april 2020 | Vol. 52 No.

4 | ISSN-0013-516X

Contents
52nd Year of Publication

Since January 1969

26 Artificial Intelligence: Is Learning 50 LOGISTICS: Courier Industries: Next Issue

From AI Flop-Shows A Good Idea? Opportunities For Electronics • We Lost The Tail, Is Brain Next?
30 Design: Can Drones Be Used To Save 53 GREEN TECH: Introduction To Green • Introduction To Quantum Computing
A Patient’s Life? Computing And Its Importance • Design EV Battery Charging Solutions
37 HEALTHCARE: Putting Electronics Of 56 Test & Measurement: The Parameters • Do Space Rovers Promise
Brain Waves To Use Better Future?
To Evaluate Autonomous Vehicles
40 HEALTHCARE: How Technologies With AI • Make This Versatile Frequency
58 CLOUD: Top Nine Open Source Cloud
Can Help Control Disease Outbreaks Like Generator
Management Platforms
COVID-19
43 Artificial Intelligence: The Importance 83 Market Survey: Whither To Wearables
Editor : Ramesh Chopra
Of AI And IT In Modern Healthcare Industry
Editorial : Editorial Secretary
46 TECH FOCUS: Data Analytics: A 93 Facts & Figures: Some Indian Centres correspondence Phone: 011-26810601; E-mail: [email protected]
(Technical queries: [email protected])
Game-Changer In Healthcare Industry Currently Collaborating With WHO
Subscriptions & : Phone: 011-40596600
missing issues E-mail: [email protected]
Back issues, : Kits‘n’Spares, New Delhi
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How Hybrid Approach Newsstand : Ph: 011-40596600, 8800295612

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33
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INTERVIEW Smart World E-mail: [email protected]
singapore : Publicitas Singapore Pte Ltd
62 “Tech Companies Value Three 18 Role Of Technology In Maintaining Law Ph: +65-6836 2272
To Four Years Of Deep Domain And Order E-mail: [email protected]
Experience” taiwan : J.K. Media, Ph: 886-2-87726780 ext. 10
PVG Menon, president and chief executive 20 Air Purification For Sustainable Living E-mail: [email protected]
officer, VANN Consulting 22 AI-Powered Cameras For Security United States : E & Tech Media
63 “LoRaWAN Is An Open Ecosystem 24 How Technology Is Helping Fight Ph: +1 860 536 6677
E-mail: [email protected]
And Is A Global Standard” Coronavirus
Donna Moore, chief executive officer and Europe : ASA Media, UK
Ph:+44 1727 765542
chairwoman, LoRa Alliance C:+44 7910 073565
64 “The Most Important Thing Is StartUp Zone E-mail: [email protected]
The Selection Of The IoT 86 Indigenous Robotic Solutions For
pms plantenberg media service GmbH,
Germany
Platform; It Needs To Have As Ph: +49 89 5507 9909
Many Interfaces As Possible To Underwater Inspection
Mobile: +49 170 4828426
Enable The Sensor Technology” 87 Robotic Inspection To Fight Waste-Water E-mail: [email protected]
Samar Mittal, vice president - software, Crisis
India market, Nokia
87 New-Age 3D Printers Reshaping Composite Printed, published and owned by Ramesh Chopra. Printed at
International Print-o-Pack Ltd, C-4 to C-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase-II
Manufacturing
Do-It-Yourself 88 Humanoid Robots Transforming
Extension, NOIDA-201305, Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, on the
first day of each month and published from D-87/1, Okhla Industrial
Area, Phase-1, New Delhi 110020. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved
65 Make A Crystal-Locked FM Transmitter Customer Engagement throughout the world. Reproduction of any material from this magazine
67 Make Your Own Password Locker in any manner without the written permission of the publisher is
prohibited. Although every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no
69 Design Your Own Digital Photo Frame
71 Try Making This TFT-Based GPS Analogue eStyle responsibility whatsoever is taken for any loss due to publishing errors.
EFY will not be responsible for any wrong claims made by an advertiser.
Disputes, if any, will be settled in a New Delhi court only.
Clock Using Arduino 96 First Look: Some New Gadgets
73 Build A Universal AC/DC Booster, Audio 98 ENTERTAINMENT: How To Protect Kids
Amplifier Cum Line Driver SUBSCRIPTION RATES
From Risky Smart Toys
75 Measure Difficult Angles With This Period Newstand Price You Pay Overseas
Digital Protractor 100 Buyers’ Guide: How To Choose Basic Year (`) (`) Digital Print

Consumer Electronics Three 3600 2520 US$ 48 —

78 This Stereo Amplifier Is Simple To Make
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6 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com
 FeedBack
Your suggestions

SAVE BURIED AND

DROWNING PEOPLE From https://electronicsforu.com
This is regarding the article ‘Electronic
Detection Can Save Buried And Drown-
Technology/Resources
ing People’ published in March 2019 Thanks for an insightful article The article on ‘What are the Differences
issue and also available on your website titled ‘Business Setup For e-Waste Between M2M and the IoT’ published
at https://www.electronicsforu.com/ Recycling’ under Project Report under Things You Wanted To Know
technology-trends/tech-focus/electronic- section published in EFY and also section and also available on your
detection-save-buried-drowning-people. available on your website at https:// website at https://www.electronicsforu.
www.electronicsforu.com/technology- com/resources/learn-electronics/
How can we implement these ideas in a
trends/must-read/business-setup- difference-between-m2m-and-iot is
drone like Drone Finder? e-waste-recycling. very useful and would like to read more
I am also interested in setting up an about it. I would like to see articles on
Ravinder Singh Bhandari e-waste and recycling plant. architecture and testing aspects as well.
Sahil Keep up your good work!
The author Dr S.S. Verma replies: Mohana
I would like to point out that the arti- I would be interested in setting up an
cle deals with the use of electronic e-Waste dismantling unit. The article on ‘Differences Between
methods near the surface of land, or Jayant K. M2M and the IoT’ is really nice and
by inserting probes into land or water informative. The topic is very helpful
Thanks for the brief article on e-waste for my exams.
to sense electronics based activities
and recycling. I am interested to work Yogesh Sambare
from the buried or drowned people, to on this project. I will be thankful if
detect their presence at the earliest and someone can guide me to setup The article titled ‘What Are The
save them. Whereas use of drone-like the plant in Bihar. Components Used In Drone Design?’
devices (i.e., Finder) from distances Kumar Sonu published under Things You Wanted To
can help only to locate things on the Know and also available on your website
surface of land or water, finding by Please guide me to set up a plant at https://www.electronicsforu.com/
drones is not possible beneath land or in Pune. resources/learn-electronics/components-
under water. Sakshi used-drone-design is a nice article.
However, in future, drone technol- Thanks for the valuable information!
I am interested to work on the project in Mahammad Sadiq
ogy might be developed for such require-
Mumbai. But first I would like to visit
ments also with more powerful signals a segregation plant. The ‘Technologies That Will Shape Our
(EM waves, etc) and sensors probing Sachin Aphandkar Lives In 2019’ article on your website
beneath land and under water. is very helpful to know the latest
••• Thank you so much for explaining the technology and development.
topic in such a simple and easy way Sridhar
ELECTRONIC TOY to understand.
The ‘Build This Electronic Toy For A Ashwajit EFY. Thanks for the feedback!
Child’ DIY project published in February
issue and also available on your website
https://www.electronicsforu.com is a  The ‘Control Four Appliances with ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY
nice one. a Touch Switch Panel’ is a very useful DIRECTORY 2020
project. The website mentioned for Elecom
Saurabh Balasaheb Erande International Pvt Ltd under ‘Adver-
••• Thushara Fernando tisement Index’ section on the last
page of Electronics Industry Directory
TOUCH SWITCH PANEL  This is regarding ‘Control Four Appli- 2020 is wrong. The correct website is
The ‘Control Four Appliances with a ances with a Touch Switch Panel’ pro- www.elcom-in.com
Touch Switch Panel’ DIY project pub- ject. Just like in this project, we are also
lished in October 2019 issue and also using TTP223 in our projects. Thanks for Mihir Vaze
available on your website https://www. the information! Chief Design Officer
electronicsforu.com is good and informa- Elcom International Pvt Ltd
tive for students. Thank you! Ceneloctronics
EFY. We sincerely apologise for the error
Ravi Kumar EFY. Thanks for the feedback! and regret the inconvenience caused.

8 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Q&A
Things You Wanted to Know!

Q1. What is the difference between nominal voltage, Voc, Vmp, Isc and Imp in case
of a solar panel? Which parameters are important to check before installation of
solar panels?
Ramji Vadivelu, Salem, Tamil Nadu

A1. Different solar panels or photovoltaic (PV) modules

have different specifications. There are several terms asso- Typical Specification of a 250W Solar Panel
ciated with solar panels and their ratings such as nominal Electrical parameters Typical value
voltage, Voc, Vmp, Isc and Imp. All these parameters are Power Max (Pm) 250
checked before installation. Brief information about each Short Circuit Current (Isc) 8.95A
is given below.
Max Power Current (Imp) 8.35A
Nominal voltage. Used just for classification, it is not
Maximum Voltage (Vmp) 29.95
a real voltage you are going to measure. It is not a fixed
voltage either and, normally, it is not mentioned in the Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) 37.25
specification sheet of a PV module. Some of the common System Voltage 1000V DC
parameters mentioned in the specification sheet are listed
in the table. to be around 70 to 80 per cent of the Voc.
Voltage at open circuit (Voc). This voltage is checked Short circuit current (Isc). This is the value of current
with a voltmeter across the output terminals of the solar obtained when the positive and negative terminals of the panel
panel module, without connecting any load. This parame- are connected to each other through an ammeter in series. This
ter is used to check/test the module during installation and is the highest current the solar panel will produce under stand-
later for system design. It is an important parameter under ard test conditions. Isc is used to determine how many amps a
standard test conditions. Voc is used while determining panel can handle when connected to a device like a solar charge
the number of solar panels required for a particular load. controller or an inverter circuit.
Voltage at maximum power (Vmp). This is the volt- Current at maximum power (Imp). This current is obtained
age available when the panel is connected to a load and when solar panel is producing its maximum power. It is the
is operating at its maximum capacity under standard test amperage you would want to see when connected to a solar
conditions. Most solar panel manufacturers specify Vmp equipment.

Q2. How does the prepaid smart energy meter work? What are some of its advantages?
Sagar Chalkar, Dadar, Mumbai

A2. A smart energy meter is used to measure electrical flowing once again.
current flow and voltage at regular intervals. It calculates There are many advantages of a prepaid smart energy meter.
the energy consumption and shows it on the display of the It allows you to calculate your daily usage and manage your
meter installed at your home. It sends this information to account via a smartphone app or web portal. As consumer,
your power/energy supplier also using a communication you can view your current balance and estimated usage for the
link like wide area network (WAN). days ahead.
In a prepaid smart energy meter, the consumer buys You will be notified via text message or email about daily
a recharge card and pays for the energy units required by energy consumption and your existing balance. This will help
him in advance, like the prepaid connection for a mobile you to know when to recharge the prepaid card before the bal-
phone. The balance amount keeps reducing with each unit ance becomes zero. The display of the prepaid energy meter
of energy consumed. If the balance amount becomes zero, also shows your energy consumption and the balance amount.
the power supply automatically gets cut off. When you The meter shows energy consumption in kilo-watt-hours
top-up your prepaid card, the balance increases accordingly (or kWh), where one kWh refers to the unit of energy required
and the relay (an automatic switch) allows power to start to provide 1000 watts of power for one hour.

Answers compiled by Sani Theo, technical editor. Letters and questions for publication may be addressed to Editor, Electronics For You, D-87/1, Okhla Industrial Area,
Phase 1, New Delhi 110020 (e-mail: [email protected]) and should include name and address of the sender.

10 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Tech News
Technology Updates

Device to predict flu pandemics in advance developed

A portable surveillance device that can detect coughing and pandemic in the making has been invented. Called FluSense,
crowd size in real time, analyse the data to directly monitor and powered by machine learning, it has been developed by a
flu-like illnesses and influenza trends, and predict the next team of US researchers from the University of Massachusetts.
It is likely to find use in hospitals, healthcare waiting rooms
and larger public gatherings as a surveillance tool to forecast
seasonal flu and other viral respiratory outbreaks, such as
Covid-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. According to study co-
author Tauhidur Rahman, assistant professor of computer and
information sciences, “This may allow us to predict flu trends
in a much more accurate manner.”
The FluSense platform processes a low-cost microphone
array and thermal imaging data with a Raspberry Pi and neural
computing engine. The researchers first developed a lab-based
cough model. They then trained the deep neural network clas-
sifier to draw bounding boxes on thermal images representing
people, and then to count them. From December 2018 to July
2019, the FluSense platform collected and analysed more than
350,000 thermal images and 21 million non-speech audio sam-
ples from the public waiting areas. FluSense was able to accu-
rately predict daily illness rates at the university clinic. The next
The FluSense device houses these components step is to test it in other public areas and geographic locations.

Study says 5G is safe to use

There are rumours going on in social media that radiation from “The guidelines have been developed after a thorough
radio waves used for various communication modes are caus- review of all relevant scientific literature, scientific workshops
ing pandemics like novel coronavirus. But The International and an extensive public consultation process. They provide
Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) protection against all scientifically substantiated adverse
has quashed these rumours and said there is no evidence health effects due to EMF exposure in the 100kHz to 300GHz
showing 5G mobile networks pose any threat to human health. range,” said ICNIRP chairman Dr Eric van Rongen.
ICNIRP has spent seven years examining the scientific evidence The ICNIRP suggested restrictions that would stop whole-
and has updated its guidelines to improve protection for 5G body exposure to the 6GHz frequency and intense exposure to
technologies that use high frequencies. small areas of the body, though this is not mandatory. “The most
ICNIRP said the 1998 guidelines on protecting humans important thing for people to remember is that 5G technologies
from radiation from phone networks, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will not be able to cause harm when these new guidelines are
would have been appropriate for 5G technology, but frequen- adhered to,” van Rongen added. Mobile trade group GSMA said
cies over 6GHz may need more conservative standards. current 5G phones already fall within the new standards’ limits.

Work from home culture likely to grow for tech workers

While the outbreak of novel coronavirus is forcing people working from home thanks to social distancing imposed by the
to work from home in India, it might become a norm for a outbreak. If they continue to work from home for a few more
majority of office workers. It is estimated that more than half months, at least IT companies are likely to conclude that nearly
of the approximately three million Indian IT workers are now one-third of their workforce can operate remotely.

12 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Tech News
Most companies, like Wipro and Tata Consultancy Ser-
vices, were already experimenting with the work from home
culture in India with some of their staff. Over the next few
months they are likely to realise the benefits and drawbacks of
working from home and start taking appropriate measures to
make it a greater success. For a starter, it is quite obvious that
work from home saves travel time and expense, and leads to
better productivity. It is no wonder that many tools are being
introduced to help promote this work culture.
Over time, even if thirty per cent of people start working
from home, it would mean a very large number of people not
needing to commute to an office daily. Representational image

Let Google tell you how long to keep washing your hands
The hardest part about washing your hands is doing it long Most of us believe twenty seconds are enough for hand-
enough. Google Assistant has now come out with a feature to washing to protect against viruses, but Google Assistant wants
let you know through a tune that it keeps playing for forty sec- you to do it for forty seconds to be on a safer side. In fact, World
onds. You have to say, “Hey Google, help me wash my hands.” Health Organization (WHO) also recommends washing hands
for forty seconds in order to clean them properly.
What’s more, on Android smartphones and iPhones, the
Google Assistant shows the complete lyrics of the song that
it is playing and on smart displays, such as the Nest Hub,
it shows graphics of colourful soap bubbles. Separately,
Google has also launched a website dedicated to corona-
virus. It gives all the latest information to users about the
coronavirus outbreak. In addition to that, the website that
can be accessed at google.com/covid19 has shortlinks to FAQ
Representational image pages by the WHO.

COAI suggests lowering streaming resolution

to unburden networks
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has written to
the telecom department and over-the-top (OTT) companies
such as Netflix, Hotstar, YouTube, Voot, and Amazon Prime
Video to lower the streaming resolution to reduce the burden
on the networks in the wake of people staying at home due to
the coronavirus outbreak. “We believe that during this critical
time, it is absolutely essential for the streaming platforms to
cooperate with TSPs to manage traffic distribution patterns
which are likely to strain network infrastructure at a time
when it is needed for various critical requirements,” COAI said
in a letter to OTT platforms. They have requested for lower-
ing streaming quality to Standard Definition (SD) from High
Representational image
Definition (HD).
“This sudden surge in digital use is already putting pres- to curb the propagation of the virus,” COAI added in its letter
sure on the network infrastructure of the Telecom Service Pro- to the OTT services.
viders (TSPs). The TSPs are taking requisite steps to manage It’s worth noting that Netflix, Disney and other OTT play-
this load and facilitate the smooth functioning of the networks ers have already reduced the streaming quality in Europe to
during this critical time,” COAI wrote. “It is pertinent to note prevent Internet overload. They will “begin reducing bit rates
that the need of the hour is that companies offering streaming across all our streams in Europe for 30 days,” a Netflix spokes-
platform service and TSPs take joint responsibility to take steps person said. “We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on
to ensure smooth functioning of the data communication net- European networks by around 25 per cent while also ensuring
works to align with other measures being taken in this battle a good quality service for our members,” the statement added.

14 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Tech News
Beware of phishing apps that load ransomware trojans
Web and mobile applications that track the spread of the Covid- download platforms such as Google Play and App Store but
19 virus outbreak are also loading ransomware trojans and can be downloaded from websites.
trackers to snoop on users, according to cyber security firms. On its developer blog, Apple said “We are evaluating
For instance, some map-based applications that trace the path apps critically to ensure data sources are reputable and that
of the virus across the globe could end up infecting a user’s developers presenting these apps are from recognised entities
phone with a virus. such as government organisations, health-focused NGOs,
According to information security provider ZScaler, companies deeply credentialed in health issues, and medical or
hackers are now floating applications on the Internet that educational institutions.” The threat, however, is not limited to
claim to notify a user as soon as anyone infected with applications. Phishing scams are also capitalising on the topi-
the virus is nearby. What such apps do instead is lock cality of the virus. Mails are sent offering a clickable document
out the user and ask for ransoms to unlock their device. that allegedly includes a list of precautions to take to prevent
“There are also apps that tell you where you can go and buy an infection, but these documents can be unsafe.
N-95 mask. These are all hoaxes—the moment a user down- Check for and delete emails from unexpected sources, said
loads such an app it will corrupt your smartphone or laptop Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at cybersecurity
and may ask for a ransom to unlock it,” said Sudip Banerjee, firm Sopho. “The best approach to avoid this type of cyberattack
director, Transformation Strategy - Asia Pacific and Japan at is to turn off macros, be extra cautious about what you click, and
Zscaler. Such apps are not available on popular application delete email that is suspicious or from an unexpected source.”

BSNL offering free Internet for one month

To help people work from home, study at home, or just get
entertained during the novel coronavirus outbreak in India,
Bharat Sanchar Network India (BSNL), a government of India
enterprise, is offering free Internet for one month to its landline
telephone customers. In case someone doesn’t have BSNL
connection, the telecom operator will install it free, including
the copper wire for connection. You just need to purchase a
modem/router from them.
After one month, the users will have to select a paid plan of
their choice. Those opting for high-speed fibre broadband line
will have to pay for the fibre-optic cable’s installation. Existing
BSNL customers can simply call the customer service for the
Internet connection. Representational image

Industry 4.0 survey results announced

In a study done in India on ‘Will the next transformation in
manufacturing be led by Digital?’ by Ernst & Young, two-thirds
of the 50 large manufacturing firms contacted have identified
Big Data and Predictive Analytics as the top investment priority
technologies for next couple of years. However, 66 per cent of
the respondents were also unclear about the economic benefits
from digital investments, indicating they were yet to catch up
with concepts such as Industry 4.0 and Smart Factories.
Major hurdles identified in the study for moving to the
digital world included, (a) deficiency in people’s skills on
tech, analytics, cybersecurity, etc, (b) lack of understanding of
the impact of digital manufacturing, and (c) insufficient tech
infrastructure in terms of hardware and software. It was found,
however, that 49 per cent of the firms were in the process of
enhancing their digital infrastructure (hardware and software)
and workforce by providing training. And, 63 per cent already
had some infrastructure in place with basic software data
Representational image capture and process monitoring.

16 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Smart World
Role Of Technology In Air Purification For AI-Powered Cameras How Technology Is Helping
1 Maintaining Law and Order 2 Sustainable Living 3 For Security 4 Fight Coronavirus

Role Of Technology
1 In Maintaining Law and Order
With criminals becoming tech-savvy, police and the courts also need to know the latest
tools and make use of the latest technologies like cyber policing, artificial intelligence,
data analytics, blockchain and cloud computing

full electronic access to past history

of all records. Analysing the data from
first-hand evidence at the site in real
time provides a good overview of
cases from the beginning.
Telangana Police is among those
taking diverse initiatives since past
few years to maintain law and order
in the state. For instance, mobile apps
like TSCOP, ePetty case, Cop Connect,
Facial Recognition System, and e-Chal-
lan system launched by the department
have played a huge role in data sharing
and structuring the system. Another
such attempt comes from IIIT Delhi,
where a research centre has been built
to assist the capital’s police for such
purposes as criminals’ identification,
cyber policing, traffic management,
and combating crimes by using artifi-
(Credit: www.tagesspiegel.de) cial intelligence (AI), biometrics, image
processing, Big Data, social media
analysis and network forensics.

R
educing crime rates and deliver- over 6,000 people across 46 cities in Technologies like AI, analytics,
ing speedy justice to the needy 24 countries was seen. blockchain, and cloud computing are
is a challenging task globally. As criminals become more tech- making their way into the courtrooms,
It requires smart policing and effec- savvy, police personnel need to know too. AI-powered tools can be used by
tively dealing with roadblocks in legal the latest tools and scientific methods lawyers for most daily tasks, from
proceedings. Although the adoption to keep up with them. Automating reviewing documents and performing
is slower when compared to other manual activities that are rule-based legal research rapidly to predicting
sectors like finance and insurance and repetitive through robotic pro- various outcomes of a case. Business-
due to the ethics constraints involved, cess automation can save time and es can utilise AI to review contracts
science and technology are being manpower. Investigating and under- for partnerships without any bias, and
increasingly leveraged by enterprises standing the intricacies of even the perform background checks before
to accomplish this mission. This is most pressing cases has become easier hiring new employees to avoid getting
proved by the success of Global Legal with the aid of CCTV footage, which into legal troubles later.
Hackathon 2019 that was organised also serves as valuable evidence in the Several companies in countries
to develop technical solutions for the court, especially in the absence of wit- like the US, Singapore, the UK, Canada
industry, in which participation of nesses. Digitisation of cases ensures and Australia are using technologies

18 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Smart World
to solve issues in this space. Canada- Blockchain finds application in analysts TechMarketView, the number
based Kira Systems uses machine email encryption, verifying process of lawtech companies has grown over
learning (ML) for contract analysis. and securing evidence, like in finan- the past few years, but the adoption
UK’s company Tessian employs AI to cial transactions and many other pur- rate is not that high among legal prac-
secure confidential data and emails poses. For example, Legaler’s block- titioners. One of the major reasons
for law firms. chain and developer tools provide noted behind this is the partnership
In India, researchers from IIT infrastructure to build decentralised model in which spending is done from
Kharagpur have recently developed an applications for legal services. In 2017, the partners’ profit pool.
AI-powered method to automate the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium To change this scenario, the US
reading of legal case judgements, case was formed to drive the standardisa- states like North Carolina and Florida
law analysis and enhance legal search tion of blockchain technology in the have already mandated technology
across several domains. Deep neural legal sector. It has already surpassed training for CLE (continuing legal edu-
models enable understanding the 150-member mark, which includes cation) credits. Pressure from clients
rhetorical roles of sentences or jargons law firms, software companies, and for cheaper offerings is also pushing
in a judgement when adequate data is universities, among others. law firms to move to cloud computing
available, and hence aid in organising According to a 2019 report titled and other tech solutions.
legal documents. LawTech Adoption Research by tech —Ayushee Sharma

2 Air Purification
for sustainable living
With demand for air-purifiers increasing almost all over India, solar-powered and algae-based
air-purifiers, which do not need a regular supply of electricity, are also coming to the market

A
majority of the pop- mechanical separation.
ulation caught in the Making air-purifiers is not
grip of acute as well as enough; care must be taken
chronic respiratory ailments to ensure there are no hazards
like asthma, especially in urban that may harm the environment
cities today, has air pollution to or users’ health. For example,
blame. And this is just one of using an ozone air-purifier may
the devastating impacts caused not be a good solution; ozone
by air pollutants resulting from can be dangerous for human
vehicular emissions, exhaust health because it can cause
from industries, agricultural breathing issues and, in severe
activities, and so on. Pollution cases, lung damage, according
is pushing every sector to switch to the Environmental Protec-
from unsustainable methods tion Agency.
of development to renewable- Demand for eco-friendly,
energy-based solutions. (Credit: www.intelligentliving.co) economical, energy-saving puri-
To serve a large population, fiers has led to the rise of solar
inexpensive yet highly efficient air- cleaning filters. purifiers. In these purifiers, the purifier
purification systems that can cover Growing awareness has made is usually powered through electrical
a large effective area in public places companies realise the importance mains but solar energy is available as
like bus stands, traffic signals, and of small-scale air-purifiers for use in an alternative, which can be highly
hospitals are required. In China, such homes, cars, offices and other com- beneficial in remote households that
a solar-based air-purification tower mercial areas, too. These air-purifiers are off the electrical grid. This also
approximately a hundred metres high perform the same function as huge air- ensures lower electrical consumption
was built to reduce smog levels in Xian purification towers, that is, they can be and hence lower operational cost.
in Shaanxi province as an experiment used to get rid of dust particles, dust Solar-powered air-purifier prod-
a few years ago. A system of green- mites, smoke particles, vehicle emis- ucts are highly popular in places like
houses around the base of the tower sions, and gaseous pollutants, among the United States, China, South Korea,
traps the polluted air where it gets others, but their effective area is small. and the Netherlands. Portable solar
heated by solar energy. The hot air Air-purifiers rely on multiple or com- purifiers for cars from manufacturers
thus produced rises through the tower pound filters to clean air by remov- like Airnasa and Olansi are the most
and passes through multiple layers of ing suspended particulates through common. In terms of technology used,

20 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Smart World
high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) tional cost of replacing filters every researchers from Lovely Professional
filters are the preferred choice due to few months. Also, the alternative University and Indian Institutes of
their advanced purifying process. The charging efficiency of solar purifiers Science Education and Research
popularity of smart air-purifiers is also is not that high. However, their sales (IISER), Mohali, have developed an
growing as they can be conveniently are expected to surpass those of devel- algae-based air-purifier that increases
controlled via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth oped countries in the coming years, the amount of oxygen through photo-
remotely. according to a recent report from synthesis besides neutralising the air
In developing countries like India, Research and Markets. pollutants. It also produces biomass
despite high levels of pollution, the Using solar power is not the as byproduct, which can be used for
purifier market is still in its nascent only sustainable way when it comes energy generation.
stage due to high initial cost and addi- to air-purifiers. Recently, student —Ayushee Sharma

3 AI-powered Cameras
For Security
AI-enabled security cameras can send alerts when an object is missing from its usual place, or a
new unknown object has been lying around for too long. Monitoring officers can check whether
the activity is a threat or not

I
ncreasingly complex ity is a threat or not. There
crime scenarios and are numerous companies
other security threats like IntelliVision, Clarifai and
have led to the widespread Valossa that provide AI-based
use of CCTV cameras and video analytics and software
video surveillance systems for smart cameras.
in commercial, residential These abilities make AI-
and all other places that based cameras particularly
need monitoring. But for useful for safeguarding nation-
mission-critical applications al and international interests
that require reliable scrutiny by aiding the security forces
constantly, these traditional in making smart and strategic
security cameras do not decisions in times of threats
suffice. (Credit: www.scienceabc.com) like armed aggression and
Main issue with these terrorism. For instance, the
cameras is that limited object detec- purposes as defining restricted areas recently launched AI camera SIP-
tion puts the onus on human operators and varying what should be consid- 2HDG-W40 by Secureye has been
to be attentive to the recording for pre- ered unsuspicious for a particular deployed by national security forces
venting intrusion and other unwanted time of the day. Alerts in the form of in a region in North India which can
incidents. Otherwise, the observations notifications and video clips are sent start recording automatically when
can only be made after the mishap has if the rules are violated. Whereas required.
already occurred. This necessity of for complex or busy environments, It comes with a 2MP Sony IMX307
automation has given rise to cameras behavioural analytics is preferred as it Starvis CMOS sensor and has an
and surveillance systems that utilise uses self-learning based on its percep- infrared range of thirty metres. Salient
artificial intelligence (AI) and machine tion of environment. features include intelligent motion
learning to provide real-time alerts, Broad categorisation of objects detection (like tripwire to detect entry
even in harsh weather conditions, in is done based on characteristics like and exit or heat mapping to identify
case of actual emergencies. In most size, shape, colour, motion, angle, hotspots), two-way communication
models, features like voice and facial and matches with deep learning algo- via intercom, support for both 4G and
recognition, integration with assis- rithms initially, which narrows down Wi-Fi connectivity, inbuilt as well as
tants like Alexa, gesture control are with usage over time to precisely dif- cloud storage, IP66 waterproof rating.
also enabled. ferentiate unusual from normal. For Secureye Falcon app available on
Based on the scenario, rule-based example, alerts can be sent when an both Android and iOS enables remote
AI systems or behavioural learning object is missing from its usual place monitoring. With smart dual light
approach may be required. In rule- or a new unknown object has been source, it can record HD (1920 x 1080
based AI, predefined instructions lying around for too long. Monitoring pixels) or SD (640 x 360 pixels) foot-
are set by the programmer for such officers can check whether the activ- age with a frame rate of 15fps, even in

22 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Smart World
dark environments 24/7. detect motion in both live stream and ogy for object detection in live video
The result is a faster analysis and playback video modes, send notifi- stream scanning for this purpose.
better protection of the assets spread cations if it senses smoke or carbon Walmart is using AI technology from
across wider geography at a low cost. monoxide. Ireland-based company Everseen for
AI cameras also find applications in ‘AI Guardman’ security camera its cameras and computers to monitor
smart cities like in smart homes and designed by Japanese telecom NTT checkouts and prevent losses caused
retail stores. Companies worldwide East and startup Earth Eyes in 2018 due to such reasons as theft, scanning
are developing security systems with helps Japanese shop owners to note errors, fraud, and so on in more than
AI capabilities. Wyze Cam v2 indoor potential shoplifters via a connected a thousand stores.
smart home camera, for example, can app. It uses open-source technol- —Ayushee Sharma

4 How technology is helping

fight Corona virus
Latest technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, chatbots, face recognition, robots,
drones and software solutions are all contributing to the fight against the fast-spreading
coronavirus that has caused havoc all over the world

I
n the battle against novel coro- diately screen out suspected corona- tion technology has been integrated
navirus (Covid-19), emerging virus-infected patients for further with thermal imaging to make fever-
technologies have stood out by diagnosis and treatment. detection cameras.
making immense contribution in an Blockchain-powered services are Contactless temperature detection
unexpected, creative and amazingly helping hospitals to spend less time on software, AI-powered non-contact
responsive way. Delivery drones, dis- administrative work and allocate staff infrared sensor systems, and smart
infecting robots, smart helmets, and to the frontlines. Blockchain platforms helmets that can measure the tem-
thermal imaging cameras are all being speed up claims processing and mini- perature of anyone within five-metre
deployed in the fight against Covid-19. mise the need for face-to-face contact radius can quickly detect a person
Latest technologies are being used amidst the coronavirus outbreak. who is suspected of having a fever.
to predict and combat spread of the Chatbots are being used to share These are being deployed at stations,
infectious disease. These technolo- information and free online health airports, schools, malls, community
gies include artificial intelligence (AI), consultation services. These can centres and other public places that
analytics software, chatbots, apps, tel- answer queries related to the virus have large gatherings.
emedicine, blockchain, and advanced such as symptoms, preventive meas- Robots are being used to clean or
facial recognition software. ures and treatment procedures. sterilize hospitals, and perform basic
The better we can track the virus, Software solutions that are trans- diagnostic functions, to minimise the
the better we can fight it. Advanced forming the healthcare industry risk of cross-infection. The robots
AI has been used to help diagnose the include hospital management, mobile allow physicians to communicate
disease and accelerate the development healthcare, telemedicine, wearables. with the patient via a screen, and are
of a vaccine. Google’s DeepMind divi- Telemedicine enables remote moni- equipped with a stethoscope to help
sion has used its latest AI algorithms toring and care for patients. It can doctors take a person’s vitals while
and computing power to understand provide necessary services for people minimising exposure to the staff.
the proteins that might make up the infected with Covid-19. Mobile health- They can deliver food and medicine
virus, and has published their findings care solutions empower healthcare to reduce the amount of human-to-
to speed up the process of treatments. providers and patients by creating a human contact. Robots use ultraviolet
Several drug companies are also using platform for interaction and medical light to autonomously kill bacteria and
AI-powered drug discovery platforms care services. viruses in quarantine wards without
to search for possible treatments. Face recognition technology is human intervention.
AI-based systems are being used being used in surveillance systems Drones are being used for contact-
to detect coronavirus infection via that can recognise people, even less medicine delivery, spraying disin-
CT scans with 96 per cent accuracy. while they are wearing masks, with fectant around the country, especially
Portable lab-on-chip detection kits are a relatively high degree of accuracy. in quarantine zones. These transport
helping medical teams on the ground The surveillance systems use facial medical samples and conduct thermal
to identify infected individuals for recognition technology and tempera- imaging. Drones are also deployed to
proper medical care quickly. These ture detection software to identify check travelers’ temperatures and dis-
tools are helping remote areas with people who might have fever or are posal of hospitals’ medical waste.
limited medical resources to imme- not wearing masks. Facial recogni- —Deepshikha Shukla

24 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Artificial Intelligence

Is Learning From AI
Flop-Shows A Good Idea?
This article highlights weak spots in artificial intelligence (AI) using case studies and guides us
to focus on specific risks

I
f you were to improve something, what how AI would interact with human users
is the first thing you would do? If you online.
are thinking of assessing past perfor- Subsequently, Tay was programmed to
mance, you are right. It is the most efficient ingest tweets and learn from them to com-
and effective method of understanding municate by responding and interacting
improvement areas and fixes. with those users. Mainly, the target audience
Anand Tamboli And, it should not be any different for was American young adults. (I do not think
is a serial entrepreneur, artificial intelligence (AI) projects. Auto- the outcome would have been any different
speaker, award-winning
published author and
mation and primitive forms of AI have if the target audience was any different.)
emerging technology been in the trial and operation for the However, this attempted experiment lasted
thought leader past many years. Some have worked as only 24 hours before Tay had to be taken
expected, while some have failed. I have offline for publishing extreme and offensive
chosen a few use-cases that have either racist as well as sexist tweets.
failed or have not shown full benefits as Tay was a classic example of a system
expected. that was vulnerable to burning and per-
These case studies highlight weak tinent issues in the data science world—
spots in AI and guide us to focus on spe- garbage in, garbage out. It was developed
cific risks. Of course, these use-cases are to learn from active real-time conversations
merely a drop in the ocean, but they rep- on Twitter, but it could not filter offensive
resent a few common aspects. inputs or bigoted comments in the process.
Ultimately, Tay learned from user responses
Microsoft chatbot Tay on Twitter and reflected the same kind of emotion or
On March 23, 2016, Microsoft released an thinking. Since most of the tweets were
artificially-intelligent chatbot called Tay. abusive, racist and sexist, Tay’s responses
Named after the acronym Thinking About followed the pattern.
You, Tay was developed to help understand The second attempt to release Tay by
Microsoft did not go too well either and the
bot was taken down soon after the second
release. It has not been up online since then.
Of course, Microsoft did not explicitly
program Tay for discrimination of any kind.
It is safe to assume that its learning data did
not have any discriminating characteristics
either. However, feedback loop from which
Tay was supposed to learn had a flaw.
Racial discrimination in Amazon’s
same-day delivery
In early 2016, Amazon rolled out same-day
delivery to its Prime programme subscribers,
but only for a select group of American cities
Example of Microsoft chatbot Tay communicating and for a select group of neighbourhoods.
with a user on Twitter These neighbourhoods were the ones where

26 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Artificial Intelligence
concentration of Prime subscribers
was large enough to justify operational
costs.
However, it soon became an issue
when people realised that predomi-
nantly non-white neighbourhoods
were primarily excluded from this
offering. Customers from these areas
were not happy.
When this issue was highlighted in
several forums and the media, Craig
Berman, Amazon’s vice president
for global communications, asserted,
“When it comes to same-day delivery,
our goal is to serve as many people as
we can.” He continued, “Demograph-
ics play no role in it. Zero.” From Ama-
zon’s standpoint, this seemed to be
a logical approach from the cost and
efficiency perspective, such that they
would prioritise areas with most exist-
ing paying members over the others. National Transportation Safety Board investigators examine Uber’s self-driving vehicle that was
A solely data-driven approach involved in a fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona, in March 2018 (Credit: https://cnet4.cbsistatic.com)
that looked at numbers instead of
people did reinforce long-entrenched An accident usually implies sev- that ambiguity exists is a significant
inequality in access to their services. eral things going wrong at once and, concern. When there are several actors
For people who were (inadvertently) hence, it is difficult to investigate as at play, human as well as non-human,
excluded, it did not make much differ- well as ascertain final accountability direct as well as indirect, ascertaining
ence. The fact that racial demograph- and root cause. Various reasons con- accountability, root cause and liability
ics tend to correlate with location or tributed to this accident, including will be the key for clarity.
zipcode did result in indirect discrimi- poor visibility of the pedestrian, inad-
nation. equate safety systems of the autono- DoS attack on smart home by
Apparently, in scenarios where mous car and lack of oversight by the a light bulb
zipcodes are considered as one of the human assistant. In 2009, Raul Rojas, a computer sci-
data points for any decision-making, The legal matter was eventu- ence professor at Free University of
there will always be some inherent ally settled out of courts, and further Berlin, built one of Germany’s first
bias. It is because zipcodes usually details were not released. However, smart homes. Everything in his house
represent tightly-knit communities issues around liability present sig- was connected to the Internet so that
of one kind. Perhaps better sampling nificant complexity due to multiple lights, music, television, heating and
of input data could help to a certain parties and actors involved. On this cooling could all be turned on and off
extent in minimising this risk, but it occasion, the vehicle was operated from afar. Even the stove, oven and
would be far from being absolute zero. by Uber but was under the supervi- microwave could be turned off with
I remember about ten years ago, sion of a human driver who was an Rojas’s computer.
Indian banks used this (zipcode- Uber employee, and it was operated Now the challenge with his setup
based) strategy to exclude applicants autonomously using components and was an ubiquitous one—there were
from credit card or personal loan systems designed by various other several manufacturers and protocols
applications. I do not know if they are tech companies. at play. To help address this, Rojas
continuing these practices still. Responsibility attribution with an designed the whole system to connect
AI system poses a significant dilemma all smart devices to one hub. The hub
Uber’s autonomous car and, unfortunately, there are no set was the central coordinator of all com-
kills a pedestrian standard guidelines to make it more munication between devices as well as
An Arizona pedestrian was killed by transparent. through the Internet.
an automated vehicle owned by Uber, On occasions like these, where A few years after the installation,
in 2018. A preliminary report released human lives are directly affected, during 2013, the smart home gave
by National Transportation Safety clarity is undoubtedly needed along up and stopped responding to Rojas’
Board (NTSB) in response to the inci- with a universal framework to help in commands. In computer parlance, the
dent stated that there was a human a standardised approach to deal with system hung-up or froze. When Rojas
presence in the automated vehicle, such matters. investigated, it turned out that there
but the human was not in control of Although there was no final and was just one culprit which caused this
the car when the collision occurred. clear legal verdict as such, the fact problem, a connected lightbulb!

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 27

 Artificial Intelligence
He found that this light fixture weeks, the company realised the auto- lacked testing rigour, which could
burned out and was trying to tell the bot was sending an awful lot of techni- have identified problems early on.
hub that it needed attention. However, cians in the field than before. Sending While the time required to fix the
when doing this, it was continuously out technicians for field visits was a situation was too long, detecting the
sending requests to the hub, which costly affair and was always the last failure of the auto-bot took consider-
overloaded the network and eventu- choice for fixing an issue. However, ably longer.
ally caused it to freeze. In other words, the auto-bot maximised on that.
it was causing a denial of service After investigation, the team fig- Did you notice a pattern here?
(DoS) to the rest of the smart home ured out that there were a few incident Whether it is chatbot Tay by Microsoft,
devices by standing in their way of scenarios that a human operator could Uber’s autonomous car or the auto-bot
communication with the hub. Rojas understand (and invariably join the of Australian telco, all of these have
changed the bulb, and the problem dots) but were not clear enough to be something in common that failed. And
vanished promptly. programmed for the auto-bot. In all it is not the technology!
This issue, however, highlights such cases, a human operator would In all these scenarios, either
a few potential problems in smart have taken a different decision than the creator of AI or businesses that
homes as well as so-called autono- the auto-bot. deployed the AI was not careful
mous systems. When things go wrong The primary issue was, despite enough. They did not follow the
and are out of hands, how can an finding out the flaw in logic, the auto- fundamental tenet of handling some-
end-user take over control and put mation team was unable to turn off the thing as powerful as automation or
things back in their right place, let auto-bot (much like what Microsoft primitive AI responsibly. We often
alone control or even investigate the did with Tay). They had implemented say, “With great power comes great
matter to figure out what is wrong in the auto-bot in all or nothing manner, responsibility.” And yet, in all these
the first place? Rojas did not design and it was sitting right in the middle cases, responsible design or deploy-
for a bypass mechanism where he of the user and operator interface. It ment did not happen or did not occur
could commandeer the whole system. essentially meant, either all incidents in full spirit.
Maybe because it was an integration would go through the auto-bot and get Responsible behaviour is neces-
of several heterogeneous systems, or wrongly handled often, or none would sary for the deployment and use of AI
perhaps he did not think of it. go through the auto-bot and would as well as all other stages from concep-
get manually handled. Now, the only tion to design, testing to implementa-
Australian telco flushes issue was that the telco was not ready tion, and ongoing management and
millions of dollars to handle such a workload—they had governance.
In early 2018, an Australian telecom- already released the staff for saving Almost all the cases discussed here
munications company bit the bullet costs. had a certain level of weaknesses in
and rolled out an automation bot Eventually, the telco set up another the solution conception stage, and
(auto-bot) for its incident handling project to fix the auto-bot while it was this directly seeped into their devel-
process. Although the telco expected in operation and wasted several mil- opment.
to reap benefits from the beginning of lion dollars in the process. They spent In cases of a chatbot, telco’s auto-
its implementation and save on more money on two things—for continuing bot and autonomous car, emphasis
than 25 per cent of the operational service with the artificially-stupid on solution quality was not enough.
costs, the plan backfired. auto-bot and for running a massive There might have been a few test-
The auto-bot was designed to fix-up project that lasted more than ing routines—just enough to meet
intercept all network incidents and a year. the requirements of IT development
then follow a series of checks based Eventually, the endowment effect frameworks—but not enough to meet
on the problem type selected by users. kicked in. The company had no plans the AI development framework, which
It was programmed to take one of the to go back and fix the problem from its does not exist!
three actions based on tests it would roots but instead kept pushing through In the case of Amazon, I would
perform. It would remotely resolve and wasting an enormous amount of question the skillset of decision-
the incident by fixing the issue pro- money. The crucial question is: who makers. Although it appeared to be an
grammatically, or it would assume eventually paid for this? inadvertent decision to roll out same-
that a technician’s visit is required In my view, this implementation day deliveries to only a few localities,
to customer premises. And accord- went wrong on several levels, right thoughtful consideration could have
ingly, it would send someone directly, from system design to its implemen- raised these questions in reflection.
or if none of that were apparent, it tation and fixing of the problems. But The same goes for the telco case or
would present the case to the human the first and foremost question that lightbulb situation where creators
operator for further investigation and emanates is: Why there was no plan lacked thoughtfulness in the design
decision. B, a kill switch of some sort to stop of the solution.
This approach was sound and this auto-bot?
seemed quite logical in the first place. The auto-bot development and Nine things to learn from this
However, after commencement of rollout were not thoroughly tested While there are several use-cases of AI
the auto-bot operation, within a few for all potential scenarios and, thus, to learn from, I specifically chose these

28 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Artificial Intelligence
five, which are indicative of a common issue with AI
design, development, deployment and governance—a
thoughtful and responsible approach.
In summary, I would say:
1. Data governance is essential from ethical AI’s
point of view; therefore creators of AI need to ensure
they have robust data governance foundations, or their
AI applications risk being fed with inappropriate data
and breaching several laws.
2. Narrow AI is all about the relation between input
and output. You provide input x and get output y, or
there is input x to do output y. Either way, the nature
of input affects output such that indiscriminate input
can lead to adverse outcomes. And this is just one good
reason why rigourous testing is so important. We must
note that in the case of AI systems, general IT system
testing mechanisms are usually not enough.
3. Automated decisions are suitable when there
is a large volume of decisions to be made, and the
criteria are relatively uniform and uncontested. When
discretion and exceptions are required, use automated
systems only as a tool to assist humans, or do not use
them at all. There are still several applications and
use-cases that we cannot define as clearly as a game
of chess.
4. Humans must always be kept in the loop no
matter what, whether it is during the design phase of
AI, or testing or deployment. Majority of AI systems
are still kids and need a responsible adult to be in
charge. Most importantly, ensuring enough human
resources are available to handle the likely workload
is always a good idea.
5. Most importantly, a transparent chain of
accountability is necessary. If the answer to the ques-
tion “who is responsible for the decision made by this
AI?” does not yield single person’s name, then this gap
needs to be fixed.
6. For customer-facing AI systems, having a good
experience at all times is crucial. If customers have a
terrible experience, they will lose trust and eventually
render the AI solution useless.
7. Fairness, lack of bias, interpretability, explain-
ability, transparency, repeatability and robustness are
a few critical aspects that are some of the must-have
characteristics for a trustworthy AI solution.
8. As AI systems become more powerful, managing
risk is going to be even more critical from good govern-
ance and risk management points of view. Having this
governance in place is not only an umbrella require-
ment for the industry but is also a good idea for every
business to have inhouse.
9. Ethical aspect must always be upheld, and just
because something can be done, should not be done.
AI that negatively affects employees, customers or the
general public, directly or indirectly, serves no good
and should not exist.
American philosopher John Dewey, said, “Failure
is not a mere failure. It is instructive. The person who
really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as
from his successes.”

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 29

 Design

Can Drones Be Used

To Save A Patient’s Life?
This decade has witnessed a great deal about drones and its innumerable purposes.
Drones are and can be used in various industries, but there is significant growth of drones
in the agricultural sector. Now, this vehicle has been introduced to the medical industry, too

C
urrently, there is considerable and observe the patient’s condition. Also,
traffic in cities, especially at peak once this is done, the doctor can immedi-
hours. Imagine that a person has ately prepare the medical prerequisites that
a minor heart attack. What would likely would be required by the patient at the spot
happen next? Let us say people around of the accident. Moreover, if the condition is
this emergency spot see the situation critical, the doctor can inform the hospital
Shivang Shastri and immediately call for an ambulance. well in advance so that they can be ready
is BTech in ECE. The ambulance that comes by road takes to give immediate medical attention. This
His interests include
multidisciplinary minimum time to reach the spot where not only serves as an excellent medi-aid for
projects, VLSI and the emergency has occurred. When there the patient but can also result in saving his
digital electronics
is a patient who needs urgent attention or her life.
of a doctor, there is a chance that the
person might not survive till the time the Quadcopter fabrication
ambulance arrives. Time taken by the and design approach
ambulance plays a vital role in deciding Fabrication of the quadcopter went through
the fate of the patient. Thus, it is essential a sequence of steps. First, four aluminium
to bring about a distinct means that would rods were cut. Then, the hub was cut, and
take saving human lives one step closer. holes were drilled on aluminium rods, which
Vangara Vamsi This is where drones could serve the were measured according to the need of the
Krishna is purpose. A drone is an aerial vehicle that propeller base. Then, the hub and alumin-
BTech in ECE. His is not driven by a human. It uses motors ium rails were integrated to form an x-like
interests also include
multidisciplinary and propellers for movement. The more structure for the quadcopter frame.
domain, VLSI and the number of motors and propellers, the The next step was to incorporate four
digital electronics more thrust it can create. So,
the best choice to use is a quad-
copter, as the system comprises
four brushless direct current
motors (BLDC), which are used
along with propellers to give
them the necessary thrust.
A 2200mAh electrical stor-
age device can power the drone.
The drone well-equipped with a
patient monitoring system has
been designed to fly to an emer-
gency and extract the victim’s
real-time health parameters.
The central idea of this is
that the doctor sitting in the
ambulance, which is still on
the way, can see the various
results produced by sensors Fig. 1: Quadcopter architecture

30 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Design

Drone is Reloaded Answer the

for Next Emergency Emergency Call Notify Drone Team

Medical Drone Delivery

Send Off Drone to

Drone Uses ‘Coming Appropriate Location
Home Feature’

Drone Arrives Fig. 4: Yaw stability in the quadcopter

(Credit: www.uavcoach.com)

various sensors and the first aid kit.

Measured real-time health param-
Fig. 2: Workflow of the drone ambulance eters of the patient are transmitted
via ZigBee to the ambulance. These
parameters can be observed and ana-
Yaw
lysed in LabView software. Once the
Yaw
Left Right ambulance reaches the emergency
Pitch spot, the drone is sent back to the
Forward
hospital and is reloaded for the next
operation.
Quadcopter specifications
Throttle Pitch Roll Roll
High Forward Left Right A quadcopter, multirotor, drone or
Yaw Yaw Roll Roll
quadrotor is a simple flying mechani-
Left Right Left Right cal vehicle that has four arms, and in
each arm, there is a motor attached to
Throttle Pitch
Low Backward Pitch a propeller. Each rotor produces both
Backward
a thrust and torque about its centre
of rotation, as well as a drag force
opposite to the vehicle’s direction of
flight. Similar to other flying objects,
Fig. 3: Throttle stability in the quadcopter (Credit: www.uavcoach.com) a quadcopter has a group of forces
and torques acting on it while it flies.
BLDC motors on each of the rails and some tablets. It also contains a user There are four main forces acting on
then integrate four electronic speed manual through which a person can the drone: drag, lift, weight and thrust.
controllers (ESCs) on each rail, and observe and help the patient in need. For the drone to fly, these different
connect the common positive and Architecture of the quadcopter is forces need to be balanced.
negative terminals of the four ESCs to shown in Fig. 1. Power is distributed Given below are some common
the respective positive and negative via power distribution board among motion controls for a quadcopter:
terminals of the battery. the flight controller, sensors as well Throttle. Throttle adjusts the alti-
After this, propellers were incor- as the four ESCs. The four ESCs drive tude, or height, of the quadcopter. A
porated to the motors with the aim each of the four motors. quadrotor hovers or adjusts its altitude
to move two diagonally-opposite by applying equal thrust to all four
propellers in clockwise direction and Workflow rotors. On most quadcopters, throttle
the remaining two in anti-clockwise Consider a situation in which a person is done by pushing the left stick up (to
direction. This marked the end of the suffers from a sudden cardiac arrest. go up) or down (to go down).
quadcopter fabrication. A six-channel When the hospital is informed of this Yaw. Yaw is the rotation of the
IR remote was used to fly the drone. incident, an ambulance is immedi- head of the quadcopter, either right or
Incorporating the medbox. The ately sent to the emergency spot. left. It helps with changing directions
medbox comprises other internal Simultaneously, the drone team is also while flying. A quadrotor adjusts its
circuitry such as Arduino Uno, ECG notified. The drone is then sent off to yaw by applying more thrust to rotors
sensor, heartbeat sensor, thermistor the target location. It is well-equipped rotating in one direction. On most
and other medical requirements like with the medbox, which consists of quadcopters, yaw is controlled by

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 31

 Design
display screen in the
medbox.
• Temperature
data: The thermis-
tor measures tem-
perature of the
sensor, and data
was transmitted
through ZigBee to
the ambulance. Data
thus observed in
LabView is shown
Fig. 5: Motion controls of the quadcopter in Fig. 8. Tempera-
(Credit: www.droneybee.com) ture shown meas-
Fig. 6: Observed ECG sensor data ures approximately
pushing the left stick to the left (to 30°C. Atmospheric
turn left) or to the right (to turn right). conditions and other
Pitch and roll. Pitch is the move- factors might cause
ment of the quadcopter, either for- some variation in
ward or backward. Roll is the move- data, but data shown
ment of the quadcopter side-to-side, on the LCD can also
either left or right. be used to estimate
A quadrotor adjusts its pitch or this value.
roll by applying more thrust to one These results rep-
rotor and less thrust to its diametri- resent data of the
cally opposite rotor. patient, and this data
On most quadcopters, roll is con- can be sent to the
trolled by pushing the right stick on ambulance where it
the transmitter to the left (to roll to can be analysed by
the left) or to the right (to roll to the Fig. 7: Observed heartbeat sensor data the doctor so that he
right). And on most quadcopters, or she can evaluate
pitch is controlled by pushing the the situation better
right stick on the transmitter up (to and take other pre-
move forwards) or down (to move medication choices.
backwards). Data taken essen-
The drone ambulance helps in tially proves benefi-
assisting ambulances, which help in cial for the patient
saving human lives. The drone travels and, hence, the pur-
through air and thus faces no traffic. pose of the drone
In this project, three different paths ambulance, which is
were considered. Observation proved to assist ambulanc-
that the drone was able to reach the es in saving human
spot early. lives.
Real-time health parameters of the
patient that are transmitted by ZigBee The future
and observed in LabVIEW software, Fig. 8: Observed temperature sensor data Significantly further
those results and graphs are presented headways should be
in Figs 6, 7 and 8. Results include shows the condition of the heart, that possible. Automation can be made
measured data of such sensors as is, rate of the heart. Analogue value of self-ruling. GPS module can be utilised
ECG, temperature and heartbeat. the heart rate can be seen on the LCD to obtain area of the objective, and
• ECG sensor data: ECG elec- display screen. machine learning can be utilised to
trodes were attached to the left and • Heartbeat data: Pulse rate or assist with automation by calculating
right arms and the right leg of the heartbeat sensor measures the heart- the briefest way to achieve the goal.
patient. Electrodes convert heartbeat beat of the patient. Data was sent A camera can be actualised in
to electrical signal and, thus, ECG through ZigBee to the ambulance. automation with the goal that present
sensors can measure continuous Observed data in LabView is shown circumstances can be seen by the
heartbeat and give heart rate data. in Fig. 7. The graph shows heartbeat specialist in the emergency vehicle. A
Measured data was sent through measurement as 72. Heartbeat in the significantly heartier automation can
ZigBee to the ambulance and data shown graph varies from 69 to 72. be created for completing this particu-
was observed in LabView. This data Data can also be seen on the LCD lar task.

32 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Healthcare

How Hybrid Approach

Can Enhance Quality Of
Ultrasonic Images
Ultrasonic imaging is simple and cost-effective, especially for use in remote places, but it is not
as good as CT or MRI imaging. However, with each passing day, and with technology getting
better and better, software-based ultrasonic imaging systems are becoming better too. It is just
a matter of time before these start replacing CT and MRI, according to the authors

U
Ayush Dogra and ltrasound imaging has been around about 10MHz are used normally. There are
Sanjeev Virdi for many decades now. Regular two main reasons for choosing high frequen-
belong to Biomedical enhancements in its features and cies for this operation:
Instrumentation Unit,
capabilities, and the rapid miniaturisation 1. If normal audible frequencies are used
CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh.
Apoorav Maulik of ultrasound devices has helped it thrive for imaging, it may annoy the patients by
Sharma is from in the field of medical diagnosis. It started creating loud noise, and that too in an envi-
Department of ECE, way back in 1794 when, Lazzaro Spallan- ronment where it is strictly undesirable.
UIET, Panjab University, zani, an Italian physiologist came to know 2. Higher frequencies suffer low losses
Chandigarh, and about the phenomenon of echolocation due to various factors. So images captured
Bhawna Goyal is (using ultrasound waves to hunt and trace using high frequencies will have better axial
from Department of ECE,
Chandigarh University,
path) among bats, which later formed the resolution.
Punjab basis of ultrasonic imaging. Now, before going into the working, we
Further, in 1877, piezoelectricity was must understand certain aspects of ultrasonic
discovered by Pierre Currie and Jacques imaging. It is normally done in four modes,
Currie. Piezoelectric effect is used in trans- which are:
ducers for ultrasonic imaging; it converts 1. A-mode. In this mode a single trans-
electric current to longitudinal acoustic ducer is used to project, detect and plot the
waves. In 1915, the first transducer was wave with respect to the depth of the target.
designed to detect objects under the sea. In Diagnosis of a specific tumor is also done
early 1940s, first instance of using sonogra- using therapeutic A-mode ultrasonic imaging.
phy for medical diagnosis came into light 2. B-mode. This is the type through which
when a neurologist named Karl Dussik the echoed signal can be viewed as a 2D
used it for detecting brain tumors. image on the screen. To achieve this a linear
In late 1940s came the first A-mode array of transducers is used to simultane-
ultrasound device for detecting gallstones, ously scan through the targets by moving or
and between 1949 and 1951, 2D B-mode swinging the transducer.
ultrasound device was introduced. Later, 3. M-mode. Known as Motion mode, in
in 1970s, further developments came in this, 2D images or B-mode scans of an organ
ultrasound devices in the form of Doppler are run in a sequence according to transducer
ultrasound and Colour Doppler ultrasound. position on a screen, so that information
Introduction of more sophisticated ultra- from multiple angles could be obtained to
sound devices with 3D capabilities and make more accurate conclusions.
M-mode visualisation took off in 1990s. 4. Doppler mode. This mode is generally
Ultrasonic imaging is done using acous- used to visualise the body fluids that are in
tic waves of ultra-high frequency. The audi- motion (usually blood). The Doppler Effect
ble range of human ear is 20Hz-20 kHz. For comes into picture as the moving body fluids
ultrasonic imaging, acoustic frequencies of change frequency of the echoes sent back.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 33

 Healthcare
The amount of change in frequency tant, if two reflecting
indicates the speed of the fluid. As targets are very close to
heart pumps blood in the body, it can each other, the spatial
be used to study the characteristics of resolution can play a
it, and hence to detect any cardiovas- very important role in
cular ailment. recognising them as
separate. In this regard,
Ultrasound components we can define two main
and working types of spatial resolu-
The main component of an ultrasound tions in ultrasound as
device is a transducer, which converts (a) lateral resolution,
an electrical signal to a longitudinal and (b) axial resolution.
acoustic wave that travels through the As mentioned ear-
body of the patient. It also catches the Fig. 1: Image showing different echo intensity areas lier, the penetration
echoes reflected back by various organs. of an acoustic beam
The transducer is used in echo- placed in three different categories: depends on the frequency, density,
scopic probes in a linear, sectorial or 1. Hyper-echoic compressibility and bulk modulus of
convex fashion to get different fields 2. Hypo or anechoic the medium. At higher frequencies the
of view. For instance, an echo-scopic 3. Iso-echoic diffraction and other losses decrease,
probe with linear array of transducers The hyper-echoic targets reflect but penetration also decreases. So,
is used in situations where the window most of the pulse energy that falls at if density and compressibility of a
or area of access to the body is com- their surface. This means they reflect medium is increased, it impedes the
paratively large. back almost all of the pulses that col- penetration of the wave. But if stiffness
The transducer is supplied with lide with them. The brighter regions or bulk is increased, it facilitates better
short-duration high-voltage pulses in a 2D ultrasonic image can be char- penetration of wave into that medium.
using a pulse generator. Compensat- acterised by these targets. Typical If two reflectors are parallel to each
ing amplifiers are used to amplify the examples of such targets are bones, other and lie in direct scan line of ultra-
received weak echoes after reflection. air and capsules. sonic wave, the minimum distance that
Digital processors and control units are The hypo or anechoic targets do can be recognised and differentiated is
used to process various signals that are not reflect pulses at all. They absorb called the axial resolution or longitudi-
transmitted and various signals that all the pulses that fall on their surface. nal resolution.
are received. A display unit shows the The darkest regions in the display As attenuation,
received signal. signify these targets. Some examples Echo intensity
The transducer sends out acoustic of these regions are body fluids such α(Attenuation) = 10×log10
Propagated
pulses, and each pulse’s transmitting as blood. These areas cannot be seen wave intensity
time and receiving time is recorded by through ultrasonic imaging. = 0.5(dB cm–1)×2×d׃
the transducer. As the received signals The third category, iso-echoic, is
are the echoes that are reflected back of the targets that reflect back some where d is the depth of the target that
from surfaces of the organs, or from amount of echoes. These neither fully reflects back, ƒ is the frequency (in
different obstacles faced by the pulses, absorb nor fully reflect back the inci- MHz) and 0.5dBcm–1 is the assumed
each echo varies in its intensity. This dent pulses. These areas can be identi- attenuation coefficient for travelling
intensity of the echoes is displayed as fied as normal intensity (not too dark, ultrasonic wave in soft tissue.
a function of distance to reveal various not too bright) on the display. Exam- It can be seen that the attenuation
shapes (organs). ples include body fat and muscles. is directly proportional to the depth of
As an acoustic pulse travels through As air can also attenuate acoustic target reflector and frequency of the
different mediums it may get reflect- pulses, a gel is applied on the patient’s ultrasonic wave. This means that axial
ed, refracted, scattered, diffracted, body before ultrasonic imaging to resolution is high when frequency of
absorbed or be interfered with. The minimise any trapped air between the the acoustic wave is kept high and spa-
reflection is necessary for ultrasonic probes and the body and maximise tial pulse length (number of cycles in a
imaging to work. As the pulse encoun- the output. pulse×λ (wavelength)) is kept short.
ters different organs with different In Fig. 1, areas marked as 1 are The number of cycles depends on the
shapes and sizes, different densities, hyper-echoic areas, those marked as damping nature of the transducer,
compressibility and different bulk 2 are hypo or anechoic areas, and which in turn depends on the geometry
modulus, these may weaken the echo, areas marked as 3 are iso-echoic of it. So, in case of deep-target struc-
or may destroy the pulse completely. areas. Based on this information, we tures, low axial resolution is obtained.
The behaviour of pulses in various can presume that various targets on When the target areas are per-
mediums has been studied, and it has the display can be perceived through pendicular to the scanning ultra-
been found that different targets reflect varying levels of intensities. sonic wave, the distinguishing ability
back different intensities of echoes. Although discrimination of an between two reflectors can be regarded
Based on this, different targets can be ultrasound equipment is very impor- as lateral resolution. This resolution

34 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Healthcare
that still exist in this field. One such
Non-Local Guided challenge, addressed in this article,
Dehazing filter is the low spatial resolution of ultra-
sound images. In addition, ultrasonic
Input image images are also prone to Gaussian and
Haziness removal and
contrast improvement speckle noise. There are some artifacts,

Parametric filtering
like mirror image artifacts, which also
impact ultrasound imaging.
3 stages of image visual quality improvement To address all these challenges,
similar strategies can be adopted such
that maximum number of problems
Final image
can be solved at minimal cost.
Colour
infusion
Some recent trends
Ultrasonic imaging has evolved a lot
Further visibility improvement Noise removal with in the past few decades. Performance
by colour injection edge enhancements
enhancement and addition of new
Fig. 2: Ultrasound image super-resolution features have frequently been done in
this field. Rapid commercialisation of
decreases with the distance as the require any cut in the patient’s body. hand-held ultrasonic imaging devices
ultrasonic wave diffracts. It depends • It does not expose patient’s body has made this modality even more
directly upon the near-zone length. to any harmful radiations like x-rays or popular. The smaller devices are easy
Near-zone length is inversely propor- CT scans, which is very important for to carry and so can be taken to remote
tional to wavelength of the acoustic pregnant mothers. rural places for point-of-care diagnosis.
wave. It also depends upon the fre- • It captures soft tissues very well, Work has been going on to reduce
quency, width and damping factor of unlike x-rays. the noise in the ultrasonic images. For
the transducer. • It is becoming less expensive that, Tissue Harmonic imaging has
and more accessible with rapid min- been introduced in which reconstruc-
Applications iaturisation. tion of image is done using second
Ultrasounds can be used in many But ultrasound imaging has some harmonic of echo from the tissue.
applications in the field of medical disadvantages also. For instance, it Recently, 3D and 4D ultrasonic
diagnosis, such as: has been found that pregnant mothers imaging has also been introduced to
• Fetus size measurement to having frequent ultrasound examina- further enhance the experience of
determine the due date of delivery tions may develop risk of delivering visualisation of motion of the heart
• To check number of fetuses, the underweight babies. And that the local wall. The 4D technology is aimed at
position of placenta and the sex of the temperature of tissues increases due competing with imaging modalities
baby to frequent collision with ultrasonic like CT and MRI in terms of resolu-
• For checking inside the heart for energy. tion and image clarity. Incorporating
any cardiovascular ailment Besides, there are some challenges ultrasonic equipment with GPS has
• To measure blood flow (Doppler
mode) through heart and kidney
• To detect prostate cancer in
kidney
• To detect stones in gall bladder
or kidney Input image Dehazed image Filtered image Colour infused image
• To detect tumors in ovaries and Fig. 3: Results for dataset 1
breasts
• To detect the fatty liver by
observing its size
It is also used together with other
modalities to do some complex medi-
cal analysis of the patient. Input image Dehazed image Filtered image Colour infused image
Fig. 4: Results for dataset 2
Pros and cons of
ultrasound imaging
Ultrasound imaging possesses some
advantages over other imaging modal-
ities like:
• First and foremost being that, it Input image Dehazed image Filtered image Colour infused image

is a non-invasive method that does not Fig. 5: Results for dataset 3

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 35

 Healthcare
enabled needle positioning feedback 23.9 710
in real time in case of interventional 23.4
23.37 666.653

procedures. 22.84 610

In addition, nowadays, ultrasonic 571.073
images of an area are fused with the 22.4
511.382
images of other modalities, like CT and 510 499.268

MRI images of the same areas, to fur-

21.4 21.14
ther enhance the diagnosis experience. 21.04

410
Image super-resolution 20.4
20.56
376.388

On first observation of the ultrasonic 19.89 338.027

image in Fig. 2, it can be seen that
ultrasonic images suffer low spatial 19.4
Dataset 1 Dataset 2 Dataset 3
310
Dataset 1 Dataset 2 Dataset 3
resolution due to weak received echo
PSNR initial PSNR final MSE initial MSE final
signal from the target reflectors, along
with a combination of Gaussian and Fig. 6: Initial and final PSNR for the three datasets Fig. 7: Initial and final MSE for three datasets
Speckle noise. These drawbacks can be
hard to address through any hardware guidance image to look for the edges from the final results obtained. The
changes. to be preserved. purpose of providing super-resolution
Apart from these demerits, ultra- In the proposed method, a square to ultrasonic images is achieved
sonic images have very low resolution window of 16 is chosen to make through this proposed architecture,
details as compared to CT and MRI. operation fast and the edge selectiv- which can be applied seamlessly to
When any hardware changes are ity controlling parameter of 0.0016 is any ultrasonic image without adding
attempted, the equipment can become chosen. The edge selectivity param- any extra cost of implementation.
expensive and may pose some other eter is chosen to be low because for It is clearly visible that the pro-
unforeseen problems. An inexpensive large values of the parameter the filter posed architecture has a strong
and effective solution is the correction converges to a normal box filter with prospect of extending the efficacy of
of images through software; if it poses lost edge preserving properties. The ultrasound images with high spatial
any problem the system can be easily guided filter brings out subtle details and temporal resolutions. The method
modified as per requirement. and makes them more visible as seen clearly retrieves the hidden details of
In this article, we propose a super- in Fig. 2. the common carotid artery.
resolution method to enhance the qual- It is well known that colour images
ity and hence visual perceptiveness of are more visually appealing than gray- Conclusion and future
the ultrasonic images by developing scale images. The additional colour It is well known that CT and MRI imag-
a hybrid approach. Flow chart for the component in the images helps the ing have a very distinctive place in the
proposed method is shown in Fig. 2. human perceptual system to perceive field of medical imaging and diagnosis.
We start with a low-spatial-res- better. So a red blood colour is injected These images have much better resolu-
olution ultrasonic image and apply into the filtered image to make it more tion and contrast, and provide compar-
non-local dehazing to it as the input visually appealing. The final image atively more information content about
image appears to be a little bit hazy looks very informative and gives high the target areas than ultrasonic images,
and blurry. Due to this, there is very and accurate spatial as well as tempo- but these are also much costlier than
less visibility and contrast; also there ral resolution. ultrasonic imaging.
is lack of proper luminance. This method is applied on three A simple and cost-effective solu-
The non-local dehazing method different datasets and objective evalu- tion to this is ultrasonic imaging. It
is a linear, non-trained method that ation of the method is done on the does not provide as good image as a
efficiently recovers the true character- basis of peak signal-to-noise ratio CT or MRI, but with each passing day
istic image from the hazy one. It also (PSNR), which calculates overall and with technology getting better and
handles the noise with care and makes signal strength over the noise strength better, ultrasonic imaging systems are
the contrast better. and mean square error (MSE) that also becoming better.
Fig. 2 shows the result after non- calculates the distance of correspond- It may not be wrong to think that,
local dehazing. The resulting image ing pixels between final image and focusing primarily on ultrasonic imag-
has good contrast and better lumi- reference image (input image). The ing and making it better through vari-
nance. The details are revealed further visual results of the proposed method ous means will help medical fraternity
when we remove the noise using on three different datasets are shown to reach more widespread areas where
the Guided filter. Guided filter is an in Figs 3, 4 and 5. The objective evalu- bringing other imaging technologies
edge preserving smoothing filter that ation results are shown in Figs 6 and 7. is difficult. This article is one such
effectively removes the noise while Although the objective evaluation effort to improve ultrasonic imaging
preserving the edges with high contrast results show decrease in PSNR and at the software end, so that imaging
details. It is an explicit image filter that increase in MSE, the visual results quality can be improved at a fraction
uses a reference image known as the have improved a lot, which is evident of cost.

36 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Healthcare

Putting Electronics Of
Brain Waves To Use
Understanding brain waves coupling with electronic components is crucial not only to collect
information about brain signaling but also to diagnose and treat neurological disorders and
diseases. Imagine seeing the brain activity in real-time, while meditating or while feeling
stressed at work, and being able to adapt to get better results

Diffuse beta waves present alongside other frequencies in spontaneous EEG recorded from
a 28-month-old child with Dup15q syndrome (Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org)

U
nderstanding the working capac- internal states depending on the input.
ity and control of human brain is Human brain works on the electric power
an everlasting topic and, recently, of its neurons, which comes from food and
scientifically and technologically, much environment. The electrical power of brain
progress has been made in this direc- is very small and limited, but it acts in very
tion. Scientists are always making efforts specific ways that are characteristic of the
Dr S.S. Verma towards understanding the building blocks human brain. Brain’s electrical activity is dis-
is professor at
Department of Physics, of brain and its working. Although, noth- played in the form of brain waves of different
Sant Longowal Institute ing is certain about the construction and frequencies corresponding to different situ-
of Engineering and
Technology, Sangrur, functioning of brain in all other living ations of mind; the root of all our thoughts,
Punjab organisms—just for comparison with the emotions and behavior is the communication
human brain—it is well established that through brain waves between neurons in
human brain is composed of neurons the brain.
having possibility of all kinds of different It is well known that our brain not only

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 37

 Healthcare
controls the functioning activities of
each and every part of our body, but
Brain Waves Names
the brain waves can also be used to Wave Frequency range State of mind and body
affect living and non-living objects Infra-Low <0.5HZ Slow cortical potentials. Very little is known about infra-low brain-
through telepathy, telekinesis, hyp- waves because, due to their slow nature, these are difficult to detect
and accurately measure
notism, intuition, love at first sight,
etc. Now, it is becoming possible to Delta 0.5Hz–4Hz Deep sleep. Healing and regeneration are stimulated in this state
operate advanced and smart electronic Theta 4Hz–8Hz Drowsiness (also first stage of sleep). Theta is our gateway to learn-
devices with brain waves. ing, memory and intuition
Alpha 8Hz–14Hz These waves represent the overall coordination, calmness, alertness
Matter waves of mental state, mind and body integration, and learning
Wave function was supposed to be a Beta 14Hz–30Hz Highly alert and focused
characteristic of particles at quantum Gamma 38Hz-42Hz Fastest brain activity responsible for cognitive functioning, learning,
level, but in 1924, Louis de Broglie memory, and information processing. It is considered that gamma
(Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929) pro- brain wave rhythms are responsible for modulated perception, con-
posed that a wave function is associ- sciousness and spiritual emergence
ated with all particles. The standard
interpretation from the intensity of tion between the brain waves is dif- minimally invasive three-dimensional
a wave function of a particle at any ficult due to the presence of different interpretation of electronics of brain
point is the probability of finding the frequencies. There are four brainwave could allow for continuous monitoring
particle at that point. The wavelengths states common to the human species, and manipulation of brain waves and
of the harmonic waves are used to which range from the high-amplitude, their properties and effects. Thanks
build the wave function called a low-frequency delta to the low-ampli- to non-invasive tools that have been
matter wave. tude, high-frequency beta. These brain around for decades, such as EEG
Thus, matter waves are a central wave ranges specify different states of and functional magnetic resonance
part of the theory of quantum mechan- human mind, from deep sleep to high imaging (fMRI), physicians and neu-
ics leading to the wave-particle dual- arousal. Neuroscientists have named roscientists can measure changes in
ity hypothesis. According to that, all these waves as shown in the table. the brain without drilling a hole in the
matter can exhibit wave-like behavior. skull. Thus, the next technology to
For example, a beam of electrons can Electronics of brain waves pervade our lives may be the so-called
be diffracted just like a beam of light or The electrical oscillations called brain neural interfaces.
a water wave. A wave (mechanical or waves have intrigued scientists and Understanding brain waves cou-
electromagnetic) can be described as the public for a long time, and their pling with electronic components is
a disturbance that transports energy function is still debated. The propa- crucial not only to collect informa-
from one location (its source) to anoth- gation of brain waves within brain as tion about brain signaling but also
er location, with or without a medium, well as outside brain, and their (propa- to diagnose and treat neurological
but without transporting matter. gation) effects are under investigation. disorders and diseases. Human tissue
Electromagnetic (EM) waves are Scientists and engineers are putting being elastic and mobile, damage
generated as a result of vibrations their sincere efforts for developing and and inflammation can arise at the
between an oscillating electric field designing suitable instrumentation for interface with rigid electronic compo-
and a magnetic field. The entire EM the detection and monitoring of brain nents. Therefore flexible electronics
spectrum includes waves representing waves. is needed to not only provide useful
from the lowest to the highest frequen- The neurons in the brain transmit means for conforming electronics free
cy (or longest to shortest wavelength), signals and a voltage is formed that from such problems but also take it to
that is, all radio waves, microwaves, the electrodes detect and transmit non-planar surfaces.
infrared radiation, visible light, ultra- onwards through a tiny amplifier. For long-term stable neural record-
violet radiation, X-rays and gamma Electroencephalography (EEG) is a ing, scientists have developed a new
rays. However, matter waves of very well known and established electro- conductive bio-compatible material
low frequency (beyond EM spectrum) physiological monitoring method to that is as soft as human tissue and
do exist but are difficult to detect and record electrical activity of the brain. can be stretched to twice its length.
differentiate. All waves are made up EEG is a non-invasive method with the The material consists of gold-coated
of photons that travel through space electrodes/sensors placed along the titanium dioxide nanowires, embed-
and interact with matter, giving rise scalp. However, invasive electrodes ded into silicone rubber.
to various phenomena like absorption, are also being used in what is known Use of electronic implants is pro-
reflection, interference and diffraction. as electrocorticography technique of gressing and scientists have developed
brain monitoring. methods to inject microelectronic
Brain waves Advances are being made towards devices such as wires and transistors
The human brain emits electrical the development of invasive tech- directly into the brain to measure or
waves, which produce different effects nology of brain recording as well. stimulate neural activity. Neuro-philic
on the body. Practically, the distinc- In the times to come, seamless and electronic sensors are one million

38 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Healthcare
times more flexible than any state-of- manipulating of matter. Telekinesis
the-art flexible electronics. These have is a general term for any ability
sub-cellular feature sizes and actually that involves using the mind to
like to interact with neurons. influence/manipulate/move
matter or objects. Further,
Wearable electronics it may evolve to the point
for brain waves where it can control any-
We have seen pictures of people lying thing at a subatomic particle
in giant machines (MRI and CT-scan) to universal level.
that record brain activity, or a man Telepathy. The electrical
running on a treadmill with dozens nature of the brain allows
of little wires attached to his muscles. sending and receiving of brain
These devices making use of brain waves as electrical pulses.
waves are usually big, expensive These can be delivered in a non-
and can be operated only by trained invasive way using a technique
people. That could be a thing of the called transcranial magnetic stimula-
past as we can now record the same tion (TMS). Using a combination of
activity using much smaller, inexpen- technologies like EEG, the Internet
sive and easy-to-use wearable devices. and TMS, researchers are able to
We are at a point now where transmit a thought over a very large
we can purchase our own devices, Versus headset for measuring brain waves distance, such as from India to France.
measure our brainwaves and adjust (Credit: https://getversus.com) Brain-computer interface. Recent
our lives more effectively to deal with advances in brain-computer interface
stress and improve our focus. We a big library of apps and programs to are turning the science fantasy of
can attach these wearable devices to run with. transmitting thoughts directly from
our body in order to measure physi- Versus headset. This is the most one brain to another into reality. In
ological activity like heart rate, body advanced of the wearable headsets this field, brain-to-brain interfaces
temperature, respiratory rate, muscle currently available for personal use. allow direct transmission of brain
tension, and brain waves known as It has the best software for brain activity in real time by coupling the
biofeedback. training, and it is the most advanced brains of two individuals. Users want
Imagine seeing the brain activity biofeedback headset for measuring to control electronic devices through
in real-time, while meditating or while brain waves. brain waves without use of even
feeling stressed at work, and being hands, which brain-computer inter-
able to adapt to get better results. Electronics of brain waves face is now enabling.
The activity measured using EEG can outside the body Hypnosis. It is based on the use
be very detailed and complex, and Many people question the existence of brain waves for guided relaxation,
dependent on the area of the brain. of brain waves and say that electrical intense concentration and focused
Biofeedback headsets measure the impulses in the brain don’t ever get attention, to achieve a heightened
brain waves using EEG, and these are outside the body. Electrical impulses state of awareness that is sometimes
small bands that sit easily on our head are well known to travel inside the called a spell. During hypnotic spell,
and measure activity through sensors. brain and to the rest of the nervous a person’s attention is so focused that
Some of such headsets available in the system. But brain waves not only play anything going around the person is
market are discussed here. an important role inside the human temporarily blocked out or ignored.
The brain sensing headband. It body, their energy can be used to Working of our brain cells, or
is an EEG headband that connects to make wonders outside the body as neurons, using electrical signals to
the devices through Bluetooth to track well for controlling electronic devices/ communicate and coordinate for
the brainwaves. Its excellent iPhone/ displays, telekinesis, hypnotism, etc. higher brain function as well as brain
Android app has also been updated. The energy of brain waves (as wave influence outside the brain itself are
Thync calm and energy wearable. function) in the open will also suffer the biggest questions in all of science.
It is the first wearable device that different energy losses like attenuation, Recently, researchers have been able
actively elevates mood and lowers absorption, dispersion and scatter- to design an electronic chip capable of
stress, and claims to boost energy ing, and so energy of the waves will performing high-sensitivity intracel-
levels without sugar, caffeine or other decrease fast with distance and time. lular recording involving thousands
stimulants. It is worn on forehead and However, with strong concentration/ of connected neurons simultaneously,
back of the neck. It uses electromag- meditation to generate brain waves of identifying hundreds of synaptic con-
netic impulses that stimulate cranial required energy level, one can perform nections of brain. With such develop-
nerves on the face and back of the the activities mentioned below. ments in science and technology, may
head to improve mood. Telekinesis. It is one of the bases of be in near future, we will be able to
NeuroSky MindWave headset. It many super powers in human beings, understand more about the electronics
is the cheapest option that comes with which is often used for controlling/ of brain and brain waves.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 39

 Healthcare

How Technologies With AI

Can Help Control Disease
Outbreaks Like COVID-19
We can draw important lessons from the way deadly Corona virus is being handled in various
countries successfully, especially in China, with the help of various new technologies

comprehensive measures with the help

of artificial intelligence (AI) to control the
outbreak.
Online medical assistance
In China, cloud-based online consultation
websites and apps helped the people deal
with the outbreak. Doing online consulta-
tion from home, instead of going to the
hospital, helped control the transmission
of the virus in public places and hospitals.
Such cloud-based online consultation
services with AI algorithms can identify
seriously ill patients and manage patients
intelligently.
Many hospitals in China offer online
medical consultation and video chat facil-
ity with doctors to consult for any medical
problem. During the outbreak, infected
patients were able to consult the doctors
directly from their homes. They could also
take advice from the doctors using various

T
he outbreak of Covid-19 has become websites and apps.
a global emergency of 2020. So,
various preventive measures are
being taken to control the infection. The
outbreak first started at the Wuhan city of
China before it spread across the country.
Debojit Acharjee In China, doctors tried their best to cure
is a software engineer the patients but most of the medications
and a writer
failed, and the death toll increased dra-
matically.
The outbreak caused such an
emergency that a new hospital named
Huoshenshan Hospital was built within
ten days at Wuhan. Controlling such a
deadly outbreak is a very challenging
task, but people of China took various Cloud based online medical assistance

40 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Healthcare

Thermal vision camera for temperature scanning

versity and many others are treating to various hospitals in China to deal
patients online. Using such AI-based with the coronavirus outbreak. The
online medical consultation services is service robots are programmed with
helping many patients in getting medi- AI algorithms and can work almost
cal support at home. Self-quarantine like a human being. So, using such
has helped minimise the outbreak of service robots can help the health-
this disease in China to a great extent. care personnel to deal with infected
patients safely, during any such
Medical service robots deadly outbreak.
Apart from online medical services,
hospitals in China at Guangdong prov- Thermal imaging system
ince are using service robots to deliver In China, people are being screened
medicines and communicate with the using sophisticated temperature
Service robots for medical assistance infected patients. Using robots instead detection devices and thermal vision
of nurses or attendants to communi- cameras, which are connected to AI
Many apps like Jingdong and Wei cate with an infected patient reduces systems, to detect infected people
Yi provide online medical consulta- the chance of cross-contamination with fever in various public places
tion services to the patients in China, and transmission of disease to others. such as airports. Such intelligent
and these work through cloud-based This helps in keeping the nurses, doc- screening systems are able to control
AI systems. Five hospitals in east tors and others safe from getting any the outbreak of coronavirus infec-
China’s Anhui Province started offer- kind of infection. These service robots tion efficiently. Such AI-driven fever
ing Internet-based diagnosis and treat- are made of non-corrosive material, detection systems can help in pre-
ment to the patients having fever on which can be cleaned with disinfect- venting seriously sick people from
their official WeChat accounts from ants for sanitisation. traveling in public transport, and
24th January. Companies like Orion Star have simultaneously alert the paramedics
Hospital of Anhui Medical Uni- supplied many such service robots about them.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 41

 Healthcare
Outbreak prediction using AI
Supercomputers running on AI algo-
rithms can help prevent outbreaks like
the coronavirus and stop any pandem-
ic before it happens. BlueDot, an auto-
mated infectious disease surveillance
computer system created by a Cana-
dian AI company, was able to predict
coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan city
long before it happened. BlueDot had
sent early warnings about the outbreak
and even predicted spread of the virus
to other places like Bangkok, Seoul,
Taipei, and Tokyo in the days following
its initial appearance.
BlueDot uses machine learning and
natural language processing techniques
to prepare its model that sifts through
news reports in 65 languages, airline Self-driving/autonomous car
ticketing data, and animal disease net-
works. With the help of AI algorithm, odometry and inertial measurement videos for their Vlog. But drones can
it then makes a meaningful prediction units, along with AI algorithms, do more than that, and in many places
about any infectious outbreak. to drive from one place to another drones are being used to deliver food
autonomously. A company called and pharmaceutical products also.
Self-driven cars/autonomous Waymo, initially led by Google, has A company called Flirtey uses
vehicles successfully tested their self-driven drones to deliver water bottles, food
During the outbreak of coronavirus cars and is planning to manufacture and medicines to rural areas in the
in Wuhan city, many people tried Waymo Level 4 autonomous vehicles United States. Flirtey is the first deliv-
returning to their hometowns, mainly very soon. Uber is also interested in ery drone company in the world that
through flights. They tried hiring taxis providing self-driven taxi service and has been approved by the Federal
and other public transport vehicles to might use such self-driven cars for this Aviation Administration to provide
reach airport, but many taxi drivers purpose in the near future. delivery service using drones. Another
refused to provide service because company called Zipline International
of the fear of getting infected. If self- Delivery drones uses drones to deliver pharmaceutical
driven autonomous vehicles were When we think of drones, the first thing products to various parts of Rwanda in
available, everyone could get to the that comes to our mind is high-altitude Central Africa.
airports during the outbreak. video recording/streaming. Because Amazon, the e-commerce tech
A self-driven car uses a variety of that’s what most people are doing with giant, is also planning to use drones
sensors like radar, lidar, sonar, GPS, drones at present—to capture stunning for the delivery of its online orders; the
service will be called Amazon Prime
Air. Such delivery drones use GPS
navigation and AI algorithms to fly
from one location to another.
During the coronavirus outbreak in
China, people faced a lot of difficulty
in buying food and medicines, because
most stores remained closed. Using
drones to deliver food and medicines
during an outbreak can help the people
to survive such hardships.
During outbreak of coronavirus
infection, the companies who used AI
for their products and services were
able to help the people of China. This
proved that improving the infrastruc-
ture by using AI for various products
and services can help improve our
life, besides controlling or preventing
AI drones for delivery diseases.

42 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Artificial Intelligence

The Importance Of AI And

IT In Modern Healthcare
This article covers the importance of AI in healthcare, examples of AI in healthcare, Indian
healthcare industry, telemedicine, digital healthcare and related information technology

Representation of artificial intelligence in healthcare (Credit: https://qz.com)

I
Sani Theo t’s not a surprising fact that medical to diagnosis, prescription and inappropriate
error is the third largest killer in the US, use of medicines. Millions of patients are
next to heart disease and cancer. As per harmed each year due to unsafe healthcare
some reports, medical errors claim about worldwide, resulting in 2.6 million deaths
400,000 lives each year in the US. The annually in underdeveloped and developing
number of deaths in India is much higher. countries alone, according to World Health
A recent study by the Harvard University Organization. So, what is the solution?
showed that nearly five million deaths One solution for healthcare providers
occur in India annually due to medical and policy makers is to take help of modern
errors. technologies such as artificial intelligence
The most common errors are related (AI) and digital healthcare.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 43

 Artificial Intelligence
Importance of AI in healthcare As per a report on Marketwatch.com, it is predicted that the applications of AI in the
When doctors are unable to diagnose healthcare space will be worth 431.97 billion rupees by 2021, growing at a rate of
your health issues, what can you do? about 40 per cent annually. Based on this growth of AI applications in healthcare, the
Doctors are well-trained professionals doctor-patient ratio in India is expected to reach 6.9:1,000 by 2023, from its 2017 ratio
of 4.8:1,000. The capability of AI applications to improve doctors’ efficiency will help in
but are still unable to diagnose prop-
tackling challenges like uneven doctor-patient ratio, by providing rural populations with
erly at times. At such times, AI can
high-quality healthcare, and training doctors and nurses to handle complex medical
help make better decision by triaging procedures.
(evaluation and characterisation) of
the sick patients efficiently, and thus
save lives. of patients and consequent shortage as compared to the patients. AI can
With AI applications, decision of human nurses. help tackle such uneven doctor-to-
support systems sift and decipher a Montefiore Medical Center in New patient ratio problems. It can even
large amount of data available within York City runs its various machine tackle the problems of untrained
electronic medical records. Also, along learning (ML) models on a variety of doctors and nurses for complex pro-
with imaging technology, AI helps in Intel hardware and optimised soft- cedures, and absence of healthcare
detecting uncertainty by highlighting ware, enabling the flexibility needed access for remote and rural areas.
problem areas, thus improving the to accommodate a variety of use The government of India is taking
diagnosis process. cases. One of these models determines keen interest in finalising the national
AI improves the interaction which patients are at high risk of strategy on AI and other emerging
between healthcare providers and requiring intubation (tube insertion), technologies. Its think-tank, NITI
patients. AI-powered smart agents enabling clinicians to take the neces- Aayog, has identified five such sec-
can search, find, present and apply sary actions. tors, including healthcare, for imple-
the most current clinical knowledge GE Healthcare is working on mentation of AI.
in partnership with physicians and deep-learning-based X-ray image NITI Aayog, in partnership with
researchers, thus significantly improv- analysis for detecting pneumothorax Google, is developing AI-based solu-
ing clinical efficiency and quality of (collapsed lung). With its Optima tions to accelerate the future of ML
care. XR240amx mobile X-ray systems, and AI in India. The partnership
Physicians’ workload includes images are captured to notify the pos- will build AI-assisted models to
repetitive, tedious tasks involved in sibility of pneumothorax to radiolo- detect diabetic retinopathy screening
researching, diagnoses and analysing gists within seconds. models that will help in early risk
patient data. Traditionally, to interpret In Japan, AI-based humanoid detection.
an X-ray image, a radiologist looks at robots are providing companionship NITI Aayog has also signed state-
hundreds of images and manually to old and sick people, and are helping ment of intent with various compa-
finds the best match for their X-ray. with various chores at home. These nies, including ABB, IBM and SAP,
Now, AI is automatically able to robots are capable of delivering food, related to AI projects. It is also collab-
detect the best match along with some picking up objects from around the orating with Intel and Tata Institute
slightly differing ones, too. house, finding things that may have of Fundamental Research on various
been misplaced, and more. AI-based research projects.
Examples of AI deployment Applications of AI include wear-
for healthcare able gloves that can detect epilep- AI in telemedicine
AI, drones, robots, telemedicine and tic seizure. AI-powered robots work The advent of AI, ML and automation
Big Data are all being employed in as virtual assistants for doctors and, is making remote patient monitoring
Wuhan hospitals to tackle the ongo- in some cases, display diagnostic abili- through telemedicine a reality. Tel-
ing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) ties with similar degree of accuracy as emedicine and AI both help in cutting
outbreak in China. AI-powered robots medical professionals. costs and diagnosing illnesses faster
are being deployed at the front lines and more accurately.
to contain spread of the virus. They AI in Indian healthcare Telemedicine is useful for follow-
are being used for disinfection, street industry up visits, management of chronic
patrols, food and medicine delivery in The use of AI in the Indian healthcare conditions, medication manage-
quarantine wards. industry is diverse across sub-sectors. ment, specialist consultation and
Many hospitals around the world The industry comprises a number other clinical services that can be
are now using various AI-based solu- of segments including hospitals, provided remotely via secure video
tions. For instance, AI-based delivery pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medi- and audio connections. This saves
robots are being used to move around cal equipment and supplies, medical time and costly infrastructure, and
the hallways delivering pills, bring- insurance, and telemedicine. AI solu- serves to provide isolated communi-
ing lunch to patients and ferrying tions can be employed in all these ties with speedy delivery of medical
specimen and medical equipment to segments. expertise.
different labs. Some hospitals employ In a country like India, with a large Telemedicine is growing, and so is
robotic nurses to deal with any surge population, there are very few doctors the demand for it. In many countries

44 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Artificial Intelligence
services, telemedicine, web-based
analysis, email, mobile phones and
applications, text messages, wearable
devices, and clinic or remote monitor-
ing sensors.
India is among the leading coun-
tries in adoption of digital health tech-
nology. National eHealth Authority
(NeHA), proposed by the Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, would be
responsible for the development of an
integrated health information system
in India. It would also be responsible
for enforcing the laws and regulations
relating to the privacy and security of
the patients’ health and information
records.
Some of the goals of digital health-
care are to reduce the cost, improve
healthcare and ensure good overall
patient experience. Digital trans-
formation is an ongoing journey
towards improving better healthcare
Telemedicine concept (Credit: www.scirp.org) that requires putting the consumer at
the centre. Policy makers should put
there are very few medical profession- patients with doctors and provides their best ideas forward to solve the
als to meet patients’ needs. There, online consultation. Patients can healthcare crisis, with technology at
telemedicine can provide essential also book lab tests and appointments the centre of discussions. 
resources related to healthcare, online. The existing technology, including
including doctors for specific health • mfine provides a virtual doctor information technology (IT), is fall-
issues in different geographic loca- with the ability to diagnose and triage ing short in many areas. For example,
tions. common diseases. It refers patients problems related to medical errors
Companies are offering solutions with serious conditions to a hospi- cause missed and delayed diagnoses,
that can help monitor patients’ health tal. Its goal is to provide healthcare thus failing to order appropriate tests
remotely and automatically. Human- to every Indian, including those in in time, or initiate follow up. The IT
like avatars within the telemedicine remote areas, through its virtual plat- systems need to be designed to better
interface tools ask comprehensive form and AI software. manage test results and patients’
health questions and process the • OnliDoc uses AI and ML for related issues. 
answers. This helps healthcare end-to-end medical diagnosis. It has a The IT department of a hospital is
providers determine how to treat phone application (available on Apple responsible for managing clinical soft-
patients while assessing their health Store and Google Play Store) that can ware, radiology, administrative staff,
histories. be used to find doctors, book appoint- patient records, admissions, medi-
The ML algorithm that Google ments, and store medical records and cal wards, operating rooms, labour
uses can diagnose diabetic retin- prescriptions. and delivery suites, and emergency
opathy by using retinal images, • LiveHealth is a management departments. This is in addition to
which can be obtained and analysed information system for healthcare pro- the usual tasks like providing network
remotely through telemedicine. ML viders. It collects samples, manages infrastructure, IT security, server
algorithms can also detect rare genetic patient records, diagnoses patients maintenance, software deployments
diseases from mere photographs of and generates reports. and so on.
patients’ faces. Patients with rare The IT systems are so essential
genetic disorders usually visit several Digital healthcare and IT team and ingrained into modern-day hos-
doctors before figuring out the exact Digital healthcare is a broad term pitals. Without them it can literally
problem, which can now be avoided. that includes eHealth supported by be a matter of life or death, if the
There are many Indian startups information and communication systems stop working effectively.
in the field of AI-based telemedicine, technologies, and the use of emerg- Traditionally, doctors and nurses are
including Lybrate, mfine, Artelus, ing and advanced technologies in the at forefront of the healthcare team.
ChironX, LiveHealth, OnliDoc and field of genomics, AI and ML, to help Now, with digital transformation in
Qure.ai. address the health problems faced by healthcare, we also need the best IT
• Lybrate is an online doctor- patients. The technologies include team and medical technologists for
consultation platform that connects both hardware and software solutions, better healthcare.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 45

 Tech Focus

Data Analytics:
A Game-Changer
In Healthcare Industry
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to analyse both structured
and unstructured data to support medical professionals in decision making, and
related policy decisions by providing a holistic view of a particular situation

(Credit: https://c0.piktochart.com)

W
Ayushee Sharma ith an increase in number of of data analytics in various industries.
users adopting technologies Also, it is having a profound impact on
like artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare services where massive data
cloud-computing, the Internet of Things from areas such as pharmaceuticals,
(IoT), the data is rapidly increasing in size medical bills and patients’ health history
and complexity. This is driving the growth can be used for prediction and prevention

46 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Tech Focus
streamlined. Researchers can analyse
success rate of results from different
treatments and filter out the ones that
have better health outcomes. In the
past, University of Florida made use of
Google Maps and public health data to
prepare neighbourhood-level hotspot
maps for efficient delivery of primary
care in most areas.
Healthcare dashboards can be
used by healthcare professionals to
monitor key performance indicators
of patient statistics in real time. Health
tracking devices like fitness bands
make patients more aware about their
health so that they take the neces-
sary precautions and medications to
prevent their problem from escalat-
ing. When a patient’s parameters are
alarming, the system immediately
Wearable fitness tracker to measure steps alerts the doctor to take necessary
action(s) to deal with the situation.
instead of treatment and response. search functionality to aid in perform- Reduction in expenses. Big Data
In a recent development, IIIT-Delhi ing tasks such as data entry and billing can be used to predict the admission
signed a Memorandum of Understand- in these systems. rate of patients using ML. This is done
ing (MoU) with the Lords Education Apart from previous health data by evaluating information including
and Health Society (Wish Founda- for statistics, real-time information the number of patients present at a
tion) with an aim to carry on research related to vitals can be obtained from time, the costs incurred, total time of
on health data analytics. For the wearables and other health devices stay, among others to get an overall
coronavirus outbreak too, institutions for population health management view of the process. This can help in
such as World Health Organization through predictive analytics. The IoT understanding the right amount of
(WHO) are utlilising data analytics makes it possible to collect informa- hospital and clinic staff required so
and machine learning (ML) to track tion using sensors in health equipment that the patients’ care is proper and
and predict its spread so that better for remote monitoring. This is useful quick, with lower wait times and with-
decisions can be made. in identifying and prioritising people out unnecessary costs.
According to a report from more at risk early on. The data inte- By leveraging population health
Research and Markets, global Big Data grated from various sources needs to data and identifying people that need
analytics market size in healthcare is be accurate for correct analysis. more attention, patients can be kept
expected to reach US$ 105.08 billion away from hospitals. This reduces
at a CAGR of 12.3 per cent during the What are we trying to achieve hospital expenses due to reduction in
forecast period of 2019 to 2027. Collecting and analysing large datasets readmission rates.
and images through data analytics Preventing fraud in insurance
Data sources solution saves time by quickly filtering companies. Insurance companies pro-
In hospitals and other treatment cen- huge amounts of data to find accurate vide high cover for small premium and
tres, electronic health records (EHRs) and customised solutions for tough are prone to fraud, such as in personal
are created in order to have separate problems that are beyond the scope of injury claims. Fraudsters often receive
comprehensive digital records for researchers and medical staff. Benefits money into their accounts through
every patient containing such infor- are multifaceted and inter-related. identity theft. In other instances, they
mation as medical history, test reports, Some of the major ones are discussed claim the records to be from leading
allergies and the like. These can be next. hospitals and display more costly
updated by a doctor even when the Improved patient satisfaction treatments than actually provided.
patient visits a different hospital and and engagement. The aim of data Using data to validate a pre-
some new data needs to be added. analytics in any field is to make payment and analytics to perform
A large amount of this data con- better decisions. As medical data checks against public record databases
sists of medical imaging reports, gets analysed, better decision making ensures the validity of information
which can be analysed through algo- and informed strategic planning by provided to insurers. After verifying
rithms that identify patterns in pixels health professionals leads to improved medical records, claims can be pro-
based on previously available images patient satisfaction and recovery. cessed quickly so that genuine cases
to help with diagnosis. Last year, Tedious and monotonous operations, get resolved easily and treatment
Google revealed its plans to provide such as making appointments, get institutions are paid faster.

48 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Tech Focus
Besides efficient insurance claims
processing, payers can use predictive
analytics to determine at-risk claims.
They can also find the best providers
for specific health conditions, ena-
bling patients to get better returns on
their claims.
Technologies to achieve
the feat
Formulation of a well developed data
analytics solution is crucial for preven-
tive, predictive, precise and personal-
ised healthcare. Cloud services can
economically and easily manage huge
volumes of data and share information
across different systems, making data
analytics possible.
For scalable implementation, it is
always a good idea to process all the Big data analytics architecture framework (Credit: www.researchgate.net)
information to extract the important
data while not missing out on any stand the patterns and trends in the comes to sharing patient information.
detail, which can be then integrated gathered datasets, which is known In 2019, a former patient at Uni-
into the system to gain meaningful as data mining. Based on similari- versity of Chicago Medical Center
insights. This is where the idea of ties in characteristics with the data filed a lawsuit against the institution’s
decentralised processing, that is, edge of former patients, new ones can be partnership with Google to improve
cloud computing comes into play. more effectively treated. predictive analysis, stating that it vio-
Unlike traditional cloud, the infor- It is important to assess the perfor- lated Health Insurance Portability and
mation is stored locally, increasing mance of a model to understand the Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed in
network performance and reducing improvements that can be made. 1996 in the US by recording the entry
response times. and exit dates of patients. The lawsuit
AI and ML can be used to analyse Impact and challenges was dismissed later on.
both structured (such as ontologies) One of the best ways to understand the Technically too, developing infra-
and unstructured data to support impact of health data analytics is from structure to interface datasets from
medical professionals in decision the response of Taiwan to coronavirus different data providers on such
making, and related policy decisions pandemic (COVID-19). According to a a large scale is not easy. Security
by providing a holistic view of a Stanford health report, the state inte- loopholes in the system can have
particular situation. The Pittsburgh grated its national health insurance drastic implications. So, advanced
Health Data Alliance started working database with its immigration and security measures like firewalls and
with Amazon Web Services and utilis- customs database to create Big Data encryption algorithms are essential
ing its ML research program to boost for analytics. QR code scanning and to avoid risks and maintain the trust
innovation and revolutionise disease online reporting were also allowed. of patients.
treatment with data last year. This allowed identification of Due to such issues, cloud alterna-
Apache spark is a popular frame- susceptible cases who had recent tives are considered a safe option to
work with built-in fault tolerance for travel history to high-risk areas and reduce vulnerability by many compa-
iterative and interactive processes were visiting clinics with symptoms nies. Corporate Health International
in Big Data analysis. It is written in through real-time tracking. People (CHI) is one such organisation that is
Scala and can be integrated with who had travelled to high-risk areas utilising the computational efficiency
Hadoop. PySpark API allows using were tracked through their phones to provided by hardware and software
spark framework with Python, a make sure they stayed at home during stack from Intel. Servers running Intel
popular language among developers the quarantine period. This helped Xeon are used for both data processing
for ML due to its various advantages them nip the disease in the bud. and AI development.
like flexibility, robustness and ease of Healthcare data involves numer- In spite of realising its potential,
implementation. ous complexities that need to be healthcare organisations in many
For predictive modeling, the tackled. For instance, medical data countries are still not actively using
inputs and outputs for the model can comes from different sources and has analytics due to these issues. Devel-
be discrete or continuous, and are to comply with regulations set by dif- opments are ongoing to resolve such
decided based on the type of prob- ferent state governments and other problems and avail the untapped
lem. Neural networks are trained administrative departments. There benefits from analytics that are wide-
with past data available to under- has to be a common standard when it spread in other industries already.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 49

 Logistics

Courier Industries:
Opportunities For Electronics
Smart logistics refers to the realisation of system perception, comprehensive analysis and
processing in various kinds of logistics, including storage and distribution

cessing system was installed by Siemens. The

system consists of a sorting machine with an
integrated reading and video coding machine,
which reads barcodes or manually-written
addresses on letters line-by-line. Based on
addresses, the sorting machine automatically

(Credit: https://medium.com)
sorts the letters and collects them in a specified
bin in a single turn.
This new automation technology enables
India Post to significantly reduce process-
ing time, improve productivity and deliver
high-quality service. Globally, Siemens has
installed more than 22,100 such systems for
letter, parcel and courier express parcel ser-
vices in more than forty countries.
Multiple optical character readers (OCRs)
can read the entire address of an envelope,

E
lectronic devices are increasingly spray a barcode on it and sort it at the rate of
being seen in the field of courier more than nine per second. Wide-area barcode
industry for packaging, sorting readers can read a barcode virtually anywhere
and delivering. Electronics and electro- on the letter. The remote barcoding system
mechanical equipment used for delivery provides barcoding for handwritten script
services have become indispensable for mails or mails that cannot be read by OCRs.
Vinayak better service of customers not only in An electronics system, when added to a
Ramachandra cities but also in remote areas. Service customised mailbox, adds several benefits.
Adkoli is BE in quality of the courier industry is often Simple electronics, such as displays, key-
industrial production.
He has been a judged by the state of equipment they have boards, barcode readers and transmitters/
lecturer in mechanical at their service. receivers, may be added to a mailbox, which
department for ten
years in three different
Package or parcel delivery is the deliv- can make mail delivery more efficient.
polytechnics. He is also ery of shipping containers, parcels or high-
a freelance writer and volume mail as a single shipment. The The magic of drones
cartoonist
service is provided by most postal systems, Drones can be effectively used in mail deliv-
express mailers, private courier companies ery systems. There are many elderly people
and truck-load shipping couriers. whose mobility is limited. Drones can be
used effectively to deliver mail and parcels
Improved experiments in the to such people.
postal department Drone tech for delivering parcels and
The government of India’s Department of other types of goods is receiving mas-
Posts improved its Mail Processing Centre at sive investments from big players all over
New Delhi in August 2012 by setting up an the globe. With such large companies as
automated system that enables processing Amazon, Walmart, UPS, Google and global
of up to 55,000 mail pieces (approximately postal companies investing in drone delivery
35,000 letters and 20,000 mixed mail pack- projects, it is only a matter of time before
ages) per hour. This automated mail pro- wide-scale drone delivery becomes a reality.

50 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Logistics
However, there are many technical challenges that
need to be overcome. There are widespread privacy
concerns. Perhaps, drones for delivering parcels will be
limited to just far-out and hard-to-reach places.
Germany’s post office was able to beat Amazon
and Google in speed with the launch of drone delivery
service. France’s La Poste launched a programme to use
drones to deliver parcels in all weathers up to about
19km (12 miles) away.
Both Switzerland’s and Finland’s postal services
have drone parcel delivery test projects in place. China
is moving fast with drone delivery services. Its largest
mail carrier, SF Express, is already using drones and
delivering 500 parcels per day to remote areas. There
are many more mail and courier companies with such
active programmes.
Through partnerships with the government of
Rwanda, Zipline delivers all blood products for twenty
hospitals and healthcare centres using drones, for
improving access to healthcare for millions of Rwandans.
Some challenges of using drones in a product delivery
system at present are:
• Drones require longer flight times. Presently, drone
flight time is limited to 20 to 25 minutes.
• Drones are noisy. With thousands flying over us,
it could get extremely loud.
• Safety is a matter of concern. Drones need sophis-
ticated collision avoidance systems.
• Drones parcel delivery systems will take both
ingenuity and heaps of money.
Drones can, however, be effectively used where there
is little road or rail infrastructure. Drone delivery system
Flirtey conducted its first ship-to-shore drone delivery in
the US on New Jersey’s coastal line in June 2016. “Imag-
ine a future where in the event of such natural disasters
as Hurricane Sandy, drones can provide life-saving aid to
victims of disaster in terms of medical supplies, food and
water,” opines Matt Sweeny, chief executive officer, Flirtey.
Blockchain war in courier and postal systems
Parcels are delivered via postal service and/or courier
companies to home. Waiting for packages to be deliv-
ered, however, could be frustrating. Blockchain having
several characteristics such as being centralised, trans-
parent, efficient, cost-effective, secure, etc can solve
a number of existing problems for postal services and
courier companies. It can identify verification logistics
and keep track of mails/parcels.
IBM is exploring blockchain use to accurately track
and share information, and even transact between the
Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Postal vehicles and sort-
ing equipment could thereby manage their own tracking,
monitoring and maintenance. Databases can do it, too.
Blockchain could help all this happen automatically,
making systems faster and cheaper.
If each parcel had a small sensor, blockchain could
be used to manage the chain of custody between differ-
ent partners. Tracking parcels on blockchain would also
expedite customs clearance, and integrate payments,
logistics and shipping into one cohesive platform.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 51

 Logistics
In south England, a large group of
robots occupy a three-storied grocery
fulfilment centre, managing 50,000
products in three temporary regimes,
each fulfilling customer orders, com-
municating over wireless networks.
SaaS parcel shipping solutions
used to be only for small shipping, but
today, the IoT connects shipping apps
to local data sources, scales, thermal
label printers and other material-
handling devices.
The IoT is supporting the value
chain in parcel delivery to create an
Internet of parcels. Digitalisation and
the IoT are creating new framework
conditions. The domestic market of US
Postal Service, China Post and Japan
Post is big enough. The IoT can pro-
vide a sustainable solution for these to
support the growing demand of e-com-
merce for seamless x-border delivery.
Today, there is growing demand for
x-border e-commerce, B2C delivery.
AI-powered GPS tool called ORION (on road integrated optimisation and navigation) to create most It is crucial that parcels arrive
efficient routes for fleets (Credit: https://i.pinimg.com) on time at the destination to satisfy
customers. Parcel delivery systems
A number of postal services such supply chain in all areas drastically. involve many steps, including scan-
as US Federal Post Agency, Russian Rolls Royce recently partnered with ning parcel codes, loading parcels
Post, and Australian State Post are Google to create autonomous ships. onto vehicles and sending them to the
slowly showing interest in blockchain This has resulted in replacement of jobs customers’ destination. Today, GPS,
technology. of twenty-plus ship crew members. Waze, Android tools and other cloud-
In supply chain deliveries, every based systems are intelligently manag-
The IoT, AI and robotics are minute and kilometre matters. UPS, ing delivery processes and delivering
the future of logistics a parcel delivery company, uses an parcels on time. Several new technolo-
Nowadays, many different kinds of AI-powered GPS tool called ORION gies are being used as e-commerce and
delivery companies transport different (on road integrated optimisation and online shopping is exploding.
kinds of parcels and offer their own navigation) to create the most efficient According to a tech company,
services, which causes a lot of wast- routes for its fleet. Customers, driv- delivery robots are being designed to
age of resources. In addition, volume ers and vehicles submit data to the deliver packages, groceries and food
of parcels in all cities that need to be machine, which then uses algorithms to consumers within two-to-three-
delivered has grown dramatically. To to create the most optimal routes. kilometre radius in under thirty min-
deal with these problems, a uniform Instead of being stuck in traffic, ORION utes. These drive autonomously while
parcel delivery system in a smart helps drivers make their deliveries on being monitored by human operators
city that can offer service to all kinds time and in the most efficient manner. in control centres. The robots have
of customers in the city, including Optimising delivery routes has had already been on the road in European
manufacturers, departmental stores, a great impact on UPS business, from and American cities and have covered
restaurants, individuals and so forth, saving time and money to reducing more than 8050km (5000 miles), meet-
has been designed. This system uses emissions and wear-and-tear of its ing more than 400,000 people without
the IoT, RFID technology, wireless trucks. With ORION, UPS estimates to a single accident.
communication and cloud computing. have reduced its delivery kilometres by Building a robust courier industry
With this system, the whole package hundred million. Thus, using AI, UPS needs long-term planning. Like any
delivery process, including classifica- is saving fifty million dollars per year. other industry that is at a nascent
tion of packages, vehicle scheduling, Smart logistics refers to the realisa- stage, the electronics-based parcel
path planning, transporting and moni- tion of system perception, comprehen- industry in India will also undergo
toring, can be managed automatically. sive analysis and processing in various its share of teething problems. This is
As a result, use of both material and kinds of logistics, including storage where a healthy interface between the
manpower resources can be reduced. and distribution. Use of the IoT tech- government and courier companies
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the nology can promote intelligent levels will ensure that businesses scale rap-
power to increase efficiency of the of the whole logistics industry. idly in the country.

52 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Green Tech

Introduction To
Green Computing
And Its Importance
Foundation of green computing was laid as far back as 1992 with the launching of Energy
Star program in the USA. The success of Energy Star motivated other countries to take up
the subject for investigation and implementation

information processing (through

algorithms and storage) and infor-
mation transportation (through
networking and communication).
Carbon dioxide accounts for
about eighty per cent of global
Prof. Chandan warming. As a rule of thumb, if
Tilak Bhunia, PhD world-wide increasing application
in computer engineering
from Jadavpur University, of ICT is assumed to contribute
is fellow of Computer at least twenty per cent towards
Society of India, carbon dioxide, ICT becomes
Institution of Electronics
& Telecommunication responsible for sixteen per cent of
Engineers, and Institution global warming. This is undoubt-
of Engineers (India)
edly a cause of concern. As per
one research-based estimate, fifty
Abhinandan Bhunia
did B S in computer
billion devices like computers,
engineering from Drexel mobile phones, sensors, actuators
University, USA and and robots shall connect to the
MBA from University of
Washington, USA Internet by this year’s end, creat-
ing even more havoc.
Of course different strategies
would be needed to nudge ICT
towards green computing, which is

A
ny technology that aspires to be necessary to reduce the pollutants generated
nature-friendly ought to be green. in collection, processing and transportation
Recognition of this fact has led to of the information. In today’s scenario,
development of green generators, green primary challenge in achieving green com-
automobiles, green energy, green chemis- puting is to realise energy-efficient devices,
try as well as green computing. Green com- energy-efficient processing and energy-
puting is a leap forward for information efficient networking. Invariably, energy
technology (IT), and more specifically for efficiency is required to address reduction in
information and communication technol- heat dissipation that is basically responsible
ogy (ICT). Green computing has emerged for emission of carbon dioxide.
as the next wave of ICT. In case of electrical, electronic or com-
Motivation for the subject of green puter systems, wasteful heat is generated
computing arose to protect environment due to thermal vibration of particles in the
against hazards generated at three dif- components. Therefore any brute attempt
ferent states of ICT, namely, informa- towards green initiative should have direct
tion collection (by electronic devices), or indirect motivation to reduce this ther-

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 53

 Green Tech
E-waste generation by region 2014 spin, conformation, colour, Qubits are typically subatomic par-
(metric tonnes/year) reactivity and lock-and-key rec- ticles such as electrons and photons.
20 ognition are just a few examples Generating, processing and managing
of molecular properties, which qubits is an engineering challenge.
15
might be useful for representing Superiority of quantum computing
and transforming logical infor- over classical computing is multi-fold.
mation. To be useful, molecular First, whereas in classical computing
10 scale logic will have to function logical bits are represented by on and
close to the information theoreti- off states of transistors, in quantum
cal limit of one bit on one car- computing qubits are harnessed by
5
rier. Experimental practicalities properties of subatomic particles. Size
suggest that it will be too easy of quantum computers will thus be
0 to construct regular molecular much smaller than that of present-day
Oceania Africa Europe Americas Asia arrays, preferably by chemical computers. Both MSE and QC are thus
Fig. 1: Increasing e-waste trend world over and physical self-organisation. found to be indirect solutions for green
(Credit: UNU - The Global E-Waste Monitor 2014) This suggests that the natural computing.
logic architectures should be cel- At current state of technology
mal vibration. Reduced circuitry or a lular automata: regular arrays of locally march, Green ICT may be better looked
minimal system helps in reducing the connected finite state machines where at as a challenge to realise eco-friendly
number of vibrating particles. the state of each molecule might be rep- and environmentally-responsible
Minimal circuit designs, which resented by colour or by conformation. solutions in order to reduce just not
lead to technologies of very large Schemes such as spectral hole burning heat dissipation but also to maximise
scale integration (VLSI) or ultra large already exist for storing and retrieving energy efficiency, recyclability and
scale integration (ULSI), are now well- information in molecular arrays using bio-degradability. Fact is, fast-growing
established technical solutions. These light. The general problem of interfac- production of electrical, electronic and
solutions meet the objectives of realis- ing to a molecular system remains computing equipment has resulted
ing low cost and smaller-size systems. problematic. Molecular structures may in enormous increase of e-waste, and
It was never thought these would also be the first to take practical advan- especially carbon dioxide, which is
indirectly provide a solution for reduc- tages of novel logic concepts such as responsible for creating havoc in envi-
ing particles in vibration. emergent computation and ‘floating ronment and for increasing pollution.
In the process of minimisation, architecture’ in which computation is As per a report published by Inter-
two more revolutionary technolo- viewed as a self-organising process in national Telecommunication Union
gies have emerged: molecular scale a fluid-like medium.” (ITU), e-waste has increased rapidly
of electronics (MSE) and Quantum Change is the only thing that is and reached a global high. Increasing
computing. It was the quest for an permanent in universe. In technology trend of e-waste all over the world is
ever decreasing size, but more com- scenario, changes become inevitable shown in Fig. 1.
plex electronic components with high means of evolution and revolution. In Many studies have established that
speed ability, which gave rise to MSE. tune, a new generation of IT known as computers and IT industries dissipate
The concept that molecules may Quantum Computing (QC) has come more energy than others. Impact of
be designed to operate as a self-con- up. Mechanical computing, electronic ICT industries on emission of carbon-
tained device was put forwarded by computing, quantum computing, dioxide is immense. As shown in Fig.
Carter. He proposed some molecular DNA computing, cloud computing, 2, India is currently the third largest
analogous of conventional electronic chemical computing and bio comput- producer of carbon dioxide.
switches, gates and connections. ing are a few generation-wise migra- Urgent solutions required at the
Accordingly, an idea of a molecular tions of information technology (IT). levels of hardware design manage-
P-N junction emerged. MSE is a simple In conventional computers we work ment include minimal configuration,
interpolation of IC scaling. with now, computing and processing of adoptive configuration, consolidation
Scaling is an attractive technology. data is based on transistors’ on and by virtualisation, algorithmic effi-
Scaling of FET and MOS transistors is off states as binary representation of ciency, optimal resource utilisation,
more rigorous and well defined than ‘1’ or ‘0,’ or vice versa. In quantum optimal data centres, optimal link
that of bipolar transistors. But there computers, the basic principle is to use utilisation, limiting power by reduc-
are problems in scaling of silicon quantum properties to represent data. ing cable length, minimising protocol
technology. In scaling, while propa- Here, computation and processing of overhead, protocol for compressed
gation delay should be minimum and data is made with quantum mechanical header, green networking, manage-
packing density should be high, these phenomena such as superposition, par- ment of e-waste, air management and
should not be at the expense of the allelism and entanglement. Therefore, cooling management, among others.
power dissipated. With these scaling whereas in conventional computers For ICT scientists and engineers, the
rules in minds, scaling technology of data is represented by binary ‘bits,’ in challenge will be to design technol-
silicon is reaching a limit. quantum computers representation is ogy and algorithms to minimise par-
Dr Barker reported that, “change, done with ‘qubits’ (quantum bits). ticle vibration, travel path and heat

54 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Green Tech
Total CO2 emissions 2017 (gigatons) 2017 CO2 emissions per person (tons/person)

Fig. 2: Global carbon dioxide emissions (Credit: Wikipedia.org)

loss due to input-output mismatch. malisation of green ICT is in fact due

Design, operational and transmission to standards proposed by IEEE who
related thermal loss are core issues of has formalised Green Ethernet and
ICT. This makes production of Green 802.3az-enabled devices for green ICT.
ICT a great challenge, although, as Green ICT is a clean-environment-
parts of its implementation, energy- based technology. However, fruitful
smart devices, sleep-mode devices, realisation of green ICT is equally
cluster computing, cloud computing, dependent upon awareness in society.
etc are already in place. Society needs to practice common
Foundation of green ICT was laid ethics of ‘don’t keep computer on,
as far back as 1992 with the launching when not needed,’ ‘don’t use Internet
of Energy Star program in the USA. as a free tool, but as a valuable tool
The success of Energy Star motivated of necessity only,’ ‘don’t unnecessar-
other countries to take up the subject ily replace devices after devices just
for investigation and implementation. because you can afford to’ and so on.
Leading countries working on green Without societal responsibility, tech-
ICT now include Japan, Australia, nology alone cannot ensure achieving
Canada and The European Union. For- the objectives of green ICT.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 55

 Test & Measurement

The Parameters To Evaluate

Autonomous Vehicles
An autonomous vehicle (AV) relies on devices and components that exchange, share and interpret data.
Interoperability of these devices and components ensures that these can form an integrated ecosystem
within the vehicle, seamlessly communicating with each other without sacrificing performance

tion to such unique scenarios. On-road

prototypes would rarely experience
these conditions, and setting up such
scenarios would be dangerous and
costly. Instead, testing and validating
AVs for such scenarios can be done
using simulation for fast and cost-
effective results.
Vehicles controlled by artificial intel-
ligence (AI) need to be tested for every
conceivable iteration of traffic, condi-
tions and signage. As physically testing
these scenarios can be risky to pedestri-
ans and other vehicles, engineers can
explore the AV domain of validity using
parameterisation, simulation and VR.
This will help run multiple permutations
in a fraction of the time for different
stop-sign scenarios automatically.
AV testing parameters
AVs need a wide array of sensors to
(Credit: https://medium.com)
get a clear picture of the world around
them, including cameras, lidars, radars,
thermal cameras, GPSes and more.
Glare can affect various sensors and,

A
Deepshikha Shukla utonomous vehicle (AV) testing hence, these are tested and validated
and validation are vital for making under various conditions using simu-
AVs safe for humans on the road. lation where one, or multiple, sensors
Traditional prototype-based testing takes fail. Simulations can help model faulty
time and large budgets, so engineers need sensors to determine how the AVs will
to take advantage of physics-based and vir- handle such situations.
tual reality (VR) simulations. These digital “Safety standards for AVs are abso-
tools will enable engineers to overcome lutely critical for public acceptance
the challenges of testing and validating of the new technology,” says Greg
AV designs. McGuire, associate director of M-city
As traffic can be erratic, AVs will autonomous vehicle testing lab at Uni-
encounter unique scenarios every day, versity of Michigan. “Without them, it
like a car running on the wrong side on is hard to decide whether self-driving
the road. Testing will check the AVs’ reac- cars are safe, and to gain public trust.

56 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Test & Measurement
Earning that trust requires developing Assessing communication as well as additional and elevated con-
standards through an open process technologies ditions to gather data that helps ensure
that the public can scrutinise, and product functionality and reliability.
may even require government regu- Safety of AVs is critical to their suc- Radar can detect objects depend-
lation.” cess in the marketplace and in society. ing on their size, shape and material
Main aspects of testing technology Wireless communication technologies composition. So, objects may go unde-
are to ensure sensors are providing offer limitless opportunities within the tected or be incorrectly identified if
correct feedback, so AI can be sure transportation sector. But this requires they are too thin or transparent to the
to have the correct information to extensive validation testing to ensure radar frequency or are non-conductive.
process. safety and performance of connected It may also detect objects wrongly if
Testing machine learning systems and automated vehicles. It includes there are elevation changes, such as
have become a little more compli- checks to ensure functionality of entrance and exit ramps, or when the
cated. These are based on a neural vehicles and their components, and road has a sharp curve because objects
network, which is nothing more than their interaction with other cars and have unique geometry.
layered algorithms with variables that wireless technologies such as cell- Most automated vehicles utilise
are adjusted after training the system. phones, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc. There cameras for object detection; however,
Training involves feeding data to the are several other considerations to cameras function best under good
systems until we are able to arrive at address when it comes to developing lighting conditions and are less reli-
a result that is within our degree of and implementing testing. able during vehicle transitions from
accuracy for known good results. Geographical elements such as one lighting condition to another. For
solar flares, buildings, tunnels, can- example, when the vehicle emerges
Environment testing yons or simply reception can impact from the tunnel during daytime, thus
Researchers are building tools and connection and reception of the GPS moving from dark to light, the camera
techniques to generate driving con- signal in an automated or connected may not work as well.
ditions and issues that maximally vehicle. So, it is important to test So, the camera needs to undergo
impact AV safety and performance. additional sensors and algorithms, extensive performance testing in the
These will help find a large number of and their ability to use data acquisi- lab to ensure its performance, both
safety-critical scenarios where errors tion hardware and real-time kinematic as a standalone device and as an inte-
can lead to accidents without having systems to track true vehicle position grated component within the vehicle’s
to enumerate all possibilities on the in these situations. vision system. Also, it should be tested
road. For vehicles in motion, communi- for weather conditions, such as how it
A library of Edge cases has been cation will be a constant concern, as will operate with raindrops or snow
developed for testing autonomous they will increasingly need to interact over the lens.
driving systems repeatedly in aug- with infrastructure and other smart
mented reality (AR)-based simula- devices. Dedicated short-range com- Interoperability tests for a
tions. Data compiled from drivers munications is a wireless technology seamless performance
operating vehicles jam-packed with that allows automobiles to conduct An AV relies on devices and com-
sensors helps design such custom- this communication. Its components ponents that exchange, share and
built simulation environments that testing includes laboratory and real- interpret data. Interoperability of
reflect how drivers actually react and world testing to ensure their inter- these devices and components ensures
behave on the road. This improves operability, connectivity, security, that these can form an integrated
autonomous driving systems’ perfor- performance and electrical safety. ecosystem within the vehicle, seam-
mance with each repetition. On-road testing allows evaluation of lessly communicating with each other
On-road testing allows vehicles components within a vehicle and tests without sacrificing performance. Addi-
and their various parts to be tested their interaction while operating in tionally, software testing of interoper-
in real-world conditions, subject- the intended environment along with ability uses manual and simulated test
ing them to elements like weather, communication established with other processes to verify that the product
geography, light or darkness, road road-side units. meets all functional, performance,
conditions, tunnels, on-ramps, speed security and quality requirements.
changes, traffic lights, infrastructure Electronic components testing Without clear standards and regu-
and more. These real-world analyses Evaluation of automated systems in latory requirements, testing of auto-
can be valuable in assessing safety automobiles needs testing of vari- mobiles and their components can be
and performance in a controlled ous sensing technologies like lidar, confusing. However, implementing
manner, providing a realistic view of radar and cameras. Lidar systems testing in the lab as well as in the field
lifespan of the products. By combin- produce data that is highly beneficial can serve as a good starting point. As
ing lab and ground testing, evalua- to the automated vehicle’s algorithms. technology evolves, standards will
tions can provide a more complete Accelerated stress testing provides a begin to follow, making it essential
picture to fully understand how the repeatable method for improving its to remain aware of proposed and
durability test affects performance of design robustness and eliminating approved developments, regulations
the products. issues. It simulates real-life conditions and changes.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 57

 Cloud

Top Nine Open Source Cloud

Management Platforms
A cloud management platform (CMP) is a comprehensive software suite with integrated tools
that an enterprise can use to monitor and control cloud computing resources. There are many
CMPs out there, both open source and proprietary. This article explores how cloud platforms
work, their capabilities, as well as a selection of the top open source cloud platforms of the day

I
n recent times, all the enterprises that able to deal with these challenges and help
have started or have adopted cloud companies efficiently operate applications
computing face new challenges with and services in the cloud. Vendors offer
regard to ensuring the same visibility in a variety of cloud management tools that
cloud applications as they have with their enable IT organisations to build, purchase,
on-premise apps. With any cloud-based manage, monitor, track and optimise their
Anand Nayyar full implementation, the issues that users cloud resources. With the help of these
works at Duy face include preserving the integrity, usa- tools, organisations can save time and
Tan University in
Vietnam. He loves to bility and security of all the data migrated effort while allowing IT staff to focus on
explore open source online. According to John Webster, senior more strategic goals. These tools also help
technologies, sensor
communications,
partner and analyst for the Evaluator in monitoring users’ interactions with
network security and Group, and whose research area is the the cloud infrastructure and in managing
the Internet of Things hybrid cloud and Big Data, “As enterprise resource allocation.
IT operations start to expand our capabili- In the cloud marketplace, different
ties and resources into the cloud, we now tools have unique feature sets. Capabilities
want to manage cloud resources with the include unified management across multi-
same policy, procedure, guidance and ple clouds, integration with third-party tools
expectations that we have over our exist- for configuration and monitoring purposes,
ing IT environment.” dashboards and reports for detailed infor-
The only solution to all the issues aris- mation about resource consumption, noti-
ing from cloud-based implementations fications and alerts when predefined thresh-
is a cloud management platform (CMP). olds are reached, and controlled access to
This provides a rich set of capabilities for resources to avoid over usage or unauthor-
discovery, template-based provisioning, ised access. By simplifying the management
orchestration and automation. It also ena- of cloud environments and reducing the
bles operational monitoring and manage- complexity and cost of managing multiple
ment, governance and cost optimisation activities, the right cloud management tool
across multiple public and private clouds can bring speed, flexibility, security and cost
as well as virtual and bare-metal servers. efficiency to any organisation.
A CMP is a comprehensive So the important question is, “Which
Zone suite with integrated software CMP is the best?” Well, there are both com-
tools that an enterprise can mercial and open source options. Nowa-
Pod use to monitor and control days, open source technology has become
Secondary
storage cloud computing resources. An a central facet of cloud computing for many
Cluster
enterprise can use a CMP for users around the world. In this article, we
either a private or public cloud, discuss the top open source cloud manage-
Host Primary
storage but CMPs facilitate toolsets for ment platforms to assist admins, systems
hybrid and multi-cloud models analysts, network security as well as cloud
to centralise the control of vari- computing professionals select the best
ous cloud-based infrastructures. platform, based on the requirements of the
Fig. 1: CloudStack architecture A wide range of tools is avail- enterprise.

58 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Cloud
Before we dive into the console access, multi-role
types of open source CMPs, support, network virtuali-
let’s discuss some of their sation, hypervisor agnostic,
broad capabilities and how usage metering, virtual
they work. routers.
According to analysis • LVM support. Block
by Market Research Future storage volumes, NetScaler
(MRF), the global CMP support, OpenStack Swift
market was valued at US$ integration, LDAP integra-
8.18 billion in 2018 and tion, domains and delegat-
is expected to reach US$ ed administration.
26.77 billion by 2022, reg- Official website:
istering a CAGR of 18.4 per https://cloudstack.apache.
cent during the forecast org
period. The market growth Fig. 2: OpenStack components Latest version: 4.12.0.0
is attributed to the rising 2. OpenStack. Open-
need for enterprises to have greater automate everything, with no human Stack consists of a set of software tools
control over IT spending, the surge involvement. for building and managing cloud com-
in the adoption of heterogeneous and Cost management. CMPs should puting platforms for public and private
multi-modal IT service delivery envi- assist organisations with precision clouds using pooled virtual resources.
ronments, the rapid deployment of cost forecasting and reporting to easily The tools comprising the OpenStack
virtualised workloads, and improved use and manage all sorts of cloud platform are called projects. They
operational efficiency. On the other services. handle core cloud computing ser-
hand, insufficient technical expertise Service management. They should vices of compute, networking, storage,
and the rising security concerns for assist the IT team to monitor cloud- identity and image services. Open-
platforms developed in-house are based services to help in capacity Stack software controls large pools
some of the factors expected to hinder planning, workload deployment, asset of compute, storage and networking
the market growth during the assess- management and incident manage- resources throughout a data centre,
ment period. ment. and is managed through a dashboard
Governance and security. CMPs or via the OpenStack API.
How cloud management should enable administrators to The main features are:
platforms work enforce policy-based control of cloud • Services. Messaging, clustering,
A CMP is deployed into existing cloud resources, and offer security features containers, compute, identity, app
environments as a virtual machine like encryption as well as identity and data protection as a service, events,
(VM) consisting of a database and access management. metadata indexing as service, work-
server. The server communicates with flows, DNS, database as a service, bare
application programming interfaces Top open source CMPs metal provisioning, optimisation and
(APIs) to connect the database and The following are the top open source deployment, governance, and bench-
virtual resources held in the cloud. cloud management platform provid- marking.
The database collects the informa- ers. • Web front-end, Big Data pro-
tion on how the virtual infrastructure 1. Apache CloudStack. Apache cessing framework, container orches-
is performing and sends an analysis CloudStack is an open source, multi- tration engine, key management, and
to the Web interface, where systems hypervisor, multi-tenant, high-availa- NFV orchestration.
administrators can analyse the cloud bility Infrastructure-as-a-Service CMP, Official website: http://www.
performance. The whole interconnec- which facilitates creating, deploying openstack.org
tivity relies on the operating system, and managing cloud services by pro- Latest version: Stein
which commands all the different viding a complete stack of features 3. ManageIQ. This is an open
technologies that make up clouds and and components for cloud environ- source CMP for hybrid IT environ-
also deploys cloud management tools. ments. It uses existing hypervisors ments, with a mix of public and pri-
A CMP should be capable of the such as KVM, VMware vSphere, vate clouds. It provides tools for man-
following things. VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter and aging small and large environments as
Strong integration with IT infra- XenServer/XCP for virtualisation. well as supports multiple technologies
structure. CMPs should be custom- CloudStack can also orchestrate the like virtual machines, public clouds
ised as per the enterprise’s needs, non-technical elements of service and containers. It allows users to
and must meet the requirements of delivery such as billing and metering. download any virtual appliance and
the operating systems, apps, storage It presents a range of APIs, allowing deploy copies of it into virtualisation
frameworks and anything else running it to be integrated with any other platforms like OpenStack or VMware.
in the cloud. platform. Three main variants of ManageIQ
Automating manual tasks. CMPs The main features are: are available: Vagrant, Docker and
should have self-service capabilities to • Self-service user interface. AJAX Public Cloud.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 59

 Cloud
6. VirtEngine. VirtEngine is an
open source CMP that can be used to
Tools

Scheduler Command Line Other Tools

Interface build private or public clouds, which
support IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. This
Platform as a Service system allows
customers to deploy applications in
SQL Pool Request manager (XML-RPC)
a few clicks. VirtEngine has a wide
range of applications and a simple user
Core

interface for customers to self-serve

VM Host their needs. It helps users build both
Managers Managers
public and private clouds within very
little time, and supports infrastructure
platforms and other storage devices. It
Drivers

Transfer Virtual Information is also very scalable and comes with

Driver Machine Driver automation tools that provide compa-
nies a competitive advantage.
Fig. 3: OpenNebula components The main features are:
• Access control, demand and
The main features are: the system. supply monitoring, cost management,
• Offers insights through discov- • Security. This provides secure multi-cloud management, one-click
ery, monitoring, utilisation, perfor- communication via SSL, which ena- apps, and automatic launch.
mance, reporting, analytics, charge- bles clients to ensure that the data set • DNS support, self-healing,
back and trending. received is encrypted. cloud-native, multi-locations, Docker
• Controls security, compliance, The main features are: containers, cloud virtual machines
alerting, policy-based resource and Easy orchestration, built-in node and migration tools.
configuration management. types, a blueprints catalogue, role- Official website: http://www.
• Automates IT processes, tasks based access control, IT security and virtengine.com
and events, provisioning, workload governance, network and TOSCA 7. openQRM. openQRM is a free
management and orchestration. orchestration, new NFV capabilities, and open source cloud computing
• Integrates systems manage- custom widgets and LDAP integration. management platform for managing
ment, tools and processes, event con- Official website: http://www. heterogeneous data centre infrastruc-
soles, CMDB, RBA and Web services. cloudify.co tures. It provides a complete, auto-
Official website: http://manageiq. Latest version: 5.0 mated workflow engine for all bare
org 5. Mist.io. Mist.io is a platform metal and VM deployment, as well as
Latest version: Hammer-10 that simplifies cloud management for all IT sub-systems, enabling profes-
4. Cloudify. Cloudify is an open and helps users prevent vendor and sional management and monitoring of
source software cloud and NFV orches- complexity lock-in. It offers cost and the data centre and cloud capacities.
tration product that uses OASIS TOSCA usage reporting, RBAC, management, openQRM provides a Web-based,
technology. It is designed using Python. provisioning, orchestration, monitor- open source data centre management
Cloudify allows users to model and ing and automation for servers across and cloud platform with the help of
automate an application’s entire life public and private clouds, Docker con- which various internal and external
cycle. This includes deployment to a tainers and KVM hypervisors. It gives technologies can be abstracted and
cloud or data centre environment, the actionable alerts so users can address grouped within a common manage-
management of the deployed applica- operational issues from anywhere, ment tool. This management system
tion, failure detection and ongoing using any Web-connected device. also takes care of provisioning, high
maintenance. The platform is ideal The main features are: availability and the monitoring of
for users who want to launch prebuilt • Controls public and private services offered. Instead of providing
applications in the cloud without han- clouds, containers, bare metal servers individual tools for individual tasks,
dling the technical aspects. and more. such as configuration management
Cloudify performs the following • Has fine grained controls for and system monitoring, openQRM
tasks. delegating access to team members. integrates proven open source manage-
• Application modelling. This • Enables cost and usage report- ment tools such as Nagios and Zabbix.
describes the application with all its ing across the whole infrastructure. The main features are:
resources. • Orchestrates repeatable deploy- • Supports P2V, P2P, V2P, V2V
• Orchestration. This maintains ments, and automates common migrations and high availability.
and runs an application, and performs responses. • Integrates with all major open
ongoing operations such as scaling, • Enforces policies consistently, and commercial storage technologies.
healing and maintenance. across any computing platform. • Integrated billing system that
• Pluggability. This provides Official website: http://www. maps CCU/h (cloud computing units)
reusable component abstraction for mist.io to real currency.

60 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Cloud

UI & API MANAGEMENT AWS-COMPATIBLE

CONSOLE APIs

CLOUD SCALABLE
CLOUD CONTROLLER OBJECT STORAGE
(CLC) (SOS)

CLUSTER CLUSTER STORAGE

CONTROLLER CONTROLLER
(Avilability Zone) (CC) (CC)

NODE NODE NODE

CONTROLLER CONTROLLER CONTROLLER
(NC) (NC) (NC)
NODES
VM VM VM VM VM VM

Fig. 4: Eucalyptus architecture

• Self-service portal for end users ing Architecture for Linking Your
provisions new servers and applica- Programs to Useful Systems. It is an
tion stacks in minutes! open source software framework that
Official website: http://openqrm- provides the platform for private cloud
enterprise.com computing implementation on com-
8. OpenNebula. OpenNebula is puter clusters. Eucalyptus implements
a simple yet powerful and flexible Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
turnkey open source solution to build methodology for solutions in private
private clouds and manage data centre and hybrid clouds.
virtualisation. The OpenNebula plat- Eucalyptus provides a platform
form manages a data centre’s virtual for a single interface so that users
infrastructure to build private, public can calculate the resources available
and hybrid implementations of Infra- in private clouds and the resources
structure as a Service. The two prima- available externally in public cloud
ry uses of the OpenNebula platform services. It is designed with extensible
are data centre virtualisation solutions and modular architecture for Web ser-
and cloud infrastructure solutions. vices. It also implements the industry
The main features are: standard Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Supports numerous APIs like API.
AWS EC2, EBS and OGF OCCI. The main features are:
• Powerful UNIX based CLI for • Works with multiple hypervi-
administration. sors including VMware, Xen and KVM.
• GUI for cloud customers and • Communication within internal
data centre professionals. processes is secured through SOAP
• Resource allocation via fine- and WS-Security.
grained ACLs; load balancing, high • Offers administrative features
availability, high performance com- such as user and group management,
puting. and reports.
• Powerful scheduling for task • Well-defined interfaces (via
management. WSDL, since they are Web services)
• Supports integration with LDAP and thus can be easily swapped out
and Active directory. for custom components.
• Supports SSH and X.509 for • Flexible and can be installed on
security, and even supports login a very minimal setup.
token functionality. Official website: https://www.
Official website: http://www. eucalyptus.cloud
opennebula.org Latest version: 4.4.3
Latest version: 5.8.4
9. Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus is an For full article, please see October 2019 issue of
acronym for Elastic Utility Comput- Open Source For You

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 61

 Interview Career

Tech Companies Value

Three To Four Years Of
Deep Domain Experience
PVG Menon
president and chief executive officer, VANN Consulting

With over three decades of experience in the industry working in private sector, semiconductors, policy-making and many other roles,
PVG Menon, president and chief executive officer, VANN Consulting, speaks with Ankita KS on the trends, skillsets, opportunities for
academia, new initiatives by the government and industry for engineers in the electronics industry

Q. What are the latest trends in the keep changing, emphasis on develop- to deliver. Tech companies value three
electronics-semiconductor industry? ing basics cannot be over-emphasised. to four years of deep domain experi-
A. The electronics industry should Third, professionals must be in the ence. Even worse is rapid job-hopping,
be looked at from two perspectives: mode of lifelong learning. as it indicates instability.
products and design services. On embedded software side, it used Fourth, they must look at the big
For electronic products the trend to be that if one were an expert at a picture of what they are doing. This
is mixed. There is a large number of certain OS, then he or she had arrived. helps understand how their project fits
imports happening. Even for products Today, as systems become more and into the bigger system and helps them
manufactured or assembled in India, more complex, there is often a need to grow professionally.
the level of domestic value addition is support multiple OSs. Developing reus-
worryingly low. Reasons are linked to able code that can work on multiple Q. What should academia do to create
structural disabilities of manufacturing platforms is important. techies suitable for the industry?
high-volume electronics in the country. A. Academia needs to focus on
Execution of policies for support- Q. Which key technology skill-sets are laying strong foundations for students.
ing domestic manufacturing has been in demand in the industry today? The pedagogical focus should be on
extremely sub-optimal, and there are A. Core skills for VLSI design teach-test-repeat-refresh.
yawning gaps between intent and remains knowing how to use VHDL/ Allied to this is the need for
implementation of these policies. Verilog, physical design, Perl, TCL, etc. strengthening the internship system
The key is for India to grow its EDA tools are increasing in com- and making it mandatory for industry
own domestic products industry. The plexity and now many colleges have exposure during the internship. This
government needs to step in and have these installed in labs. helps students to relate what they
a clear vision of what needs to be done. There are government programmes have learned to real-world situations.
Design services are doing well. like Chips-2-Systems programme by Colleges must build strong links with
There has been mushrooming of VLSI Ministry of Electronics & IT that enable industry so that students can get intern-
and embedded software services com- students to do real-world chip design ship opportunities. They must also do
panies in the last few years. There have and even tape-out their design. away with one-month internships.
also been many mergers and acquisi- On software side, knowledge of Academia needs to involve industry
tions happening in this area, which has embedded C++, embedded operating faculty to come in, and share their
encouraged several mid-level experts systems, simulation tools like Matlab or experience and wisdom with students.
to start their own services companies. Simulink, knowledge of networking and Faculty needs to reinvent them-
communications protocols, etc is must. selves to be mentors and facilitators,
Q. Is quality talent a challenge for the rather than unidirectional teachers.
electronics industry in India? Q. What should aspirants do to aim for
A. Yes! In the past, VLSI design and a job in the semiconductor sector? Q. Are there initiatives where
embedded systems jobs were consid- A. They should focus on learning trade bodies are collaborating with
ered glamorous. Then came opportu- as much as possible and leverage all academia and industry to bridge the
nities in such areas as e-commerce, available resources, such as the Inter- gap between them?
deep learning and artificial intelligence net, online courses and libraries. A. Association between trade
(AI). So young talent started to go They must remember that only bodies like IESA and academia is
there. In the meantime, systems got they are responsible for their career ongoing. For making these interactions
complex and performance demand on progression. They should develop the successful, one must define desired
the ICs powering them grew, leading ability to extract conceptual learning end objectives and the passion of the
to demand for more complex chips. from each project. champions driving such initiatives.
Software complexity also went up and They should chase work-content, Tie-ups that have been successful
systems design became a challenge. and not titles. Often, youngsters are those where a long-term view has
Second, youngsters need a strong change jobs for bigger titles. Soon, they been taken and the effort is driven in a
grasp of fundamentals. While tools have a fancy designation but no ability focussed manner.

62 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Interview Networking

LoRaWAN Is An Open
Ecosystem And Is A
Global Standard
Donna Moore
chief executive officer and chairwoman, LoRa Alliance

What is LoRa Alliance all about? How can it benefit creators of the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in India and across the globe?
When Rahul Chopra got a chance to meet the Alliance’s chief executive officer and chairwoman, Donna Moore, she not only
explained membership benefits for device-makers but also for system integrators, enterprise customers and even network operators

Q. What is the goal of LoRa Alliance? private operators. The split between de-facto standard for LPWAN in the
What value does it bring to members? public and private operators is about unlicensed spectrum, because of global
A. The goal of the Alliance is to fifty per cent. We have seen big growth massive scale deployments that we have
promote LoRaWAN standard. It is an in private implementations over the last implemented as well as the number of
open alliance and accepts all members. few years. For operators, it is another our members implementing it. It is not
The goal is really three-fold. First, it is to opportunity to capture the market. a single company-based implementa-
(continuously) develop specifications as Because of the flexibility of LoRaWAN tion. We have multiple companies that
the market changes and needs evolve. and the ability to add gateways to their give customers multiple choices to select
Second is marketing. We promote towers, it is an opportunity to have both from in terms of implementation.
LoRaWAN specifications and its mem- cellular and non-licensed opportunities In terms of LoRaWAN versus
bers through social media, events and for their networks. NB-IoT, we see a clear play in work-
whitepapers. So, for companies that Through membership, they get the ing with 5G because our use-cases
do not have the funds to market, we opportunity to meet and collaborate are different. The difference for us is
use our voice to raise them in terms of with the entire ecosystem. For exam- around battery life, which is tested to
LoRaWAN specifications. ple, many of our network operators in be significantly longer. In rural areas,
Third is certification. With billions Europe used to do their own testing for deep penetration between concrete and
of devices in the marketplace, it is each device taken on to their net- underground, particularly in areas that
important to know which ones will work. This costed them a lot of money cellular cannot reach, are just a few key
not operate as anticipated. For this, we and time. Now, the Alliance is in the benefits of LoRaWAN over NB-IoT.
have a robust certification programme. process of working with all network
Devices that get implemented must be operators in Europe and is bringing Q. Do you mean NB-IoT consumes
LoRaWAN-certified. This encourages testing over to the Alliance. much more power than LoRaWAN?
government agencies to include bids A. Yes! LoRaWAN can have private
for LoRaWAN-certified devices. Q. Does deployment of complete and public implementations. It can be
solutions have any value for system an operation or a service expense. But
Q. Why should device-makers become integrators who are neither device- NB-IoT does not have that flexibility.
a member of LoRa Alliance? makers nor network operators, but
A. Developers are always looking are implementing it? Q. What is your message to those who
at new, unlimited use-cases. Anything A. At the end of the day, for system say LoRa is a proprietary technology
can be connected. If device-makers integrators it is about coming to meet- because of the Semtech aspect?
want you to have an anchor use-case, ings and being a part of the Alliance, A. LoRaWAN is an open ecosystem
or application such as metering, then to meet and collaborate with different and a global standard. So, LoRa IP is
once networks engage, you can add players and understand who they are, Semtech’s best-of-breed technology,
more use-cases. So, they have unlim- quality of services and how they can which is why LoRaWAN is so success-
ited potential in the market. By being work with them. ful. It can come from a company and
members of LoRa Alliance, they get the not watered-down by a standard group.
test tool for pre-certification. Q. Are there any members from India? But, there are companies that sell
We have local test houses for certifi- A. Growth and need for LoRaWAN the radio chip and not just Semtech.
cation, beneficial especially for smaller in India is strong. I anticipate India to With standards organisations, you can
companies. We market actual use-cases be one of our biggest growth in terms either have the chip in the standard and
of developer companies and how these of membership within the Alliance. it would be under RAND licensing, so
can be implemented and promoted. they would charge every time there is
Q. What do you say to technologists an implementation, or it can be outside
Q. What is in it for telecom operators? trying to compare LoRaWAN with such the standard as licensed to other com-
A. We have mobile network opera- competing technologies as NB-IoT? panies, and you buy the chip and then
tors, multi-user service operators and A. LoRaWAN has been named the implement the standard.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 63

 Interview Internet of Things

The Most Important Thing Is The

Selection Of The IoT Platform; It Needs
To Have As Many Interfaces As Possible
To Enable The Sensor Technology
Samar Mittal
vice president - software, India market, Nokia

Nokia advises enterprise customers on how to evaluate the scalability of the IoT platform they procure and calculate the number of
interfaces they will require in order to successfully incorporate IoT into their business. Samar Mittal, VP, software, India market, Nokia,
talks to Baishakhi Dutta about certain things that should be kept in mind while evaluating an IoT solution

Q. In your opinion, which are the top about all the protocols or the interfaces in this space can lead to a lot of benefits,
three technologies that are shaping the that sensors are using to provide data. apart from just lower costs. That’ll be
future of IoT and how are they doing so? So use cases will be implemented faster one area that entrepreneurs can look
A. One is the edge cloud. We believe and, at the same time, the platform can into and contribute further to, because
only around 1 to 2 per cent of sensor be scaled across various sensors. the scale will be very high compared to
data needs to travel all the way to the where we are right now.
central cloud for further interpretation Q. What would be your suggestions to The second piece of advice is with
and analytics. This applies to most customers evaluating an IoT solution? regard to APIs and their use cases. With
critical applications like remote surgery, A. Within the IoT market, we are still this community programme, people are
autonomous cars, and even factory in the initial stages of building the busi- coming together through the evolution
automation in certain situations. ness models that will be relevant. But of technologies—NB-IoT, private LTE
The second technology is artificial the most important thing is the selec- solutions, 5G, etc—so when developing
intelligence and machine learning. There tion of the platform; it needs to have as applications, we need to ensure that we
is all this information, analytics, use many interfaces as possible to enable the have the solutions for the current market
cases and data being generated in, for sensor technology. If you only have one as well as for the market that will evolve
instance, the health industry, based on or two interface-based platforms, then in the next five to ten years. A lot of appli-
which actions can be taken. Or in the you’ll get limited by the sensors that cations can be developed efficiently. The
manufacturing industries that generate you can select, not only for the current time to market can be short, depending
a lot of field information, such as how a use cases but also for the use cases or on how we develop these applications,
particular supply chain is being run. devices that will emerge in the future. with flexibility in use cases, supported by
And of course, the last technology is So, technology selection is important. relevant business models.
the sensors, where it all begins. IoT is as My second piece of advice will be to Last, but equally important is that a
good as the information being provided check how scalable the analytics engine lot of these will be mission-critical solu-
through sensors, which need to be small in an IoT platform is, in order to sup- tions involving a large volume of personal
and pretty good in terms of accuracy, port growing traffic and connectivity, data, machine data and enterprise data.
depending upon where they’re being apart from evaluating how secure the Therefore security must be prioritised.
used. platform is. And of course, you should
evaluate the various services that can Q. How has the development of
Q. Do you see open source technology be offered, because once the platform standards, or the lack of it, affected the
playing an important role in IoT? is installed, it will not operate on a ‘one overall adoption of IoT in India?
A. Open source technologies, from size fits all’ basis. Every use case will A. Standards will evolve. The
an application space or an API space, demand a separate way of being han- platforms that we have make the sensor
will play a significant role. That’s dled, with regard to the services and the interfaces, standards and protocols
where the Impact platform becomes implementation. agnostic to the use cases. The rest of the
relevant. Given the fragmentation in the standards are more on the connectivity
IoT market with a multitude of device Q. What would be your advice to side, and we support all technologies
vendors and the vast app ecosystem, today’s IoT entrepreneurs? there. Once the overall ecosystem has
interoperability between various solu- A. We believe that what will help been developed, standards will help to
tions is not possible with proprietary develop the ecosystem and benefit the make it a little bit more consistent across
platforms. This necessitates the need for industry is if entrepreneurs developing various solutions. Standardisation
a standards-driven open source platform innovative sensor solutions focus on will happen and that’s where a lot of
because you will never have a single pro- making them more resilient, smaller platforms and industry forums are being
tocol sensor talking to a platform. When and capable of carrying as much infor- created to ensure that people come
we talk about application providers, mation as possible within the smallest together. But, at the same time, whatev-
open source apps become very relevant. span of time. The latency and the accu- er we have today is enough of a starting
And with the ease offered by our Impact racy of the sensor will be the starting point from a market standpoint, and can
platform, developers do not need to learn point for the ecosystem, and innovation provide a lot of flexible solutions.

64 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Do-It-Yourself
EF Y
Make A Crystal-Locked Joy Mukherji S.C.
Dwi
vedi

FM Transmitter

T
he circuit presented here uses a fier using LM386 (IC1), transistors and its collector is rich in harmonics.
crystal oscillator and frequency 2N3904 (T1 and T2) and 2N3866 (T3), The tank circuit comprising inductor
multiplier to generate a highly- 24MHz crystals (XTAL1 and XTAL2), L1, capacitors C9 and C10, and trim-
stable carrier signal frequency of rectifier diode IN4007 (D1), signal mer capacitor VC1 is tuned to four
96MHz. With 40mW of RF output, it diode IN4148 (D2) and a few other times the oscillator frequency, that
can be used to transmit voice or music components. is, 96MHz. T2 boosts the fourth har-
up to hundred metres. A low-power 24MHz Colpitts oscil- monic of 96MHz and suppresses the
The circuit diagram of the 96MHz lator is built around T1 along with 24MHz fundamental, second (48MHz)
crystal-locked FM transmitter is biasing resistors R4, R5 and R6, and and third (72MHz) harmonics by at
shown in Fig. 1. The circuit is built capacitors C6, C7 and C8. least -24dBc, or 250 times.
around a low-power audio ampli- Transistor T2 is a buffer amplifier Inductor L2 and capacitor C13

JACK2 = FOR 50E, 96MHZ OUTPUT

CON1 C19 R2 C18 L4 L5 L6 L4−L6 = 100u FIXED VALUE INDUCTOR

100u C11 100u L7= 70T,41SWG COPPER ENAMELED ON R11
FOR 120E 100n 100u 100u
35V C5 100n
12V ANT.1
100n C15
C9 R11
L1 100n
VC1 22p L7 10K
50p C16
C4 R4 C10 47p
L3 JACK2
100u 10K 22p
R8
JACK1 6 35V R3
T1 10K S1
AUDIO IN 1 100K XTAL1 T3
3 2N3904 ON/OFF
8 24MHz 2N3866
IC1
R1 C2 5 C6 56p T2 C12
LM386 2N3904
D2 1N4148
47K 100n 2 27p

7 XTAL2 C7 100p C13 R9

24MHz C14 1.5K CON2
C1 4 56p
100n FOR V
1n R5 R6 C8 R7 R10 R12
D1 10K 470E 56p L2 R13 C17
C3 1.5K 33E
1N4007 100E 100E 100n
47p

GND L1=3T 20SWG COPPER ENAMELED ON 8mm DIAMETER,TAP 1/4 T L2 = 3T 20SWG COPPER ENAMELED ON 8mm DIAMETER AIR CORE
L3 = 7T 20SWG COPPER ENAMELED ON 8mm DIAMETER AIR CORE

Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the FM transmitter

Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB layout of the FM transmitter

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 65

 Do-It-Yourself
and R13) connected, apply
12V regulated power supply.
Carefully tune VC1 for
maximum voltage (V) read-
ing at CON2. Output power in
milliwatts equals
(V+0.5V diode loss)
squared/100
No further adjustment is
required.
A cheap USB SDR dongle
and free spectrum analyser
software may be used to
observe output. It can be
Fig. 3: Components layout for the PCB downloaded from https://
www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/spec-
make a series-tuned (72MHz) har- help minimise interference between trum-analyzer-2/
monics trap and attenuate the strong different stages. Fine tuning of VC1 can also be
third harmonic to ground. Ready- T2 feeds power amplifier T3 with done using a handheld FM receiver.
made 100µH moulded inductors (L4 approximately 5mW of RF drive via Make sure a wire antenna is connected
through L6) isolate the power supply 1/4-turn tap from the top of tuning coil in the transmitter circuit.
from transistors T1 through T3 to L1. T3 is biased for class A operation. Now, with FM receiver in your
Standing current is set to 20mA with hand, slowly walk away from the
Parts List resistors R8, R9 and R10. transmitter. Correct tuning of VC1 will
40mW of RF power is available give maximum range on 96MHz. T3
Semiconductors:
IC1 - LM386 audio amplifier at collector of T3. Matching network can be replaced with 2N3904. In this
T1, T2 - 2N3904 transistor comprising L3 and C16 transforms case, increase R10 to 56-ohm. Power
T3 - 2N3866 transistor output impedance of T3 to 50-ohm output will drop to 15mW.
D1 - 1N4007 rectifier diode
D2 - 1N4148 signal diode
impedance of the antenna. (A 78cm Use a suitable heat-sink for
Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon):
long single-strand wire was used as 2N3866. Care should be taken to keep
R1 - 47-kilo-ohm an antenna during testing.) L1 and L2 2cm apart and at ninety
R2 - 120-ohm Audio amplifier IC1’s frequency degrees to each other on the PCB.
R3 - 100-kilo-ohm modulates oscillator T1 by varying Spectrum output of the transmitter
R4, R5, R8, R11 - 10-kilo-ohm
R6 - 470-ohm
capacitance of diode D1, which is obtained is in the range of 24MHz to
R7, R9 - 1.5-kilo-ohm connected in series with XTAL1 and 700MHz. Second and third harmon-
R10 - 33-ohm XTAL2. (Note that XTAL1 and XTAL2 ics of 96MHz are down to -18dBc and
R12, R13 - 100-ohm are connected in parallel to have -24dBc, respectively. All other spurs or
Capacitors:
greater frequency deviation.) The distortions are below -20dBc.
C1 - 1nF ceramic disk
C2, C5, C11, transmitter accepts audio input from Switch S1 should be off when
C14, C15, C17, an external source such as cellphone. antenna is connected. Use a shielded
C18 - 100nF ceramic disk External volume level should be set cable for input audio connection.
C3 - 47pF ceramic disk
C4, C19 - 100µF, 35V electrolytic
for best audio level output. R1 and C1 Some inductors are self-made,
C6, C8, C13 - 56pF ceramic disk add 50µs pre-emphasis to boost higher while others are readymade. L1 is a
C7 - 100pF ceramic disk audio frequencies. Increasing R1 to three-turn 20SWG copper-enameled
C9, C10 - 22pF ceramic disk 15-kilo-ohm changes pre-emphasis coil on 8mm diameter air core, tapped
C12 - 27pF ceramic disk
C16 - 47pF ceramic disk
to 75µs. 1/4 turns from positive side. L2 also is
a three-turn 20SWG copper-enameled
Miscellaneous:
CON1 - 2-pin terminal connector
Construction and testing wire on 8mm diameter air core. L3 is
CON2 - 2-pin connector An actual-size PCB layout of the FM seven-turn 20SWG copper-enameled
Jack1, Jack2 - 2-pin connector with mono transmitter is shown in Fig. 3 and its wire on 8mm diameter air core. L4
jack
Xtal1, Xtal2 - 24MHz crystal components layout in Fig. 4. After through L6 are 100µH fixed-value
S1 - On/off switch assembling the circuit on the PCB, coils.
L1, L2, L3, L7 - Refer text/Fig. 1 connect 12V DC across CON1. Inductor L7 is made of 70 turns
L4-L6 - 100µH fixed-value coil Keep all leads short. The proto- of 41SWG copper enameled wire on
Ant.1 - 78cm single strand antenna
wire type was built on a piece of copper- resistor R11.
- 8-pin IC base clad board using ugly bug construc-
- 12V DC regulated power tion method. The large ground plane
supply of the copper board gives excellent Joy Mukherji is an electronics
- Heat-sink for 2N3866 hobbyist who likes designing
results for the VHF circuit. With S1 radio frequency circuits
(All these are available from kitsnspares.com)
on and 50-ohm dummy load (R12

66 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Do-It-Yourself

EF Y
Make Your Own Fayaz Hassan
S.C.
Dwi
vedi

Password Locker

A
password locker usually has and a new password generated, if disconnect or open J1, which should
an electromagnetic lock that required. not be accessible to any other user.
opens only when the cor- Only three buttons are used here In case of a new chip, while using
rect password is entered. The circuit for entering or saving the password.
Parts List
presented here for such a locker is A blinker LED (LED1) is used as the
a simple, low-cost, hi-security six- status indicator of the MCU process. Semiconductors:
IC1 - ATtiny2313 MCU
digit password-operated system. One out of the six digits of the T1 - 2N2222 transistor
ATtiny2313 microcontroller (MCU) password is displayed at a time and D1 - 1N4007 rectifier diode
used in the circuit is easily available allowed to be edited. Remaining five LED1 - 5mm LED
and programmable using any AVR digits appear as asterisks (*) in the Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon):
R1 - 10-kilo-ohm
programmer. LCD display. Cursor of LCD1 blinks R2-R5, R8 - 4.7-kilo-ohm
The circuit diagram of the pass- when password digits are entered. R6 - 2.2-kilo-ohm
word locker is shown in Fig. 1. It is Up button is used to change the R7 - 2.7-kilo-ohm
built around ATtiny2313(IC1), 2N2222 digit from 0 to 9. Similarly, Right R9 - 47-kilo-ohm
R10 - 1-kilo-ohm
transistor (T1), 16x1 LCD (LCD1), 5V button is used to move the cursor VR1 - 4.7-kilo-ohm preset
single-changeover relay and a few right for editing. Once the password Capacitors:
other components. is entered, press Enter to start pro- C1, C2 - 100nF ceramic disk
The twenty-pin ATtiny2313 MCU cessing the entered password. Miscellaneous:
CON1 - 2-pin terminal connector
is the heart of the project. First, a six- Jumper J1 is provided to erase J1 - 2-pin Berg male connector
digit password has to be saved in the the existing password. Close J1 and S1-S3 - Tactile switch
EEPROM of the MCU. The lock opens then power on the circuit; the exist- RL1 - 5V, single-changeover relay
when this password is entered. The ing password, if any, will be erased LCD1 - 16×1 LCD
- Shorting jumper cap for J1
saved password is available even after and the new password may now - 20-pin IC base
disconnecting the power supply. But be entered. Once a new password (All these are available from kitsnspares.com)
the six-digit password can be erased, is successfully saved to EEPROM,

R1 10K C1
CON1 100n
FOR
5V R2 4.7K 1 20 VR1 1
Vss
K
RST Vcc
4.7K LCD1 16
2 19 VO
PB7 3
PD0 (RXD) 16X1 LCD
VDD A/VEE
J1 FOR 3
PD1 (TXD) PB6
18
C2 2 15
D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0 EN R/W RS
ERASE
6 17 100n
R3 PD2 PB5 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
4.7K R10
7 PB4 16
PD3
1K
S1 8
IC1 15 R8
PD4 PB3
UP R4 ATTINY2313 R8 = 4.7K
4.7K 9 PB2 14
PD5

11 PB1 13
PD6
S2
4 PB0 12
RIGHT R5 PA1(XTAL2)
4.7K 5
PA0(XTAL1)
10
GND
T1
2N2222 NO NO
S3 R6 D1 COM
ENTER 2.2K 1N4007 NC
R9 NC
LED1 CON2
R7 2.7K 47K RL1
BLINKER LOCKER
5V,1CO RELAY

Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the password locker

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 67

 Do-It-Yourself
it for the first
time, the dis-
play will show
‘New pwd:’
message and
wait for the six-
digit password
to be entered.
The password
(except 000000,
which is inva-
lid) will be saved
to the EEPROM
and displayed
on the LCD.
Any password Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB layout of the password locker
from 000001 to
999999 may be
used.
Now, the dis-
play will show
‘Open PWD:’
message and
wait for the six-
digit password.
If the password
matches with
the saved pass-
word, the relay
will energise for
ten seconds and
‘Lock Opened’
m e s s a g e w i l l Fig. 3: Components layout for the PCB
appear on LCD1.
After ten seconds, relay RL1 will de- Construction and testing
energise and the display will wait for
the password again. An actual-size PCB layout of the pass-
In case, the password does not word locker is shown in Fig. 2 and
match with the saved password, the its components layout in Fig. 3. After
display will show ‘Invalid’ and wait assembling the circuit on the PCB or
for the correct password. veroboard, program/burn ATtiny2313
A 5V DC power supply (300mA with passwordlock.hex file using AVR
or above) is required to operate the programmer.
circuit. Connect 5V DC power supply
The firmware code across connector CON1. For the first
(PasswordLock.c) for ATtiny2313 time, you will have to set a password
MCU is written in C language. Hex as explained above. The blinker LED1
code can be generated using any AVR blinks while waiting for password
C compiler such as Programmers input. If the password is correct, RL1
Notepad (WinAVR). will energise and the lock connected
across the relay contacts will open.
The LED1 will now glow continu-
ously, indicating the circuit is ready
to use.

efy Note Fayaz Hassan is a manager

The source code at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant,
of this project Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
is available His interest includes MCU projects,
mechatronics and robotics
for free download
at source.efymag.com
68 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com
 Do-It-Yourself

EF Y
Design Your Own Dr J. Manikandan San
i The
o

Digital Photo Frame and Rajath J.

T
his digital photo frame is
designed using Arduino Uno.
Smartphones with high-resolu-
tion cameras and enhanced features
have motivated people to click photos
of almost everything that they come
across. It is not possible to frame all
photos on a wall and, hence, the digi-
tal photo frame was invented in the
1990s, which would accept memory (b) Rear
(a) Front
cards directly from digital cameras and
display photos on the screen. Fig. 1: TFT LCD shield used in the digital photo frame
This proposed digital photo frame
is quite inexpensive. You just need
Arduino Uno, 8.89cm (3.5-inch) TFT
colour LCD shield with 320×480
resolution and onboard micro-SD card
slot. The main advantage of the shield
is that it is compatible with Arduino
Uno, Mega and other boards. The
TFT LCD shield used in this project is
shown in Fig. 1, and the connection
diagram between Arduino Uno and
the shield is given in Fig. 2.
Hardware library MCUFRIEND_
kbv for the TFT LCD shield module
can be downloaded from https://
github.com/prenticedavid/MCU-
FRIEND_kbv
The library folder consists of sev-
eral sample programs. Sample code
showBMP_kbv_Uno.ino available in
MCUFRIEND_kv library folder is a
demo program to perform a slideshow Fig. 2: Connection diagram between LCD shield and Arduino Uno
of images on the screen, which is
refined to display.ino for this project *.png, *.jpeg, *.tiff, etc. photos. Converter software avoids the
and made available along with this 2. Resolution of images that can be need of manual conversion.
article. displayed is 320×480 pixels, whereas To run Python script, you will need
You also need a graphics library, the proposed digital frame should Pillow module, which comes inbuilt
called Adafruit GFX library, for the cater to images of any resolution. with some Python distributions. It can
proposed design. This can be down- To take care of these two limita- also be installed by running pip install
loaded from www.arduinolibraries. tions, a dedicated software called Con- Pillow in the terminal. Alternatively,
info/libraries/adafruit-gfx-library verter is designed using Python script you can directly run converter.exe file
Two limitations that were noticed (converter.py) to convert images of all to start converting the files.
with the demo code are: other formats into *.bmp format with Snapshots of the sequence of soft-
1. Images with bitmap extensions a resolution of 320×480 pixels for ware execution process are shown
(*.bmp) can only be displayed on the the proposed digital photo frame. You in Fig. 3. Once you select the source
screen, whereas the proposed digital can convert format and size of each and destination folders, the software
frame should cater to various other photo manually using Microsoft Paint, will identify the number of files and
formats of images, such as *.jpg, but this is a tedious job for multiple display the progress of the conversion

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 69

 Do-It-Yourself

Fig. 3: Snapshot of the sequence of steps for running Converter.exe software

Fig. 4: Proposed enclosure of the digital photo frame

process. As shown in Fig. 3, there are ences/Menu. Otherwise, you will get
223 photos detected in the SD card. an error message, ‘warning: convert-
Once conversion is complete, images ing to non-pointer type ‘int’ from
from destination folder can be copied NULL [-Wconversion-null]’
onto the micro-SD card and inserted 3. Make sure photos are stored on
into the TFT LCD shield. The author’s an SD card. Insert the micro-SD card
prototype is shown in Fig. 4. to the TFT LCD shield module.
4. After compiling and uploading
Testing steps the code to Arduino, connect the TFT
Follow the steps given below to test LCD shield to Arduino Uno.
the project: 5. Connect Arduino to a suitable
1. Install Arduino IDE and copy power supply using a USB cable or
library files to Arduino library folder. 12V adaptor.
2. Open display.ino file from 6. Photos in the SD card should
Arduino IDE and click verify/compile. now appear on the display module in
(This should show ‘Done Compiling’ the form of a slideshow.
message. If not, ensure that library 7. Ensure the digital photo frame
files are in the correct destination.) works as expected.
After opening Arduino IDE, make
sure to select Show Verbose Output Dr J. Manikandan is professor
in department of electronics and
During Compilation from File/Prefer- communication engineering,
Crucible of Research and
Innovation, PES University,
Bengaluru

efy Note Rajath J. is an electronics

The source code hobbyist at Crucible of Research
of this project and Innovation, PES University,
Bengaluru
is available
for free download
at source.efymag.com
70 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com
 Do-It-Yourself

EF Y
Try Making This TFT-Based GPS Somnath Bera
San
i The
o

Analogue Clock Using Arduino

T
his GPS-based project displays
analogue clock and room tem-
perature on a TFT display. GPS
time is a precise time standard that is
related to Coordinated Universal Time
(UTC). The displays of most electronic
hobby projects are based on LCD,
GLCD, OLED or TFT. This project is
based on an 8.89cm (3.5-inch) TFT
display having 480×360 pixel resolu-
tion (Fig. 1).
The latest Chinese TFT displays are
quite low in price but work perfectly Fig. 1: TFT LCD Arduino shield
with Arduino and Raspberry Pi. There
are two different types of TFT shields
available: one with 26 pins (13×2 DIL)
for Raspberry Pi and the other as Ardui-
no TFT shield for Arduino Uno board.
Arduino TFT shield
Arduino TFT shield can be perfectly
mounted on top of an Arduino Uno
board. But a major disadvantage is that
after mounting the shield on Arduino

Pin-to-Pin Connections
Between TFT Shield
and Arduino Uno
Arduino TFT shield pin Arduino pin
RD A0
WR A1
RS A2
Fig. 2: Circuit diagram of the GPS analogue clock
CS A3
RST A4 Uno board, it is difficult to use its GPIO similar displays. The other header
D0 8 pins for any other application. file required for this display is Ada-
D1 9 The Arduino TFT shield has a fruit_GFX.h. Both these header files,
D2 2 micro SD card attached that gets con- along with the main source code, are
nected to its serial peripheral interface available on EFY website.
D3 3
(SPI) pins for communication with the This project creates an analogue
D4 4 microcontroller. This micro SD card is dial clock along with digital date,
D5 5 not used in this project. time and temperature display using
D6 6 The main hurdle with this display an LM35/TMP36 temperature sensor.
D7 7 is that it is not common and is avail- The time signal is derived from a
3.3 volts 3.3 volts
able only from mcufriend.com. Fortu- U-Blox NEO-6M GPS receiver module.
nately, the mcufriend_kbd.h header Once the technique is understood,
Gnd Gnd
file is freely available and it works it can be deployed for many other
5 volts 5 volts out of the box for this and many other applications.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 71

 Do-It-Yourself
The shield is basically for
3.3V operation, but may work
up to 5V. However, prolonged
operation on 5V is not recom-
mended as it gets overheated
at that voltage. The 3.3V
supply is derived from an
LD1117V33 voltage regulator.
Software
Writing the Arduino code/
sketch (GPS_analog_clock.
ino) for the project is real
fun! You can make TFT dis-
Fig. 3: Connections for GPS and TMP36 play in many different ways
through coding. Creating a
thick border line, making the hour and
minutes hands move smoothly were
quite challenging as Adafruit_GFX
library is not so much developed. High
school trigonometry is all that you
need to make it happen for you.
Open GPS_analog_clock.ino code
from Arduino IDE and include the
header files. Compile and upload the
code to Arduino Uno board.
Fig. 4: Author’s prototype Another sketch (GPS_analog_
clock2.ino) for changing colours of
Construction the minute hands every minute is also
The project for the GPS analogue clock included.
with temperature display requires fol-
lowing components: Operation and testing
1. 8.89cm TFT shield After uploading the code, solder the
2. Arduino Uno pins of TMP36 and GPS module to the
3. U-Blox NEO-6M GPS receiver Arduino board. Then mount the TFT
4. LM35/TMP36 temperature shield on top of the Arduino board.
sensor After all the connections are done
5. 3.3V DC regulator/power supply as per Fig. 2, connect it to 3.3V DC
The connections are easy to make source. GPS module requires a few
as shown in Fig. 2. The pin connec- minutes to trace the satellites.
tions of the Arduino TFT shield are Most GPS receivers have an inbuilt
straightforward; you just need to patch antenna that can locate the low
mount the shield on top of the Arduino Earth orbit (LEO) GPS satellites very
Uno board. The pin-to-pin connec- easily, even if your room’s windows
tion details between TFT shield and are closed. As soon as two such
Arduino Uno are given in the table. satellites are located, the time starts
Since top portion of the Arduino appearing on the analogue dial. At
Uno is covered by TFT shield, the the same time, the date, time and tem-
connections for the TMP36 and GPS perature are shown digitally on right
receiver are taken from the bottom side of the TFT display.
side of the Arduino Uno board (refer Temperature sensor TMP36 works
Fig. 3). In case you want to free some on 3.3V. An LM35 can also be used
Arduino pins then you should see the instead, but for that we need a 5V DC
mcufriend_shield.h file and re-write supply.
the connections to do so.
Somnath Bera is an avid user
of open source software.
Professionally, he is a thermal
efy Note power expert and works as
additional general manager
The source code of at NTPC Ltd
this project is available
for free download
72 april 2020 • electronics For You at source.efymag.com www.EFYMag.com
 Do-It-Yourself

EF Y
Build A Universal AC/DC Booster, Petre Tzv Petrov
S.C.
Dwi
vedi

Audio Amplifier Cum Line Driver

A
universal AC/DC booster,
audio amplifier and line driver C2 C4 R8
+
can be used in sensor circuits, _
0.1u 220u,63V 6.8K

audio signal generators, electrical GND C5

C3 R7 C7
guitars and so on. Most of these CON3 0.1u 220u 10p T1
63V 10K R10
applications need high input imped- FOR
56E BD135
15V 1= FOR DC GND
ance (for example, 10-mega-ohm), 2=FOR AC/AUDIO IN D1 R12
low quiescent current, output current 3=GND
1 1OUT +Vcc 8 1N4148 2E CON2
2OUT 7
limiting function, low total harmonic 1
2 1IN− FOR
6 R15 LOAD
distortion (THD) and intermodulation 2 3
A1 2IN−
1K
R13
C6
1IN+ A2 D2
distortion (IMD), and are capable of 3
C1 R1 4
Vcc− 2IN+
5
R5 1N4148
2E
33n
R11
driving loads as low as 32-ohm, like CON1 0.1u 1K
IC1 TL072
10K
56E
FOR
headphones and high-impedance INPUT
loudspeakers. R3 R6 R9 T2
R14
R2 R4 6.8K BD136
18K 4.7K 47E
10M 2K
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1 - TL072 op-amp Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the universal AC/DC booster, audio amplifier and line driver
T1 - BD135 npn transistor
T2 - BD136 pnp transistor
This circuit produces ±300mA Capacitor C1 is used if the circuit is
D1, D2 - 1N4148 signal diode
Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon):
output current and 20Vpp (±10V) used as AC booster or audio ampli-
R1, R15 - 1-kilo-ohm output voltage with power supply of fier. Input resistance is determined by
R2 - 10-mega-ohm ±15V. It is simple and useful for a resistor R2 (10-mega-ohm), which can
R3 - 18-kilo-ohm large variety of applications. be set to any appropriate value.
R4 - 2-kilo-ohm
Op-amp A1 of IC1 operates as DC
R5, R7
R6
- 10-kilo-ohm
- 4.7-kilo-ohm
Circuit and working amplifier whose gain is determined by
R8, R9 - 6.8-kilo-ohm The circuit diagram of the universal the following relationship:
R10, R11 - 56-ohm
R12, R13 - 2-ohm
circuit is shown in Fig. 1. It is built Av1=1+R3/R4=10
R14 - 47-ohm around op-amp TL072 (IC1), transistor You may use any appropriate gain
Capacitors: BD135 (T1), transistor BD136 (T2), that is ≥1
C1-C3 - 0.1µF ceramic disk diodes 1N4148 (D1 and D2) and a few Op-amp A2 of IC1 operates as DC
C4, C5 - 220µF, 63V electrolytic
other components. amplifier whose gain is determined by
C6 - 33nF ceramic disk
C7 - 10pF ceramic disk The circuit has two operational the following relationship:
Miscellaneous: amplifier stages (A1 and A2). Both Av2=–R7/R5=–1
CON1, CON3 - 3-pin connector stages are built around dual JFET Total gain Av of the circuit is Av1 x
CON2 - 2-pin connector operational amplifier TL072 (IC1). You Av2=10 x (-1)=–10
- 8-pin IC base
- Heat-sink for BD135 and may replace IC1 with TL082, LF412, Output stage is built around two
BD136 LF353, etc. bipolar transistors (T1 and T2). R8,
(All these are available from kitsnspares.com) You can apply AC or DC, or audio D1, D2, R9 and R15 are used to reduce
input signal to connector CON1. THD and IMD of the amplifier. Resis-

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www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 73

 Do-It-Yourself

Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB layout of the universal circuit Fig. 3: Components layout for the PCB

tor R15 should have the minimum layout in Fig. 4. After assembling the which should give a total gain of
applicable value to have minimal THD circuit on the PCB, connect a ±15V -10. The circuit does not require any
and IMD. power supply across CON3. adjustment. You may need small
Resistors R12 and R13 operate as You can give three types of heat-sinks for T1 and T2 with thermal
current-limiting elements. Maximum inputs—DC, AC and audio—across resistance around 35°C/W.
output current is determined by the CON1. Connect DC input across ter-
following relationship: minals 1 and 3 of CON1, or AC input
Imax=0.68V/R12=0.68V/R13 across terminals 2 and 3 of CON1.
=340mA Connect audio signal input from the Petre Tzv Petrov was a researcher
R10, R11, C6 and R14 reduce THD mobile/laptop/PC across terminals 2 and assistant professor in
and increase stability of the circuit. and 3 of CON1. Technical University of Sofia,
Bulgaria and expert-lecturer in
The circuit can be tested with a OFPPT (Casablanca), Kingdom
Construction and testing resistive load of 100-ohm connected of Morocco. Now he is working
as an electronics engineer in
An actual-size PCB layout of the circuit across CON2 using a power supply of the private sector in Bulgaria
is shown in Fig. 3 and its components ±15V and AC input signal of ±1Vpp,

74 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Do-It-Yourself

EF Y
Measure Difficult Angles Ashwini Kumar Sinha
San
i The
o

With This Digital Protractor

D
igital compass and protractor ground (GND). Switch S1 is used for
are two of the most basic tools rotating stepper motor in clockwise
Coding
for specifying directions and (CW) direction and switch S2 for The firmware (digital_protractor.ino)
measuring angles. But sometimes it is counter-clockwise (CCW) direction. for this project is written in Arduino
difficult to get accurate angle measure- A five-wire, unipolar stepper motor programming language. First, add
ment for certain structures and geo- (28BYJ) is connected across the relevant software library to Arduino
metrical shapes using these traditional ULN2003A motor driver module. IDE from Include Library as shown
tools, for example, the angle between Arduino Pro Mini connection in Fig. 2.
two adjacent walls. details with the components are given Install the ‘28BYJ_48’ libraries
So I thought of developing a digi- under Table 1. as shown in Fig. 3. After successful
tal protractor to make the work a bit
easier. I came up with two different
methods to make a digital protrac-
tor: first by converting the MPU6050
sensor data into angle, and second by
converting stepper motor rotation into
angle. The second method is explained
here.
For this project, we need the fol-
lowing components:
• Arduino Pro Mini
• ULN2003A module
• 28BYJ stepper motor
• Two pushbutton switches
• OLED display (I2C interface)
• 5V battery
• Jumper wires
The circuit diagram of digital pro- Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of digital protractor using stepper motor
tractor using stepper motor is shown
in Fig. 1. All the positive terminals
(+) should be connected to 5V supply
and negative terminals (-) to common

Arduino Connections for

Digital Protractor
Arduino Component
SCL SCL pin of OLED
SDA SDA pin of OLED
GND GND pin of OLED
5V VCC pin of OLED
PIN8 IN1 of ULN2003A
PIN9 IN2 of ULN2003A
PIN10 IN3 of ULN2003A
PIN11 IN4 of ULN2003A
PIN12 S2 PIN2
PIN13 S1 PIN2
5V Pin1 of S1 and S2 Fig. 2: Include Library in Arduino IDE

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 75

 Do-It-Yourself
one by one as the motor moves. Are
you confused? Let me explain it in
simple words.
Suppose the initial value of the
step variable is zero. When the motor
moves one step, its value will change
to 0+1. This value is assigned to
another variable named ‘previous,’ so
the previous value is now 1; when the
motor moves another step, the new
value becomes previous value +1. In
this way, each time the motor moves
a step, the number of steps automati-
cally get added. For example,
Step = 0+1
Previous = 0
Step = 1+1
Fig. 3: Installing stepper motor libraries Previous = 1
Step = 2+1
installation of the required libraries, Previous = 2
start Arduino coding. This is how the steps of motor are
Include stepper motor libraries and calculated.
declare the variables needed to store After this, we need to convert the
different values as shown in Fig. 4. steps of motor into angle by using a
After this create a setup ( ) function, map ( ) function.
which is shown in Fig. 5. map (min steps, max step, min angle,
Next, create a loop function and max angle)
include ‘if ( ) condition’ to check the The magic happens here! When
state of the pushbutton. When if ( ) we put this code in loop function, the
condition in code says true, stepper steps automatically get converted into
motor moves one step and stays there angle.
Fig. 4: Arduino code until the condition turns false (which In order to map the angle value of
happens when the switch stepper motor, we need to know the
is not pressed). maximum number of steps it takes
To measure the angle, to complete one full rotation. In this
calculate the steps moved project, stepper motor takes 510 steps
by the motor. To do so, to complete one full rotation. The
I have created a step same is defined in the code as shown
variable that will store the in Fig. 6.
previous value of stepper Now we are done with the coding
Fig. 5: Setup function motor and go on adding part. So let’s construct the digital pro-

Fig. 6: Arduino code for angle calculation Fig. 7: Digital protractor

76 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Do-It-Yourself

efy Note
The source code
of this project
is available
for free download
at source.efymag.com

Fig. 8: Principle of protractor needle movement

Fig. 9: Digital protractor calibration

tractor as shown in Fig. 7. The princi- clockwise direction until it reaches the
ple of protractor needle movement is desired position (the final line of angle).
shown in Fig. 8.
The digital protractor can be cali- Testing
brated by using a protractor mapped Double check all the circuit connec-
on a piece of paper as shown in Fig. tions, as any mistake might fry your
9. A fixed needle or pointer is to be costly components. Then power on the
attached on the stepper motor par- Arduino board and ULN2003A motor
allel to 180-degree angle line of the driver module. Press switch S1. As the
protractor, which acts as reference needle starts moving clockwise, the
line. This needle can be placed on the angle moved with respect to the refer-
bottom side of the protractor during ence line is shown on the OLED display.
calibration. A moveable needle is to If you press switch S2, the stepper motor
be attached to the shaft of the stepper will start moving in opposite direction,
motor that is used for angle measure- and angle value shall start decreasing,
ment. which can be seen on the OLED display.
The moveable needle can move in This protractor is more useful for
clockwise or anti-clockwise direction measuring the angle between adjacent
with respect to the fixed reference walls and solid structures, links and
needle. The angle between the refer- joints as it is very hard to put a con-
ence needle and moveable needle is ventional measuring device in such
displayed on the OLED display. places.
When the moveable needle rests on
the reference line on the left side, the
Ashwini Kumar Sinha is an electronics
angle read is 0. When you press button enthusiast and tech journalist at EFYi
S1, the moveable needle moves in

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 77

 Do-It-Yourself
EF Y
vedi
Dwi
S.C.

This Stereo Amplifier Raj K. Gorkhali

Is Simple To Make

H
ere is a simple stereo amplifier and CON3 provides the output to two Parts List
you can make with a CD6283 speakers that may be connected to it.
Semiconductors:
audio amplifier and a few Pins 5 and 7 of IC1 are connected IC1 - CD6283 audio amplifier
passive components. It provides an to CON2 for audio inputs via capaci- Resistors (all 1/4-watt, ±5% carbon):
output of 4.6 watts per channel with a tors C2 and C3, respectively. Pin 12 R1, R2 - 820-ohm
12V power supply. is connected to CON1 connector for Capacitors:
C1, C9, C10 - 1000µF, 25V electrolytic
Circuit diagram of the stereo power supply. Pin 2 of IC1 is con-
C2, C3 - 10µF, 25V electrolytic
amplifier is shown in Fig. 1. CON1 is nected to left (L) channel output via C4, C12 - 100µF, 25V electrolytic
the connector for 6-12V input power electrolytic capacitor C10 and pin 10 C5 - 220µF, 25V electrolytic
supply, CON2 is for the input signal of IC1 is connected to right (R) chan- C6, C7 - 47µF, 25V electrolytic
C8, C11 - 0.15µF ceramic disk
Miscellaneous:
CON1 - 2-pin terminal connector
C1
C4 CON1 CON2, CON3 - 3-pin connector
1000u,25V 12
Vcc
100u,25V FOR - 4-ohm, 4W speaker (2 Nos.)
5 IN1 1 6 − 12V - Suitable heat-sink
BS1
R1 820E
for IC CD6283
C2 4 NF1 C10 - 6-12V DC regulated power
L OUT1 2
10u,25V
C8 1000u,25V supply
GND 3 RIPPLE L
IC1 0.15u
R 7 IN2 CD6283 GND
CON2 C11
R2 820E 10 R
FOR C3 8 NF2
OUT2 0.15u C9 CON3
INPUT 10u,25V 1000u,25V FOR
6 Pre−GND BS2 11
C7 OUTPUT
C5 C6 C12
47u 47u 9 Power−GND GND
220u 100u
25V 25V
25V 25V

INPUT = AUDIO SOURCE FROM MOBILE/LAPTOP OUTPUT = TWO 4−OHM,6−WATT SPEAKER

Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the stereo amplifier

nel output via electrolytic

capacitor C9. A 4-ohm, Fig. 4: Author’s prototype
4-watt speaker each is
connected at CON3 for battery and connect it to the amplifier
left and right channels, circuit.
respectively. You can calibrate the circuit by
connecting a signal generator (set at 1
Construction and testing kHz) to left and right inputs at CON2.
An actual-size PCB layout You should hear a loud amplified
for the amplifier is shown tone from left and right speakers at
Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB layout for the stereo amplifier in Fig. 2 and its compo- the output. You can also use an MP3
nents layout in Fig. 3. player instead of signal generator to
After assembling the cir- calibrate the circuit.
cuit on the PCB, connect a Optional 22-kilo-ohm potentiom-
6-12V power supply across eters can be connected at CON2’s left
CON1. and right inputs for volume control.
After completing the Your amplifier is ready to use!
wiring, connect left (L)
and right (R) stereo audio
inputs from a mobile/
laptop/desktop at CON2. Raj K. Gorkhali is a
hobbyist and a regular
Then connect the speakers contributor to EFY
Fig. 3: Components layout for the PCB at CON3. Take a 6V or 12V

78 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Industry News
Industry Updates

Technology group being set up for policy advice

A 12-member technology group has policy advice on the latest technolo- nologies on their own; however, they
been approved by Union Cabinet to gies. In future, it might also advise cannot say whether it is really the
advise ministers, departments and the concerned industries. It will latest and the most useful because
public sector undertakings on technol- also help in commercialisation of they do not have the capacity to
ogy implementation. The group will technologies developed in various judge the technologies. The group
be headed by Dr K. Vijay Raghvan, government laboratories, and in will advise on policy, procurement
principal scientific adviser to prime developing some key technologies and managing the technologies,” said
minister. indigenously. Prakash Javadekar, Union minister for
The group will draw experts “Currently, all ministries and Information & Broadcasting and the
from various fields to provide timely departments bring in new tech- Environment.

Solar vehicle market to reach $4.08 billion by 2030

The global solar vehicle market is esti- rise in concerns related to environ- three-fifths of the total share of the
mated to reach $329.5 million by 2023, mental pollution and an increase in global solar vehicle market in 2023.
as reported by Allied Market Research. demand for energy-efficient solu- This is due to emergence of electric
Further, the market is expected to tions. But less operational frequency and hybrid vehicles using the self-
garner $4.08 billion by 2030, growing and high costs related to the integra- charging concept. The commercial
at a CAGR of 43.3 per cent from 2023 tion of technology may act as a bar- vehicle segment is projected to grow
to 2030. rier to growth. at the highest CAGR of 45.2 per cent
As per Allied, the global solar The passenger vehicle segment from 2023 to 2030 due to demand for
vehicle market will be driven by a is estimated to account for nearly emission-free vehicles.

Plan to boost local mobile manufacturing further

As per a newspaper report, the gov- of finance and commerce and NITI
On The move
ernment is working on a ` 420 billion Aayog. It aims to make India a hub Xerox India appoints Joseph
plan to boost local manufacturing for the manufacture of electronics and as MD
of mobile phones under the Make in components. Xerox has appointed Leo Joseph as
India scheme. It plans to offer a benefit The scheme will be applicable to managing director for India and South
of four to six per cent on incremental devices with an invoice value of $200 Asia market. He has over 28 years
of experience with large enterprises,
sales of goods manufactured locally for or more only, which will exclude many SMBs, governments, and B2C
a period of five years. The beneficiaries mobile makers like Vivo and Oppo. As consumers across the value chain.
of this scheme will be companies like per the report, the package is likely to Before Xerox, Leo was associated
Apple Foxconn, Flex, and Wistron, be disbursed in tranches with around with HP, where he held various senior
leadership roles in India and APAC.
besides local players like Micromax, ` 40.3 billion planned to be dissemi- Previously, he had also worked with
Karbonn, Lava, and Intex. nated in the first year, ` 63.95 billion in IBM India.
The scheme to be rolled out by the second year, ` 87.6 billion in third,
the IT ministry has been prepared ` 117.9 billion in the fourth, and ` 10,8.2 Pekka replacing Rajeev Suri
in consultation with the ministries billion in the fifth year. at Nokia
Rajeev Suri, president and CEO
of Nokia, is expected to hand over
Triple-camera models take the lead in the charge to Pekka Lundmark on August
31, 2020. Suri joined Nokia in 1996
smartphone market and was their CEO since April 2014.
He will, however, continue to work
as adviser for Nokia until January 1,
Triple-camera smartphones have devices for the first time. Models with 2021. Lundmark is currently president
become the most popular type of model three cameras accounted for 31 per cent and CEO of Fortum, Finland.
on the market, exceeding dual-camera of global smartphone shipments during

80 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Industry News
the final three months of 2019, accord-
Calendar of Forthcoming Electronics ing to the Smartphone Model Market
Fairs/Exhibitions/Seminars/Events Tracker report from Omdia. This total
Name, Date and Venue Topics Contact address for details slightly exceeded the 30 per cent share
GISEC 2020 Future blockchain summit GISEC 2020 held by dual-camera smartphones.
April 6-8, 2020 Website: www.gisec.ae Single-camera phones ranked
Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai,
UAE third, with a 23 per cent share, while
Hong Kong Electronics Fair Covers the entire gamut of electronics Hong Kong Trade Development Council four-camera devices were in last
2020 Website: https://event.hktdc.com place, at 15 per cent of shipments.
April 13-16, 2020
Hong Kong Convention and
As a result, multi-camera devices
Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong accounted for 77 per cent of smart-
RenewX South India’s largest renewable energy informamarkets phone shipments, up from 54 per cent
April 23-24, 2020 show Website: www.renewx.in in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Hitex, Hyderabad Email: [email protected]
Starting with last year’s iPhone 11
Source India B2B event for electronics supply chain Electronic Industries Association of India series, Apple’s cheapest model has
April 28-29, 2020 Website: http://sourceindia-electronics.com/,
Chennai Trade Centre, Chennai www.elcina.com joined the trend of increasing camera
Electronics Show 2020 Consumer electronics and new technology Ptak Warsaw Expo
lenses by adopting dual cameras.
May 8-10, 2020 trade show in Poland Website: https://electronics-show.com Triple cameras finally arrived with the
Ptak Warsaw Expo, Nadarzyn,
Poland
company’s Pro models. Apple’s new
iPhones set to be released this year are
Rise Of AI Conference Connects thousands of AI experts, Rise Of AI
May 13-14, 2020 decision-makers, opinion-leaders and game- Website: https://riseof.ai expected to come with an additional
Berlin, Germany changers to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) time-of-flight (ToF) camera.
for society, politics and economy
In contrast, Android-based smart-
NIWeek 2020 Annual global conference for graphical National Instruments phone makers have been spreading
May 18-20, 2020 system design organised by National Website: www.ni.com
Austin, Texas, USA Instruments multi-camera capability throughout
AV-ICNx AV integration communication networking ABEC Exhibitions & Conferences Pvt Ltd
their product lines more rapidly,
May 28-30, 2020 expo Website: www.av-icnx.com expanding from high-end devices to
Bombay Exhibition Centre, mid-priced and low-cost models.
Goregaon (East), Mumbai
Leading Android smartphone brand
Computex Taipei 2020 Leading ICT event, the biggest computer Taipei World Trade Center, Chennai
June 2-6, 2020 exhibition in Asia and the second-largest Website: http://chennai.taiwantrade.com.tw
Samsung has already installed four
Taipei World Trade Center in the world Email: [email protected] cameras on the S20+ and S20 Ultra
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center
Taipei International Convention
version of this year’s Galaxy S20
Center, Taipei, Taiwan (ROC) series.
Middle East Banking AI & Third edition of the Middle East banking AI Middle East Banking AI & Analytics Summit Meanwhile, Huawei is moving to a
Analytics Summit 2020 and analytics summit 2020 five-camera configuration with its new
June 15-16, 2020 Website: www.mebankingai.com
Dubai, UAE
P40 series. Second-tier brands such
as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are rap-
PCIM Asia International exhibition and confererence Guangzhou Guangya Messe Frankfurt
July 1-3, 2020 for power electronics, intelligent Co., Ltd idly expanding their adoption of quad
Shanghai World Expo Exhibition motion, renewable energy and energy Website: china.messefrankfurt.com cameras rather than triple cameras for
and Convention Center, management Wechat: zoeylin13535561593
Shanghai, China
their latest flagship smartphones.
electronica China
productronica China
Originally planned to take place in March,
the shows have been postponed in view of
International Trade Fair for Electronics
Development and Production, Shanghai,
Jaguar and Tata Power
LASER China breakout of coronavirus China join hands for EV charging
July 3-5, 2020
National Exhibition and
Website: https://productronica-china.com
Email: [email protected]
infrastructure
Convention Center Jaguar Land Rover India has entered
Shanghai, China
into a partnership with Tata Power to
Global Consumer Electronics B2B show presenting a sourcing, Aakar Exhibition Pvt Ltd offer end-to-end EV charging solu-
Expo manufacturing and production solution Website: www.eventbrite.com
July 24-26, 2020 for the electronics and home appliance tions. Tata Power will provide charg-
Pragati Maidan, New Delhi industry ing solutions for Jaguar Land Rover
Engineering Design Show UK’s only event entirely dedicated to Engineering Design Show in India. It will spread over its retail
October 14-15, 2020 engineering, electronics and embedded Website: www.engineeringdesignshows. network of 27 outlets in 24 cities and
The Ricoh Arena, Coventry design co.uk
at customers’ residence and office.
Light + LED Expo India 2020 Will have Future Zone for innovative Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India Private
December 3-5, 2020 products, Solar Zone, and Launch Zone Limited
Rohit Suri, president and man-
Pragati Maidan, New Delhi for new products Website: www.in.messefrankfurt.com aging director, Jaguar Land Rover
Email: deepak.bohara@india.
messefrankfurt.com
India said, “The partnership with
Tata Power will be a tremendous
CES 2021 Global consumer electronics show Consumer Technology Association
January 6-9, 2021 Website: www.ces.tech value addition for Jaguar Land Rover
Las Vegas, Nevada customers as it provides a one-stop
Since this information is subject to change, especially due to coronavirus breakout, all those interested solution to their charging needs, and
are advised to ascertain the details from the organisers before making any commitment. also provides easy accessibility to

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 81

 Industry News Snippets
Nearly 30,000 startups recognised by DPIIT Haier India bets on smart home solutions
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade Haier has announced their plans to spearhead the IoT era
(DPIIT) had recognised nearly 30,000 Indian startups by mid- in the home appliances industry. They are augmenting their
March. SIDBI has committed over ` 31,000 million to 47 SEBI- product range by launching 83 products across categories
registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIF). These funds, such as refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines,
in turn, have invested nearly ` 33,800 million in 328 startups LED TVs and others. Some of the key products powered by
together with about ` 9,130 from the Fund of Funds for startups. the IoT and AI include seven Google-certified Android smart
Fund of Funds provides capital to SEBI-registered AIF funds and LED TVs, Wi-Fi enabled washing machines, and smart refrig-
does not invest directly in startups as a policy. erators with an in-built LED screen installed in the door.

India’s contribution to global EV market Mouser signs several agreements

less than 0.5 per cent Mouser Electronics has signed global distribution agreement
Despite favourable market conditions and increased investor with Zipcores, designers of intellectual property (IP) cores
confidence, the infrastructure to support electric vehicles pen- for implementation on FPGA, ASIC and SoC devices. It has
etration in India still remains the biggest challenge in the coun- signed global agreement with Ultraleap for stocking their
try, as per Electric Vehicles in India Market Outlook report 2020 Leap motion controller and two haptic modules. With Fractus
from DataLabs. The Indian government has set a goal of 30 per Antennas, it has signed agreement for stocking a range
cent electric vehicle penetration by 2030 to reduce the exces- of their chip antenna solutions, including Virtual Antenna
sive dependence on oil imports and curb pollution levels. With (mXTEND) and Xtend devices for cellular, wireless, and IoT
close to US$ 601 million investment spread across 77 deals, the applications. Mouser will now also be stocking STM32L5
transactional market size of electric vehicles is projected to soar ultra-low-power microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics, as
to US$ 20 billion in 2030. per their Press Releases.

the wide network of public charging optical integrated network designed to hol additions, are moving into focus
infrastructure being set up by Tata enhance network availability, capac- as alternatives for use in electronics
Power across India. This tie-up is one ity, and scale. This deployment will production.
step forward in creating the right eco- be a part of Airtel’s initiative to build “We are currently facing extreme
system enabling a simple and hassle a 5G-ready network that will meet the conditions on the world market. From
free charging experience for owners demand for high-speed data services 10th to 11th March alone, the prices
of our first electric vehicle, the Jaguar in India. for alcohols, which are necessary
I-PACE, which makes its debut in India The architecture is built with a for the production of alcohol-based
later this year.” programmable and software-defined fluxes, have increased by 400 per cent
Tata Power will provide a range platform. It has already been able to in some cases,” says Markus Geßner,
of AC and DC chargers, starting from achieve significant speeds with scale responsible for marketing and sales at
7kW to 50kW capacity. It will be to provide new, advanced B2B and Emil Otto GmbH. Exploding demand,
responsible to facilitate the installa- B2C services. The company said that disrupted supply chain, closed manu-
tion and management of chargers at the open standards architecture with facturing sites, speculation and
the designated premises and after- automation will eliminate manual increased production of alcohol-based
sales related support services. touchpoints in a brownfield environ- disinfectants have led to massive price
Ramesh Subramanyam, CFO and ment. escalations.
president - new business, Tata Power At the moment, India is the world’s Emil Otto has come up with
Company Limited said, “Tata Power second-largest telecommunications hybrid and water-based fluxes to
is delighted to work with Jaguar Land market with a subscriber base of 1.17 secure production on customers’
Rover India as an end-to-end EV billion. As per Cisco’s Annual Internet side. Water-based fluxes being free of
charging partner. As India’s leading Report, there will be 67.2 million 5G alcohol are completely independent
integrated player in the EV charging connections in India by 2023 and 66 with regard to the material purchase
space, we will provide Jaguar Land per cent of all devices will be mobile- prices and the possible production
Rover India’s EV customers with easy, connected by 2023. quantities. The soldering results are
ubiquitous and seamless charging claimed to be very good and in some
experience at their homes, offices and Shortage of alcohol-based cases superior to alcohol-based flux
public places.” fluxes due to corona virus products. These fluxes, also known
The spreading corona virus has also as Green Line fluxes, are not flam-
Bharti Airtel to provide affected production of alcohol-based mable. These are therefore not clas-
5G-ready network for high- fluxes for electronics manufacturing. sified as hazardous goods and have
speed Internet services Rising prices and even sold out stocks no legal restrictions on transport,
Bharti Airtel has joined hands with are the latest developments. Water- storage and further handling in pro-
Cisco to launch 5G-ready 100G IP and based or hybrid fluxes, with low alco- duction.

82 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Market Survey

Whither To
Wearables Industry
Wearable devices, though popular among the young, are not being used so much by the older
generations. Of those who are using, most seem to be doing so to control obesity and to keep
a tab on the exercise they do. However, wearable devices can do a lot more, the discovery of
which is likely to make them much more popular in coming years

W
Deepshikha Shukla ith technology progressing day A wearable medical or healthcare
by day, wearables are becoming device is used for tracking a user’s vital
an essential part of our lives. The signs or data related to health and fit-
modern sophisticated devices are equipped ness. As we move towards an even more
with smart sensors and are capable of using technology-oriented world and improved
the Internet for exchange of data. Emerging connectivity, these devices are expected to
as a lifestyle, the devices are being made for be ubiquitous. Though these devices are
wearing on various parts of our body. Some gaining popularity globally with certain
examples are, smartwatches, head-mount- segments of the population, such as the
ed displays, smart clothing, ear-phones, fitness-oriented consumer, the market
body-worn fitness trackers, cameras, exo- within India is still at a nascent stage.
skeletons, and medical devices. Wearable healthcare devices appear

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 83

 Market Survey
to be one of the newest frontiers of
innovation and development. Major Experts’ views
types of such wearables include fit- The smart wearable market was valued at around 200 million units in 2019 and is expected to double
ness trackers, smartwatches, ECG by 2022. The wearables segment aims to influence the fields of health and medicine, fitness, aging,
monitors, blood pressure monitors, disability, education, transportation, enterprise, finance, gaming, music, etc. Keeping in mind our key
biosensors and sugar-level monitors, vision is to think smart and work smart, we challenge the norm by creating high-quality products that
ear-worn devices, head-mounted are innovative and serve the purpose of enhancing the way people live.
VR devices, and smart clothing. The —Manoj Kumar Pansari, chairman and managing director, Astrum
wearable devices’ market is differ- Apart from hearables, fitness devices including bands and watches have been a strong factor in the
entiated by product type, end-use growth of wearables in India. Though, India’s wearables market is largely dominated by the basic
industry (industrial, media and enter- devices. But this is helping in setting the base for the adoption of fitness devices.
tainment), and connectivity medium. As the global wearables market has shifted to smartwatches, India is still moving largely on bands.
However, a clear shift is now seen that people are proactively using these devices for weight control and
Growth of the wearable physical activity monitoring. Also, they have started asking for devices that can help them in monitoring
market some of the lifestyle diseases with better accuracy, forcing vendors to launch sophisticated devices in
Technology advancements, decreas- India. Also, they want devices which are good in look and feel and can go with their lifestyle.
ing price of manufacture, augmented In India, so far, the adoption has been limited to people who are tech-friendly and young. We haven’t
health awareness, small size and ease seen the adoption of child watches and the usage of smartwatches from elderly people much in India.
Though, slowly, we see people have started gifting these devices to their parents, but that is a very
of use, and large brands associating
small percentage of the overall market.
with the wearables are some of the
—Jaipal Singh, associate research manager, Client Devices, IDC India
pivotal factors pushing the growth of
wearable technology. A lot of indus- Of course, wearables need to be sophisticated from two perspectives. One is this is technology being
tries such as healthcare, defence, worn on the body, so has to be of the best quality to offer the best of safety to users wearing it. It
entertainment, and others have should not result in any health hazard or accident. Second, wearables should give original experience.
For instance, in the case of buds, it should give the best music/audio experience. In some cases,
adopted this wearable technology.
wearables need to have advanced software and computing capabilities to drive AI and other advanced
But consumers are generally famil- technology use cases.
iar with only activity trackers and
Right now from the Indian perspective, I would say the biggest challenge is that it’s very fragmented
smartwatches, which are supposed to with too many players, many of whom are not credible enough, and there can be no assurance that
provide them health benefits. they are supplying good quality and value for ownership among consumers. Youth will continue to drive
As obesity has become a major the sales, though these are also popular amongst professionals of all ages, including the sportspeople.
issue in many regions, people are —Faisal Kawoosa, founder, techArc
buying wearable devices for health-
care and fitness-related data. How-
ever, these devices are also popular numerous devices from time to time 2019, according to an estimate.
with teenagers and those in their in various price segments, based on The global market of wearables is
twenties, who don them more for requirements in the market. The Inter- witnessing 82.3 per cent growth, and
style statement than healthcare. net of medical things (iOMT) is an it reached a new high of 118.9 million
Internationally, style, fashion, and
emerging segment, which is expected devices in the fourth quarter of 2019
convenience are some of the factors to grow at a significantly high rate in according to another estimate. In
and user preferences that are con- next few years. Market research indi- the coming years, it is the healthcare
tributing to the growth of wearables. cates that the global market of medical sector that is expected to drive the
Most OEMs (original equipment man- wearable technology will be worth $8 entire wearable devices and technolo-
ufacturers) have understood these billion this year. gy market, which is also because there
factors and are therefore introducing According to market research is a huge availability of cutting-edge
agency IDC India, products for health and fitness care.
the Indian market
Gartner Forecast for Shipments for wearable devic- Challenges
of Wearable Devices Worldwide es grew 30.9 per The wearables technology is con-
cent in 2019. Apple, stantly evolving, with new products
Device (in million) 2017 2018 2019 2022*
Samsung, and Fossil and features faster than ever. But this
Smartwatch 41.50 53.00 74.09 115.20 e m e rg e d a s t h e technology is still in transition stage
Head-mounted display 19.08 28.40 34.83 80.18 most popular wear- and improving every day. There are lot
able brands in India of expectations from wearables.
Smart clothing 4.12 5.65 6.94 19.91
last year. The indus- The biggest challenge facing
Ear-worn device 21.49 33.44 46.12 158.43 try is on track for a wearables is to include new health-
Wristband 36.00 38.97 41.86 51.73 25.8 per cent yearly monitoring features in a small form
increase in sales factor that one can wear on wrist.
Sports watch 18.63 19.46 21.28 27.74
vo l u m e, h av i n g Apart from the wristwear, other form
Total 140.82 178.91 225.12 453.19 p ro d u c e d a b o u t factors haven’t grown much.
*Estimated 255 million units in But the market leaders of smart-

84 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Market Survey
significant investment in research and
development to make these devices
relevant to a larger audience. As these
players add new use cases, users will
be more dependent on this form factor,
and it will be difficult to opt-out from
their life.
Future of wearable technology
In the coming years, the smartwatch
segment is likely to witness lot of tech-
nology advancement and keep leading
the overall segment of the wearable
devices’ market. According to an
industry expert, traditional smart-
watches’ market share could reach
20 per cent of the consumer goods by
the end of 2022 with more fashionable
and stylish products.
Source: IDC According to some reports, the
global wearable devices market is
watches are expected to be challenged sung’s IconX. likely to grow at a CAGR of 11.3 per
in the next few years. Some experts Also, as the market is dealing with cent from 2019 to 2025 and reach US$
believe that the ear-worn devices preventive healthcare, it needs to go 62.82 billion by 2025. According to
could become more popular than through many regulatory approv- Mordor Intelligence, the smart wear-
smartwatches in coming years, espe- als. Currently, the wearables market able market was at 216.18 million sold
cially given the success of products needs attention from all major tech units in 2019 and is expected to reach
such as Apple’s AirPods and Sam- and health players as it requires a 614.31 million units by 2025.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 85

 Startup Zone
Indigenous Robotic Robotic Inspection New-Age 3D Printers Humanoid Robots
1 Solutions For
Underwater Inspection
2 To Fight Waste-
Water Crisis
3 Reshaping Composite
Manufacturing
4 Transforming Customer
Engagement

1 Indigenous Robotic solutions

for underwater inspection
ment system minimises the impact of
underwater currents.
The AI-enabled Planys Assessment
Dashboard (PAD) quickly analyses the
data captured (through techniques
like underwater nondestructive testing
(NDT), advanced NDT) and can accu-
rately predict steps for future mainte-
nance, which helps asset owners and
managers in taking better decisions.
Mike (840mm x 460mm x 400mm)
is a 1000W electric ROV specifi-
cally built for inspection of offshore
immersed structures. It has a dive
capability of hundred metres, nominal
speed of 0.4-0.5m/s, a 15MP, 720p
HD, 30fps camera, six degrees of free-
dom control and unlimited endurance.

W
ithout proper care and had a tough time convincing custom- The next-generation ROV Beluga
maintenance, decades old ers regarding the capability, robustness (730mm×820mm×600mm) has been
infrastructure is often sub- and accuracy of our service,” says designed to be more powerful than
ject to catastrophic failures, causing Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, co-Founder and Mike. It comes with a greater thrust
loss of life and property. This makes CEO, Planys Technologies. capacity, better vision and illumina-
it necessary to regularly assess and The company has indigenously tion system and can reach up to two
monitor assets, which is a complicated designed and manufactured com- hundred metres depth underwater.
task especially for subsea structures mercial remotely operated vehicle Besides visual feedback, this under-
like dams, bridges, ships, oil and gas (ROV) fleet that consists of compact, water drone can perform ultrasonic
platforms. This led to the founda- customisable, economical and modu- thickness measurements, cathodic
tion of IIT-Madras incubated startup lar ROVs to suit site requirements. protection potential measurements
Planys Technologies in 2015 with an On-board HD cameras with LED (for ships, offshore installations and
aim to develop customisable robotic illumination and on-demand sensors other immersed structures), spot bio-
inspection and survey solutions for along with active control algorithms fouling cleaning, and the like.
both onshore and offshore submerged enable stable real-time visual feed- The company operates on a ser-
structures. back, geotagging of locations and vice model. Jhunjhunwala says, “We
“Majority of the subsea assess- data acquisition through the ROVs. charge on a per day basis; the digital
ments are carried out by human scuba They can be easily deployed and reporting service entails additional
divers or deep-sea underwater robots. controlled by operators/pilots outside charges. Having completed over a
However, both methodologies pose of their working environment to oper- hundred projects across various sec-
drawbacks such as reduced produc- ate efficiently for prolonged periods, tors like ports/terminals/shipping
tivity, depth limitations, insufficient go up to higher depths underwater (clients: L&T, Visakhapatnam port,
agility, higher costs and much more. in hazardous conditions and inac- Chennai port, Ennore port), oil & gas
The concept that we introduced was cessible locations, without risks to (clients: HOEC, BPCL, IOCL, HPCL),
completely new in India, and our team human operators. Tether Manage- desalination plants (in Chennai),

86 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Startup Zone
power plants (at Nellore), dams (cli- ing up operations to the Middle East, ter imaging technologies have been
ents: Sathanur, Kakki Dam, Sholayar Europe and South-East Asia. Lately, developed. Recently, we also started
Dam, Bhadra Dam) and bridges features like advanced vision system, operations in the Netherlands and
(clients: Northern and Southern Rail- technology for inspection in extremely Saudi Arabia.”
ways, RVNL), we are currently scal- turbid waters and various underwa- —Ayushee Sharma

2 ROBOTIC INSPECTION TO FIGHT

WASTE-WATER CRISIS

O
nly twenty per cent of Fluid Robotics pipeline analyt-
the water supplied in ics platform is claimed to be a
urban areas is used for fast, cost-effective method for
drinking and cooking, the rest water and waste-water-pipe-
is used for bathing, washing, line inspections. The robotic
toilets, sinks, etc. Seventy to equipment reach difficult and
eighty percent of the water blocked spaces easily, provid-
that is not used for drinking or ing accurate defect data.
cooking gets stuck in leaking The system creates high-
and broken sewage pipelines, resolution maps of less than
resulting in contamination of 5cm using advanced unmanned
the ground water. Only the aerial vehicles. These maps
remaining twenty to thirty per cent waste water and solves potable water include high-resolution contours
of the waste water reaches a sewage and waste water problems. along with accurate mapping of build-
treatment plant. Fluid Robotics uses a robotic ings, pipelines, roads, bridges and all
Most of the treated water we system to map and inspect under- other infrastructure in the project area.
get from sewage treatment plants is ground pipelines that have a minimum It captures and analyses the image and
used for agriculture, gardens, trees diameter of 15cm. The platform is sensor data using magnetic, ultrasonic
and plants, etc. But current sewage being used to digitise pipeline data in and pressure sensors for projects in
treatment plants have three major several cities, buildings and roads to irrigation, oil, gas, transportation,
problems: understand the impact of structural sewers and water pipelines.
1. These are built in wrong areas defects or deposits on the pipelines, Governments and major indus-
2. Not many of them run at full their age and capacity, following inter- tries are becoming concerned about
efficiency or full capacity national standards. water-quality monitoring and usage.
3. These are not well regulated Surveys using this technology have They want to measure the levels of
The unknown location of sewage also been conducted in storm-water pollutants that may enter waterways
collection pipes in most instances drains, sewers and water pipelines as a result of various issues. The
makes it difficult to prevent sewage near rivers and lakes. This provides robotic inspection data, together with
leaks and the resulting catastrophic solutions for the interception and hydraulic modelling of sewer lines
damage. diversion of untreated waste water and storm drains, is used to accurately
Fluid Robotics enables better man- from the storm drains into existing calculate pipeline capacities. This has
agement of potable water as well as sewers. The data gathered and ana- helped government organisations and
waste water infrastructure through the lysed helps prevent water leakages, infrastructure consultants in designing
use of robotics and information tech- sanitary sewer overflows and mon- sewer pipelines, interceptor drains as
nology. It helps cities to control water soon flooding. well as sewage treatment plants.
pollution caused due to untreated The robotic system paired with the —Deepshikha Shukla

3 New-age 3D printers reshaping

composite manufacturing

A
dditive manufacturing has transportation. This is particularly Understanding the growing
transformed production by useful for composite part manufac- demand for composite parts, Fabheads
ensuring reliable manufactur- turing, wherein most operations are Automation was founded by Dhinesh
ing of high-volume, end-use parts for still labour-intensive and hence time- Kanagaraj in 2015 and incubated at IIT
industries ranging from aerospace to consuming. Madras in 2016 to provide end-to-end

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 87

 Startup Zone
manufacturing services. but low-weight parts at lower
The company aims to com- cost with a reduced lead time.
pletely automate composite The startup not only helps
manufacturing sector to other companies but also
meet these needs. student teams with design
3D prints usually lack optimisation based on such
strength along the ver- parameters as strength,
tical axis. But the com- weight, performance, and life-
pany offers a customis- time. It also offers assistance
able hybrid process so that on rapid prototyping and
a layup is possible with limited/volume production.
fibres on both the exterior The machines were
and interior of 3D prints. launched for commercial
The hybrid process amal- operations in 2019. The com-
gamates several valuable pany caters to numerous
features of three-axis fibre sectors requiring high-perfor-
placement machines with composite capable of printing large parts like mance and light-weight components
3D printing, to gain traditional manu- drones and cycle frames in one go. like automobile or robotics (body
facturing advantages too in making It is also ideal for industrial uses like panels, bicycle/bike frames, bat-
composite moulds. moulds and fixtures. Fibre compatible tery casing, base plates), satellites
The startup’s in-house FibrBot options for composite parts include or aviation (landing gears, truss,
series of 3D printers with carbon fibre, glass, and Kevlar, while plastic micro/nano satellite, aerofoils), and
fibre printing capabilities has three compatible ones are nylon, ABS and other such industries (end actuators,
versions—FibrBot 300S, FibrBot epoxy. Maximum chamber tempera- moulds, fixtures). Prominent custom-
300, and FibrBot 1K—to cater to the ture for FibrBot 300 is 200 degrees, ers include Dell, Planys, Avishkar
requirements of different applications. while for other versions, room tem- Hyperloop, Skycrafts Aerospace,
FibrBot 300S, with a build volume perature is the upper limit. among others.
of 300mm×300mm×300mm, can Ability to print continuous fibre- The startup recently was among
print small parts with medium-per- reinforced parts from 3D printers the top three winners for Startup
formance plastics as matrix, regard- broadens the range of design and Competition Week organised by Lotte
less of fibre reinforcement, whereas fabrication possibilities with several Corp and its accelerator Lotte Accel-
FibrBot 300 has a build volume of options for material combinations like erator in collaboration with IIT Madras
325mm×325mm×300mm for print- plastics, metals and fibres based on Research Park. Besides the cash prize,
ing parts with high-performance plas- requirements. Since the choice of it got access to collaborations and
tics as the matrix. grade of fibre and plastic, and fibre investment opportunities from the
FibrBot 1K has a build volume of volume ratio is flexible, the result is Lotte Group for the future.
1500mm×1000mm×700mm and is a precise fabrication of high-strength —Ayushee Sharma

4 Humanoid robots transforming

customer engagement

I
n this era of cut-throat competi-
tion, businesses are ever ready to
experiment with innovative ideas
to engage customers and ensure their
satisfaction for better productivity
and sales. Invento Robotics, founded
by Balaji Viswanathan, Mahalakshmi
Radhakrushnan and Bharath Kumar
in Bengaluru in 2016, has built a range
of humanoid robots for improved cus-
tomer service while simultaneously
reducing operational costs through
automation to meet the market
demands.
Balaji Viswanathan, co-founder
and CEO, Invento Robotics, says, “We

88 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Startup Zone
had started as a maker space and in our first Makerfaire,
our robot project got the most attention. We used that
opportunity to pivot to be a robotics company. We had
an initial hypothesis that we validated with customer
feedback to drive the product roadmap. Being an early
mover in the market put the burden of market education
on us, which was a key challenge.”
Company’s five-feet-tall flagship product, artificial
intelligence (AI)-based humanoid Mitra, has a fibreglass
body and is capable of navigating autonomously with
obstacle detection. Computer vision lets the bot detect
and recognise the visitors from their face, and identify
their age, gender, emotional levels and more. Conversa-
tion engine can recognise visitors’ speech in different
languages with natural language processing, based on
which the bot can converse with them while simultane-
ously alerting the owner about their arrival. Collecting
analytics of these behaviours and interactions helps
businesses meet their customer requirements. Besides
these functionalities, it is also possible to build a range
of new interfaces on top of it.
Two different models, Mitra and Mitri, are offered
by the company depending on client requirements. The
main difference between the models is in their body
design. “Their USP is that they are enterprise read robot-
ics—a platform that allows customers to fully utilise our
autonomous driving, vision and voice applications. The
pricing varies based on the application and volumes,”
adds Viswanathan.
The startup has already rented its robots for more
than 75 corporate events in different countries. The bots
have been used for a wide range of tasks like taking
selfies of people, tweeting live and entertaining guests
through music in these events. Viswanathan explains,
“For the first three years, we were bootstrapped focused
on revenues. We rented our robots under R&D for various
events. This way we got to test dozens of product ideas
and fund our R&D, while the customers also got unique
robots for each event. As the robots matured, we focused
primarily on enterprises for doing critical applications.”
Other application domains include assisting custom-
ers in understanding different bank offerings, making
purchases in retail stores, providing health diagnosis for
patients, remembering the dietary preferences of custom-
ers in restaurants, and so on. Such services have been
used by Accenture, GM, HDFC Bank, PVR Cinemas, and
Morris Garages, among others.
The company is focused on building new products.
Mitra 3 was unveiled at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, USA. It
comes with a better display and camera quality, has three
degrees of freedom on each hand and one on the head,
and supports languages like Hindi and Tamil. It lasts up
to ten hours on a single charge.
The startup also launched an AI-enabled shopping
cart, Spod (smart pod), with a focus on foreign super-
markets. Viswanathan says, “We want to be the Dell of
the robotics industry, building a range of robots on a
common platform and delivered to customers ready to
build complex AI applications.”
—Ayushee Sharma

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 89

 New Products NEW

capable of withstanding rough condi-

Components tions. To solve the difficulty in achieving
higher precision, the technology digitally
calibrates the transfer function of the ∆Σ
e-Paper displays less routers, access points, residential modulator. High-speed, high-precision
Pervasive Displays’ Aurora black-and- gateways, Wi-Fi customer premises operation with a 15MHz signal bandwidth
white e-paper, or E-ink, electrophoretic equipment, and IoT applications. and 74.3dB dynamic range is achieved
displays now available are chip-on-glass Mouser Electronics when operating at an oversampling fre-
(COG) front plane laminate (FPL) www.mouser.com quency of 480MHz. By reducing the digital
displays that make use of waveform calibration circuit operating frequency to
technology to produce sharp images in a 120MHz, a low-power operation is also
thin design. Only updating the display’s Voltage regulators achieved, with 37mW power consump-
image requires power, allowing total Infineon Technologies AG IR3887M, tion (analogue:19mW, digital:18mW).
power consumption to be kept to an IR3888M and IR3889M devices in its In addition, the new, robust technology
absolute minimum. This makes them new family of integrated-point-of-load provides stable performance over a wide
ideal for applications where the content voltage regulators feature fast constant- temperature range of –20 to 125 degrees
of the display changes irregularly, such on-time (COT) engine. This product Celsius.
as digital signs, retail spaces, office auto- family is designed for today’s server, Renesas Electronics Corp.
mation, building navigation, reusable base station and telecom (operating at www.renesas.com
badges, and healthcare. The full range 85°C ambient temperature) and storage
of displays from 3.7cm to 31cm is avail- applications requiring both high efficien-
able through the company’s distribution cy and high density. The IR3887M is the DC-DC buck converter
partner DigiKey. smallest 30A device on the market in a Texas Instruments has introduced 40A
Pervasive Displays, Taiwan 4mm×5mm footprint. The OptiMOSTM SWIFT DC-DC PMBus buck converter
www.pervasivedisplays.com IPOL product family comes with an TPS546D24A that offers stacking of up
enhanced-stability COT engine with to four ICs. It can deliver up to 160A of
ceramic capacitors without the need for output current (4x current of competing
Wi-Fi integrated front end external compensation. Wide input volt- power ICs) at a temperature of 85 degrees
Mouser Electronics is now stocking the age range of 4.3V to 17V, 2Vmin with 5V Celsius. The TPS546D24A has the highest
QPF7219 integrated front end module external bias, and precise output voltage efficiency of any 40A DC-DC converter,
(iFEM) from Qorvo. Providing reliable, (0.5 per cent accurate reference voltage) thus allowing engineers to reduce power
whole-home coverage when designed are supported. The voltage regulators loss by 1.5W in a high-performance data
into Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) systems, it com- offer high efficiency at light-load and centre and enterprise computing, medi-
bines advanced thermally-compensated internal over- cal, wireless infrastructure and wired net-
bulk acoustic current protection with four selectable working applications. The TPS546D24A
w a v e ( BAW ) limits for a less expensive and smaller offers a switching frequency of 1.5MHz
filter technology inductor. High switching frequency for delivering 40A of current per IC while
with its unique (up to 2MHz) for small PCB size and reducing inductance and capacitance by
edgeBoost capa- fewer bill-of-materials is claimed. The one-third as compared to similar convert-
bility to almost IR3888M and IR3889M come in 5mm x ers. It has an output voltage error of less
double Wi-Fi range and triple capacity 6mm footprint in a PQFN package. The than one per cent.
to handle more devices. It integrates a IR3888M handles continuous current up Texas Instruments
2.4GHz power amplifier optimised for a to 25A and is RoHS2 compliant. www.ti.com
5V supply voltage. Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd
The BAW filter’s edgeBoost capabil- www.infineon.com
ity maximises output power at channels Industrial connectors
close to the band edge and achieves Amphenol ICC, in collaboration with
excellent throughput across all Wi-Fi AD converter technology Hirose Electric and Harting Technology,
channels 1-11. The module includes a Renesas Electronics, in collaboration has released the ix Industrial series of
bypassable low-noise amplifier, regula- with Hitachi, has developed a technology connectors. IEC 61076-3-124 compliant
tor, and transmit-receive switch. The that will enable continuous-time digital and designed to meet the needs of next-
device offers 5GHz rejection for dual- calibration of a delta-sigma (∆Σ) modu- generation rugged, high-speed industrial
band dual-concurrent operation, as well lator and an analogue-to-digital (AD) Ethernet requirements, the series is ideal
as integrated die-level filtering for second converter circuit. This will make high- for use in equipment for factory and pro-
and third harmonics. It is ideal for wire- speed, high-precision ∆Σ AD converters cess automation, machine-to-machine

90 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 New Products
communication, robotics, sensors, single and The company opted for a stainless steel
human interface devices and for the multicore per- exterior container rather than polymer
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) con- formance. For material to provide dimensional stability
nectivity. Capable of Cat6A performance, ensuring a and prevent swelling over the CG420’s
it comes in a 70 per cent smaller package highly respon- lifetime. Panasonic is offering the product
than the size of a typical RJ45 connec- sive ga m ing with tabs. The company says the batter-
tor. With 10mm connector pitch, robust experience, an Arm Mali-G52 graphics ies, which are 4.7mm in diameter, are
2-point metal latching, 360-degree shield- processor operates at 820MHz on the ideal for a range of wearable applications
ing for EMI immunity, it is built to meet Helio G70 chipset and up to 950MHz on including hearing aids, smart inhalers,
the needs of new higher density indus- the Helio G80. The chipsets offer other smart glasses, styluses and more.
trial Ethernet communication designs. smartphone enhancements like inte- Panasonic India
Amphenol Interconnect India Pvt Ltd grated Voice Wakeup (VoW), advanced www.panasonic.com
www.amphenol-in.com multi-camera photography and faster
overall performance.
MediaTek, Taiwan
UPS power module
Gaming chipsets www.mediatek.com Huawei has launched its all-new UPS,
MediaTek has launched two new mobile which enables the power density of a
gaming chipsets, Helio G70 and Helio single module to reach 100kW/3U, twice
G80. These feature HyperEngine game
POWER SUPPLies that of industry standard. Huawei’s
technology, advanced multi-camera and FusionPower2.0 data centre power supply
unrivalled connectivity for uninterrupted Lithium-ion pin batteries and distribution solution is based on
gameplay. Through this release, the com- Panasonic, USA has announced a new
pany aims to equip smartphone users and addition to its line of lithium-ion pin
gaming enthusiasts with high-end features cells for the wearables market. The
at mid-tier prices. Built on 12nm process, Panasonic CG420A lithium-ion pin
the Helio G70 and G80 incorporate Arm batteries have a spiral wound construc- 100kW/3U UPS
Power Module
Cortex-A75 CPUs that operate up to 2GHz, tion that enables higher reliability and
along with six Arm Cortex-A55 CPUs that rapid charging (80 per cent charged in
FusionPower2.0
operate up to 1.8GHz for an improved 20 minutes), according to Panasonic. SmartLi

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 91

 New Products
100kW module, and achieves the 1MW, values eliminates cell-synchronisation time-consuming drive tests. This collabo-
1 Rack principle with a footprint that is delays. ration enables both companies to help
more than halved. The L9963 can also monitor up each other in the verification of software
This 100kW UPS power module to seven external temperature sen- builds and releases. So, manufacturers of
will serve customers in the data centre sors. Its BMS application uses several IoT solutions will be able to use virtual
industry. It combines ultra-high density L9963 devices to monitor cell groups drive tests during the development phase
FusionPower2.0 with Huawei SmartLi in the battery stack, managed by a host of CAT M1 and NB IoT modules to find
intelligent li-ion batteries to save more microcontroller such as ST’s SPC5 high- and fix problems at an earlier stage. This
than 70 per cent footprint. SmartLi’s performance, safety-critical automotive- will also enable seamless cellular cover-
unique active current balance technol- qualified MCUs. With the help of a serial age and reliable connectivity before the
ogy supports the hybrid use of old and peripheral interface (SPI), the L9963 integration process continues and further
new battery strings. The SmartLi uses features a 2.66Mbps vertical commu- field tests are performed.
the safest LFP battery cell in the indus- nication interface for high-speed com- The setup consists of R&S Field-to-
try, which cannot catch fire due to ther- munication between multiple L9963 ICs Lab wireless communication test system,
mal runaway. SmartLi’s unique smart for monitoring the entire battery stack. R&S CMWcards smart network emulator
voltage balance technology ensures that Thus, eight devices can convert and read and R&S CMW500/CMW290 wideband
the system can still run properly even if 96 cells in less than 4ms. radio communication tester. The LTE-
one battery module is faulty. STMicroelectronics Private Limited, Noida, UP based R&S Field-to-Lab solution supports
Huawei Technologies Co., China www.st.com LTE-M and NB-IoT technologies. With
www.huawei.com the same user interface, customers can
seamlessly move between LTE and IoT
TEST & MEASUREMENT testing.
Buck-boost regulator Rohde & Schwarz, Delhi
Vicor has released its PI3740 ZVS Spectrum analysers for 5G www.rohde-schwarz.com
buck-boost regulator with an extended Siglent Technologies presents two
operating temperature range of -55°C spectrum analysers to meet the grow-
to +115°C and optional tin-Lead BGA ing demand of high bandwidths for 5G
miscellaneous
packaging. applications.
The PI3740 is Lighting for smart LEDs
a high-density By taking advantage of its Power over
and high-effi- Ethernet (PoE) technology and ultra-low-
ciency buck- power Bluetooth Low Energy connectiv-
boost regulator SSA3075X ity, along with AC-DC and DC-DC power
Plus
with an 8V to conversion design, ON Semiconductor
60V input voltage range and sup- SSA3075X Plus has a frequency has introduced a
ports output voltages from 10V to range of up to 7.5GHz for delivering reli- connected light-
50V. The device offers up to 140W in able automatic measurements and has ing platform
a 10mm×14mm SiP package. Higher multiple modes of operation. Optional for engineers to
power can be obtained with additional functions are RF power measurement, explore IoT-based
devices in parallel. The ZVS switching vector signal modulation analysis, reflec- connected light-
topology also enables efficiency as high tion measurement and EMI test. Appli- ing. It features
as 96 per cent. cations include broadcast monitoring/ multiple forms
Vicor Corporation evaluation, site surveying, S-parameter of connectivity,
www.vicorpower.com measurement, analogue/digital modula- such as Bluetooth Low Energy, that is
tion analysis, EMI pre-compliance test, provided by the RSL10 SIP, and Power
research and development, education, over Ethernet. It offers up to 90W of
Battery management system production, and maintenance. output power and two independent chan-
STMicroelectronics has launched bat- SVA1075X also has a frequency nels supply and controls up to 16 LEDs.
tery-management controller L9963 range of up to 7.5GHz, comes with multi This high-efficiency platform also ena-
that increases reliability, safety, driving modes of operation and delivers reliable bles the development of battery-less LED
range and cost-effectiveness of electric automatic measurements. Its optional lighting applications when used together
vehicles (EVs). It provides accurate volt- functions are distance-to-fault locator, a with the Energy Harvesting Bluetooth Low
age range for longer driving and battery vector signal modulation analyser. Energy Switch. It can control LEDs wire-
life, along with temperature-monitoring Siglent Technologies lessly using the RSL10 Sense and Control
inputs for enhanced safety. The device https://siglenta.com app (available for iOS and Android), or
can monitor up to 14 stacked battery through a web client. Using the app, firm-
cells, measuring voltages with accuracy ware updates can be easily sent after the
better than 2mV in the 1.7V-4.7V range IoT modules testing application has been deployed.
to maintain superior cell condition. Rohde & Schwarz, in association with ON Semiconductor, Bengaluru
Simultaneous digitisation of all acquired Gemalto, will be reducing expensive and www.onsemi.com

92 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Facts & Figures

Some Indian Centres Currently

Collaborating With WHO
S.No Institution City Subjects Last Redesignation Expiry
1. Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Lucknow Hepatitis, Health information; statistics; measurement and trend assessment, 01/Feb/2017 01/Feb/2021
Institute of Medical Sciences Health Technology (including laboratory services; but excluding blood safety)
2. Schizophrenia Research Foundation Chennai Mental health and neurosciences 10/Mar/2017 10/Mar/2021
(SCARF)
3. Gujarat Ayurved University Jamnagar Traditional medicine, Health promotion and education, Human resources for 05/Apr/2017 05/Apr/2021
health (excluding Nursing)
4. National Tuberculosis Institute (NTI) Bengaluru Tuberculosis, Research policy and development 05/Jun/2017 05/Jun/2021

5. Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Sewagram, Child and maternal health, Health promotion and education, Reproductive 14/Jul/2017 14/Jul/2021
Medical Sciences Wardha health (excluding HIV/AIDS)
6. Ministry of Health and Family Ghaziabad Pharmaceuticals (including essential drugs and medicines), Health systems 18/Jul/2017 18/Jul/2021
Welfare research and development
7. Christian Medical College Vellore Nursing 29/Nov/2017 29/Nov/2021
8. Jawaharlal Institute of Puducherry Pharmaceuticals (including essential drugs and medicines), Antimicrobial 19/Mar/2018 19/Mar/2022
Postgraduate Medical Education Resistance (AMR)
& Research (JIPMER)
9. National Institute of Epidemiology Chennai Leprosy, Research policy and development 15/May/2018 15/May/2022

10. L.V. Prasad Eye Institute Hyderabad Prevention of blindness 07/Jul/2018 07/Jul/2022
11. Aravind Eye Care System Madurai Prevention of blindness 21/Aug/2018 21/Aug/2022
12. National Institute of Biologicals Noida Health Technology (including laboratory services; but excluding blood safety), 19/Sep/2018 19/Sep/2022
HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis
13. Centre for Chronic Disease Control New Delhi Cardiovascular diseases, Diabetes, Health promotion and education 01/Nov/2018 01/Nov/2022
(CCDC)
14. National Institute of Tuberculosis New Delhi Tuberculosis 06/Nov/2018 06/Nov/2018
and Respiratory Diseases
15. Diabetes Research Centre and Chennai Diabetes 12/Nov/2018 12/Nov/2021
M.V. Hospital for Diabetes
16. Society for Applied Studies New Delhi Child and maternal health, Nutrition 29/Apr/2019 29/Apr/2023
17. Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai Cancer 21/Mar/2019 21/Mar/2023
18. Government T D Medical College Alappuzha Filarial infections, Disabilities and rehabilitation (excluding accident prevention) 08/May/2019 08/May/2023

19. Sri Ramachandra Medical College Chennai Occupational health, Environmental health and hazards other than those 23/Jun/2019 23/Jun/2023
and Research Institute specifically mentioned, Chemical safety
20. National Health Systems Resource New Delhi Health Technology (including laboratory services; but excluding blood safety), 20/Sep/2019 20/Sep/2023
Centre Noncommunicable diseases other than those specifically mentioned, Child and
maternal health
21. Institute of Liver & Biliary Sciences New Delhi Hepatitis, Cancer, Health Technology (including laboratory services; but 23/Sep/2019 23/Sep/2023
excluding blood safety)
22. National Environmental Engineering Nagpur Water and sanitation 08/Feb/2020 08/Feb/2024
Research Institute
23. Trivandrum Institute Of Palliative Trivandrum Pharmaceuticals (including essential drugs and medicines), Noncommunica- 07/Mar/2020 07/Mar/2024
Sciences (TIPS) ble diseases other than those specifically mentioned, Health legislation and
human rights
24. Indian Institute of Technology New Delhi Injuries; violence and accident prevention 23/Mar/2020 23/Mar/2024
25. Institute of Palliative Medicine Kozhikode Noncommunicable diseases other than those specifically mentioned, Health 25/Mar/2020 25/Mar/2024
systems research and development, Human resources for health (excluding
Nursing)

Source: World Health Organization (http://apps.who.int/whocc/Default.aspx)

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 93

 Software

Free Daily Utility Tools

+ Office tools: Apache OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org)
Software For + Zipping software: WinZip (www.winzip.com)

healthcare
+ Browser: Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.org)
+ PDF Reader: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (get.adobe.com)
+ Media player: PotPlayer (potplayer.daum.net)

Ayushee Sharma

LiveHealth MDToolbox-Rx Mediware

Visit: https://livehealth.in Visit: www.mdtoolbox.com Visit: www.datamateindia.com
Full version: Paid Full version: Paid; free trial Full version: Paid
LiveHealth is a medical laboratory MDToolbox-Rx is a customisable Mediware is a hospital manage-
management software to automate e-prescribing solution for medical ment software that consists of tools
regular operations. Front desk tools organisations. With a user-friendly for management of front office, in
like configurable forms for patient interface, organisations can create patients, electronic medical records,
registration, online payment collec- and send or receive electronic pre- blood banks, pharmacy, finance,
tion, and automated communications scription orders and refills from dif- health insurance and the like. Using
via SMS or emails enable better patient ferent pharmacies. Users can search the medical equipment interface,
management. Sample management, for medicines based on such param- data can be transferred from instru-
segregation (through colour coding eters as name, brand and generic ments to computers directly. Labo-
and barcodes) and rejection are done status in the comprehensive drug ratory information system module
through predefined methods, which can library. Besides helping patients, processes and stores data related
be tracked in real time. Cloud storage, the software also improves safety to medical testing, specimen and
campaigns for patients, easy collabo- and office workflow. Other features more to save time and send SMS to
ration with other labs and diagnostic include an inbuilt drug reference the concerned doctor if a report con-
centres, real-time business insights library, integrated dosing calcula- tains alarming parameters. Module
are some other features offered in the tor, availability of common scripts to prepare radiology reports like
software. Options like auto-validation, library, favourites list for prescribers ultrasound, x-ray and CT scan is also
personalised onboarding, auto-dispatch and practice, display of price infor- available. A picture archiving and
and delivery of reports to patients and mation and personalised prescription communication system allows secure
organisations, and loyalty cards are also benefits in real time, among others. and rapid transmission of images
available for enterprise customers. anywhere in the world.

(Credit: www.softwareadvice.com) Credit: https://apkpure.com

Valant
Visit: https://valant.com; Full version: Paid
Valant is an electronic health records software that allows prescribers
(psychiatrists, physician assistants, psychiatric nurse practitioners), non-
prescribers (psychologists, social-work therapists, counsellors) and the
like to enhance patient engagement and, hence, results through automated
tools. Features include customisable pre-set appointments, efficient creation
and storage of notes through documentation tools, faster claim turnaround,
collaboration across provider specialities, built-in alerts and reports, track-
ing updates and so on. Users can access records and pharmacies whenever
required. It is easy to use and saves time through a streamlined workflow.
(Credit: www.softwareadvice.com)

94 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Software

athenaCollector
Visit: www.athenahealth.com; Full version: Paid
athenaCollector is a medical billing and revenue cycle management solution. It allows
fast collection of payments and verification of insurance eligibility of patients in advance
or real time without any hassles. Healthcare professionals can optimise their appoint-
ment schedules and send automated reminders to patients. Detailed and on-demand
reports on user performance in real time help in improving results. A simple interface
for the revenue cycle dashboard enables easy access to revenue cycle tasks and patient
information. Other features like claims management are also available on the software.

mobile apps Scan the QR codes to download

the apps based on the operating
For Healthcare system of your device

1mg G1 Health Your.MD

Updated: March 2020 Updated: March 2020 Updated: March 2020
OS: Android and iOS OS: Android and iOS OS: Android and iOS
Download: Full version (free) Download: Full version (free) Download: Full version (free)
1mg allows users to view medicine infor- G1 Health app provides reliable aid in Your.MD is an artificial intelli- Android
mation, read personal health tips, book emergency situations. By sharing patients’ gence (AI)-based digital health
lab tests and health check-ups, buy medi- location with the life support ambulance platform that allows users to
cines and consult doctors from various service provider (integrates with GVK find safe and personalised
specialities online. On searching for any EMRI 108 Call Ambulance), specialised information and guidance for
their health. Symptom checker iOS
medicine, information such as treatment doctors, first responders and close ones
helps them determine if they
uses, side effects, usage recommendations nearby, people get relief at the earliest.
need a doctor. Data from trusted sources is
and expert advice gets displayed on the The app community consists of doctors
available in simple language on a variety
app. General health check-ups and sample and experts as well as people who had
of conditions such as common cold, con-
collection can be done at users’ homes. related health issues previously to answer junctivitis, bronchitis, constipation, food
Over-the-counter health products and user queries. Videos are available in several poisoning, sprains and strains, among
medicines (like allopathic and homoeo- Indian languages to teach individuals to others. Condition-based plans and health
pathic) can be ordered at low prices in help others in situations like unconscious- products are available on the app to help
more than a thousand Indian cities. The ness. Other features include pill reminders, users better their health. Journal can be
latest version comes with ratings to help message requests for blood donors, micro- used to record and track health over time.
users make correct buying decisions. insurance, integration with G1 Rakshak
device and so on.
MediBuddy
Updated: March 2020
OS: Android and iOS
Download: Full version (free)
Android iOS Android iOS MediBuddy app assists in Android
patients, out patients and
others in attaining wellness
and fitness. Medi Assist
Practo Pro e-Card helps in managing hos-
Updated: February 2020 pitalisation and medical needs
iOS
of users or their dependents in
OS: Android and iOS
a cashless format. It is easy to locate right
Download: Full version (free)
Android iOS network hospitals for medical treatments
Practo Pro app for doctors and healthcare
based on preferences like location and
professionals includes all services that save time so that patients get more attention. Practo
specialities. Other features include tracking
Ray lets doctors manage their appointment schedules, patient health data and practices, claims in real time, free home delivery for
send appointment confirmations and reminders via SMS and email, create, update and medicines ordered via prescription, book-
share electronic medical records, sync practice data in mobile with cloud storage and ing lab tests, genome study test to analyse
more. Other services include Profile, Reach, Consult and Health Feed that enables users genetic risk to diseases, teleconsultation
to connect with their existing and new patients, track their reach and grow their practice from health experts, getting second opinion
in India by providing expertise through recommendations and health articles. from physicians remotely and much more.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 95

 First Look

EFY Bureau

Smart LED TV Price

` 54,999
Dolby Audio for
enhanced sound
Xiaomi Mi TV 4X 65 uses Google’s smart TV
platform based on Android. Its 20-watt speak-
ers produce Dolby Audio using advanced
audio formatting and signal processing to
deliver enhanced sound. This (65-inch) TV
has 4K (ultra HD) LED screen with 3840x2160
resolution. Offers multiple connectivity
options through 2 USB ports, 3 HDMI ports,
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LAN/Ethernet and HDMI
ARC. It is designed using 64-bit Quad core
processor, 2GB RAM and 8GB storage for
a great performance. Its special features
include inbuilt apps (Netflix, YouTube,
Hotstar, Prime Video, etc), voice remote to
control through voice commands, screen
casting to show a phone’s screen on TV, and
power saving mode of operation.

Bluetooth headphones Fitness band

With truly satisfying bass Stylish yet useful
Lifestyle tech company Noise, based in Gurugram, is now Vingajoy has launched FitLife 2.0 W-200 smart fitness
retailing its Shots Groove Bluetooth headphones in India band in India through its own website as well as online
via online channels and its own website. The headphones channels in India. It is stylish yet useful with a variety of
feature Bluetooth 5.0 technology and produce accentu- features related to fitness and physical activities. The band
ated low-end frequency response for truly satisfying offers wireless connectivity with smartphones or tablets via
bass. With a lightweight pocket-friendly round case and mobile app called ‘Lefun Health.’
a grip-enhancing rubberised matte finish, Shots Groove It comes with a lithium-ion
have been engineered for no-compromises comfort. The battery providing a backup
snug fitting earbuds are of up to 12 hours. Has
Price super-light and deliver inbuilt heart rate tracker,
` 2,799 up to five hours of play- blood pressure tracker,
time on a single charge, calories counting
with an additional ten feature along with
hours of playback time a pace tracker. This Price
with the case. Shots fitness band, suc- ` 1,399
Groove feature USB cessor to W-100, has
Type C charging, IPX5 a sleek design with
water resistant rating, two colour options for
full touch controls and customers to choose
voice assistant support from: Trendy Blue and
on Android and iOS. Deep Black.

96 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 First Look

iPads Smartphone
Next-generation line-up With 14.5cm
Apple has launched a new generation of Apple iPad Pro line-up in India HD+ display
with iPad Pro 27cm (11-inch) and iPad Pro 32.8 cm (12.9-inch). Each iPad
Pro come with a LiDAR scanner that can measure the distance to surround- HMD Global has unveiled
ing objects up to five metres away, both indoors and outdoors. The iPad Pro Nokia 1.3 Android Go edi-
11-inch comes with a Liquid Retina display with a screen resolution of 2388 tion smartphone which it
x1668 pixels, 600nits brightness, and 264ppi pixel density. The 12.9-inch iPad will sell from early April. It
Pro comes with a 12.9-inch Liquid Retina display with a screen resolution of comes with a 14.47cm (5.7-
2732 x 2047 pixels. The iPads are powered by octa-core A12Z Bionic chipset inch) HD+ display with
along with screen resolution of 1520
M12 motion x720 pixels and 19:9 aspect
co-processor. ratio. Nokia 1.3 is powered
Both come by an octa-core Qualcomm
with a dual- Snapdragon 215 proces-
camera setup sor with Adreno 308 GPU.
Price with a 12MP It is backed by 1GB RAM
11-inch models:
` 71,900 for primary lens and 16GB internal storage.
iPad Pro Wi-Fi;
` 85,900 for the
with f/1.8 The phone comes with a
Wi-Fi + Cellular aperture and a 5MP shooter for selfies and
10MP ultra- video calling and an 8MP
wide lens rear camera with LED flash.
with f/2.4 It is powered by a 3000mAh
aperture. They battery with 5W charging
are equipped support, and it runs on
with five Android 10 Go edition. It
microphones supports 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi,
for calls, video Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, micro-
recordings and USB port and dual-SIM.
four speakers.

Price
Soundbar ` 8,000
(approx.)

With 320-watt sub-woofer

Philips has launched TAPB603 in India, a sleek 3.1-channel Dolby Atmos
soundbar, which it will sell through online and offline retailers. Its most strik-
ing feature is the 320-watt sub-woofer, which can be connected to the sound-
bar wirelessly. The soundbar has three channels that give height and depth to
the sound, and create a virtual 3D surround sound effect. Itcomes with three
HDMI ports with ARC and 4K pass-through. It also has a USB port, an audio-in
input, and an optical input. It supports Bluetooth connectivity.

Price
` 31,990

The prices, features and specifications are based on information provided to us, or as available on various websites and portals. EFY cannot vouch for their accuracy.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 97

 Entertainment

how to protect kids

from risky smart Toys

(Credit: www.woobo.io)
Potshangbam July cautiously and are aware of necessary accordingly, games can be personal-
precautions. Notably, demand for smart ised, which leads to further learning

T
toys in India is increasing considerably, for the child. Besides, artificial intel-
oys and technol- but these are still not comparable with ligence (AI)-enabled toys and apps
ogy do not seem to regular toys. Demand for such smart connected to the Internet can assess
blend well when it toys comes majorly from big cities like the knowledge level of the child and
comes to kids’ toys, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and automatically upgrade to the level
especially connected Hyderabad. suitable for the child.
smart toys. A general notion Most importantly, smart toys
prevails that replacing a real Benefits of smart toys prove to be effective in dealing with
playmate with interactive tech- Smart or connected toys have various kids struggling with intellectual dis-
nology can have behavioural or benefits over normal toys that have abilities. Such children are much
social implications. However, existed for years. These are effective in more receptive to the teaching of
adoption of smart toys is gradu- improving the child’s learning ability and social studies concepts through smart
ally increasing despite negative compel the child to think intelligently toys. They exhibit keenness to learn
views. There is increasing aware- and analytically from a tender age. and communicate with others, too.
ness that benefits these offer These can stir interests in children Basically, smart toys help such kids
outweigh the harm these cause. and engage them in productive ways overcome social barriers and facilitate
Smart toys are educational during playtime. Connected toys are them to learn with much enjoyment.
and interactive in nature, and equipped with built-in motion sensors, Additionally, connected toys allow
help in the intellectual devel- microphones, cameras and speakers parents to track location of their
opment of a child at an early that react to children’s needs by analys- kid(s), and set up alerts for safe and
age. Besides, these improve the ing what they say or ask. These provide unsafe places.
child’s social as well as language answers either through text, or by speak-
skills in an entertaining way. ing to them within seconds by searching Risks associated
As far as security risks are online databases or the Internet. Hi-tech toys can make playtime more
concerned, these can be mitigat- These toys can figure out the child’s interesting and educative. Neverthe-
ed if consumers do their research area of interest or preference over time; less, these are vulnerable to invasive

98 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Entertainment

practices. There are rising concerns hacker’s attempt of exploiting the data
regarding privacy and physical safety collected.
of children. There are claims that smart • Avoid toys that do not require
toys record conversations, which are authentication, such as PIN or pass-
translated and converted to text, and words, when pairing with Bluetooth
personal information is shared with or Wi-Fi. Hackers can gain easy, unau-
third parties. thorised access to data by attacking
Risks are high with toys that are unprotected Bluetooth-connected toys
equipped with such unsecured devices that do not need passwords.
as cameras, speakers, sensors, voice/ • Check if information/data col-
face recognition features, etc. A hacker lected from the toy is stored internally
can easily take a photograph or video or on the cloud. If data is stored on
of children and listen in on conver- the device, then it is safe. When it is
sations without the kids or parents transmitted to external sources, there
having the slightest knowledge about are security risks with involvement of
it. Poorly-protected toys even allow the third parties.
hacker to initiate a conversation with • Last, it is important to figure
children, and children being unable to out if the toy company issues notifica-
distinguish the realistic voice coming tion on latest software and security
from the toy from that of the hacker updates, or whether software is updat-
end up disclosing information the ed automatically. Ideally, updates
hacker intends to extract. should be done on time to protect
Some smart toys also come with devices.
GPS features, as in fitness trackers and
smartphones. These are quite vulner- Market trends
able to revealing user location that Despite vulnerabilities due to security,
increases the threat of kidnapping, the global market has seen significant
predatory stalking and so on. growth of connected toys. As per
In addition, the issue of any unau- reports, the global smart toys market
thorised Bluetooth devices connecting is expected to reach US$ 24.65 billion
to the toy(s) is yet to be solved. Blue- by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 15.5 per
tooth normally requires other devices cent from 2017 to 2025. Positive trends
to be relatively close to share infor- in the market are attributed to increas-
mation. Here, a security issue arises, ing awareness of how technology-led
which allows any device in Bluetooth education plays a crucial role in the
range to connect to the toys/apps, overall development of the child. In
which makes it possible for malicious fact, smart toys are being considered
entities to easily snoop on the activities as the most effective medium for
and conversations of children. developing the mental, physical and
intellectual skills of children.
Security precautions Other favourable factors driv-
Security flaws in connected smart toys ing the market are increasing use of
have sparked concerns that could allow handheld devices like smartphones
strangers to steal kids’ personal infor- and tablets, easy accessibility of the
mation. Here are a few precautions one Internet, growth of app-enabled smart
can take to help protect the privacy and toys and so on.
physical safety of children. Talking about trends in the Indian
• Check the privacy policy of the market, popularity of smart toys is
company on how data collected from growing, which indicates a consider-
the toy is stored and how it will be able positive prospect for the market.
processed or used. It is significant to However, what restrains full-fledged
do research before purchasing to know
whether the company has a clean repu-
growth in the market is the high cost
of smart toys, security issues and a
Read
tation with regards to security. threat of cyber-attacks. Interestingly, Electronics Bazaar
• Determine what kind of data is prominent players in the market are
stored, whether voice messages, facial aiming to expand their presence more
recognition, Internet-use history, etc. It vigorously through online platforms
is crucial to find out if data is encrypt- that will also help to enhance their vis-
ed, as encrypted data will hamper the ibility and gain more consumers.

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 99

 Buyers’ Guide

how to choose basic

consumer electronics
Deepshikha Shukla

W
hat drives
your decision
to buy an
appliance for
your house?
Are you mesmerised by the
fascinating ads or do you know
Vs
your needs? Are you clear with
the criteria you need to check
before going for a particular
model? This article will try to
help you decide how to buy a
few basic appliances that most
people need. It will help you list
the deciding factors for a new Top-load washing machine versus front-load washing machine (Credit: www.bestforyourhome.co.in)
appliance before buying online
or offline. Let us explore four ing is complete, it needs human inter- for a family of four to five, and above
appliances: washing machines, vention to drop clothes in the drying 8kg to 10kg capacity for a family of six
refrigerators, food processors tub. This feature makes the process or more.
and water purifiers. time-consuming, and you are not free to Warranty should be a minimum of
do other jobs. Although it is cheaper than two years on machine and at least ten
Washing machines a fully-automatic machine, the latter has years on the motor. Digital inverter
Let us start with washing a big advantage. You only need to start technology helps conserve energy
machines. Factors to consider the machine, and the rest it does on its because washing machines with this
are as follows: fully-automatic own and indicates by alarm once wash- feature consume power depending
or semi-automatic; top load or ing is done. on load. Machines with inbuilt smart
front load; wash types; price; Top load is a good option for those inverter technology have a longer
family size (wash capacity in who suffer from frequent power cuts. It is lifespan, too. But this feature comes
kgs) and warranty period. easier to use, washes quicker and requires at an added cost.
There are a few standard less maintenance. Whereas, front load
washes that a fully-automatic is gentler on the clothes, can take larger Refrigerators
washing machine must include: loads, cleans better, is more energy- and There are three deciding factors:
daily wear (normal), woolens, water-efficient. However, front-load wash- capacity, frost-free technology and
heavy clothes (jeans or bed- ers are more expensive than top-load inverter compressor (increases lifes-
sheets), wash, rinse, spin, soak ones (there is an approximately ` 10,000 pan of a refrigerator). Frost-free option
and soft wash (light or gentle difference for similar capacity), and seals does not require manual defrosting to
wash). There are other wash require regular wiping down. Also, you remove accumulated ice.
options in high-end models, cannot open these mid-way through a Capacity is measured in litres—the
such as sarees, whites, synthet- cycle. higher the capacity, the higher the
ics, hard water wash and so on. Capacity varies from 5.5kg to 10kg, price. As we move from single-door
A semi-automatic machine and price increases with capacity. Capac- and double-doors to multiple-doors
has two separate tubs for wash- ity of 5.5kg to 6.9kg is sufficient for a and side-by-side doors, capacity also
ing and drying. Once the wash- family of two to three, 7kg to 8kg capacity increases. Floral designs add beauty

100 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 Buyers’ Guide

Vs

Double-door refrigerator versus side-by-side door refrigerator (Credit: www.amazon.in)

and cost to the device. Ideally, capac- because they work without electricity.
ity of 121 to 230 litres is decent for UV-based water purifiers are suit-
single or two people, 231 to 300 litres able for removing micro-organisms,
for three people, 301 to 400 litres for bacteria, viruses and protozoan cysts
four or more people, and over 400 as well.
litres for more than four users. RO-based purifiers also protect
The refrigerator must come with at against such chemicals as lead.
least one-year warranty, and ten-year RO+UV have benefits of both the
warranty on the compressor. technologies and provide complete
Compressor is the main com- purification against physical impuri-
ponent that decides the cooling ties, micro-organisms and chemicals
efficiency and energy rating of the like arsenic.
refrigerator. The refrigerator should Some purifiers come with stor-
be at least two stars—the higher the age capacity, too. UV- and RO-based
energy star rating (2, 3, 4 or 5), the water purifiers utilise electricity to
more efficient the fridge. A 230-litre filter water. Large families or those
refrigerator with the basic configura- who suffer from frequent power cuts
tion of two-star rating, frost-free and can consider a water purifier with a
inverter technology features starts at storage tank.
` 20,000. Price increases with Gravity water purifiers come with
increased star rating and capacity. several filters. Two main filters are
activated carbon and ultra fine (UF).
Water purifiers Activated carbon filter is made from
This is an important household appli- small carbon granules that absorb
ance that helps protect the health impurities and any odour present in
of your family against water-borne water as it passes through.
diseases. There are different types of UF filter, on the other hand, has
water purifiers available in the market, a membrane made of hollow fibres.
but do you know which technology When water passes through this mem-
you should prefer? brane, impurities stick to the hollow
There are four common types fibres.
of water purifiers, namely, gravity, The upper compartment stores
UV (utilises UV rays), RO (reverse tap water, while the lower compart-
osmosis) and RO+UV. Gravity water ment stores purified water and has
purifiers are suitable for removing a dispenser tap. Filters are placed
only physical impurities like mud between the two compartments, so
and particles. These are the cheapest water in the upper compartment is

www.EFYMag.com electronics For You • april 2020 101

 Buyers’ Guide

pulled downwards due stronger machine used to

to gravity and purified. A grind substances into a
micro-fibre mesh is also powdery form. It is com-
present between the two monly used for grinding
compartments and filters cereals, lentils and spices,
to remove larger impurities and can be dry or wet.
before water gets filtered Whether you choose
through activated carbon a food processor, mixer,
or UF filter. grinder or juicer combo,
Price increases from it must have at least four
gravity to UV to RO to jars—one for dry grinding
RO+UV for the same like spices, second for wet
capacity. For the same
technology, price increases
Vs grinding like chutneys,
third for liquidising or
with increase in storage for mixing shakes and
capacity as well. the like, and fourth for
Quantity of total juicing.
dissolved solids (TDS) Gravity water purifier versus RO+UV water purifier (Credit: www. flipkart.com) Wattage defines power
decides the softness and of the motor—the higher
hardness of water. Soft water has TDS the juices to flow free. It is fast, easy the wattage, the heavier the load it can
of 1ppm to 200ppm, and needs UV to assemble/disassemble, affordable sustain. A regular Indian kitchen mixer
or gravity water purifier. Hard water, but noisy, and heat from it potentially can work with a 550W to 600W motor;
which has TDS between 200ppm and reduces juice quality. anything above can become noisy.
3000ppm, needs an RO-based water A cold press juicer makes use of However, you can go for higher watt-
purifier. gears instead of blades, and grinds ages if you have to grind larger quanti-
food instead of slicing it. ties. To grind more than one kilogram
Food processors Juice from a centrifugal juicer of lentils (for batter) in one go, you will
Many people get confused between a stays fresh for lesser time than from need a motor with minimum wattage
grinder, mixer, juicer and food proces- a cold press juicer. Cold press creates of 750W.
sor. How can you choose which one less noise, takes less preparation time rpm is the abbreviated form of
you need? Answer to this question is and there is less food wastage. rotations per minute—the higher the
given below. A mixer mixes various cooking rpm, the more powerful the motor.
Juicers are of three types: cen- ingredients, usually in a semi-liquid This reduces the time required for
trifugal, cold press and electric citrus. state, for example, purees, vegetable processing the ingredients. But,
A centrifugal juicer rotates at a high pastes for making curry and batters for higher rpm can heat up the machine
speed to slice and dice food, allowing cooking. A grinder is a comparatively and make it noisy; anything from
18,000rpm to 23,000rpm is good
enough.
Mixer grinders that have a speed
control knob/switch allow changing
the settings as per requirement. War-
ranty of two to five years is required—
an additional warranty on the motor
is ideal.
The ideal mixer is one that has
overload protection features like a cir-
cuit breaker to stop the appliance. You
can remove some of the load and reset
the switch. Absence of a safety factor
can cause early burnout of the motor.
Make a list of the required features
in your new appliance to make a smart
choice. If you are investing money,
invest in quality. For home appliances
like smart TVs, air-coolers, air-purifi-
ers, microwaves, air-conditioners and
cameras, please refer to our previous
Four-jar mixer, grinder and juicer (Credit: www.paiinternational.in) articles.

102 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com

 advertisers’ index
Client name Page No. Client name Page No. Client name Page No.
Analog Devices International Inc (www.analog.com)...........................11 Hasco Relays & Electronics International Corp.  Poweredge Energie Pvt Ltd............................................................... 107
Bid Ocean Consultancy (www.bidocean.biz)..................................... 106 (www.hascorelays.com)................................................................... 41 Rebutor Electronics Pvt Ltd................................................................. 29
Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd. (www.binayLED.com)...............Gatefold HK Wentworth (India) Pvt Ltd (www.electrolube.in)............................. 21 Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd........................................................ 107
Digi-Key Electronics (www.digikey.in).................................................... 4 Holtek Semiconductor Inc.................................................................... 47 Samwha India Energy Saving............................................................. 13
Dolphin Electronics ........................................................................... 107 IIE Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd. (www.iiespl.com)..................................114 Samwha India Energy Saving............................................................. 13
E Control Devices.............................................................................. 106 India Electronics Week.......................................................................110 Shavison Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.shavison.com)........................... 101
EFY Certified Skill Center.................................................................... 89 LWI Electronics Inc. (www.livewireinfo.com)....................................... 23 Siglent Technologies Co., Ltd.............................................................. 79
EFY Group Publications: Subscription Scheme.................................... 5 Metro Electronics Products................................................................ 105 Sourcewell Devices Private Limited.................................................... 19
Electronics Industry Directory.............................................................. 85 Montu Electronics LLP....................................................................... 107 STMicroelectronics Private Limited (www.st.com)................................. 7
element14 India Pvt Ltd.........................................................Front Cover National Controlling & Equipments.................................................... 107 Technocomm Intruments Pvt Ltd (www.technocommgroup.com)..... 104
Evolute Solutions Pvt Ltd (www.evolute.in)....................................... 103 NMTronics India Pvt Ltd (www.nmtronics.com)................................... 15 Universal Electronic Agencies (www.easternradio.co.in)................... 104
FLIR Systems India Pvt Ltd (www.flir.com).................................. 51, 105 Panasonic India Pvt Ltd (https://industrial.panasonic.com)................. 25 ViscoTec India Private Limited (www.viscotec-india.com)................... 17

Advertisers’ product categories index

Products Page No. Products Page No. Products Page No. Products Page No.
• Batteries & Power Supplies Evolute Solutions Pvt. Ltd.................................. 103 NMTronics India Pvt. Ltd..................................... 15 IIE Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd...............................114

Montu Electronics LLP....................................... 107 Hasco Relays & Electronics ViscoTec India Private Limited ............................ 17 LWI Electronics Inc. ............................................ 23

Rebutor Electronics Pvt Ltd................................. 29 International Corp............................................ 41 • Materials (Including Chemicals & Universal Electronic Agencies .......................... 104

Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd ....................... 107 LWI Electronics Inc. ............................................ 23 Consumables) • Solar Products

Shavison Electronics Pvt. Ltd............................ 101 Samwha India Energy Saving............................. 13 HK Wentworth (India) Pvt Ltd ............................. 21 Poweredge Energie Pvt. Ltd.............................. 107

• Cabinets, Enclosures & Accessories Sourcewell Devices Private Limited ................... 19 • Optics & Optoelectronics • Test & Measurement Equipment

Universal Electronic Agencies .......................... 104 STMicroelectronics Private Limited ...................... 7 Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd...................Gatefold (Including Indicators & Monitors)

• Components (Including Active & Passive) Universal Electronic Agencies .......................... 104 • Reseller and Distributors FLIR Systems India Pvt. Ltd. ...................... 51, 105

Analog Devices International Inc..........................11 • Consumer Electronics & Appliances Digi-Key Electronics ............................................. 4 Holtek Semiconductor Inc.................................... 47

Digi-Key Electronics ............................................. 4 Panasonic India Pvt. Ltd...................................... 25 element14 India Pvt Ltd ....................... Front Cover Metro Electronics Products ............................... 105

Dolphin Electronics ........................................... 107 • Industrial & Manufacturing Equipment Hasco Relays & Electronics Siglent Technologies Co., Ltd.............................. 79

element14 India Pvt Ltd ....................... Front Cover National Controlling & Equipments.................... 107 International Corp............................................ 41 Technocomm Intruments Pvt Ltd....................... 104

EFY Magazine Attractions During 2020

Month Theme/Focus Areas Artificial Intelligence Tech Focus eStyle Buyers’ Guide MARKET SURVEY
January Anniversary Issue/ AI for Smart Home and Smart Smart Consumers Driving Smart Laptops Priced Under ` 25k Growth of Electronics R&D
Tech Trends City Industries Segment in India
February Augmented and Extended AI for News, Publishing and AR-Based Solutions for Top AR and VR Headsets Market Ratio for AR and VR
Reality Writing Businesses
March Automotive and Electric AI in Logistics and Intelligent Transportation and Mobil- Top Solar-Powered Vehicles Automotive versus EV
Vehicles Transportation ity Systems
April Healthcare AI in Telemedicine and Role of Data Analytics in Healthcare AI-Based Healtcare Equipment Role of Wearables
Telehealth for Hospitals
May Quantum Computing AI for Manufacturing High-Performance Computing - Top Quantam Computing Platforms Edge and Cloud Computing
QuantumComputing for 2020
June Drones and Quadcopters AI and Hybrid Drones AI in Surveillance and Security Upcoming Drones for Industry Drones in Delivery and
Manufacturing Logistics
July Strategic Electronics AI for Military Operations AI and ML to Enhance the Powerful Smartphones with Signal Processing in
Performance of Semiconductors and Powerful Batteries and Processors Communication
Electronics
August Education and Skill AI in Education Industry Technologies in Education and Skill Cutting-Edge Gadgets Making Schools Electronics in Education and Skill
Development Development and Classrooms Smarter Development
September AI, Robotics and Cobots AI in Humanoid Robots Exoskeletons for Healthcare Top AI-Powered Speakers Industrial Automation Through Robots
Under ` 15k and Cobots
October Renewable Energy AI in Fighting Global Climate Electricity from Snow, Plastic Top Solar and Wind Power Panels Transition from Conventional to
Change and Any Other Raw Materials (Other Renewable Sources of Energy
Than Water and Solar)
November Bots and Conversational Apps AI in Customer Service Industry Robotic Process Automation Top Free Bots and Conversational Apps Chatbots Prospects in Businesses
December Blockchain AI and Blockchain - A Perfect Blockchain for Travel and Tourism Top Antivirus Software for Malware Database Management with
Match Blockchain
In addition, there will be regular series every month on subjects such as: Plus, subjects such as the following will be covered more or less in each issue:
 Smart World  Do-It-Yourself  eStyle  Automation
 Test & Measurement  Market Survey  New Products  Healthcare
 Design/R&D  Startup Zone  Tech News  The Internet of Things (IoT)
 Artificial Intelligence  Interviews  Industry News  Wireless/5G

108 april 2020 • electronics For You www.EFYMag.com