meter Telescope solves the problem by shrinking the individual mirror size down to 1 foot and then applying many more actuators to the mirror to deform the shape to correct for atmospheric conditions.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Adaptive Optics – Correcting the Image

2008-10-31T06:56:00.001-05:00

Adaptive Optics is the correction of optical distortions caused by atmospheric conditions (on telescopes) using spatial phase modulator such as a deformable mirror.

For an example of the image improvements that adaptive optics provides check out the view on this page. A “calibration” of sorts must be made to tune the adaptive optics system. If there is a guide star in the sky near the area of interest then that can be used. If not, most telescopes shoot a laser into the sky that causes a sodium gas to glow about 60 miles out. The telescope focuses on this glow and calibrates the system for it.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Modeling Sky in 3 Dimensions—Using Google Earth to View the Sky

2008-10-24T06:38:00.000-05:00

In working with the team at the European Southern Observatory, I learned that most telescopes around the world are oversubscribed for usage by 4x. It’s very hard to get access to a high-end telescope for observation time. Yes. There are that many researchers and scientists working to make out the galaxies, stars, and other astronomical phenomenon.

To this end, the Sloan digital sky survey project seeks to survey and map in 3D the sky. To date, its efforts cover over one quarter of the sky which includes over one million galaxies and quasars. By using a 120 Megapixel camera capturing 1.2 degrees of the sky at a time, the project captures data through high speed software pipes to build a truly unique image of the stars.

Jim Gunn of Princeton started a similar effort with his Galaxy Catalog using the Palomar Observatory

The Samuel Oschin Telescope has been surveying the skies since 1948 and searches for moving objects and variable stars and galaxies. Using a ‘drift scan mode’ the shutter remains open and the telescope fixed at specific declination to capture the movement of the stars which creates a circular pattern.

Google joined the effort by giving its Google Earth the capability to view the sky. You can see more here.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Technologies behind Giant Telescopes

2008-10-16T20:04:00.001-05:00

Telescopes for centuries were built with a single reflective mirror. To see further in the distance, the mirror was increased in size. This worked up to about 5 meters in diameter before the mirror starts to deform due to breadth of the mirror and the impact of wind, gravity, and other factors. With the Keck telescope a new age of telescope was born using segmented mirrors each controlled individually.

Key technologies behind a large telescope such as the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) by the European Southern Observatory include

Mirror actuators
Mirror metrology
Wind analysis & control
Mirror Phasing
Friction and drive systems
Option fabrication
Adaptive Optics
Fast optical detectors
Fibre lasers
And more

We'll explore these areas in the coming weeks.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Technologies behind Giant Telescopes

2008-10-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

Google Phone – A Better Fit for Virtual Instrumentation than the iPhone?

2008-10-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

The Google phone is now available. The Apple iPhone received coverage based on the multitouch screen technology. While that may be helpful to virtual instrumentation what is even more valuable is its ability to find the best price available for mobile services. In the early days of NI working with wireless we invited partners to give presentations on their experience with wireless communications and their test and measurement applications. In one presentation, the partner spent the entire hour talking about the various tradeoffs among the services -- what services worked in what application and how the price varied based on data volume, time of day, etc. The ability to turn all that over to the phone is a big boost to bringing wireless to the virtual instrument application.

The Google phone may also be better positioned for virtual instrumentation given its open platform. Apple took quite a while before offering an SDK for their phone and since then they rigorously monitor what applications are made available. Google’s approach is much more open and inviting to developers letting the developer customize the phone to their application. Customizability is one of the key tenets of virtual instrumentation.

I’m not alone at National Instruments looking for the day that LabVIEW runs full blown on the iPhone, the GPhone or whatever’s next. In this blog post, fellow NIer Deirdre Walsh considers the implications of LabVIEW on the Gphone.

Louis Gray wrote an insightful post on Google’s strength – web apps over its weakness – media downloads which points to more web applications coming to the Google phone.

Best regards,
Hall T.

High-Productivity Computing –Another market index

2008-10-03T06:41:00.001-05:00

Here’s a new twist on HPC or high performance computing. It’s called High Productivity Computing which encompasses not only high-speed processing, but also visualization, multicore processing, middleware, processors, storage and more. For stock watchers they created an index of companies that comprise the high performance computing market which includes the major hardware and software vendors in the industry such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, Microsoft, and more. They also include National Instruments. The list of leans toward companies participating in next generation technologies such as FPGAs, cloud computing, and web 2.0 technologies and away from the older generation of industrial automation, test and measurement, and control. For example, Agilent doesn’t come up nor does ABB, or Rockwell.

This may be an interesting index to watch.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Research Blogging – Bringing Blogging to the Engineering and Scientific Community

2008-09-26T06:43:00.000-05:00

There are 100 million bloggers out there of which I am one. Blogging opens up the web to the human voice which is often lost in the barrage of press releases that hit the news world. Science and engineering are driven by peer-review. Now comes Research Blogging which is a website for submitting and reviewing peer-reviewed information on scientific and engineering topics. The media comes into play with hype and sometimes hysteria – remember how CERN’s Large Hadron Collider was going to create a black hole that would consume the earth? The Research Blogging site takes back the science and engineering world communications and places it back into peer-review mode.

Best regards,
Hall T.

International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves – Terahertz for Life

2008-09-19T08:16:00.001-05:00

I recently attended the IRMMW-THz 2008 conference at CalTech in which they theme of the conference is “Terahertz for Life” which represents the expansion of Terahertz research from optics and communications to include big physics and life science. Terahertz waves are now applied to chemistry, biophysics and medicine, as well as astrophysics and astronomy.

Terahertz extends from frequencies of 0.3THz (a wavelength of 1 mm) to 10 THz (30 micrometers) which offer unique imaging properties. The short wavelengths of terahertz rays provide enough spatial resolution for 3D micro imaging. Also, they don’t have physiological damaging effects as X-rays.

There are several ways to generate terahertz waves. Lasers are the preferred method. Laser light can control at a high level the spectral and temporal elements.

In the exhibit area were several companies with systems for controlling terahertz signals for commercial and research applications. There was Loeffler-Technology which performs mm-wave imaging with terahertz signals for package inspection and security exploration. The demo unit showed a terahertz signal that could measure the both sides of a box with a single scan and thus providing a near 3D image of it. It could also detect hidden weapons such as a gun hidden underneath clothing. The product is called SynViewScan 300.

Another group called Toptica Photonics which makes tunable diode lasers. Their research shows that the optical beat frequency of two slightly detuned CW lasers lies in the terahertz region. Through the accurate frequency control of two seed lasers, they can produce a narrow-band tunable terahertz beat frequency.

Emcore makes fiber optic equipment and uses terahertz in their systems for spectroscopy measurements.

Best regards,
Hall T.

International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves – Terahertz for Life

2008-09-19T08:16:00.000-05:00

LabVIEW for Big Physics Applications

2008-09-12T06:54:00.001-05:00

At the Texas Petawatt laser dedication I met with John Porter from Sandia which has the Z-machine which generates 290 Terrawatts of power. It’s the world’s largest X-ray generation machine. It has achieved nearly 2M degrees in temperature which is the point in which nuclear fusion takes place. LabVIEW is used for various control systems such as the spectroscope.

Petawatt developments use LabVIEW to a great extent for control and monitoring of the system. In this blog the author used LabVIEW to automated the SDG II of his system. GSI in Germany used LabVIEW to automate a variety of applications and went so far as to develop an Object-Oriented Toolbox for those seeking OOP capabilities. You can find out more about the toolbox at this site.

Best regards,
Hall T.

National Ignition Facility – LabVIEW Saving 400 Man-hours

2008-09-05T06:46:00.000-05:00

In last week’s dedication of the Texas Petawatt laser, I met with Edward Moses of the National Ignition Facility which has commissioned 184 of the 192 beam lines. The purpose of the project is to understand fusion energy in a way that can lead to lower cost energy sources for the future. Also, nuclear testing and astronomical phenomenon can be studied with it. It’s the size of three football fields and sits in a ten-story building at Lawrence Livermore National Labs. It’ll focus two million joules of ultraviolet energy.

LabVIEW is used in a number of applications such as damage assessment testing. In this paper the author describes the collection of test data from several sites within the NIF and then performing signal cleaning algorithms with LabVIEW to automate the process. For 80% of the cases, automation takes care of the work saving 400 man-hours 0ver a three year period.

Best regards,
Hall T.

The Texas Petawatt Laser Facility Dedicated by Kay Bailey Hutchison

2008-08-29T06:50:00.000-05:00

The Texas Petawatt laser facility was dedicated yesterday with the President of UT, John Powers and the US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison standing up to provide thanks and remarks for this notable event.

The design is based on the Lawrence Livermore National Labs version. The lab can generate 190 joules compressing this energy to a pulse duration of less than 170 femtoseconds (a femtosecond is one quadrillionth of a second).

The goal of the project is to generate energy using chirped pulse amplification. Chirped pulse amplification originally came from the area of radar but has been extended into the field of optics for laser applications. The chirped pulse amplification method takes a short, low-energy laser pulse, stretches it in time by a factor of about 10,000, and amplifies it. It then compresses the final, amplified pulse back down to a duration near that of the initial laser pulse, according to this source. By generating such high energy the lab seeks to study the elements of matter in extreme conditions such as those found in supernovas and brown dwarfs.

In dedicating the Petawatt Laser one speaker used a quote from Edwin Hubble,
"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science."
You can see a video of the internal lab at this YouTube site.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Wireless Power – New Steps from MIT

2008-08-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

Last year I blogged on wireless power which used the technique of vibrating a piezoelectric circuit with an ultrasonic wave and converting that circuit vibration into mechanical power to charge a battery. A player in this field appears to be Powercast which doesn’t define clearly their technology but appears to use the piezo crystal technique.

Splashpower is a commercial example using magnetic coupling to transfer energy through wireless means. Implementations of this sort require near contact of the device and vibration source.

MIT now has a technique using two magnetic coils to create what is similar to magnetic inductive coupling. The difference is that the MIT solution uses resonance to transfer the energy. By using two coils that have the same resonate frequency they are able to transfer power through the air. In this case they are using a 10 MHz frequency to transfer over a distance of two meters.

While the efficiency is far from commercial in its application it highlights an area of research worth pursuing. It’ll be interesting to see where they take this.

Best regards,
Hall T.

MIT Technology Review’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2008

2008-08-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite reads is MIT’s Technology Review because they truly write about emerging technology. While not all of the technologies make their way into widely used applications, the magazine’s Top 10 list serves as a bellwether on the direction of technology. This year’s list, includes:

1.Modeling Surprise
2.Probabilistic Chips
3.Nanoradio
4.Wireless Power
5.Atomic Magnetometers
6.Offline web applications
7.Graphene Transistors
8.Connectomcs
9.Reality Mining
10.Cellolytic Enzymes

Nanoradio sounds interesting. According to Wikipedia, it’s the implementation of radio on the nanoscale. Researchers at Berkeley were able to make a Nanoradio using carbon nanotubes to act as the antenna, tuner, and amplifier of a radio. It uses mechanical vibration rather than RF waves to capture the signal.

Commercial applications have attached themselves to the name. According to this company’s website it is the convergence of wireless with fixed telephony.

Best regards,
Hall T.

The Laws of Exponential Growth Drive Emerging Technology Adoption

2008-08-08T06:22:00.000-05:00

We all know Moore’s Law which states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 2 years. This explains the growth of computing power at an exponential rate. This type of growth is not confined only to processing power but can be found in other areas of technology. There’s Metcalf’s Law which states the value of a network increases exponentially based on the number of nodes or users in the network. Then there’s Cooper’s Law which states that the data capacity of wireless communications doubles roughly every two years. Then there’s Kryder’s Law which states that the capacity of hard drives doubles every year – even faster than Moore’s Law.

This partially explains the advance of technology over the past 30 years. It’s not just the computation processing that has progressed but also the wireless, storage, and networking capabilities as well.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Semantic Web—Another run at Artificial Intelligence?

2008-07-31T19:38:00.000-05:00

Another emerging trend underway, and for some time now, is the Semantic Web. In a nutshell it’s the next generation of web technology which will use semantics or “knowledge” of the person making a request to generate a response. To date, web searches are based on keyword matches, but in the future it will take much more into account such as the background of the requester, the information requested, and the context in which the request is made.

In many posts on the semantic web I find a connection to “artificial intelligence.” Having worked on artificial intelligence in the 1980’s I know something about the challenges of AI. First, AI suffered from a PR problem. If it was solvable, it was no longer AI. Second, AI was very particular about what kinds of problems it would solve – so particular that it had limited usefulness coupled with unlimited expectations from the users. In this post the proponents of the semantic web try to distance themselves from AI. Some argue that the Semantic Web pursues the current goals of AI which is to create machines that exhibit intelligent behavior rather than the original goals of AI which was to create human-level intelligence.

Social networking currently drives the development of the internet through social linking. The semantic web in its academic form drives knowledge through tagging information and linking together those tagged items. In this paper, the authors argue that Metcalfe’s Law (the value of the network increases exponentially based on the number of nodes in the network) will apply only if social networking and semantic tagging come together.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Virtualization Performance –Real-time Environments vs. Server Environments

2008-07-25T06:56:00.000-05:00

Most users today consider Virtualization as it is applied to the server space. VMWare takes the dominant position in this market. But Virtualization for real-time systems requires a distinctly different set of characteristics. The environment is very different and thus requires a different approach. The Virtual Logix value proposition focuses on virtualization for real-time and network systems. Real-time systems require general purpose OS (GPOS) and real-time OS (RTOS) support. There are tradeoff requirements between performance and isolation of processes. In the server environment it’s all about I/O throughput. In the real-time world, latency, timing, and determinism are also important. In the server world, device drivers consist of disks and networks while in the real-time world there are many types of device drivers including both virtual and physical.

Another difference is the heavy set of Windows-based drivers from the 1990s. For companies with legacy software built in the Windows-era virtualization reuses those drivers without having to rewrite them in Linux, real-time, Macintosh OS, or any other OS. Performance can also be enhanced by applying a unique set of security, redundancy, and management tools on each core. For sensitive information, high security could be applied to one core, while for performance a different set of management criteria could be applied to another. Server environments focus often on security while real-time systems focus more often on performance.

Since performance is a key issue in deploying virtualization in an application, it’s interesting to look at the benchmarks. Fundamentally, adding more layers of software would indicate more overhead and to certain extent that’s the case with virtualization technology. The overhead for an arithmetic/floating point calculation is about 1% for Windows-based system. For multi core efficiency there’s a 7% hit and for physical disk reads there’s no overhead. In some ways that’s not too much of a hit.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Using Virtualization to Build the Next Mobile Phone

2008-07-18T08:19:00.000-05:00

VirtualLogix brings its virtualization software to the mobile phone. In this example a mobile phone designer used one chip for both the baseband access and the operating system thus reducing the number of chips in the phone. This starts to look a little bit like software defined radio where more and more of the functionality of the phone moves from hardware into software.

The mobile phone is rich with features with varying requirements – some features require security, others require ease of use, and so on. Virtualization solves the problem by customizing each feature with its own virtual machine. Chips are reused, software is customized, and the entire unit goes to the next level of efficiency. Check out this blog post on the subject.

Another benefit of virtualization for the mobile phone is the ability to gather up any application regardless of the OS in which it is written and bring it together into a single phone. In this article the author shows how one can take Blackberry applications and run them on the iPhone using virtualization techniques.

If virtualization can optimize and speed the build out of a mobile phone, then it could certainly help optimize and build out a measurement and automation system. Given the rise of Linux and the need to combine it with legacy Windows-based device drivers, virtualization can become rather attractive.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Virtualization from AMD – Solving it at the Hardware Level

2008-07-11T06:43:00.000-05:00

Virtualization continues to drive technology development. In the past few weeks we’ve looked at the basics of virtualization and Intel’s offering. Key issues for implementing virtualization at the chip level is memory management, virtual machine switching times, and CPU transfer to target area – memory, I/O, etc.

AMD offers hardware support under the name “AMD-V” in its Opteron line of chips for virtualization. This technology offloads the hypervisor by handling many of the memory management requirements through the use of larger caches, memory space protections, and paging algorithms for faster data transfer.

Microsoft and AMD co wrote a whitepaper describing virtualization. In addition to the hardware capabilities of AMD’s line of processors which shifts functions from the software into the hardware itself, there are software tools from Microsoft called Virtual Server 2005 which works with MS Windows Server 2003 offering VHD mounting, support for hardware –assisted virtualization, and new performance advantages including Volume Shadow Copy Service for backups and disaster recovery. There’s also support for running Linux operating systems

A great resource for news in virtualization can be found at the Sys-Con site, as well as Insight24’s slate of papers.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Virtualization for Today’s Servers and Other Applications

2008-07-04T07:58:00.000-05:00

As devices such as set-top boxes, mobile phones, servers, and others become more complex, virtualization steps in to provide the solution to make numerous OS and applications work together in a single environment. In addition to consolidation of multiple OSes and applications, virtualization also offers additional reliability and security. Better reliability comes from using fault-tolerant architectures in which one core backs up another core. Better security comes from using different security settings on each core to customize the application for the target user.

One of the challenges in running multiple OSes in a “virtual” environment is that most OSes were designed to run at the highest priority level. In most cases, the primary OS runs at the highest level and guest OSes run at lower levels.

Intel offers tools to improve virtualization. Hardware support includes a set of queues for buffering up I/O requests from the hypervisor software. Intel offers an even higher priority level for the virtualization software and lets the original OSes run in their normal mode. Also, the hardware supports memory mapping and helps manage transitions from one OS to the other through the use of registers and queues.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Virtualization – Managing Competing OSes

2008-06-27T06:54:00.000-05:00

Gartner recently voted Virtualization as a top ten technology trend in the market today. Not only Gartner, but other sites and groups are voting it in as well. Since Virtualization has been around for over 40 years, why is it suddenly making its way to the top ten lists? In short, the rise of competing operating systems as viable challengers to Windows. Linux comes up in discussions more and more these days. Customers don’t want to pay for the Windows license in research and academic institutions. A free copy of Linux will do just fine, thank you.

In general virtualization stands for abstraction of computing resources. It hides the implementation of an application. VMware takes an x86 processor and makes it work on multiple applications with multiple operating systems.

Virtual Logix is a leading supplier of virtualization software that runs real-time, Linux, and other OSes such as Windows in separate cores. Each core runs separately but the software provides communication between the cores.

This type of virtualization let’s one run device drivers in one OS but let’s applications in another OS make use of that device driver. The VLX software “virtualizes” that device driver and synchronizes the use of the device driver across multiple OSes.

LabVIEW pioneered virtualization from the beginning by abstracting away the details of instrumentation programming. Everything was viewed through the lens of software which in the early 1980’s was a radical departure from the norm. Today, the same concept of virtualization is now applied to a new set of technologies such as multicore programming, FPGAs, and real-time systems.

A rich resource on the topic is a blog run by Tom Maila called ExpressionFlow which highlights concepts and ideas regarding object-oriented programming and the impact on visualization.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Hybrid Processors—Combining FPGAs with Traditional Microprocessors

2008-06-13T06:46:00.001-05:00

A new processor is coming onto the technology landscape today called hybrid processor. Which combines FPGA flexibility with traditional microprocessor architectures.

Intel is working on the Larrabee architecture which is a next generation gpu with 16 cores (or more) that eventually will be merged with standard microprocessors to create a hybrid processor.

AMD’s hybrid processor is called Fusion and has been in the news for so long it now has its own Wikipedia page.

Berkeley researches this area in a program called Chess with applications in systems, control, autonomous systems, modeling and computation.

The key to achieving performance with a hybrid processor is software that maps an application efficiently onto the multiple cores. In this survey the software platform needs to provide performance, advanced debug support, determinism, and thread locking to fully engage the potential of a hybrid. Numerous examples of compilers offer solutions based on C and other languages. FPGAs can process iterative functions such as matrix multiplication more efficiently than traditional processors while file I/O and housekeeping tasks are not as well suited. In this paper the authors argue for a simplistic software mapping of functions into hardware.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Medical Applications on the Mobile Phone – It’s Here

2008-06-06T06:45:00.000-05:00

As the mobile phone becomes cheaper and more useful it’s now being used for medical applications. Business Week recently ran an article on how the phone is used to take medical images and ultrasound measurements. In addition, to non-measurement tasks, the iPhone is an ideal platform for viewing electrocardiograms and other medical information on a patient.

In this example researchers at Berkeley use a mobile phone to transmit an image (captured with a data acquisition device) to a central server for processing which returns the image back to the mobile phone for display to the user. The phone acts as a transmission and display device and works with a server and an image processing system to provide the medical image required.

Another application from UC Berkeley is the Cellscope which uses the camera feature of a mobile phone to magnify (from 2x to 50x) an image of a body part (mouth, ear canal, skin, etc) and then send the image via wireless for analysis by a doctor or specialist.

The Motorola Q phone comes with a medical application for labor and delivery. It provides real time waveform data of fetal heart tracing and maternal contraction patterns.

For a number of years now, researchers applied the mobile phone to Body Sensor Networks which monitors the health of a patient. The mobile phone analyzes, stores, and transmits the data to the healthcare provider.

Medical applications on the mobile phone are here and now. It’s amazing what can be done with commercial off –the-shelf technology when applied with a little innovation.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Big Physics Funding in the US and Elsewhere

2008-05-30T06:43:00.000-05:00

The US Department of Energy (DOE) leads the world in the conception and design of large scale science projects. In their 2003 report called Facilities for the Future of Science: a 20 Year Outlook and the interim report last year showing progress, the department highlights their progress.

Near term priorities include the ITER, medium term includes the Linear Collider, and long-term includes the National Synchrotron Light Source upgrade.

What’s surprising about the report is how low the funding is compared to the European Union. The Europeans are outspending the US by a factor of 3. The US has diverted a substantial amount of funding from basic science into homeland security. Some of that work is being done at the major US labs but in general the US labs are downsizing their workforce – especially at the SLAC and ILC.

In scanning web it’s clear this problem has been coming for a few years now. Reports from Wired magazine and others describe the budget reduction from $60M to $15M. In this post the author describes the impending budget crises at the ILC and SLAC based on projections late last year. Labs are laying off employees and finding ways to cut costs. Fermilab even as a web page dedicated to layoffs providing details.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Thomson Scattering Technique –Measuring the Plasma Wave

2008-05-23T09:07:00.000-05:00

Recently I attended the High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics conference in Albuquerque. The show focused on measuring the plasma wave primarily in Tokamaks. The primary technique is called Thomson scattering named after its discoverer JJ Thomson. The technique measures the scattering of electromagnetic radiation by a charged particle. A plasma wave accelerates the particle which in turn emits radiation and scatters the wave.

In the conference we saw numerous signal types used for the measurement including microwave, millimeter, acoustic, ultrasound, and others. Virtual Instrumentation was used for the control of the system as well as the data acquisition portion of the signal. The conference was well attended with over 250 people in the room.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Mobile Internet Devices—Low Cost Wireless Devices Enable Virtual Instrumentation Applications

2008-05-16T06:43:00.001-05:00

Computers continue to shrink in size and increase in power and performance. The laptop is now considered bulky even unwieldy. The mobile phone as you may know by reading previous posts is the next step in computation delivery. Every day one can see the shift to hand held devices. As the user tries to step away from the PC there’s a middle ground some fall into called Mobile Internet Devices – a term coined by Intel to describe computers smaller than a laptop but not as small as a mobile phone. Intel provides the Atom chip previously called the Silverthorne to power these devices. Most of the examples listed below use Linux as the OS and provide a wireless connection to the internet. It appears Microsoft will take another hit as the industry moves around its proprietary operating system which for many applications today is overkill and overpriced.

Elektrobit offers a Mobile Internet Multimedia device. It offers both Wi-Fi and WiMAX broadband connectivity and a Linux OS.

Asus offers the eePC which looks like a slimmed down laptop that uses WiFi to connect to the internet. The cost is equally slimmed down.

The Aigo MID borrows heavily from the iPhone and has something of a cheesy quality to it.

LG, Lenovo, and BenQ offer their versions as well.

The mobile internet device brings another low-cost, commercial off the shelf technology to solving virtual instrumentation applications. Low cost devices connected wirelessly to the internet enables applications deployment for many users.

Best regards,
Hall T.

High Performance Computing – Increasing Computational Performance with Hardware

2008-05-09T06:46:00.000-05:00

Computing performance has slowed down from the high gains made in the 1990s. This is due to the shift from higher performance cores to multiple cores in cpus. Part of the problem is related to the software issues of programming multiple threads and part of the problem is the hardware itself. Hence the rise of GPUs or graphical processor units.

The traditional definition of high performance computing focused on achieving supercomputer performance through clustering of computers. With the advent of graphical processing units most notably led by Nvidia and AMD, the high performance computing now stands for using lower-end computers and customizing the code to make use of their graphs processor units.

The IDC reports strong growth in the HPC segment with a shift to higher performance including the petaflop range and the move to fiber for interconnects.

A rich resource of information is the general purpose computation using gpus (graphics processing units). Additional information can be found at GameDev.Net.

Players in this space include Acceleware which makes turn-key solutions with vertical solutions in seismic and imaging applications. Their partners include the usual suspects, Nvidia, AMD, Dell, Sun, and HP.

Rapidmind offers a modular based solution with an elegant API that focuses on single-threaded, multi-core solutions using CPUs and GPUs. They steer clear of the multi-threaded approach due to the complexity of the code. They offer solutions to the desktop and medical imaging and financial analysis markets.

ClearSpeed takes the accelerator approach building custom cpus onto its own proprietary hardware and then optimizing its software to work with it.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Cloud Computing—Increasing Capacity without Increasing Costs

2008-05-02T06:41:00.000-05:00

As with many emerging technologies it starts with a distant voice. It has a cool-sounding name and it starts to come up in articles and conversations but only peripherally. Cloud computing fits the model as I’ve heard it come up several times but what exactly is it? What is it not? According to Wikipedia it’s the use of virtualization technologies to simplify the data center. There is some disagreement over what cloud computing actually means. Some take it for anything outside their own companies system, while others define it more narrowly as utility computing. The benefits are clear – it provides additional bandwidth without having to invest into additional infrastructure. The upshot of it is that it will most definitely change the way companies handle IT. In this article the author predicts the transformation of the IT industry by shifting the infrastructure within a company to outside. Just as Software as a Service model has shifted software sales from perpetual license models to pay-by-the-drip models, so the core IT infrastructure will follow the same path.

Current reviews of the technology show that as an emerging technology it appeals to small and startup companies but not the large enterprise user yet which parallels most emerging technologies in that it leverages the newer business models more so than the established ones. The primary advantage is the lower cost. While the previous article focuses on IT applications, virtual instrumentation applications could also make use of cloud computing for data storage and test applications.

For virtual instrumentation, the IT infrastructure is a part of many applications for data storage, reporting, and analysis of data. As the cost comes down and the access to capacity goes up, this should provide an improvement in ROI for virtual instrumentation-based projects.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Modu – The Core of a Mobile Phone

2008-04-25T06:43:00.000-05:00

If you could take the mobile phone apart and then use the blocks to imbue another device with wireless communications capability, what would you call it? Try Modu which breaks the mobile phone down into its core components and makes wireless communications into a module that can be combined and reconfigured to work with a variety of devices.

Currently, users have one phone which they use for everything but there are times when a user could benefit from a phone customized to the activity – say a ruggedized phone for outdoor applications, or a business phone for the office, or a gaming phone for play. The Modu module can fit inside a larger case creating a customized phone for each application. The screen and battery are also adaptable to the application.

The unit weighs than less than 1.5 ounces and is smaller than an iPod Nano. You can see a video of the developers describing the modu on YouTube. The mobile phone is growing not only in subscribers but also in functionality. Breaking it down into a set of standard components positions itself for use in virtual instrumentation applications.

Best regards,
Hall T.