DSCF7791_1

Author Archives: Alun Williams

Moon bound spacecraft could use GPS satellites for navigation

August 10, 2015

Moon bound spacecraft could GPS satellites for navigtation

Moon bound spacecraft could GPS satellites for navigtation

It seems spacecraft on their way to the moon could use signals from GPS satellites on the distant side of Earth to navigate. Jacon Aron reports.

At the next space station, turn left. Efforts to repurpose GPS and other navigation satellites to help spacecraft reach the moon are under way, and could bring about an increase in lunar-bound traffic.

You can’t just point your rocket at the moon and be sure of getting there in one piece – you need to navigate. “It’s not possible to predict the trajectory accurately,” says Vincenzo Capuano of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. “That’s why you need to know where the spacecraft is.”

Currently, spacecraft communicate with tracking stations on Earth, such as NASA’s Deep Space Network, to monitor their positions. But these large radio antenna facilities are expensive to run, and there are a limited number dotted around the planet. If we’re ever going to send spacecraft to the moon on a regular basis, we’ll need a more autonomous system.

Enter GPS. Some spacecraft in low Earth orbit, around the level of the International Space Station, already use GPS to navigate, but missions to the moon fly well above the GPS satellites. That’s a problem, since the transmitters point down, towards Earth.

Now Capuano and his colleagues have figured out that spacecraft on their way to the moon could use signals from GPS satellites on the distant side of Earth to navigate. The signal is much weaker, but they’ve calculated that combining signals from US GPS satellites with those from Galileo, a European navigation system currently under construction, would be enough for a lunar trip. “You would save a lot of money because you don’t need a lot of people working in the ground stations,” says Capuano.

The team is also developing more powerful GPS receivers to pick up this weaker signal, which could in turn have benefits on Earth – standard smartphone receivers struggle to get a location inside buildings or other built-up areas, so new devices could mean better navigation.

Journal reference: Acta Astronautica, DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2015.06.007

Syndicated content: Jacob Aron, New Scientist

Image: NASA ISS

Interview: Manufacturing a million Micro:bits

An interview with Richard Curtin – senior director, strategic alliance, at element14 – the man responsible for manufacturing a million BBC Micro:bits, within a few months.

The BBC Micro:bit initiative involves more than twenty partners – including ARM, Microsoft, Freescale, Nordic Semiconductor, Samsung – and the company responsible for sourcing components and managing the manufacturing is element14.

BBC Micro:bit - one million are to be manufactured for October

BBC Micro:bit – one million are to be manufactured for October

For those not aware of the project, which launched last month, it involves about one million of the programmable devices being given free to all Year 7 children in the UK (11- to 12-year-olds) by late October (an online simulator, to help teachers get to grips with it, will be available in September).

Element14 became involved in the project – on a not-for-profit basis – as a result of its existing relationships with many of the partners, Curtin told Electronics Weekly.

“Our previous engagement with ARM, Microsoft and Samsung meant they knew our capabilities and that they’d fit well with the requirements of the [strategic alliance] group.”

Another important factor was its experience of design and manufacturing for the Raspberry Pi, he said. Both projects – and others, such as its work with the BeagleBone Black – draw on its earlier investment in the third-party manufacturing and design centres of Embest, in Shenzhen and Avid, in Ohio.

In an update on the progress of Micro:bit manufacturing he said things were still on schedule. It seems the Micro:bit is on course to hit its milestones. “Everything is going to plan, from a supply chain and capacity planning perspective.” He was quietly confident, he said.

What is involved in the manufacturing process?

Curtin said a team is deployed inside element14 to drive the Micro:bit project, with engineers in the UK also providing support to funnel the design to the related team in China, at Embest. This has made final optimisations of the design, within the specs, in terms of volume manufacturing and costs.

Element14 is basically providing value-added engineering around the final optimisation of the design, he said.

Micro Bit launch at the BBC

Micro Bit launch at the BBC

Curtin outlined the tight parameters for delivering the BBC Micro:bit, in terms of agreeing designs and cost constraints. Not only were a large number of software and hardware partners involved, but the aim was to deliver the Micro:bits in October, within a few months. Also there was no flexibility on cost – funding was capped to the companies’ existing contributions, made from their corporate or social responsibility budgets.

All the parties involved have worked on a not-for-profit basis, but Curtin also pointed out that all the Nordic Semiconductor Bluetooth chips and Freescale MCUs were given free by their companies, a considerable outlay in itself.

Basically, he said, element14 was a conduit between the diverse range of partners and the manufacturing teams in China, from the design optimisation carried out by Embest to the contract manufacturer IONote Electronics.

Final design lock down

Some examples where the final design has had to be tweaked and optimised? Curtin mentioned choices around the 25-LED grid on the Micro:bit, where there has been a trade-off between high-brightness and high-cost LEDs against more standard, cheaper alternatives.

Another was the battery-holder, where pricing issues also had to accommodate meeting the requirements of legislation and electronics directives.

“The very final design is now locked down”, he said, “and we’ve moved into volume production. The supply chain is kicked off. There will be no material changes to the spec between now and October.”

Raspberry Pi - manufactured in the UK at Pencoed

Raspberry Pi – manufactured in the UK at Pencoed

Note that we are talking about the initial version of the device. The BBC has plans to license Micro:bit technology to make it commercially available to the wider public. Changes to the spec are like to happen then, as lessons are learned and technologies evolve.

Micro:bit specific issues

What are the manufacturing challenges specific to the Micro:bit, Electronics Weekly asked? The project involves 25-30 active partners all adding value from their different perspectives, Curtin said. Aligning them with the final specification and testing was a challenge, combined with the locked-in production dates necessary to meet the declared deadlines. A lot of interdependencies were involved.

It was interesting, he said, to see an early delineation of the various partners between software and hardware which resolved impressively into a more unified view of the project. By the end they were all seeing the Micro:bit as a multi-purpose “solution”, rather than its constituent parts.

Bring it back home?

Electronics Weekly had to ask whether, following the example of the Raspberry Pi, manufacturing of Micro:bits could be brought to the UK.

Broadly speaking, the answer was that in this initial phase, with strict deadlines and cost limitations to deliver a million units, that wasn’t feasible. But nothing was ruled out for the future when the Micro:bit is planned to become more widely available.

Richard Curtin, Senior Director Strategic Alliance, element14

Richard Curtin, element14

Curtin said that element14 was certainly not against bringing manufacturing of the Micro:bit to the UK.

Many links in the supply chain

The parties involved in the manufacturing (and delivery) process, working with element14 are:

Embest, a wholly-owned subsidiary specialising in embedded design, based in Shenzen in China and employing around 100 design engineers.
IONote Electronics in Guangdong, China is the contract manufacturer actually producing the product.
ScienceScope is responsible for the final packaging and distribution of BBC Micro:bits to the schools network.

We wish them and all the other parties involved in making the delivery of the Micro:bits a reality the best of success!

Richard Curtin is senior director, strategic alliance, at element14

Sensors powered by energy harvesting key to IoT success

The internet of things relies on getting good quality sensor data at the right time in the right format, which is why energy harvesting wireless sensors are of special interest, writes Matthias Kassner

In the Sauter ecoUnit wireless room operating unit, a temperature sensor powered by a solar cell has enabled increased comfort with significantly reduced energy consumption

In the Sauter ecoUnit wireless room operating unit, a temperature sensor powered by a solar cell has enabled increased comfort with significantly reduced energy consumption

Energy harvesting wireless sensors have sparked a dramatic rise in interest, since they represent a reliable and easy‑to‑install technology that delivers the essential input data on which the whole internet of things (IoT) model depends. Creating a sensor node that handles the essential data capture, processing and transmission with the minimal energy that can be harvested from the environment is a challenge.

There are three key tasks in energy harvesting wireless sensors: generating (harvesting) the required energy, sensing and processing environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, position) and wirelessly transmitting the collected information. All three tasks need to be optimised together to provide viable solutions.

Energy-efficient system design

The most common forms of energy harvested by IoT sensors are kinetic, solar and thermal (see box, opposite).
All three harvesting technologies provide comparatively small amounts of energy (typically in the microampere range). Power-optimised system design is therefore essential to enable wireless sensors based on these energy sources.

Three main tasks define the power budget of a wireless sensor node – sensor measurement, wireless transmission and idle (inactive) state. System design must balance the harvested energy with the power requirements of these tasks.

This balance can be established in two directions – either the system functionality (and hence the required power) is fixed and the harvester is scaled, or the energy delivery of the harvester is fixed and the system functionality needs to be optimised. The second case is the more common one.

The functionality described in this article has been implemented in the EnOcean STM 330 energy harvesting temperature sensor which can be extended with the HSM 100 humidity sensor

The functionality described in this article has been implemented in the EnOcean STM 330 energy harvesting temperature sensor which can be extended with the HSM 100 humidity sensor

To illustrate the requirements, consider the case of a solar-based room control unit. Its main tasks are to measure temperature and humidity in a room and compare them with user-defined set points (usually target temperature only, sometimes also target humidity).

The available energy budget is limited by the available size for the solar cell (say 5cm2) and the expected minimum illumination level (200Lux for six hours).

Considering the typical performance of standard indoor solar cells, this means that we need to design the sensor system to consume less than 1µA average current.

For simplicity’s sake we will subsequently calculate based on average current under the assumption that the supply voltage is fixed to 3V. To assess the functionality boundaries, we will initially allocate the available energy equally over the three main tasks giving about 300nA of average current each for sensing, wireless transmission and sleep/power loss.

An optimised temperature and humidity sensing implementation would require the equivalent of approximately 1mA current for a period of 10ms for sensor operation, data exchange between sensor and processor (via I2C or a similar bus) and initial data processing. We can then calculate the maximum number of measurements per day by comparing the available energy per day (300nA x 86.4s) with the required energy per measurement (1mA x 10ms) and find that the initial energy budget would allow for 2,592 measurements per day.

Considering that temperature and humidity change only slowly and that we need to conserve energy, we set a rate of one measurement per minute (1,440 per day).

Moving to the radio transmission, we assume an average current of 25mA for formatting and transmission of data at a rate of 125kbit/s. Based on the available power budget and the required transmission current we calculate the total possible transmission time per day which equals just over one second (or 125,000 bits/15,625 bytes) per day.

Putting this in relation to the possible number of measurements, we can identify a key constraint of energy harvesting wireless sensors – the radio protocol must be optimised for minimum size. We would need to limit the total telegram length to 10 bytes in order to transmit each measurement result in one radio telegram.

From this, it is clear that both the radio protocol and the amount of transmission need to be optimised.

Energy-optimised protocols

The payload associated with sensors is often small (a few bytes), therefore an optimised protocol must limit the transmission overhead (frame control, preamble, synchronisation, error checking) as much as possible while maintaining highly reliable communication.

Standard IP protocol (UDP over IPv6) requires more than 50 bytes of overhead; therefore native IPv6 communication is usually not possible in energy harvesting sensor applications. The power optimised ISO/IEC 14543-3-1X protocol, in contrast, requires only 12 bytes in total for the transmission of 1 byte of sensor data. Using such protocol in conjunction with an intelligent transmission strategy (transmission of significant changes only) enables even use of redundant sub-telegrams to increase transmission reliability.

Minimising sleep losses

Energy harvesting wireless sensors must be in an ultra-low power sleep state for more than 99.99% of the time. Minimising power consumption in this state is therefore absolutely essential.

Considering our design example, we have a total budget of 300nA which needs to cover processor consumption in sleep mode (with the ability for timer-based periodic wake-up) as well as losses due to leakage in the energy store.

Such a low level of power consumption is difficult to achieve, even with the latest processors, and is probably the biggest design challenge. Custom mixed-signal designs and optimised system architecture are required to address these challenges.

From wired proximity to wireless

Today, input data for the IoT is often provided by wired sensors that are locally connected to controllers and actuators.
Here, all network components are in close proximity and directly connected with each other.

This approach is well suited to local applications with limited flexibility needs where data reuse is not required.

The internet of things, in contrast, no longer requires such proximity. It allows centralised or even cloud-based data processing.
Thus, the same data can be used for several applications, driving down infrastructure cost and allowing dynamic network structures.

All of these characteristics require a second cloud, consisting of sensor and actuator nodes that can be deployed and expanded flexibly.

Nodes that use minimal energy, which they harvest from their surroundings, provide a fit-and-forget solution – they can be installed in the most inaccessible locations and relied upon to execute their task with minimal maintenance or attention.

Technologies for harvesting energy

Energy can be harvested from different sources; the most commonly used are:

Kinetic energy – Kinetic energy in different forms (lateral movement, rotation or vibration) has long been used to generate electrical energy using electromagnetic or piezoelectric harvesters. For most applications, the electromagnetic energy harvester is the better choice as it provides a more stable energy output at a longer life cycle without ageing effects. These harvesters generally work by changing the magnetic flux through a coil either by moving a magnet relative to the coil or by changing the flux polarity. This type of kinetic energy harvesting is the technology of choice for mechanical switches and similar applications.
Solar energy – Many sensor applications are powered by miniaturised solar cells. They are well suited for applications with sufficient illumination (indoor or outdoor) and often used for sensor applications such as temperature, humidity, illumination or CO2 sensors. Energy delivery can be scaled by adjusting the size of the solar cell based on the available space set by the application.
Thermal energy – Temperature differences can be used to generate energy based on Peltier elements. The standard application for these elements is to cool an area (such as a cooling box) when electrical energy is applied. The reverse effect – generating energy based on temperature differences – is used for thermal harvesting. The output voltage of Peltier elements depends on the temperature difference and is typically very small (20mV for °C temperature difference). Specialised electronics is therefore required to utilise this energy.

Matthias Kassner is product marketing director at EnOcean

NTSB concludes Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash review

Virgin Galactic SpaceshipTwo

Virgin Galactic SpaceshipTwo

Human error, not mechanical fault, caused the crash of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo last October, a review has concluded. But the companies behind the craft and the regulator that approved its flight are not off the hook.

The crash was a result of co-pilot Michael Alsbury unlocking the spacecraft’s descent system too early, according to a review conducted by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and published on Tuesday.

But Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, which built the craft, did not do enough to mitigate the risks of this occurring, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which issues commercial spaceflight permits, did not pick up on their oversight, the review concludes.

Alsbury was killed in the crash, while pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured. “We cannot undo what happened, but it is our hope that through this investigation we will find ways to prevent this from happening again,” said NTSB chairman Christopher Hart during an NTSB board meeting in Washington DC earlier today.

Feather wings

SpaceShipTwo is a sub-orbital vehicle designed for tourist flights to the edge of space. As it descends back to Earth, its “feather” wings are meant to rotate upwards to provide drag and slow the craft. Initial analysis of video from the cockpit showed Alsbury unlocking SpaceShipTwo’s wings prior to the crash as it was travelling at 0.92 Mach, just below the speed of sound, not at 1.4 Mach as intended. This meant the wings extended too early and were subject to extreme stress that ultimately led to the break-up of the spacecraft.

So why did Alsbury unlock the wings at the wrong time? The NTSB pointed to a number of contributing factors. Scaled Composites’ hazard analysis did not consider the possibility that pilots would make a mistake during normal flight, only that they might take the wrong action in response to an issue with the vehicle. As such, there were no warnings or limitations on the spacecraft controls to prevent early unlocking.

In May 2013, the FAA told Scaled Composites that it had concerns that its hazard analysis did not meet the requirements for an experimental flight permit. But a few months later, in July 2013, the FAA issued a waiver for these requirements and granted the permit. The NTSB’s investigation found that Scaled Composites did not request this waiver, and some FAA inspectors were unfamiliar with SpaceShipTwo and thought that the requirements had been met.

Virgin Galactic, which has since taken over full responsibility for the vehicle from Scaled Composites, has now modified the spacecraft to prevent the wings from unlocking too early. The company has also modified the flight checklist to warn against unlocking at the wrong time and says that it will post copies of its own submission to the NTSB online later today. “We thank the @NTSB for their professionalism, expertise, and insight, and we welcome the results of their investigation,” said the company in a tweet.

The NTSB proposed eight safety recommendations for the FAA to improve its review processes, including that it should work with private space firms before they start designing their vehicles, not just before they fly, and gave similar recommendations to the spaceflight industry. “Hundreds of people whose only qualification for spaceflight is their ability to purchase a ticket await the opportunity to go into space,” said Hart. “For such flights to proceed safely, commercial space transportation must continue to evolve and mature.”

Syndicated content: Jacob Aron, New Scientist

See also: Firms must explore new aerospace business

See also: Space: Virgin Galactic ship tests its feathering

NTSB concludes Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash review

Virgin Galactic SpaceshipTwo

Virgin Galactic SpaceshipTwo

Human error, not mechanical fault, caused the crash of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo last October, a review has concluded. But the companies behind the craft and the regulator that approved its flight are not off the hook.

The crash was a result of co-pilot Michael Alsbury unlocking the spacecraft’s descent system too early, according to a review conducted by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and published on Tuesday.

But Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, which built the craft, did not do enough to mitigate the risks of this occurring, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which issues commercial spaceflight permits, did not pick up on their oversight, the review concludes.

Alsbury was killed in the crash, while pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured. “We cannot undo what happened, but it is our hope that through this investigation we will find ways to prevent this from happening again,” said NTSB chairman Christopher Hart during an NTSB board meeting in Washington DC earlier today.

Feather wings

SpaceShipTwo is a sub-orbital vehicle designed for tourist flights to the edge of space. As it descends back to Earth, its “feather” wings are meant to rotate upwards to provide drag and slow the craft. Initial analysis of video from the cockpit showed Alsbury unlocking SpaceShipTwo’s wings prior to the crash as it was travelling at 0.92 Mach, just below the speed of sound, not at 1.4 Mach as intended. This meant the wings extended too early and were subject to extreme stress that ultimately led to the break-up of the spacecraft.

So why did Alsbury unlock the wings at the wrong time? The NTSB pointed to a number of contributing factors. Scaled Composites’ hazard analysis did not consider the possibility that pilots would make a mistake during normal flight, only that they might take the wrong action in response to an issue with the vehicle. As such, there were no warnings or limitations on the spacecraft controls to prevent early unlocking.

In May 2013, the FAA told Scaled Composites that it had concerns that its hazard analysis did not meet the requirements for an experimental flight permit. But a few months later, in July 2013, the FAA issued a waiver for these requirements and granted the permit. The NTSB’s investigation found that Scaled Composites did not request this waiver, and some FAA inspectors were unfamiliar with SpaceShipTwo and thought that the requirements had been met.

Virgin Galactic, which has since taken over full responsibility for the vehicle from Scaled Composites, has now modified the spacecraft to prevent the wings from unlocking too early. The company has also modified the flight checklist to warn against unlocking at the wrong time and says that it will post copies of its own submission to the NTSB online later today. “We thank the @NTSB for their professionalism, expertise, and insight, and we welcome the results of their investigation,” said the company in a tweet.

The NTSB proposed eight safety recommendations for the FAA to improve its review processes, including that it should work with private space firms before they start designing their vehicles, not just before they fly, and gave similar recommendations to the spaceflight industry. “Hundreds of people whose only qualification for spaceflight is their ability to purchase a ticket await the opportunity to go into space,” said Hart. “For such flights to proceed safely, commercial space transportation must continue to evolve and mature.”

Syndicated content: Jacob Aron, New Scientist

See also: Firms must explore new aerospace business

See also: Space: Virgin Galactic ship tests its feathering

Wize Mirror reads back vital signs

Wize Mirror

Wize Mirror

Mirror mirror on the wall, am I at risk of heart disease? One day soon your mirror might actually be able to give you the answer.

Wize Mirror looks like a mirror, but incorporates 3D scanners, multispectral cameras and gas sensors to assess the health of someone looking into it. It does this by examining the person’s face, looking at fatty tissue, facial expressions and how flushed or pale they are.

Facial recognition software looks for telltale markers of stress or anxiety, while the gas sensors take samples of the user’s breath looking for compounds that give an indication of how much they drink or smoke. The 3D scanners analyse face shape to spot weight gain or loss, while the multispectral cameras can estimate heart rate or haemoglobin levels.

After the software has analysed the face – which only takes about a minute – the mirror produces a score that tells the user how healthy they seem. It also displays personalised advice on how to improve their health.

Wize Mirror is being developed by a consortium of researchers and industry partners from seven European Union countries, with EU funding. Sara Colantonio and colleagues from the National Research Council of Italy, which coordinates the project, want to use Wize Mirror to address common long-term health issues that are difficult to treat once something has already gone wrong, like heart disease or diabetes.

“Prevention is the most viable approach to reduce the socio-economic burden of chronic and widespread diseases, such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases,” they write.

Clinical trials of the device will begin next year at three sites in France and Italy, aiming to compare its readings with those from traditional medical devices.

Facing the consumer

Consumer technology that can read signals from the body to interpret underlying physical and mental health is on the cusp of becoming part of everyday life. For example, Cardiio, originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an app that uses a smartphone’s camera to monitor blood levels in the face and tell you your heart rate.

At MIT’s Media Lab, Javier Hernandez has looked at using mirrors for health monitoring. He also developed a program called SenseGlass, which uses Google Glass and other wearables to measure someone’s mood and help them manage emotions.

Hernandez says that although mirrors are great for health monitoring because we use them every day, putting them to use in this way is trickier than it sounds. “Accurate health assessments in natural settings are quite challenging due to many factors such as illumination changes, occlusions and excessive motion,” he says.

Journal reference: Biosystems Engineering, DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2015.06.008

Interview: Making the BBC Micro:bit Bluetooth Smart

Martin Woolley, Bluetooth SIG Technical Program Manager

Martin Woolley, Bluetooth SIG Technical Program Manager

Bluetooth Smart is a key element of the Micro:bit, the BBC’s much heralded educational computing device aimed at Year 7 children in the UK. Electronics Weekly talks to Martin Woolley, Bluetooth SIG Technical Program Manager, who led the work around Bluetooth, including creating a specific Micro:bit Bluetooth Profile…

Q: You must be pleased with the launch of the BBC Micro:bit and its embracing of Bluetooth Smart?

A: Absolutely. One million UK school kids will be receiving a BBC Micro:bit and for many of them this will give them their first taste of coding and of Bluetooth Smart too. We’re really excited about this!

Q: Being an educational initiative, everyone must wish it well and hope it makes an impact on the UK?

A: I should think so, yes. The word “strategic” gets bandied around a lot these days but the whole SIG believes this is one occasion where it’s right and proper to use it. We really think that this is an initiative that has strategic significance for the UK and it will hopefully help plug our apparent skills gap and pave the way for a new generation to embrace and drive forwards the Internet of Things.

I trace my career back to the day my form teacher brought a Commodore Pet microcomputer into school one day and right there and then a geek was born! I’m certain in the future we’ll hear young, British technology leaders saying that they first got interested in technology when they were given a BBC Micro:bit at school.

Micro:bit Collaboration

Q: To what extent was the Bluetooth SIG involved in the design?

A: We designed a Bluetooth Smart profile specifically for the BBC Micro:bit so it can be used “out of the box” right away. It’s an important part of the overall blend of technologies that make up the Micro:bit since it’s the part that enables the Micro:bit to communicate and connect to other Micro:bits, devices, phones, tablets, cameras and everyday objects all around.

Q: Was it just you, or a team?

A: It was a team covering various aspects of the project. I designed the profile in consultation with other Micro:bit partners, through a series of face to face workshops which the BBC ran. Others from the Bluetooth SIG took care of things like contracts, Bluetooth SIG membership and the process of getting the Micro:bit through the qualification and listing process.

The BBC Micro:bit, front and back

The BBC Micro:bit, front and back

Q: Who exactly did you work with? Samsung? Lancaster University?

A: Samsung, ARM and Lancaster University. And the BBC of course. From the very first meeting I was really impressed by the atmosphere of complete positivity and collaboration from all concerned. The BBC pulled together a fantastic team.

Q: You say you created a custom Bluetooth Smart profile specifically for the Micro Bit…

A: Yes, that’s right. The Micro:bit has its own particular set of capabilities and use cases envisaged for it which suggested from the start that it should have its own unique profile. The profile design was partly informed by the basic hardware features which the Micro:bit has and partly by considering the kinds of applications that people might want to use it for.

On the one hand there are Bluetooth GATT services that very obviously reflect fundamental device features, such as an Accelerometer Service and a Magnetometer Service that allows connected applications to exploit motion and directional data over Bluetooth Smart.

On the other hand, there’s a really flexible Event Service which allows bidirectional communication of various types of events between the Micro:bit and, for example, a smartphone. Either party can specify the type of events they are interested in being notified about through this service too.

For example, code running on the Micro:bit can indicate that it would like to be informed whenever the smart phone receives a phone call or incoming SMS message. When either of these events occurs, the smart phone application can use the same GATT service to tell the Micro:bit about the event and then the Micro:bit will do whatever it was programmed to do. We’re expecting the grid of 25 LEDs to get a lot of use in situations like this!

Q: Did you walk your own talk and use Bluetooth Developer Studio?

A: We most certainly did! Bluetooth Developer Studio is a new, free of charge tool for developers from the Bluetooth SIG which is currently in beta. It’s a profile design tool, a testing workbench and a code generator which can generate code for any number of target platforms including alternate Bluetooth Smart chips and their associated SDKs and smartphone platforms too.

The Micro:bit launch at the BBC

The Micro:bit launch at the BBC

I used the tool’s profile designer capability (which has a really nice drag-and-drop GUI, by the way) to design the first incarnation of the profile and then modify it as we completed the workshops and the requirements and ideas stabilised. With a couple of plugins created for the tool , we could also generate HTML reports detailing the profile design at various levels. These were circulated amongst the team for review when we weren’t physically in the same place. We’ll release those plugins for use by anyone – one of the benefits of Bluetooth Developer Studio is that it gives developers a chance to share their implementations with the larger Bluetooth developer community.

The BBC Micro:bit has a Nordic nRF51 Bluetooth Smart stack and this is one of the platforms supported in the beta version of Bluetooth Developer Studio. In a matter of days we generated code and handed it to Lancaster University who have developed the runtime firmware for the Micro:bit.

Micro:bit Bluetooth Smart profile

Q: I know it is possible to customise profiles, but many use-cases are in existence. Why was a new profile needed?

A: A Bluetooth Smart profile consists of a collection of Bluetooth GATT Services, each of which consists of one or more ‘Characteristics’, each of which will have zero or more ‘Descriptors’. So these are the fundamental building blocks of a profile. There are adopted services already designed by the Bluetooth SIG which support some of the use cases and where appropriate, those standard services were included in the Micro:bit. For example the Battery Service and Device Information Service are both included in the profile.

In other cases like the “incoming phone call” use case mentioned previously, we needed something completely new just for the BBC Micro:bit. That said, it’s worth pointing out that the Micro:bit is completely programmable and so we hope that kids will learn enough about Bluetooth Smart and the underlying technicalities like GATT, wipe our profile off the device and replace it with their own! That would be a pretty healthy sign of success from our point of view.

Q: Can you give specific examples of functionality supported, and thus possible apps?

A: The full specification of the Micro:bit was announced by the BBC at their recent launch event and the Bluetooth profile provides access to the key hardware features such as the buttons, accelerometer, magnetometer, pins and LEDs. The Micro:bit is completely programmable though and so the profile could well be replaced by more enterprising kids with a different one.

BBC Micro:bit side-on

BBC Micro:bit side-on

The sky’s the limit really. We’ve seen and heard about all sorts of applications already. At the launch event alone there was a Flappy Bird-esque game you could remote control using the Micro:bit buttons. Micro:bits were also being used to trigger the taking of selfies with a smartphone, a remote control truck was being controlled using the Micro:bit accelerometer and apparently one enterprising and creative young developer put together ‘the story of pizza’ using the LED display!

Q: How is a profile actually expressed, if I wanted to create my own custom profile? Is it via XML?

A: If you use Bluetooth Developer Studio you work with an intuitive drag and drop GUI. Behind the scenes we use XML to represent the profile and its constituent parts – the services, characteristics and descriptors. When you generate code that will implement your profile on a particular target platform, you’re generating source code for a particular SDK and each SDK represents a profile in its own way. Some use XML, some use JSON and some require you to build an in-memory description of the profile at run-time by making calls to library functions from your firmware.

Bluetooth Developer Studio goes a long way to protecting you from these variations since you’re working in a platform agnostic way during the design phase and the code generation process takes care of platform variations for you.

Q: Where and how does this get built or compiled?

A: After generating source code from Bluetooth Developer Studio you switch into the native tool chain for the target platform. Doing this is often as simple as double clicking on one of the generated files and watching as the appropriate development tool launches and imports the generated code. It’s here that you make any final, manual adjustments to the code and then build it and flash it to your device.

Once it’s been flashed you can then return to Bluetooth Developer Studio and use the testing workbench to run test scripts against your device, communicating with it using Bluetooth Smart via a dongle plugged into your PC.

Q: Can we all view this Micro Bit profile? Is it publicly documented in any way – alongside the Current Time Service or Blood Pressure Service, for example?

A: It’s not available externally at the moment. We are in discussions with the BBC and the details with other resources relating to the Micro:bit may be released when the time comes.

The future

Q: Getting back to the Micro Bit specifically, what do you feel it brings to the party that wasn’t there before, with the Raspberry Pi or LittleBits or SAM Blocks, for example?

A: The BBC Micro:bit will complement other devices like the wonderful Raspberry Pi (I have two!) and the SIG is sure we’ll see some fantastic creations involving both devices working together coming out of classrooms. The Raspberry Pi is a full blown Linux computer with a traditional screen, keyboard and mouse whereas the Micro:bit is a simpler device with its LED grid and two buttons.

We’ll have to see how kids respond to the Micro:bit and the various tools being created for it but the expectation the BBC has is that the Micro:bit will make it easy for kids to produce exciting and educational results very quickly. It’s also wearable and very small so there are bound to be some great ideas that take advantage of these aspects. With its motion detector and Bluetooth Smart profile, never again will big brother/sister be able to sneak into a younger, Micro:bit owning sibling’s bedroom undetected again!

Q: Any prediction on how it will fare? Or even what sort of apps will emerge, any particular trends?

A: The SIG is hoping that this will be a huge success – the sort of apps that emerge is limited only by the imagination of the kids in the country’s classrooms. The main trend that we’re wanting to see emerge is the growth of a new generation of digital pioneers who will one day take the IoT into exciting new directions. It may be a few years before this is proven true!

Q: Thank you for your time. Let’s hope the project gets the success it deserves – a lot of people have put a lot of effort into it, I know. One to tell the grand-kids about, that you were involved?

A: I’m not quite ready for grand-kids yet – let’s not give my kids ideas, if you don’t mind! But yes, we hope this will be something to look back fondly upon and more importantly, something which energises Britain’s development of the country’s Internet of Things economy.

Nao robot passes self-awareness test

Nao robot passes self-awareness test

Nao robot passes self-awareness test

In a robotics lab on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, New York, three small humanoid robots have a conundrum to solve.

They are told that two of them have been given a “dumbing pill” that stops them talking. In reality the push of a button has silenced them, but none of them knows which one is still able to speak. That’s what they have to work out.

Unable to solve the problem, the robots all attempt to say “I don’t know”. But only one of them makes any noise. Hearing its own robotic voice, it understands that it cannot have been silenced. “Sorry, I know now! I was able to prove that I was not given a dumbing pill,” it says. It then writes a formal mathematical proof and saves it to its memory to prove it has understood.

This is the first time a robot has passed a classic test called the wise-men puzzle. It sounds like a simple test and it is, hardly scaling the foothills of consciousness. But showing that robots – in this case, off-the-shelf Nao models – can tackle logical puzzles requiring an element of self-awareness is an important step towards building machines that understand their place in the world.

Selmer Bringsjord of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, who ran the test, says that by passing many tests of this kind – however narrow – robots will build up a repertoire of abilities that start to become useful. Instead of agonising over whether machines can ever be conscious like humans, he aims to demonstrate specific, limited examples of consciousness.

“They try to find some interesting philosophical problem, then engineer a robot that can solve that problem,” says John Sullins, a philosopher of technology at Sonoma State University. “They’re barking up the right tree.”

The work, which will be presented at the RO-MAN conference in Kobe, Japan, next month, highlights the murky waters of artificial consciousness. The wise-men test requires some very human traits.

The robots must be able to listen to and understand the question “which pill did you receive?”, as asked by a human. They must then hear their own voice saying “I don’t know” and understand that it was they that said it, connecting that with the idea that they did not receive a silencing pill.

Bringsjord’s robots may appear conscious in this specific case, assessing their own state and coming to a conclusion. But the broader, deeper intelligence that we humans have is completely missing. The Nao robots can pass the wise-man test but wouldn’t have a hope of recognising their own feet.

Bringsjord says one reason robots can’t have broader consciousness is that they just can’t crunch enough data. Even though cameras can capture more data about a scene than the human eye, roboticists are at a loss as to how to stitch all that information together to build a cohesive picture of the world.

The test also shines light on what it means for humans to be conscious. What robots can never have, which humans have, argues Bringsjord, is phenomenological consciousness: “the first-hand experience of conscious thought”, as Justin Hart of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, puts it. It represents the subtle difference between actually experiencing a sunrise and merely having visual cortex neurons firing in a way that represents a sunrise.

Without it, robots are mere “philosophical zombies”, capable of emulating consciousness but never truly possessing it. “The idea requires that there is something beyond the physical mechanisms of thought that experiences the sunrise, which philosophical zombies would lack,” Hart says.

Reflections on consciousness

Robots are being used in a range of ways to probe the mysteries of consciousness. For example, Nico, a research robot at Yale University, has been taught to recognise its own hand in a mirror. Another robot, called Qbo, was taught to use face recognition software to recognise its own face in a mirror.Both are a step towards attempting the famous test of whether an animal truly understands that the face they see in a mirror is their own. Only Earth’s most intelligent animals – orcas, elephants, magpies, dolphins, a few apes and us – have passed it.Progress in robotics is such that it is even attracting theological interest. Last year the creationist Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina bought a Nao robot to carry out research into how robots might end up replacing humans.

Syndicated content: Hal Hodson, New Scientist

Image: Aldebaran Robotics

Comment: The final barriers to wearable tech

Wearable tech - Samsung Galaxy Gear

Wearable tech – Samsung Galaxy Gear

2015 will not be the year of wearable tech but better luck next year, says Simon Holt, Strategic Alliance Marketing Manager at Premier Farnell

In September 2013 Forbes magazine reported on the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Gear and boldly declared 2013 “the year of wearable tech”. Then, following slow adoption rates over the next three months, this deadline was later extended, with Wired magazine announcing that it would in fact be 2014 that would see wearables make their big break.

While 2014 did see an influx of new smartwatches and significant advancements in Google’s Project Glass, the adoption rates for wearables never quite reached the necessary level to break though into mainstream life. As a result, the technology community was forced to adapt its predictions once again, declaring that 2015 would be the long awaited “year of wearable tech”.

This time around, the wearables market looked more hopeful than ever. Apple’s new smartwatch was helping to drive mainstream adoption, Google Glass was fast approaching the final stages of its initial beta test, and virtually every phone manufacturer was producing some sort of wearable device. It seemed as though the predictions were at long last coming true. Soon you wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without seeing someone either talking into their smartwatch or Skyping via an eyewear display.

See also: Apple Watch flop (Mannerisms)

And yet, six months into 2015, mainstream adoption of wearable tech remains slow. Google Glass is now back off the market, and smartwatches are still widely perceived as little more than an add-on for mobile phones. While 2015 may have seen the starting pistol fired for wearable tech, the participants in this race to mainstream adoption are struggling to get anywhere near the finish line. Now, as we shuffle into the second half of the year, multiple analysts are already declaring that – in fact – 2016 will be “the year of wearable tech”.

Forever just out of reach

A range of wearables

A range of wearables

After so many years teetering on the verge of success, it appears that wearable technology will forever remain just out of reach. Even as far back as 1975 – when the Hamilton Watch Company produced the very first calculator watch – many announced that wearable tech would be the next big thing. And yet despite all the years of trying, it seems that nobody has quite managed to make wearables work for the wider market. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Microsoft’s MSN Direct smartwatch, or Oakley’s Thump music-glasses, wearables have proved an insurmountable challenge for both technology and fashion brands alike.

With more than 300 devices now available in the consumer marketplace, wearables are the closest they’ve ever been to breaking through into the mainstream. And yet, year-on-year uptake has always remained slower than expected. In order to understand why, we at element14 have identified four key barriers that continue to hold the technology back. Until these barriers are overcome, it is likely that the long-awaited “year of wearable tech” will never come to pass:

Lack of concrete standards

When discussing wearable technology, it is easy to forget that the devices themselves are rarely the most important aspect for the user – they are merely the front-end to a wider communications network. To quote technology journalist Ben Hamersley, “The wearable device is only the small, physical manifestation of a much larger service… It’s only through a connection to the internet that it can live up to its potential”.

In order for wearables to achieve this potential, they must exist within the wider ecosystem of the Internet of Things. This means being able to interact with both external internet services and other devices within the local area. This is an extremely complex task, with wearable devices needing to know not only when to communicate with other devices, but also when not to.

For every new device that is added to the wearable market, the number of necessary connection points has to increase, ultimately increasing the overall density of the network. With the global market for wearables expecting to reach 126 million units by 2019, the potential for device interference becomes ever more difficult to manage.

This issue is also added to by the fact that existing UHF standards such as Wireless HD and WiGig are not designed to support such a huge array of connections. As a result, in order for wearables to succeed in the mainstream market, a more up-to-date standard (such as ECMA 387) needs to be adopted.

Charging, power and battery life

One of the most commonly cited challenges of wearable tech is the need for ever smaller, yet more powerful batteries and charging solutions. While battery life has always been a problem for portable technology, the need for wearable devices to be light and aesthetically pleasing has meant that the vast majority of traditional battery solutions are simply impractical. In the case of smartwatches this has proved particularly problematic, with most devices still needing to be charged on a near daily basis.

Early example of wearable tech - Google Glass

Early example of wearable tech – Google Glass

This issue is further added to by the rising expectations of consumers. Whereas early smartwatches provided little more than message alerts and volume controls, consumers now expect their devices to act as a mirror of their mobile phones, running multiple applications and LTE internet. Most problematic of all is that users have come to expect gadgets to run high resolution. As a result, up to 60 per cent of a smartwatch’s battery life is immediately diverted purely to maintain the device’s screen.

Given that insufficient battery life is widely considered the most pressing issue for wearable tech, numerous companies are already working to find a solution. One such solution currently being implemented is Bluetooth Smart, an ultra low energy standard designed specifically for use in small and portable IoT devices. By connecting via Bluetooth Smart, wearable technology can essentially offload some of its functionality onto a user’s smartphone, reducing energy consumption and extending the battery life of the device.

In addition to improvements in power allocation, numerous technologies are also being developed to extend the lifespan of batteries themselves. In recent months, inventor James Dyson has pumped almost $15 million of investment into the development of solid-state electrolyte batteries, which could potentially double the life of most wearable devices. But while such developments could one day remove power consumption as a barrier to wearable tech, they remain a long way off of widespread availability.

Over-reliance on smartphone ‘tethering’

As it stands, existing wearable devices differ from most technology in the sense that they do not replace their older alternatives. Whereas laptops came to replace PCs, and mobiles eventually replaced landlines, most wearable devices have been positioned as “add-ons” to mobile phones, rather than their alternative.

In part, this is due to the fact that the components needed to mimic the functions of a smartphone are still considerably too large to be used within a wearable device. As a result, most smartwatches, headsets and fitness trackers all require some form of “tether” connecting them to either a smartphone or a related tablet app. This dependence on additional devices remains a significant barrier in the minds of consumers, with many wondering why they should invest in a second device in order to achieve the same functionality as their existing smartphone.

As the number of these devices on the market increases, technology providers have to work ever harder to convince customers that their products add value. As it stands, however, many smartwatch manufacturers have struggled to demonstrate this value, offering their products instead as “aspirational” purchases.

Issues of social acceptability

In addition to technical limitations, the wider adoption of wearable technology has also been slowed by a number of social considerations. The most infamous example of this was Google’s Project Glass, which received numerous complaints and legal challenges, ultimately being banned in banks, casinos, workplaces, and restaurants.

In addition to these, the project also faced several political challenges, with US authorities ruling that users would be banned from wearing the headset while driving – further limiting the devices’ mainstream use.

Glass also received widespread criticism from ethics campaigners for potentially undermining individual privacy rights. During its open testing phase, several wearers were even attacked for filming passers-by without their consent. Following these negative results, Google Glass was ultimately sent back to the drawing board in early 2015.

While the social implications of wearable technology have been widely discussed, the only way that consumers will overcome such concerns is by using these products and expanding their social acceptability over time. Unfortunately, the establishment of these social norms is usually an extremely slow process, further holding back the advancement of wearable tech.

Into the mainstream

Although there are many other barriers to wearable technology that have not been discussed within this article (aesthetics, device weight, application compatibility), the above four represents core technical challenges that must be overcome in order for wearables to successfully break through into the mainstream. While many advancements have been made in overcoming these challenges – in particular battery length and industry standards – more abstract concepts such as social acceptability prove far longer-term areas for concern.

Simon Holt, Premier Farnell

Simon Holt, Premier Farnell

What is interesting to note however, is that these long-term challenges are not technical in nature. In this regard, it is not the technology providers themselves that are lagging behind – it is the wider public. By resisting the development of smartglasses and similar potentially invasive wearables, consumers are setting the standards for how wearable tech can and cannot be used. Based on this resistance, we believe that it will not be Apple, Samsung, or even Google that sets the final date for the “year of wearable tech” – it will be the consumers themselves.

Simon Holt, Strategic Alliance Marketing Manager at Premier Farnell

Harvard 3D-printed robot jumps six times its height

Engineers at Harvard University have created a 3D-printed robot that can leap about six times its own height.

The secret to its success? It’s made from a combination of soft and rigid parts.

Soft robots are more adaptable, safer, and more resilient than stiff metal machines, say the researchers, led by Robert Wood. But they also tend to take longer to produce.

3D printing lets you cheaply and quickly produce things that combine the advantages of rigid and soft materials. The former could help power and control bots; the latter make them better at withstanding stress.

To jump, this bot inflates a number of its pneumatic legs, which will control the direction it will travel in once the legs “fire”. Then, a mixture of butane and oxygen is ignited in a central chamber, setting off an explosion that sends it flying. The inflated legs help cushion the landing.

In resilience tests, one bot performed more than 100 jumps without breaking, and another survived dozens of drops from a height of about 1 metre. A hard bot could jump higher but shattered after just five jumps.

Previously, Wood’s group has worked on other innovative robots, such as swarms of mechanical bees and a bot that folds up like origami.

Syndicated content: Aviva Rutkin, New Scientist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsckBITSiyo