Tech Articles

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible hardware and software, whereby the standard schematic can be used by anyone so as to make their own version of an Arduino board. An Arduino contains a physical programmable circuit board named microcontroller and software termed as IDE (Integrated Development Board). All the Arduino boards should be compatible with this IDE which is used to upload the computer code on the physical board.There are some very unique features contributing towards its exponential growth in the electronics world. It doesn’t need a separate piece of hardware to load the code on the board. Rather it can be done simply with a USB cable. Moreover, its IDE uses a simplified version of C++ which enables the beginners to get acquainted with programming in a convenient manner.

Life has existed for millions of years before electricity was ever developed. All thanks to the giant Nuclear Fusion reactor at the center of our solar system, ‘The Sun’. The Sun generates energy from its core where Hydrogen atoms fuse to create a Helium atom producing tremendous amounts of energy in the process. This energy is essential to life on earth. The sunlight is used by plants to produce food which is directly or indirectly the food source to all living things; it is responsible for seasons; its heat maintains water in its liquid form which is primary for life to exist; sunlight is an essential source of vitamin D to the human body and many more life supporting processes which are either directly or indirectly choreographed by the sun.

The simplest of electronic devices is a diode. It’s often referred to as a semiconductor diode but, technically, a diode has its own specific electrical characteristics. The is true for all electronic devices. They’re defined by unique electrical characteristics even though different construction, types, and applications may be available. Having said this, a semiconductor diode…

As with any productive industry, the electronics sector is continually evolving and advancing. Currently, one of the biggest trends is miniaturization as the demand for smaller and lighter components grows, particularly in the PCB market. Semiconductor technology has also scaled down in size, leading to the miniaturization and integration of circuits. Now, except for inductors…

In today’s modern era we have all the technological assistance in the form of apps, tutorials, and online tools so as to take on our electronics projects. Despite having a non-technical background, people can work with electronics in a highly efficient and organized manner. However, before using the aforementioned methods, one has to be acquainted with certain skills that lay the basic foundation of an electronic project. Here, we have compiled a set of basic electronics skills for beginners that act as a pre-requisite for ensuring success.

The Arduino L293D motor driver shield guide is a robobtics project that involves driving various types of motors. The most common types used for robotic applications include DC, servo, and stepper motors. However, these motors typically cannot be driven directly by Arduino or another microcontroller. This is because of their higher current and power ratings,…

The FPGA is one of the technologies which let an embedded engineer access hardware design of an embedded system. Its greatest advantages include multi-threading, real-time processing, wide scope for custom ASIC design (within available logic blocks on the FPGA chip), reusability and single chip solution. It is highly recommended to get hands dirty on an FPGA board after some work on microcontrollers. After all, hardware design is just another essential twin to software design in embedded engineering discipline.

Temperature is one of the most commonly measured quantities of a device or the conditions surrounding it — and particularly for electronic components. This is because electronic devices and circuitry generate heat and require some type of thermal management. There are several types of temperature sensors that work well for such applications and that offer…

Proximity sensors — often called, proximity switches — detect the presence of nearby objects without making physical contact with them. These objects are called targets. There are several types of proximity sensors, including those used to detect metallic or non-metallic objects. Others are used to detect a specific object.  These sensors also rely on different working…

Inertial sensors are used to transduce inertial force into measurable electrical signals to measure acceleration, inclination, and vibration of an object. Micromachining technology has made it possible to produce MEMS (Micro Electromechanical System) inertial sensors using single-crystal silicon sensor elements. These micron-sized sensors meet all major system design drivers like low-cost, high performance, high precision,…

Light sensors or photosensors, which are designed to measure light intensity, are one of the most commonly used sensors in electronic applications. Light intensity is one of the seven base physical quantities. The measurement of light intensity is useful in many consumer, industrial, and security applications. What is a light sensor? A light sensor is…

On 28th March 1979, at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in USA, part of the core melted in the # 2 reactor. The TMI-2 reactor was destroyed. The cause of the accident was the little malfunction in the secondary cooling circuit which allowed temperature in the primary coolant to rise. This caused the reactor to shut down automatically. This situation developed because the level controls turned off the coolant to the reactor when they detected presence of cooling water near the top of the tank. The water at the top was not because of the tank got completely filled, it was because the water was too little in the tank that it got boiled and swelled up to the top of the tank. 

Bats are wonderful creatures. Blind from the eyes and yet a vision so precise that could distinguish between a moth and a broken leaf even when flying at full speed. No doubt the vision is sharper than ours and is much beyond human capabilities of seeing, but is certainly not beyond our understanding. Ultrasonic ranging is the technique used by bats and many other creatures of the animal kingdom for navigational purposes.Ultrasonic sensors are devices that use electrical–mechanical energy transformation, the mechanical energy being in the form of ultrasonic waves, to measure distance from the sensor to the target object.Ultrasonic waves are longitudinal mechanical waves which travel as a succession of compressions and rarefactions along the direction of wave propagation through the medium.

In this repository of ESP8266 projects, we will take you through some of the most recommended DIY projects. A very small but highly potent WiFi module, it serves as a one-stop destination for a wide range of IoT based tasks and home automation projects. These projects quite similar to Arduino projects, however, ESP8266 projects are…

SPI protocol has earned a solid role in embedded systems whether it is system on chip processors, both with higher end 32-bit processors such as those using ARM, MIC or Power PC and with other microcontrollers such as the AVR, PIC etc. These chips usually include SPI controllers capable of running in either master or slave mode. In-system programmable AVR controllers can be programmed using an SPI interface.Chip or FPGA based designs sometimes use SPI to communicate.So, SPI is a common technology used nowadays for communication with peripheral devices where we want to transfer data speedily and with in real time constraints. There are many serial interfaces right from Morse code telegraphy, RS232, USB, Fire wire, Ethernet and many more. Each serial interface offers advantages or disadvantages for many designs,depending on criteria such as needed data rate, space availability, and noise considerations.   

There has been so much hype around Intelligence Augmentation and Artificial Intelligence over the past few years. Most of the people believe these two as present and futuristic technologies for the world. But there are still lots of people who are unsure why we need them and what exact role each of the technology can play into their lives. This post will roll you over comparing Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Augmentation and use of each in some real-time applications. 

We use so many appliances at home that often it becomes a headache to keep track as to whether everything is switched off or not, especially after stepping out of the house. Home automation or smart home is a key that keeps you away from all these worries by automating the appliances and connecting them to a common network.It is basically a home where everything including the lights, alarm clocks, television, doors, windows, blinds, heating and cooling systems can talk to each other. Not only this, all such automated devices also receive as well as interpret their owner’ instructions and then behave accordingly. The success of home automation, to some extent, relies on the availability of smartphones as they can be easily connected to other devices through the internet and are highly portable.

Bluetooth is defined as layered protocol architecture because each layer supports the layer above and below it.  The complete protocol stack consists[[wysiwyg_imageupload::]] of both Bluetooth specific protocols which are clearly defined or developed for Bluetooth like LMP and non-Bluetooth specific that were designed to enable the re-use of existing protocols for various functions. Non-specific protocols can be used with many other platforms like WAP, UDP AND OBEX.

Handheld devices like a cell phone, palmtop and laptop were rapidly becoming an integral part of our daily lives. In most cases, these devices do not have compatible data communication interfaces, or, if they do, the interface requires cumbersome cable connections and configuration procedures. Isn’t it absolutely fantastic to connect your PC to share music, data and calendar info without using any wires? Or to wirelessly access phone numbers on your PDA from your cell phone. 

As the name indicates they are circular in shape and the pin contacts are arranged inside the periphery of the circular outer covering. Different[[wysiwyg_imageupload::]]standard and variety of circular connectors are available in which some of them are designed for signal transmission only, some designed for power only and some of them are designed for both signal and power. We will be discussing some of the circular connectors in detail, including RF Coaxial, CPC, DIN and XLR.