Nuvation talks Atmel and batteries at EELive! 2014

Nuvation CEO Mike Worry is at Atmel’s EELive! 2014 ToT booth presenting a series of Tech Talks about his company’s EV Battery Management System. His presentations have been covered by a number of prominent journalists, including Steve Taranovich of EDN.

“We’e seen enough instances of battery disasters occurring over the last few years in our industry. Batteries have a tremendous amount of energy within and if not properly handled and charged/monitored can be dangerous,” writes Taranovich.

“With chemistries such as Lithium, each cell must have its voltage monitored and balanced. This not only extends battery life, but prevents tragedies. [This is why] Nuvation has expertly developed their customizable battery Management System (BMS) that can handle 10s to 1,000s of cells. The system is easily made compatible with lithium, nickel, silver based and other battery chemistries.”

In terms of the Tank Controller, Nuvation selected Atmel’s ATSAM4E8C, a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 controller to power a wide range of features, including Ethernet, UART, CAN, current shunt and optically-isolated GPIO.

As Taranovich notes, the Tank Controller is also equipped with an optically-isolated interface to battery pack management (PackMan) strings.

“The system handles soft-start, main start and emergency disconnect and controls the charging system to protect the battery,” says Taranovich.

Meanwhile, the PackMan, or BMS slave utilizes Atmel’s ATA6870N, a Li-Ion, NiMH battery measuring, charge balancing and power-supply circuit.

This IC is tasked with measuring all cell voltages simultaneously – and balancing cells with higher voltage. 

Each IC is capable of monitoring 6 cells, with a daisy chain configuration supporting up to 16 PackMan board or 96 stacked cells.

“Nuvation’s BMS must deal with the balance/imbalance of a battery pack. It looks at the state-of-charge (SOC) between cells in the pack,” Taranovich adds. “The usable SOC of pack is determined by the lowest energy cell and then the BMS has the task of balancing these cells accurately and quickly without overcharging or overheating the cell.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out Nuvation’s official site here, while the full text of Steve Taranovich’s “Nuvation at EELive: The Fun in Electronics Design” can be read on EDN here.

Sullivan says the IoT is becoming a reality

Patrick Sullivan, VP of Marketing at Atmel’s MCU Business Unit, hosted an Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering Summit co-sponsored by Xively at EE Live! 2014.

Essentially, the Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a future world where all types of electronic devices link to each other via the Internet. In 2009, there were 2.5 billion connected devices; most of these were mobile phones, PCs and tablets. By 2020, there will be over 30 billion connected devices of far greater variety.

“IoT is definitely a mega-trend in our industry. Everyone is talking about the IoT, it is everywhere,” said Sullivan. “That is why numerous companies are working to set up specific business units to manage various aspects of the Internet of Things.”

However, Sullivan noted that while the IoT is well on its way to becoming a reality, only a minority of devices are currently connected to the Internet.

“The IoT is still in a relatively nascent stage. Nevertheless, the Internet of Things will quickly evolve as it becomes a particularly explosive market. Security and privacy are going to be especially critical for the IoT, specifically when it comes to wearables,” Sullivan explained.

Atmel-powered Agent Smartwatch

“Similarly, managing IoT-related Big Data will be another challenge for the industry. How does one efficiently store, process, track and analyze terabytes of real-time streaming data – all while tailoring the information for a specific individual? Companies that figure out that formula, namely making IoT data useful and easily accessible for the non-technical masses, will be successful.”

In addition to monitoring exercise stats, wearables like smartwatches or pendants can be used to improve the health of individuals, no matter what their age or level of physical fitness.

“Health insurance companies can leverage wearables such as fitness trackers to monitor individual heath in real-time, with healthy lifestyles helping to drive down premiums. Obviously, such devices must be easy to use and comfortable to wear,” he noted.

Atmel-powered Amulyte pendant

“Health-based wearables can also help doctors more easily monitor and analyze a patient’s blood sugar, heart rates, sleep patterns, exercise and daily activities.”

Smart energy platforms is another topic Sullivan discussed, as designing an efficient, connected grid will go a long way in helping to reduce waste in residential and commercial buildings.

“Pumps, gas-lines and related infrastructure will ultimately be connected to the IoT, helping utility companies to pinpoint issues before they become a real problem for people,” Sullivan added.

Image Credit: Daimler

“We’ll be seeing the very same approach when it comes to next-gen vehicles, as both cars and trucks roll out of the factories loaded with advanced sensors to help alleviate traffic and significantly reduce accidents, whether on a crowded city street or fast highway. For example, your car will tell you, perhaps via a HUD (heads-up display) when a specific route is jammed and automatically choose another route. Your car will also talk to other vehicles, helping to avoid collisions.”

Last, but certainly not least, Sullivan talked about the automated IoT home, which, in the not too distant future will be protected by smart locks, cleaned by intelligent vacuum cleaners and filled with connected appliances such as intelligent lighting and thermostats, washing machines, refrigerators, coffee makers and ovens.

“The IoT will play a big part in connected homes, providing instant market intelligence to companies and remotely alerting users when their refrigerators are empty, clothes are clean, coffee is hot, food is ready, house is too cold and room is too dim,” he concluded.

Interested in learning more about the IoT? You can check out Atmel’s recent IoT SoMa panel on the subject here and our extensive Bits & Pieces IoT article archive here.

Atmel @ EELive! 2014: Day 1

Atmel kicked off EELive! 2014 with a full schedule of well-attended Tech Talks across a wide variety of topics including the IoT, Maker Movement, battery management, embedded security and Cortex-M (ARM) SAM D20 microcontrollers (MCUs).

Meanwhile, hundreds of EELive! attendees lined up outside of Atmel’s Tech on Tour trailer for the opportunity to pick up a free Atmel XMEGA-E5 Xplained evaluation kit and check out the following exhibits:

• Agent smartwatch (Secret Labs) powered by Atmel’s ARM-based SAM4S and tinyAVR MCU
• Philips Hue Bulbs with Atmel‘s ZigBee and Lightweight Mesh Stack
• Turtle Beach i60 Wireless Gaming Headset with Atmel Wi-Fi
• Direct
Roku3 remote with Atmel’s Wi-Fi Direct
• Venstar Color Touch Thermostat with Atmel’s ARM9-based MCU
• Makerbot 3D printer with Atmel AVR microcontrollers
• ASUS T100 Transformer with Atmel’s MaxTouch T Series Cap Touch controller and XSense Metal mesh touch sensors
• Atmel Studio IDE

Atmel, along with Xively, also co-hosted an Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering Summit at the event.

Atmel’s very own Patrick Sullivan discussed a number of IoT-related subjects, including embedded processing, security, connectivity, interface, as well as software, tools and development.

Super Awesome Sylvia (Atmel booth)

Stay tuned to Bits & Pieces for more EELive! 2014 updates.

Atmel’s commitment to students and Makers

MCU Applications Manager Bob Martin reiterated Atmel’s long-standing commitment to the international Maker Movement during an EELive! 2014 Tech Talk.

“The DIY Maker Movement is dynamic and particularly active on sites like Kickstarter and spaces such as 3D printing,” Martin explained. “We recognize that coming up with the next major innovation is no longer limited to industry heavyweights, but rather, is likely to be prototyped and developed in garages and Makerspaces.”

Martin also noted that Atmel was at the heart of most Arduino boards on the market today and highlighted Atmel’s new SAMA5D3 Xplained board – a low-cost, fast prototyping and evaluation platform for microprocessor-based design.

According to Martin, the board is targeted at both veteran developers and Makers. Indeed, the $79 SAMA5D3 Xplained – built around Atmel’s SAMA5D3 ARM Cortex-A5 processor-based MPU – is packed with a rich set of ready-to-use connectivity and storage peripherals, along with Arduino shield-compatible expansion headers for easy customization.

The platform is also perfect for headless Android projects, with a Linux distribution and software package helping to facilitate rapid software development.

On the software side, Martin briefly discussed the Arduino plug-in for Visual Studio (via Visual Micro), which offers a more detailed and complex environment for developers and Makers looking to supercharge their sketches.

Last, but certainly not least, Martin talked about Atmel’s popular University Program which helps familiarize both students and instructors with the embedded space, while facilitating migration from 8-bit to 32-bit development.

“Atmel offers a full day course for universities, split in two primary sessions. Both are free of charge. The morning session focuses on basic robotics using an Atmel AVR XMegaA3BU Xplained board,” said Martin.

“Course participants are taught pulse and width modulation techniques, as well as how to configure a collision avoidance program with basic algorithms. Attendees of the morning session get to take home their XMegaA3BU Xplained Board and a JTAGICE 3 hardware debugger.”

Meanwhile, afternoon session attendees can keep their SAM D20 Xplained Pro, which are used to implement a simple light and temperature meter along with two additional wing boards.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s commitment to Makers and students? You can check out Atmel’s University Program here and coverage of Atmel-based Maker projects here.

Atmel visits Beijing Makerspace

Sander Arts (@Sander1Arts), VP of Corporate Marketing at Atmel, visited the Beijing Makerspace on Monday, March 31, 2014.

After participating in a well-attended press event, Arts met a number of journalists, tinkerers and entrepreneurs to discuss Atmel’s place at the heart of the rapidly growing global Maker Movement.

According to Beijing Makerspace co-founder Justin Wang Shenglin, the community workshop can perhaps best be defined as a social enterprise.

“We organize fun workshops, seminars and other events for people who’d like to turn their ideas into physical prototypes or products,” Shenglin told the South China Morning Post during a recent interview.

“Most of our activities are open to the public, while a few are for members only. People who join us come from all walks of life: IT engineers, programmers, designers, artists, students – even psychologists. The thing they have in common is a desire to make cool stuff.”

Shenglin also described China as a “paradise” of sorts for Makers.

“All the materials they could want are here and extremely cheap. At markets like Zhongguancun, you can find almost everything you need,” he explained.

“[Plus], there are more than 20 Maker organizations in China, where the concept has only just started. [Nevertheless], it will take time to get more people involved.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Chinese government officials are also taking a keen interest in the Maker Movement due to its lucrative economic and educational potential.

For example, Shanghai’s municipal government has backed plans to build 100 Maker Spaces throughout the city. Each location is slated to be equipped with a 3D printer and will host staff to help visitors with traditional crafts such as woodworking.

Interested in learning more about China and the Maker Movement? Be sure to check out our Bits & Pieces article archive on the subject here.

Atmel and Corning collaborate on next-gen touch

Atmel and Corning have teamed up to develop ultra-thin capacitive touchscreens with superior multi-touch performance for next-gen applications.

More specifically, the collaboration combines Atmel’s XSense flexible touch sensors with 0.4mm damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass. Together, they deliver optimized capacitive touch performance via thinner flat or curved cover glass.

Additionally, the unique circuit design of Atmel’s XSense enables narrower device borders, allowing for a more optimal viewing area. The combination allows industrial designers to create phones, tablets, notebooks and other multi-touch devices with sleeker, lighter and more contemporary touch interfaces without sacrificing reliability or performance.

It should be noted that touch modules using cover glass thinner than 0.5 mm with relatively low conductive materials and non-optimal microcontrollers have been difficult to implement due to low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and aliased touch events – resulting in unsatisfactory multi-touch performance. 

XSense, combined with 0.4mm or curved Corning Gorilla Glass, enables exceptional multi-touch sensor panels that are thin, light, and damage-resistant.

“Our collaboration with Atmel accelerates the move toward thinner cover glass and enables the use of curved touchscreens for our customers designing next-generation applications,” said James Nagel, division vice president, Program Development, Corning Gorilla Glass, Corning Specialty Materials. “The toughness of 0.4mm and curved Gorilla Glass, coupled with the remarkable touch performance and flexibility of XSense enables the most exciting consumer experience in the market today.”

Jalil Shaikh, vice president and general manager of Touch Materials, Atmel Corporation, expressed similar sentiments.

“Designers are demanding thinner and lighter touchscreens but cannot compromise on multi-touch performance,” he explained. 

“The combination of Corning’s Gorilla Glass with Atmel’s XSense, flexible touch sensor delivers industry-leading, multi-touch performance while enabling thinner mobile devices with cutting-edge curved surfaces for tomorrow’s consumer applications.”

A sample device that pairs Atmel XSense flexible touch sensors with 0.4mm Gorilla Glass will be on display at Computex Taipei in Taiwan, June 3-7.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s XSense? You can check out our Bits & Pieces article archive on the subject here.

Atmel celebrates 50 billion with ARM

ARM – which employs over 2,000 people around the globe – has billions of RISC-based processors in the wild and powers approximately 95% of the world’s smartphones. Recently, the British company marked a major milestone: 50 billion ARM-powered chips shipped.

Commenting on the milestone, Reza Kazerounian, Senior Vice President of Microcontrollers at Atmel, noted that ARM helps embedded developers significantly accelerate the development cycle by offering access to standard cores and an extensive ecosystem, including software and reference designs.

Kazerounian also said the next 100 billion chips will likely be led by intelligent connectivity, primarily in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT).

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel offers an extensive portfolio of microcontrollers (MCUs) and microprocessors (MPUs) based on the world’s most popular 8- and 32-bit architectures: Atmel AVR and ARM. Indeed, Atmel’s two decades of microcontroller leadership and innovation include many industry-firsts:

• The first Flash microcontroller, the first ARM7-based 32-bit Flash microcontroller
• The first 100nA microcontroller with RAM retention
• The first ARM9-based Flash microcontroller

“In order to simplify the embedded design process, we’ve meticulously built a robust ecosystem around our ARM microcontrollers,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces. ”Meaning, Atmel offers a wide range of software tools and embedded software that support leading operating systems, along with low-cost evaluation kits.”

In addition, Atmel’s flexible and highly integrated ARM-based MCUs are designed to optimize system control, user interface (UI) management and ease of use. That’s why our ARM Cortex-M3 and M4 based architectures share a single integrated development platform (IDP): Atmel Studio 6. This platform offers time-saving source code with more than 1,600 example projects, access to debuggers/simulators, integration with Atmel QTouchtools for capacitive touch applications and the Atmel Gallery online apps store where embedded software extensions can be downloaded.

Meanwhile, Atmel ARM-based MPUs range from entry-level devices to advanced highly-integrated devices with extensive connectivity, refined interfaces and ironclad security.

“Whether you are working on new, existing or legacy designs, a wide range of Atmel ARM-based devices provides the latest features and functionality. These devices also feature the lowest power consumption, a comprehensive set of integrated peripherals and high-speed connectivity,” the engineering rep added.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s extensive ARM portfolio? You can check out our ARM MCUs here and our ARM MPUs here.

Atmel celebrates International Arduino Day

Today we celebrate Arduino Day and mark the first successful decade of the Atmel-powered boards.

It’s a 24 hour celebration – both official and independent – with Makers all over the world meeting up to share their DIY experiences.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel is at the very heart of most Arduino boards on the market today.

Indeed, as 
Atmel MCU Applications Manager Bob Martin recently pointed out, Atmel’s 8- and 32-bit microcontrollers have been the MCUs of choice for Arduino since the boards first hit the streets for DIY Makers way back in 2005. More specifically, he attributes the success of Arduino to its easy-to-use, free cross-platform toolchain and its simple do-it-yourself packages with Atmel MCUs.

“These factors helped initially steer the Arduino team to choose our AVR microcontrollers – and today, both our AVR and ARM-based MCUs,” Martin explained.

In addition to the DIY Maker Movement, the boards are popular with veteran designers, architects and engineers.

“It’s very easy to try out design by building a prototype so that they can see what solutions work and toss out those that don’t. This is much easier to do early in the design process before more money has been spent on bringing an idea to fruition; Arduino can play a key role here,” Brock Craft, author of “Arduino Projects for Dummies,” told ItProPortal in late 2013.

“Just a simple example – I know a lighting company that recently used Arduino to control dimmable lighting effects for architectural lighting products they were developing. Using an Arduino helped them try out their ideas in an afternoon, rather than waiting weeks.”

Arduino boards are also extensively used in the educational community, with science and computing teachers in secondary schools choosing the versatile platform to teach kids the principles of programming and computational thinking.

“[Of course], Arduino is used in colleges and universities, [where] they are often found in design programs, particularly in product design, because Arduinos can quickly be used to prototype products that do physical things – like toasters or dispensers or remote controls, for example,” said Craft.

“It is also widely used in digital arts programs for making interactive artwork, music and performances. [Yes], there have been similar products on the market for many years and education curricula have used other alternatives. But what makes Arduino different – and is driving teachers to use them – is that Arduinos are easy to use. And if they need help, it’s easy for teachers and students to get it in the extensive online communities.”

As Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi notes, communities are the primary drivers for contribution in the Maker community.

“What you find is that if you can create a community around an open source project then it becomes really alive because everyone starts to contribute. If you don’t have an ecosystem, the platform won’t be successful. If you start charging for everything, everything dies very quickly,” he said.

“There are millions of sandwich places around the world, the recipe for sandwiches is open. Nobody can patent the recipe for a BLTs but yet there’s like a million restaurants doing BLTs. Everyday each one of them is adding a little source, each one is improving the recipe with technique, but effectively what goes inside the sandwich is out there and open and people still make money.”

As Bazni points out, open source hardware like the Arduino helps encourage creativity.

“I think it enables people to share the efforts that are needed to get the certain type of product or project started. Each person adds what some people call the secret source. You can take open source knowledge and add your own secret source,” he added.

“Or you can sell it or sell services around that product. [Arduino] wants to create a platform that’s going to take this and multiply the efficiency, [while] multiplying the value that people get by being part of that community… The challenge is to build a platform that solves a simple problem for a specific group of people: beginners for example. Our boards enable people to get ideas into products very fast. It’s people over Megahertz.”

 

Time-lapse photography trigger on an Arduino Shield

A Shield is a plug-in mezzanine board that fits into Arduinos. I was looking for a remote trigger for my great Panasonic GH3 camera I use for some shots in my Atmel Edge web show. So I was delighted to run across this little time lapse trigger Arduino Shield that visual effects artist Dan Thompson is working on.

This is the circuit board layout for Dan Thompson’s time-lapse Arduino Shield.

That lucky happenstance led me to other Arduino-based time-lapse controllers like this one from “hacker3455”.

This is another Arduino-based time-lapse shutter controller.

 

And here is a yet another time-lapse Arduino on Hack-a-Day.

 

And if you want to get that “Bullet time” look like in the Matrix
movies, there is even an Arduino-based time-lapse dolly controller.

 

There are several controllers, like this one you can to pans and tilts with. Here is a little test video of the prototype:

Of course, the path software is critical and the community does not disappoint, with code like this, developed by Airic Lenz, the fellow that did the above video.

This is the kind of tech that South Dakota farmer Randy Halverson stunned the world with back in 2013. Here is a vid with the man himself:

Here is a video of an Arduino-based dolly in action:

And here is one more time-lapse controller from the wonderful folks at Practical Arduino.

Arduino in a cardboard box

If you went to Maker Faire New York, you saw Atmel’s tables had flashing LEDs on the edge.

The tables Atmel had at NY Maker Faire had LED strips built into them.

Those strips were powered by these custom “Arduinos in a box.” The cardboard box was perfectly in keeping with cardboard tables, made by chairigami.

We created a battery-powered Arduino to run the LED lights on the cardboard tables.

Inside the box is an Atmel-powered Arduino, as well as the battery pack used to run the board and LED strip.

This side has the D-sub connector used to connect to the LED strips. There is also a power connector if you don’t want to run on the internal batteries.

The boxes have a cut-out for the USB connector, should you need to do some emergency programming on the show floor.

A nice touch is the Velcro strip on the back of the battery pack that holds it to the side of the box. You can see the “ECO” (engineering change order) where the USB hole was on the same side, but that got changed in the prototyping stage. Every product tells a story.

Be sure to check out the Atmel booth at Maker Faire Bay Area (Silicon Valley), World Maker New York (in Queens), and in just a few weeks (April 6-7, 2014) we will be at Maker Faire @ Shenzhen (China).