I've been looking around at other cortex m3 platforms and I was really pleased by the ST offerings. They have great DSP libraries (optimized and C) as well as a full suite of motor control. The motor control suite comes with an application generator which sets all the parameters including closed loop tuning parameters using a variety of configurations.
It seems that the era of self tuning of motors is upon us. When traditional methods were used to tune processors using step responses, load tuning was a big part of the work. I suspect it still is if you want to get 100% out of the motor and driver for a specific application. These tools should make it easier though, getting you into the center of the envelope with zero effort.
But still, why no loop tuning option in the tools? Likely it introduces too many dependencies like host target communication, real time data collection and recovery and many more.
Great work ST
Monday, December 1, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
International Product Life Cycle for Software
I was surprised to learn how many executives do not understand international product life cycle as it applies to software products. This short description is intended to describe international product life cycle in an abreviated fashion and then discuss how software's portability make it a unique case which promotes more rapid off shoring.
First, international product life cycle states that innovation starts in a home developed country and becomes successful as a product. Then it competes in other developed countries with products from within these countries. As the technology matures, it moves into the developing world by means of export. Then the developing world starts manufacturing for home use and eventually manufactures and sells back into the developed countries.
There are many examples of this. It transpires because of the dynamics of the theory of comparitive advantage as it occurs over time.
For software, the twists are the following:
a) It is much easier to move production off shore to reduce costs associated with add ons. For this reason this happens relatively early.
b) Because the knowledge associated with developing add on products and services allows the developing country to develop the same or better skllls as the parent, often the entire product or idea can be copied to provide a much lower cost version off shore sooner rather than later. If the product enhancement is done as a branch of the parent company, IP is protected. If the enhancement is done to an outsourcing company, it is very likely that the company is creating a vehicle to copy it's product.
Comments?
First, international product life cycle states that innovation starts in a home developed country and becomes successful as a product. Then it competes in other developed countries with products from within these countries. As the technology matures, it moves into the developing world by means of export. Then the developing world starts manufacturing for home use and eventually manufactures and sells back into the developed countries.
There are many examples of this. It transpires because of the dynamics of the theory of comparitive advantage as it occurs over time.
For software, the twists are the following:
a) It is much easier to move production off shore to reduce costs associated with add ons. For this reason this happens relatively early.
b) Because the knowledge associated with developing add on products and services allows the developing country to develop the same or better skllls as the parent, often the entire product or idea can be copied to provide a much lower cost version off shore sooner rather than later. If the product enhancement is done as a branch of the parent company, IP is protected. If the enhancement is done to an outsourcing company, it is very likely that the company is creating a vehicle to copy it's product.
Comments?
Disruption of Microprocessors by Microcontrollers and Its Long Term Effects
I was fascinated to discover that the mpu vendors were being disrupted by mcu vendors by virtue of the fact that the increase in functionality of the parts and free memory is leading to ever expanding features, features that users don't necessarily need for many applications.
As Christianson predicts with the Innovators Dilema model, microcontrollers came in on the low end and started competing on a new parameter - system on a chip solutions. Ten years ago they could run a few assembler instructions. Today they can put enough memory on the processors to compete with mpu and board level solutions of 10 years ago. They are currently capturing this business.
Microcontrollers are gaining ground because mcu technology is being commoditized into consumer goods which are sold in very high volumes. This high volume is pushing prices down and microcontrollers are a natural solution. BOM costs can drop by substantial amounts resulting in a big improvement in profitability for the OEMs.
Too cool.... theory meets practice....
Comments?
As Christianson predicts with the Innovators Dilema model, microcontrollers came in on the low end and started competing on a new parameter - system on a chip solutions. Ten years ago they could run a few assembler instructions. Today they can put enough memory on the processors to compete with mpu and board level solutions of 10 years ago. They are currently capturing this business.
Microcontrollers are gaining ground because mcu technology is being commoditized into consumer goods which are sold in very high volumes. This high volume is pushing prices down and microcontrollers are a natural solution. BOM costs can drop by substantial amounts resulting in a big improvement in profitability for the OEMs.
Too cool.... theory meets practice....
Comments?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
CeBIT 08
The CeBIT show was truly a spectacular event. I would compare it to the Comdex show of years ago. It was largely IT focussed, with many things being split off into separate shows now. This included:
- embedded systems totally moved to Embedded World
- consumer electronics largely moved to a Berlin show
- competing Auto electronics shows
- competing industrial shows
The coolest things for me?
- 3D Plasma TV - not shabby, good view angle
- Lane change and wander warning electronics for cars
- A rack of Sun servers (complete rack, 19" style) running on 1095-1097W ... thank multicore.
- Low cost bluetooth chips from Korea ($4.80 USD in 10k without negotiation)
- 50 Chineese vendors charged for IP violations with a 5 year penalty in jail waiting for them!!!
I think trade shows are still fashionable in Europe - its too bad we don't have travel budgets for this in North America any longer. It was educational.
- embedded systems totally moved to Embedded World
- consumer electronics largely moved to a Berlin show
- competing Auto electronics shows
- competing industrial shows
The coolest things for me?
- 3D Plasma TV - not shabby, good view angle
- Lane change and wander warning electronics for cars
- A rack of Sun servers (complete rack, 19" style) running on 1095-1097W ... thank multicore.
- Low cost bluetooth chips from Korea ($4.80 USD in 10k without negotiation)
- 50 Chineese vendors charged for IP violations with a 5 year penalty in jail waiting for them!!!
I think trade shows are still fashionable in Europe - its too bad we don't have travel budgets for this in North America any longer. It was educational.
Embedded World 08
Embedded World 08 was an exciting event - many thousands of attendees, all major exhibitors and much more. There was exciting new technology too - PIC32 was being pushed along with new MSP430 solutions and new offerings from nearly all the microcontroller vendors including: Renesas, Fujitsu, Luminary, Toshiba, NEC, and many more. Clearly microcontrollers, DSCs and DSPs are still hot.
One of the most interesting things I saw was the Luminary products. They are going to challenge the traditional microcontroller vendors with Arm M3 Cortex designs (32 bit design) at 8 bit prices. It should be interesting to watch.
The most interesting part for us was the fact that nobody knows that there is a tiny tiny embedded Linux compatible RTOS called Unison or DSPnano that they could use in the microcontroller space where other solutions simply don't exist. The microcontroller vendors understand the need but the customers don't know there is a solution. That is our challenge.
And Elke Antonia Bergmann, thank you for the great job at the show! You're the best! Now how can I hire more people with this attitude?
One of the most interesting things I saw was the Luminary products. They are going to challenge the traditional microcontroller vendors with Arm M3 Cortex designs (32 bit design) at 8 bit prices. It should be interesting to watch.
The most interesting part for us was the fact that nobody knows that there is a tiny tiny embedded Linux compatible RTOS called Unison or DSPnano that they could use in the microcontroller space where other solutions simply don't exist. The microcontroller vendors understand the need but the customers don't know there is a solution. That is our challenge.
And Elke Antonia Bergmann, thank you for the great job at the show! You're the best! Now how can I hire more people with this attitude?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Technology Changes For Robots
Robots need to be low cost but today's technologies are not getting us there fast enough. The main reason for this is that the architectural approach is incorrect. Robots need completely distributed systems to reduce cost and allow computational engines to become more specialized.
Typical robots today (of the experimental and service varieties) use a central cpu, often an x86 variant, and run Linux of some flavor. They may have some type of RTOS to try and provide better performance to replace Linux but the basic message is that they require a big board and have expensive processors.
A far superior approach is to separate the system into four subsystems. One subsystem is dedicated to motion control, a second is dedicated to power management, third is dedicated to sensors and the forth is the brain of the system. These four subsystems are interconnected and all must be there for complete functioning of the robot.
By separating the systems out, there is a big advantage in that the motion control and any lower bandwidth local sensors near them can be run by a single microcontroller. This single microcontroller can be extremely low cost and a distributed bus or network can be used to communicate among the controllers. This provides high precision motion control in a distributed architecture at very low cost.
In the case of low bandwidth sensors, they are layered on top of the motion network cutting costs. For high bandwidth sensors, a direct high bandwidth connection to the core logic processor is required. For example, Ladar and vision systems require high bandwidth connections to the core logic processor, presumably with integrated hardware based accelerators to speed this processing.
A power management system is required to control power sequencing, special mechanical locks, recharging, and various other power related features. This network can coordinate actions based on the oversite of the core logic processor. This off loads all the power management tasks from the core logic processor, avoiding real-time power management interrupts and improving power management response. Again this is a low cost $2-3 dollar processor for each supply including networking costs.
In terms of the core logic processor, this is a real challenge. The current approaches simply don't offer the kind of performance which is really required. In addition the cost for these processors is generally high. We all need to create new technologies to overcome this unknown.
Typical robots today (of the experimental and service varieties) use a central cpu, often an x86 variant, and run Linux of some flavor. They may have some type of RTOS to try and provide better performance to replace Linux but the basic message is that they require a big board and have expensive processors.
A far superior approach is to separate the system into four subsystems. One subsystem is dedicated to motion control, a second is dedicated to power management, third is dedicated to sensors and the forth is the brain of the system. These four subsystems are interconnected and all must be there for complete functioning of the robot.
By separating the systems out, there is a big advantage in that the motion control and any lower bandwidth local sensors near them can be run by a single microcontroller. This single microcontroller can be extremely low cost and a distributed bus or network can be used to communicate among the controllers. This provides high precision motion control in a distributed architecture at very low cost.
In the case of low bandwidth sensors, they are layered on top of the motion network cutting costs. For high bandwidth sensors, a direct high bandwidth connection to the core logic processor is required. For example, Ladar and vision systems require high bandwidth connections to the core logic processor, presumably with integrated hardware based accelerators to speed this processing.
A power management system is required to control power sequencing, special mechanical locks, recharging, and various other power related features. This network can coordinate actions based on the oversite of the core logic processor. This off loads all the power management tasks from the core logic processor, avoiding real-time power management interrupts and improving power management response. Again this is a low cost $2-3 dollar processor for each supply including networking costs.
In terms of the core logic processor, this is a real challenge. The current approaches simply don't offer the kind of performance which is really required. In addition the cost for these processors is generally high. We all need to create new technologies to overcome this unknown.
Sometimes People Surprise Me
When people are angry reasonable people do unreasonable things. For the past month I have been dealing with the fallout of a malicious attack on our internal systems web site and support server.
To our customers I offer my sincere apology for the demise of our web site for the past week. We have done our best to restore it quickly but all takes time. It will return very soon.
Initially I thought that these attacks were simply prompted by anger, but upon further investigation I discovered that fraud was at the heart of their plans. All our customers can rest assured that the perpetrators of these crimes will be dealt with by the courts and will be held responsible for their crimes.
To all of you out there, I recommend the following:
To our customers I offer my sincere apology for the demise of our web site for the past week. We have done our best to restore it quickly but all takes time. It will return very soon.
Initially I thought that these attacks were simply prompted by anger, but upon further investigation I discovered that fraud was at the heart of their plans. All our customers can rest assured that the perpetrators of these crimes will be dealt with by the courts and will be held responsible for their crimes.
To all of you out there, I recommend the following:
- separate system administration from operational personnel
- triple check all backups
- never subcontract system administration work short term
- automate changing all passwords so it can be done across your systems instantly if possible
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