The Embedded Beat: Freescale Blog Community - Smart Mobile Devices

Will the Internet of Things (IoT) turn your smart phone into the center of the universe?

r62516@freescale.com — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:57:34 GMT

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours trying to explain to a colleague the IoT, covering the building blocks from the edge of the network with sensing nodes, to the core of the network and cloud based processing, and everything in between. I drew a bubble diagram that shows the layers of embedded processing and connectivity and went on to explain the underlying requirements of each node.

However, I seemed to hit a mental block as he repeatedly brought to my attention the role of the smart phone and today’s cellular operators, how the IoT is all about new apps running on your smart phone controlling various “parts of life” around you, and how exciting it would be to bring the world of apps into your home — and that’s what IoT is all about. I have to admit that I certainly am a fan of my Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone, and turning it to the center of certain home services is quite appealing to me. However, how much of this matches the reality of IoT when it gets rolled out?

Telematics services today are packaged by operators as machine to machine (M2M) technology services, which are being offered to businesses for a variety of applications. A lot of focus is given to business insight (code word for "Big Data" analysis), with the hypothesis that connected machines are fast becoming the eyes and ears of the enterprise, and by adding sensors and networking technologies to the products they sell and the equipment they employ, companies can find new ways to gather powerful insights and use new forms of data. For example, the Verizon advertisement for their M2M telematics services states: “With the influx of device-generated data, businesses can improve decision making and respond more quickly to customer demands. And customer-centric innovations enhance customer satisfaction and provide serious differentiation.” In fact, Verizon was named the Best Telematics Service Provider at the 2012 Telematics Detroit conference. Services offered include asset tracking, fleet management and remote monitoring, among others.

I realize that I have seen the advertisements for these kinds of services by operators around the world before. The ads feature a smiling individual using the touch screen of a tablet or cell phone to make things happening remotely. Voila, now I know why my colleague looks at IoT the way he does — he has been watching too much television!

I changed the diagram, and looked at it from a box level point of view. And yes, cell phones and tablets do show up in a couple of places:

As mentioned in my original IoT whitepaper titled, What the Internet of Things (IoT) Needs to Become a Reality, there are as many edge/sensing node types as there are applications, however all could (or would) include:

• An MCU

• Sensors and actuators

• Integrated modem chip (connectivity)

• Energy source

For the initial rollout, these nodes need to be very small, low cost, low power, low complexity, and robust. Here are a couple of examples, with one being an event monitoring module, and the other Medtronics’ glucose monitoring device that uses Bluetooth to communicate with various gateways. The edge node will always be communicating with a gateway/hub, which in turn will communicate with the core network and cloud based processing. Ninety nine plus percent of the time, that gateway is in form of a box, with potentially interactive screen that allows the user or the gateway/hub to communicate with various “things”, collect the data, using embedded processors, decide on either local actions (based on services, user preferences, situations, etc.), or aggregate and pass the information for cloud based processing, then receive the action directives back and send the commands to the edge nodes. With the category of products called life-style devices or wearables (depending on which analysts’ categories you follow), they will directly communicate with your cell phone and tablet, and use it as a gateway/hub. That is why Bluetooth low energy is taking off in such a big way in this segment of the industry, as all smart phones will be Bluetooth 4.0 capable in the near future, and will be able to communicate with those devices (similar to the Medtronics example from the above diagram). As a gateway, the smart phone/tablet, then sends the data to the data center for cloud based processing, and potentially receives it for the application/action part of the system (top right hand corner box). So in these cases the smart phone/tablet plays a dual role.

This, however, is a fraction of the scenarios envisioned for the IoT applications. The majority of the time it will be another gateway that will be used, and the role of a smart phone is potentially limited to the application/action part of it, and this only for services that user is aware of or allowed to intervene (again a fraction of a fraction of the time).

Now let’s consider the role of the cellular infrastructure in the above diagram. It is extremely doubtful that cellular will be used for any Body Area Network (BAN), Personal Area Network (PAN), or Local Area Network (LAN) applications. That leaves a means for supporting the Wide Area Network (WAN) communications. Rolling out the IoT is like rolling out the largest control data network in the world, hence significantly more data will need to get to the cloud than today, and by some estimates, by 2020 that data traffic will increase by 22X.

Wireless WAN solutions aimed at smartphones (ala LTE) cannot scale, as already 80 percent smart phone data today is offloaded to WiFi networks. How would an LTE network, which is ill-suited to support a lot of IoT services that require building penetration of the signals, use its precious spectrum to support IoT WAN services? Note that cellular networks are only one of the many options that will be available to support the WAN services. The cheapest way obviously is the use of a wired access point, such as a T1 line, and if it is over-fiber optics lines, so much better. Other candidates that are heavily pursued by utility providers, include various forms of power line communications. Then there is 802.11ah, which is on the drawing board and aims to operate at sub-gig frequencies which will increase its range and also will have much better in building coverage than LTE does. Last but not least are the new disruptive standards such as Weightless from Neul, which uses TV white space, and aims at supporting a 10km range, with devices able to have 10-year battery life, and terminal cost of around $2, supporting around 20Mbps.

Here’s a pictorial view of some of the communication standards being considered for various parts of this heterogeneous data network, which is expected to become the largest control data network in the world.

If I was a betting man, I would pick technologies such as Weightless and 802.11ah as the wireless WAN technologies of choice, before I assume LTE would have a role in most of IoT WAN related applications.

I will now go back to my brainwashed colleague who watches too much television, and ask again if he believes his smartphone will become the center of IoT universe.

The i.MX 6 series: Getting it done (Part 3 of capabilities convergence, device divergence)

admin@community.freescale.com — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:08:48 GMT

The i.MX 6 Series Ecosystem

As part of Freescale’s premiere series of Smart Application Blueprint for Rapid Engineering (SABRE) market-focused development systems, Freescale has deployed three SABRE designs focused on automotive infotainment, smart devices, and the general embedded market, as well an evaluation kit (EVK) based on the i.MX 6SoloLite, which drives current and next-generation electronic paper display (EPD) panels. The SABRE board for smart devices, SABRE platform for smart devices, SABRE for automotive infotainment and the i.MX 6SoloLite EVK provide customers with the board layout, circuit design, software and other documentation necessary to quickly produce their own i.MX 6 series-based platforms.

Freescale has been working with the leading embedded system design companies, OS vendors, tools vendors, and application developers to create one of the broadest ecosystems in the industry supporting the i.MX 6 series. This is a critical aspect to the i.MX 6 series as it enables broad choices and options in designing products for the processor family. And with the recently improved online i.MX Community within the Freescale Community, the ability to find answers to your design and development questions has never been easier.

In Summary

The market for intelligent devices is increasing exponentially. Tomorrow’s smart devices, auto infotainment and in-flight entertainment systems, medical systems, personal and enterprise-class intelligent control and data systems, and new classes of devices never before seen need to present data and user interface choices to the end user primarily through rich sound, video, voice, pictures and touch, rather than keyboards and mice.

The need for manufacturers to quickly provide multiple devices to fit specific market segments or niches and provide their customers with a broader range of choices is increasing just as quickly. The i.MX 6 series was designed specifically to enable this new market by bringing together high-performance scalable multimedia processing, a software-compatible family of five processors and pin*-compatible processor solutions with integrated power management so that a manufacturer can deploy a full portfolio of products with a single hardware design.

The i.MX 6 series: Being the same is different. Part 2 of capabilities convergence, device divergence

admin@community.freescale.com — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:45:11 GMT

As I discussed in Part 1, in order to enable Convergence/Divergence, a processor must provide a common set of capabilities that scale so that a full redesign is not required but so much more is needed!

Let’s start with the basics. The i.MX 6 series portfolio consists of five processor families: The i.MX 6Quad, i.MX 6Dual, i.MX 6DualLite, i.MX 6Solo and i.MX 6Sololite families.

One of the more important areas is around CPU cores and multimedia. The i.MX 6 series includes single-, dual- and quad-core families based on the ARM® Cortex™-A9 architecture. Don’t have enough processing power with two cores? No problem, upgrade to the i.MX 6Quad processor. HD video playback has become a very common feature among many classes of smart devices and is fully enabled all the way down to the i.MX 6Solo processor. Need to boost your design from 1080p30 playback to 1080p60 playback? No problem, upgrade from the i.MX 6DualLite processor to the i.MX 6Dual processor.

The use of 3D graphics and multiple screens of content has become increasingly important not only for games but for creating beautiful, quickly rendered and intuitive User Interfaces. The i.MX 6 series is one of the first processors of its class with the ability to drive up to 4 independent LCDs with 4 independent streams of content with dual LVDS, Parallel, MIPI DSI, EPD or HDMI 1.4 with integrated PHY interfaces. Want to differentiate your design by including two displays (content + virtual keyboard for example)? How about 4 screens? These types of designs are useful for industrial automation, innovative tablet designs, scalable IPTV boxes, new types of TV displays and help us think about new creative ways to add value to our users. This is "Divergence" in action.

The flagship i.MX 6Quad processor includes Triple Play Graphics which includes three graphics accelerators including a dedicated, quad-core 3D rendering engine. Full screen 1080p gaming with the i.MX 6Quad processor is fun and exciting! Don’t need to drive games on a 1080p LCD screen? No problem, scale down to the i.MX 6DualLite processor and design the right product for your customers. All this multimedia scalability means that we as users have more choices in how we build products and tailor them to the markets we focus on.

The i.MX 6 series has an extensive I/O set and comes integrated with PCI-e 2.0 (with PHY), a SATA II controller*, up to 4 USB ports, up to 4 SD/SD3.0/SDXC/MMC ports, 2 CAAN and MLB150 ports for automotive, I2S, I2C, SPI, UART, a NOR controller and a 40-bit ECC NAND controller. Why is this important? Divergence requires the ability to morph the central capabilities of the device to fit new form factors and use models. That means maximizing the types of I/O ports you can attach to on the processor. For instance, if you have a differentiating companion IC with high bandwidth needs, you can attach it to the i.MX 6 series via PCI-e. That can make the difference between having a successful, industry leading product vs. a “me too” design. Again, this is Divergence in action

All of what I've discussed relates to the functionality of the i.MX 6 series. The next piece of the Convergence/Divergence puzzle is market segment qualification. By this I mean Freescale designed the i.MX 6 series from the ground up to be fully qualified for the Consumer, Industrial and Automotive market segments with up to 15 year availability^** .

These segments differ greatly in their requirements of duty cycles, temperature ranges, and longevity:

Automotive qualification: This requires the processor to integrate key automotive interfaces such as CAAN and MLB150. In addition, the processor must work within the extreme temperature ranges (-40 to 125 Deg Celsius Tjunction ) required by the automotive market. Finally, the processor must be available for up to 15 years due to the long production and support cycles required by the automotive market

Industrial qualification: The industrial market segment requires the processor to be able to run 100% of the time at 100% duty cycles, every day, 24/7. In addition, the processor must support a working temperature range of -40 to 105Deg Celsius Tjunction with many years MTBF. Industrial is by far one of the more difficult qualifications to achieve

Consumer qualification: This requires the processor to be able to run at its highest frequency to enable the best scalability for the ever changing consumer market requirements. In addition, it must work within the extended consumer temperature range of up to -40 to 105Deg C Tjunction.

Want to investigate extending your business into an entirely new market segment like Industrial? Maybe look into more consumer-centric applications? By qualifying to these market segments, the i.MX 6 series provides a key building block to do this.

The key to it all: Software, pin and power compatibility

All of this scalability does not do us much good if we have to redesign the PCB to use a different member of the i.MX 6 series every time we want to “Diverge” our product design. One of the most important aspects of the i.MX 6 series, and one of the hardest to achieve, is that Freescale designed the family to be software, pin and power compatible. You can have a processor family that is software compatible, or pin compatible or power compatible; but only when you combine all three can you achieve real scalability for an OEM designer. Simply put, Freescale designed the series so that an OEM can create a single PCB design that will enable them to deploy an i.MX 6Quad, i.MX 6Dual, i.MX 6DualLite or i.MX 6Solo processor without changing the PCB.

This is achieved by the following:

Integrated Power Management: Each processor incorporates the power distribution system necessary to enable the processors to operate with a minimal number of power rails (can be as few as 3 rails).
Pin compatibility: the i.MX 6Quad, i.MX 6Dual, i.MX 6DualLite and i.MX 6Solo processors all come in a 21x21 BGA package that is 100% pin compatible. They are literally drop in replacements.
Software compatible: Each processor utilizes IP from the others. For example, the VPU accelerator is exactly the same in all the processors where it is used. This ‘identical-IP’ approach to processor design helps software designers to write code that runs on the entire family with little or no changes.

Pin and power compatibility, common IP design, scalable processing and multimedia performance, extensive I/O and multiple market segment qualification.

These are the components that enable Convergence/Divergence and why I say "Being the Same is Different" when discussing the i.MX 6 series.

For the third and final part of this blog series, I will take a look at the ecosystem available to help you design in the i.MX 6 series.

Capabilities convergence, device divergence: How the i.MX 6 series applications processors are changing your world

admin@community.freescale.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:46:53 GMT

We are evolving to a world dominated by The Internet of Things.

If we take a broad brush historical look at the market for advanced microprocessors (those that are focused on smart devices, automotive devices, and embedded platforms),specifically over the past 12 years, what we see are market segments tightly grouped around a central set of capabilities with very little or no commonality with other segments. Starting in year 2000, the primary use of feature phones and the first generation of smartphones was for voice calls (the secondary use was for texting and email unless you had a teenage child or were a road warrior). The first two generations of PDAs were focused on applications (email, browsing, games, video). Automotive information systems were focused on GPS navigation. Deeply embedded systems like logic analyzers required small amounts of processing to enable their specific function which required heavy manual input. The point being, there were some commonalities between them but only superficially. As a result, processor companies tended to focus their microprocessor development primarily on one or two of those markets since a wide disparity existed between each market for the type of processing, multimedia and IO capabilities that customers required. And in the consumer market, the focus was always on ‘The Next Big Processor in the next 2 years’ with all the most bleeding edge, potentially untried features, some of which would not find acceptance in the market. This forced silicon companies focused on the consumer track to spend enormous resources on untried/untested technologies and ‘make the big bet’ that if they build it, customers will come.

So what changed? We, the users, did. What we expect to do on our smartphones and tablets and how we accomplish those tasks has migrated into just about every segment of the embedded market. As a result, the traditional ‘big segments’ of smart phones and tablets are becoming dwarfed by the Internet of Things. Namely, the inexorable move of microcontrollers and application processors into every facet of our lives. And Freescale’s i.MX 6 series, combined with Kinetis and Vybrid microcontrollers are strongly positioned to enable this movement.

The change really picked up speed with the advent of advanced, third and fourth generation smartphones and first generation tablets between 2007 and 2010. These devices saw enormous uptake in the market and penetrated into segments never covered before. What used to require two to four devices, consumers found they could now accomplish with just one that was simpler to use and easy to understand. And since then, a whole new generation of users have learned to interact with a device through touch, sound and rich multimedia-based visual cues on large screens rather than a keyboard, keypad, mechanical button and possibly a mouse. Devices have become more varied (5”, 7”, 10” screens, cellular or just WiFi, small or large storage, focused on specific applications like eReader or gaming) and users have access to thousands of relatively inexpensive applications tailored to specific needs. And finally, users have devices that can access information (pictures, movies, music, IMs, friends, maps, internet sites, etc) from just about any source, no matter where they are.

Convergence and Divergence

Simply put, the trends I’ve described above have led to a general convergence of capabilities within the devices we use. Pick up a tablet, a GPS unit, a new auto infotainment system for your car, or look at a large digital signage device at the airport, fly on a new jumbo jet with the latest seatback entertainment, purchase a new oscilloscope for your lab, visit the control seat of a cutting edge automated factory, use a home video security system, even ride in a heavy industry farm tractor and use its onboard navigation system … What things will you find in common with these devices?

They interact with you via touch, voice and multimedia feedback
They can keep you or your system in contact (email, IM, text, social networking)
They can entertain you or record movies of you or critical data for later playback
They can access the internet or browse the Web just like a PC
They have visual sensors to take pictures or navigate by
They can show you where you are, where you are going, what’s in front of you and what’s there when you arrive
They can run apps that you or your business care about

Most importantly: You’ll find they deliver varying levels of ‘quality’ in each capability (1080p or DVD-quality video) And this paradigm continues to broaden to devices you have likely never thought of. Home thermostats with large screens that you can remotely control and will show you videos of the latest weather. Vacuum cleaners with a multimedia screen in the handle which shows you how to install a new filter (and oh by the way, will automatically order a new one for you when the old one is used up). Smart watches which do exactly what Dick Tracy could decades ago. Home health monitoring systems which give you instant voice and visual contact with your loved one and will call an ambulance if it detects a problem with the patient.

This is the ‘Convergence’ part of the equation: The underlying capabilities of devices within market segments which are vastly different in their core uses have become very similar and in many cases, identical. What this means to a processor company is that when you look under the hood, you’ll find very similar processing needs. Multiple cores to handle general purpose tasks at lower power, video and 3D accelerators for movies, games and UIs, high resolution display controllers, security units to keep information secret, complex and varied I/O controllers to connect with storage, wireless, GPS, and sensors.

The ‘Divergence’ part of the equation is that if core capabilities of a device are relatively common, then companies could create a single hardware platform and release multiple devices to market that differ only based on the form factor they reside in and the easily-changed options they contain. Different screens, different wireless, and different storage sizes but the same processor architecture and PCB design.

The only way the ‘Divergence’ part works is if a processor can tackle the high end products with all the bells and whistles, and at the same time, fit within the constraints of the lower end devices that need ‘lower quality’ versions of the same capabilities as I described above. And achieve this without forcing the manufacturer to redesign their hardware and rewrite their software every time they want to create a new form factor. On the face of it, this looks like an impossible goal to achieve. For example, it cannot be achieved with just one processor because that processor will either be too powerful or too restricted depending upon the ‘quality level’ requirements of the device. It cannot be achieved by delivering two or more different generations of processors since the differences between those generations will likely be significant (different pinouts, different IP blocks, different memory types and speeds, etc).

So can ‘Divergence’ actually be achieved? Yes it can.

Stay tuned for part 2 of "Convergence & Divergence" focusing on the i.MX 6 Series and how it is positioned to enable this trend in the industry.

Let's make it real - Internet of Things

admin@community.freescale.com — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:36:09 GMT

People have been talking about the “Internet of Things” for years with the promise of creating a connected world. I was fascinated by “The Jetsons” as a kid and I realize now that it was an early look at the “IoT” world. Ok, yes, “The Jetsons” is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, even today. But, in reality the transition to “IoT” is happening and is being accelerated by technologies that transform devices from being information gatherers, to being part of a smart system where the data collected provides consumers with real improvements to their lives.

What I've found from my experience at Freescale is that creating and implementing these smart systems takes an ecosystem – no one company can cover the gamut of needs. Not only are ecosystems valued now, they are important and necessary to provide complete solutions. More importantly, it’s not about how many partners are in your specific ecosystem – it’s about having the RIGHT partners.

As I stated, the “IoT” is everywhere, some people even use the term “Internet of everything.” At ARM TechCon which was held in Santa Clara a couple of weeks ago with >90 exhibitors and 5,000 attendees, the “IoT” as a reality was certainly obvious as I walked through the show floor. The picture below highlights an example of a RIGHT ecosystem with Freescale and Oracle. Our company booths were back-to-back and Oracle showcased demos based on i.MX processors running Java SE Embedded.

The shot shown above uses Freescale and Oracle technologies. The SABRE Lite board, based on the i.MX 6Quad processor, is used as the aggregator for the smart grid – it receives data from a power meter and then sends it to the utility company for analysis and action. The i.MX 6Quad processor that’s acting as the aggregator is part of Freescale’s newest ARM applications processor family, the i.MX 6 series, which was launched this week. This platform addresses the needs of the “IoT” – scalability, flexibility, performance and low power. The aggregator also communicates to an i.MX based tablet with a user interface (built using Java FX) to view the data. As the saying goes, with knowledge comes power. Consumers can manage their own energy usage to improve their lives if they have the right data and tools to do so.

A partnership between Freescale (makers of applications processors based on ARM technology) and Oracle (makers of Enterprise software) may not seem like a customer-centric partnership at first. However for the “IoT” to become a reality all devices from the enterprise to the edge must be connected and secure. Oracle’s vision is that Java is not only the platform running in the enterprise but also on edge embedded devices based on ARM processors such as Freescale’s i.MX processors. Couple the power and performance of the i.MX portfolio on the embedded side, with the dynamic and growing Java developer community – and the devices that we can see in the future are limited only by the imagination. Heck, who would have thought about a ‘connected’ thermostat five years ago?

Electronic paper illuminates a larger set of apps

admin@community.freescale.com — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:21:35 GMT

By Nik Jedrzejewski – eReaders continue to sell like hot cakes, and I’m seeing them everywhere – not only in indoor environments like work and airports, but I’m spotting them at parks, pools and beaches. These devices are powered by ElectroPhoretic Display (EPD) technology, a.k.a. Electronic Paper Display, which is designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper.

There are countless uses for EPD screens in other devices that require extremely low power, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. Take my recent trip to Home Depot, for example. They offer a self-serve propane exchange kiosk, which boasts convenience and speed when you need to switch an empty propane tank with a full one. The kiosk has a big LCD screen that shows you exactly what you need to do, from how to switch out the tanks to how to pay. The service is ideal when you’re in a pinch for time, especially if you have a house full of guests waiting to eat. Like many devices with LCD screens, the glaring Texas sun made it difficult to read anythingwhich was really frustrating and slowed me down. With EPD’s reflective technology, glare would not have been an issue as the panel thrives in bright environments, just like eReaders when you take them outside by the pool.

The reflective nature of the EPD panels is only half of the story. The technology is also bi-stable, meaning that it retains its last image even if the power is turned off. Unlike LCDs, it doesn’t take any power to retain the image, only when you want to update the display. For mobile applications, this efficiency is extremely important, not only because it extends battery life, but it also allows for smaller batteries in your devices. (Have you ever compared a tablet battery to an eReader battery?)

There are many EPD-powered devices in the market that you may not have noticed – watches, advertisements, smart labels, etc. with many more on the way. Look for outdoor power meters, point-of-sale devices, etc. Just Google “electronic paper display applications,” and you’ll find more.

If you haven’t heard, our i.MX applications processors power the majority of eReaders on the market today, and will be powering many of the other devices that want to tap into EPD’s reflective, bi-stable characteristics. If you’re interested in getting into the nuts and bolts of an EPD design, check out our i.MX50 SABRE reference design, which features the i.MX508 applications processor with an integrated EPD controller certified by E Ink.

In the end, I triumphantly made it back to the BBQ. Next came the RedBox kiosk … but I won’t go into that.

Opportunities on the “Internet of Things” – it starts at home

admin@community.freescale.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:59:13 GMT

By FTF staff -- Today, more ‘things’ are connected to the Internet than there are people on the planet. Everything from smart appliances, to traffic lights to security cameras to retail displays will learn, adapt and react to help facilitate our everyday lives – and the breadth of connected, intelligent devices is growing exponentially.

Embedded processing is at the heart of the “Internet of Things,” and FTF Americas brought to light the many ways that Freescale solutions – controllers, processors, sensors, analog ICs, connectivity and software – with the support of our extensive ecosystem are helping our customers target the “Internet of Things.”

Henri Richard, chief sales and marketing officer talks about the opportunity for Freescale with the “Internet of Things” and what makes Freescale’s ARM portfolio so unique to the market.

Tablets and user interfaces, naturally

When technology emerges in the market, it's adopted by consumers first and then spreads into enterprise and industrial organizations. The tablet is a great example. In this video, Freescale's Robert Thompson, who is joined by Jason Flick, CEO of YOUi Labs, gives a tour of consumer devices in Freescale’s “connected home” at FTF – see the potential of machine-to-machine connectivity.

Smart energy comes home

Smart energy solutions in our connected home can do more than simply monitor our energy consumption. Freescale's Derek Phillips shows how smart energy is going past the meter and inside of the home.

The revolution and transformation of home healthcare

Technology is playing center stage in the healthcare transformation and revolution, changing paradigms and the way patients receive healthcare today, and in the future. Freescale’s Steven Dean shares a few connected medical and healthcare devices for use in our connected home.

Immersive reality, the digital way

Augmented reality bridges the gap between our real world and our digital realm – and the immersive uses are endless. Information, media, education, services and advertisements becomes layered content from the Internet to match specific environments and contexts in a more natural way. Take a look at these Xtrinsic sensors in action.

She made it faster – and smarter

Participants put their 32-bit design skills to the test in our FTF Make It Challenge by building an application using the Freescale Cup Kit and a processor of their choice. They could "Make It Faster" by building and racing an autonomous car and compete for the best time, and/ or "Make It Smarter" by getting creative with our sensors and connectivity tools and impress our judges. Congratulations to Catalina de la Cuesta, who took home first place in both categories with her application called "Kinect-Wifi," a simple application of image recognition that communicates via WiFi with the Kinetis MCU in the car, allowing the car to take orders from body movements.

It’s a wrap!

What an outstanding week at FTF Americas. We owe great thanks to our more than 70 sponsors who joined us this year, including our Global Diamond sponsors: ENEA, Mentor Graphics, QNX and Wind River. But most of all, we want to thank all of you, the embedded design community, for attending. You make the event a success with your active participation, tremendous energy, and excitement for technology.

See full resources from FTF that are available online to date, including the technical sessions library, keynote presentations, and demo videos at www.freescale.com/ftfamericas.

Freescale announces Windows 8 sensor fusion

admin@community.freescale.com — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:58:20 GMT

By Michael Stanley – In my last post (“Degrees of freedom vs. axes”) we discussed some basic terminology for sensor fusion. This time around, we get to put that lesson into practice as we examine Freescale’s recent technology announcement of a full featured reference platform for Windows^® 8 sensor fusion.

If you are a regular reader, you’ll know by now that I am fascinated by sensors and sensor fusion software. These are the technologies that let us interface with our electronic toys with a simple tap, swipe or gesture. So I was energized last week when Freescale announced development of a 12-axis, sensor fusion reference platform for Microsoft^® Windows^®8. I was at the kickoff meeting last year between Microsoft and Freescale, and I’ve been watching the system evolve in our offices since. We’re not quite ready to ship boards to the general market, but we’re excited and want to share our plans and status with you.

Figure 1: Freescale Microsoft® Windows® 8 Sensor Fusion Data Flow

From an information flow point of view, the board looks something like Figure 1. Our 12 axes of sensor input information are:

X/Y/Z Accelerometer
X/Y/Z Gyroscope
X/Y/Z Magnetometer
Barometer (air pressure)
Temperature
Ambient Light

Each of these is available in one form or another as outputs of the system, but more importantly, the system also computes board orientation. This can come in one of several forms:

quaternion
rotation matrix
Inclinometer Euler angles

You also get compass heading out of the mix. From a hardware perspective, the board looks like the block diagram in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Functional Level Block Diagram

Sensor fusion software is pre-installed in the MCF51JU128 flash memory. To utilize the board, you will need a Windows® 8 enabled computer or slate to act as host:

If your device is already equipped with sensors, you'll need to disable them via the device configuration screens in Windows 8. If your device isn't already sensor equipped, you can skip this step.
Plug the development board into your device's USB port.
You are done!

Pure plug & play. That’s because Microsoft has defined an “HID over USB” protocol for communications with a sensor fusion subsystem. The Freescale board talks the same language as Windows 8. And since Freescale will be publishing the full schematic and bill of materials, adding motion sensor capability to your Windows PC or slate couldn’t be easier.

Once the boards start shipping, you'll be able to download user manual, schematics and CAD files from the Freescale web site. The user manual will include instructions for customizing the software for use on your PCB, since placement orientations for sensors will vary from board to board. Don't worry. The process should be relatively painless.

Freescale will also supply a basic sensor application that you can use to test out your sensor subsystem. The application gives you a visual compass display, along with either a 3D view of a virtual gyroscope (Figure 3) or a window into a virtual room (Figure 4). You can see accelerometer, gyroscope (which Microsoft refers to as a “gyrometer”) magnetometer, ambient light sensor, temperature and air pressure readings.

Figure 3: Gyroscope (wired) view

Figure 4: Virtual Room (attached) view

Microsoft has a rigorous certification process which is encapsulated in their “Windows Hardware Certification Kit”, or “WHCK”. The WHCK specifies passing sensor test criteria and ensures hardware/software compatibility. Microsoftupdates the WHCK on a regular basis, and Freescale continuously tests its solution using the WHCK. Final certification of the kit will occur after Microsoft releases their final WHCK. This will occur before the Windows 8 OS release. I can tell you that the software is passing most of the WHCK today, with only a few open issues which we expect to resolve shortly.

A brief video demonstration of the system can be viewed in the window below.

We expect Freescale's Windows 8 reference design to be available in late 3rd quarter, so you'll have to wait a bit. But we wanted you to know it's coming, and it's real.

Finally, on another topic, if you happen to be attending the Freescale Technology Forum in San Antonio next week, and you see a fellow who looks a bit like the picture alongside this post, please come up and say hello. I would love to talk with you about your sensor needs.

References:

Do android "tablets" dream of electric sheep?

admin@community.freescale.com — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 02:55:51 GMT

By Robert Thompson – What makes a tablet a tablet, as opposed to a phablet or convertible?

Until recently, screen size — greater than 5 inches, less than 11 inches — was a tidy way to categorize the fastest growing category in consumer electronics. However, as 2012 has progressed and many companies have looked to differentiate Android tablets by hardware features, as well as alternative app stores, that simple delineation may need to be reworked.

The first main offender was the Asus transformer, a tablet that sold with a docking keyboard. Is this a hybrid or a re-work of the convertible concept? Then came the Samsung Galaxy Note, a 6-inch phone that was branded a tablet and came with a stylus – and just happened to have a cellular modem for voice and data connectivity. The term phablet was born.

Last week at Computex in Taiwan, Freescale showed two devices that stretched the definition of a tablet. There was a home health device called the Sonomba Pro, which fits the rigid definition of a tablet, but is really an aggregator of data from a number of medical devices to monitor and alert on an individual’s health. There was also a smart thermostat from a company called Tri Cascade, which is looking to revolutionize how we mange home energy. As the market takes off, are these products real tablets or androids?

If media and analysts continue to attempt to define tablets by a few fixed criteria, as in science fiction, bounty hunters will be needed to ensure the purity of the category. Tablets, similar to most consumer devices, are rapidly diversifying, mutating and adapting to end user needs. Content and ecosystems will define success, but when selling a blade, don’t forget the razor can be the tipping point. The term “tablet” may soon become meaningless, as almost all devices become connected, interconnected and controlled through a touch interface. In this connected, on-demand world, what an Android tablet dreams about will depend on its cloud – ecosystem and usage. Electric or real sheep, phablet or tablet, the difference is in our need to define, not the machine or what motivates the end customer or an android.

At the Freescale Technology Forum in San Antonio, June 18-21, we will show a connected home displaying many devices that could fit in to a traditional tablet definition. However, from showing what’s in your fridge to tracking your weight, we don’t want to limit what you can dream up next, using Freescale technology.

Five good reasons for wireless charging

admin@community.freescale.com — Wed, 30 May 2012 23:14:45 GMT

By Yves Legrand – The global wireless charging market is projected to grow an astonishing 1500% in just 5 years, reaching $7.161 billion in 2017 from $456.86 million in 2011, according to a recent Wireless Charging Market research report. Even the U.S. Army wants to arm its troops with wireless charging everywhere.

The research is out. The use cases exist. So, without further introduction, here are five good reasons why wireless charging makes perfect sense.

It is coming with your next 4G phone. It enables your next wireless broadband experience. Cellular operators are now rolling out 4th generation LTE networks. LTE is bringing true broadband mobile connectivity on mobile devices with larger and higher resolution displays and dual or quad core processors that require a lot of power. Not only do these 4G phones consume more power, but they'll be used more for their desktop-like internet connectivity. Getting power charges in several different places throughout the day could be a necessity to keep these power-hungry LTE mobile phones running.
It is convenient. There's no cord to plug into your device for a charge. Sure, the charging pad is plugged into a power source, but this is done once and then it stays plugged in and you don't need to touch it again.
It is universal. The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) has successfully managed to get all interested parties to collaborate to create one universal standard for wireless charging, although there are some companies trying to push alternative wireless charging standards such as A4WP. Worse case: we will have dual mode wireless chargers, but I think only one standard will prevail in the end.
It is eco-friendly. A wireless charging system is smart, with its embedded microcontrollers and sensing elements that can be used to minimize power waste. The little energy wasted in the magnetic field transfer from the charger to the receiver can actually be gained back with smart power down schemes when the charger is in stand-by or when the phone is fully charged. Overall wireless chargers will be as good or better compared to regular corded chargers. As it is universal, wireless chargers will also help reduce the electronic waste of regular phone chargers. One wireless charger is expected to be designed to work with future generations of phones and other devices.
It will be found everywhere. With the adoption of the Qi standard, you will have wireless charging pads or station at home, in the office, in your car, at the airport, coffee shops, trains, hotel rooms and many other public places. In-car console wireless chargers will be a very desirable feature for new and after-market cars.

Thanks, but no thanks, A4WP!

admin@community.freescale.com — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:15:38 GMT

By Yves Legrand – Within a week, both Samsung and LG announced that their new flagship Android-based smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the LG Optimus LTE2, will include the wireless charging feature. Japanese operators and handset makers already adopted wireless charging for new smartphones used in Japan, and we can add Korea as the next market embracing wireless charging. These new 4G phones, which boast more power-hungry modem chipsets, larger screens with greater pixel resolution, keep on consuming more power. With wireless chargers at home, in the office, in your car console or at your favorite coffee shop, it will be easier and more convenient to re-charge these phones -- it's an elegant solution to keep the batteries charged throughout the day.

The Energizer Inductive Charger lets you charge your smartphone without cords. This advanced technology, powered by the Freescale MC56F8006 digital signal controller, features Qi, the new universal standard for inductive charging.

One thing worth noting about the Samsung Galaxy S3: it uses a new wireless charging protocol called A4WP. Most other vendors, including the Japanese phone makers, and the new LG Optimus LTE2 are using the Wireless Power Consortium standard, which is backed by more than 100 companies working to create a universal standard for the benefits of the end user. Why would Samsung want to use something different? Why confuse the market and create the inconvenience of having incompatible charging pads that do not work with all mobile phones? A4WP and WPC use the same fundamental magnetic induction to transfer energy over the air at a close distance. Both can apply the same tricks of highly resonant magnetic circuit to create spatial freedom, so there is probably not a fundamental difference in technology. WPC has already shown charging distance over five centimeters and even through metallic surface.

If there is no real technology advantage, then this may be only a pure commercial attempt from Qualcomm and Samsung to impose their own system for their commercial benefit rather than just adopting the already widely adopted WPC standard. Why not in fact? Qualcomm is a leader in the 3G -- and soon 4G -- wireless chipset market, so they may surely have the marketing power to try to impose their own wireless charging standard. But, sorry Qualcomm, just as Bluetooth or USB works great because it is standard, wireless charging also needs to be an open standard. WPC has been working for more than three years to set up rules and policies for companies creating new charging pads that has backward-compatibility with all receivers. WPC also provides royalty-free receiver (i.e. phones) implementation. WPC is managing to guarantee interoperability while enabling design freedom for new type of charger designs -- there are now 15 charger topologies allowed or in final review by the WPC. A new specification for medium power chargers up to 120 watts is in the works and is expected to be published in early 2013. These medium power chargers are designed to be backward compatible with the current 5W devices. WPC has done a terrific job at creating an open forum for companies to collaborate and contribute to build a rich ecosystem of compatible wireless charging solutions. The momentum is now massive.

By the way, the Samsung A4WP charging kit accessory is rumored to be available in four months. A4WP specifications are not published yet. So would I want to use A4WP? Thanks, but no thanks.

CEOs speak out on the future of smart mobile devices

admin@community.freescale.com — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 21:49:40 GMT

By Glen Burchers

"My three year old daughter has been playing with her iPad too much. When she walks in front of the TV, she tries to interact with it by pushing on the screen. The new generation is expecting new user experience across their different devices. People should not worry about where their content, applications and services reside. It should all be simple and seamless." -- Mark Lee, CEO, Splashtop

Freescale interviewed five executives who live and breathe smart mobile devices. We asked them to give us their valuable insight into the future vision that they are working on in their respective companies. Mark Lee is the founder of Splashtop, maker of the best selling remote desktop app for iPhone and Android talks about his vision for securely connecting devices to enhance our productivity. Jeff Bier, CEO of Berkley Design Technology Inc (BDTi), shows a compelling example of how heart rate and respiration can be determined from just a video of your face using advanced Embedded Vision technology. BlueLibris CEO, Ram Fish, is using mobile cloud technology as the foundation for mobile health and safety monitoring.

Linley Gwennap is one of the world's foremost experts on microprocessor technology. He and Allen Nogee of In-Stat talk about devices that are ready to predict your needs in advance based on sensor data and pattern recognition.

It's two minutes worth watching.

Degrees of freedom vs. axes

admin@community.freescale.com — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:56:37 GMT

By Michael Stanley – No, the title does not refer to the forces of good versus those of evil. Nor am I referring to my stance when chopping firewood with an axe. Instead, let's see if we can straighten out some of the terminology that you'll hear when people start to talk about sensors. Even folks in the business sometimes get it wrong, so here is my attempt to establish a common language.

Degrees of Freedom - AKA DOF, this term gets misused more than any I can think of. It is often confused with "number of axes", which I'll discuss below. But if you consult any text on the dynamics of rigid bodies, you will quickly learn that any movement of any rigid body from point A to point B can be characterized as a translation plus a rotation.

It takes six numbers to characterize that movement: change in X, Y, and Z and rotations about X, Y and Z axes. Notice that we're talking about the minimum set of numbers required to unambiguously specify a given movement. We are NOT talking about the number of sensors required to measure that movement.

So now, let's talk about sensors. A basic 3-axis accelerometer returns values for linear acceleration in each of 3 orthogonal directions.

A 3-axis accelerometer returns X, Y & Z acceleration in the sensor's frame of reference

When you look at the figure, you can immediately see where the terms axis/axes come from. They refer to the sensor coordinate system axes.

There's an important thing you should consider about accelerometers at rest. When one of the axes associated with the sensor frame of reference is parallel to the gravity vector, as it is in the figure above, you will get no additional information from the other two acceleration numbers. They will both be zero, and you will be unable to tell if the accelerometer is rotated about the axis parallel to gravity.

The next device in our toolbox is the gyro which returns rates of rotation about each of the 3 sensor axes. Notice that I'm talking about sensor axes here. As the sensor rotates, so does its frame of reference for the next measurement.

A 3-axis gyro returns rotation rates about each of X, Y & Z axes

A 3-axis magnetometer will return the X, Y & Z components of the ambient magnetic field. This is nominally the earth field for many applications, but may include significant offsets and distortions due to hard/soft iron effects. The magnetometer is subject to the same issue as an accelerometer - if one of the sensor axes is parallel to the ambient magnetic field vector the other two sensor axes will return values of zero. The good news is that since the earth magnetic field and gravity are never colinear, between our accelerometer and magnetometer, we have enough information to figure out the current device orientation, regardless of how we rotate the sensor.

A 3-axis magnetometer will allow you to align yourself with the earth's magnetic field

Our 1st three sensors each returned a 3-dimensional vector. But the pressure sensor returns just a single scalar value. As discussed in previous postings, pressure can be used to infer changes in altitude, which adds another source of information when computing vertical locations.

Pressure is our 10th axis

Combine an accelerometer with a gyro and you get a 6-axis Inertial Measurement Unit, or IMU.

6 Axis IMU = gyro + accelerometer

Add a magnetometer to an IMU, and you have a MARG (Magnetic, Angular Rate, and Gravity) sensor. Add a compute engine to a MARG, and you get an AHRS (Attitude and Heading Reference System).

9-Axis MARG

Add a pressure sensor to a MARG or AHRS, and you get a slightly smarter MARG or AHRS - I haven't found any standard terms. I simply refer to them as "10-axis solutions".

A full 10-axis sensor subsystem = accelerometer + gyro + magnetometer + pressure

So remember, use "DOF" when describing motion. Use "axis" or "axes" when describing sensor configurations. And when in doubt, draw a picture.

References

The mobile revolution is over, the evolution has just begun

admin@community.freescale.com — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:09:22 GMT

By Robert Thompson -- With approximately 500 million smart phones, 60 million tablets and 25 million eReaders shipping in 2011, the mobile revolution swept into full force. So what’s next?

Well, there’s still a long way to go, as Eric Schmidt suggested in his keynote at Mobile World Congress, only one billion of the world’s seven billion population currently has a smart phone. To continue growth, network carriers, device manufactures and content providers still have to develop innovative solutions based on customer needs for many market sectors and geographies that have been immune or left out of the 2011 revolution.

Mobile World Congress, which was held at the end of February, was a chance for the industry to show what’s next. Here’s a few highlights I saw:

From dual to quad core: A number of vendors, including Freescale and (surprisingly) Huawei demonstrated a range of smart phones and tablets based on quad core application processors to enable true multi-tasking use cases that are comparable to PCs. The processor innovation was not matched by device form factor innovation with most tablets and smartphones now looking more and more alike. With the new iPad and Windows 8 on tablets launching later this year, tablet innovation will continue to heat up, but until 3D really takes off. Is smartphone innovation now just about the OS and content?

From touch to stylus: Lead by Samsung and the Galaxy Note, the most evident innovation from the device manufacturers was the addition of stylus input to both smartphone and tablets. Shifting the message from pure content consumption to creation makes sense as mobile devices are adopted in many different verticals such as business, medical and industrial. Is using a stylus really innovation? I was looking for intelligent voice, gesture and augmented reality to drive human-machine interaction.

From 3G to 4G/LTE: As network carriers face increasing difficult market conditions, the move to 4G and LTE networks will enable ever-evolving usage models. Streaming 3D content, personal and app clouds will provide the bandwidth to enable multiple device customers. However, with current plus $100 price premiums for 4G versus Wifi connected devices, high operational expenditure costs and shrinking margins network carriers will not lead any short-term innovations that will benefit end customers.

From Android to ‘Chrome for Android’: Finally answering the question, ‘what is your Android and Chrome strategy,’ Google demonstrated the Chrome browser running on Android. Faster, more secure, and free, why would you use any other browser? Stating that ‘2012 is about building out the full Android ecosystem: take Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), put it on every device, put everything into Android marketplace,’ Google made their anti-fragmentation intentions clear. As an Android user, I’m liking ICS on my tablet. The only problem is that I’m still waiting for ICS on my smartphone -- maybe by May, my carrier told me. I also transitioned all of my music to the Google music service. It was a smooth and easy transition, but I couldn’t purchase more music when I was in Spain. Hopefully the Google Play that was announced the week after Mobile World Congress will address these issues.

From Flash to HTML5: Facebook CTO Brett Taylor revealed that the social network is supporting the new ‘Core Mobile Web Platform’ initiative to prioritize HTML 5 web standards. With HTML 5 app stores, like Firefox's Mozilla Marketplace and Brightcove’s App Cloud, the true mobile web may be the fastest evolving segment of the mobile ecosystem and deliver the most innovation to end users.

From Apple and Google to Microsoft and Intel: Don’t forget about either of these PC innovators. Orange will be launching the first Intel-powered smartphone in Europe and Intel also announced support for PAYWare Visa’s mobile payment technology. Microsoft officially showed the metro user interface and cool new features that will enable Windows 8 on ARM devices to become a key player on both smartphones and tablets. As we look for the next big innovation, we just have to remember you don’t have to lead the revolution to drive the evolution.

Source: "250 million smartphones, 60 million tablets, 25 million e-reader: isupply Consumer Platforms, Q1 2012

Source form for eCompass software and 4 and 7 element magnetic routines (Yes!)

admin@community.freescale.com — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:23:23 GMT

By Michael Stanley – Last week, Freescale made its eCompass and 4 and 7 element magnetic compensation routines available in (drum roll please!) source form.

Getting access is easy. Let me take you through the steps....

Open your web browser to http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=eCompass
Click on the "ECOMPASS_SW: eCompass Software" link.
This will take you to the Freescale web site login page. You must be a registered user to download the software. There is a link right on that page allowing you to register if you haven't already.
Once you've entered your ID and password, you will be presented with a copy of the software license agreement. Please review it carefully before clicking the "I Accept" button. The good news is this: Freescale is making this software freely available for use in any product containing an Xtrinsic brand magnetometer. There is no license fee, there are no royalties.
Assuming you have accepted, follow the usual procedure to download the software onto your hard drive.The software is in the form of a zip file containing:
- A single C source file (main.c)
- Freescale User's Guide entitled "Implementing a Tilt-Compensated eCompass with Magnetic Calibration".

The basic dataflow of the algorithm is illustrated in the block diagram below. The software contains source for each of the blocks shown.

The main.c file includes the entire application, and is designed to operate as a "console" application which should be compatible with just about any C compiler. The accompanying user guide goes through the source in a detailed fashion, and clearly explains how to adapt the code for your environment. The application is designed to operate out of the box with simulated data. You need to replace the console I/O functions with a call to your I2C driver function to operate with real data.There are options allowing you to build a model for hard iron compensation only (the four element model) or for many cases involving soft iron issues (the 7 element model). The generated soft iron matrix is limited to scale factors distributed along the diagonal of the soft iron matrix (see my earlier posts listed in references below). In general, you want to use the simplest model that works for your product. Should your soft iron problems exceed the capabilities of the 4 and 7 element models, Freescale has a more complicated model which supports off-diagonal elements in the soft iron matrix. Please contact your Freescale representative for details.

References