Author Archives: richard wilson

Open source virtual reality headset uses ARM-based SoC

OSVR - A development kit for designing a virtual reality headset for game-players from 0pen-source software has been introduced by the Open-Source Virtual Reality Consortium

OSVR – A development kit for designing a virtual reality headset for game-players from 0pen-source software has been introduced by the Open-Source Virtual Reality Consortium

A development kit for designing a virtual reality headset for game-players from 0pen-source software has been introduced by the Open-Source Virtual Reality Consortium.

Called the Open-Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) Hacker Development Kit, it provides a modular platform designed around an FPGA-based All Programmable SoC from Xilinx.

The ARM-processors based SoC carries out the video processing and controls data collected by the headset’s many sensors.

“This allows developers to make tweaks for added functionality like multiple sensors and algorithms for computer vision processing,” said Lau Lee Yang, senior director for OSVR business development at Razer, the company behind the kit.

The kit includes a positioning and head tracking device, a display, and double lens optics.

“In the near future the Hacker Development Kit will also be able to offload software processing tasks such as optical distortion correction using its hardware and potentially perform image enhancement functions,” said Lee Yang.

The OSVR Hacker Development Kit has started shipping to selected developers.

See also: MWC: HTC has virtual reality surprise for MWC2015

See also: Virtual reality lab examines 3D digitised environments

 

See also: Honda uses virtual reality to simulate headlight glare

 

Richard Wilson

Open source virtual reality headset uses ARM-based SoC

OSVR

OSVR

A development kit for designing a virtual reality headset for game-players from 0pen-source software has been introduced by the Open-Source Virtual Reality Consortium.

Called the Open-Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) Hacker Development Kit, it provides a modular platform designed around an FPGA-based All Programmable SoC from Xilinx.

The ARM-processors based SoC carries out the video processing and controls data collected by the headset’s many sensors.

“This allows developers to make tweaks for added functionality like multiple sensors and algorithms for computer vision processing,” said Lau Lee Yang, senior director for OSVR business development at Razer, the company behind the kit.

The kit includes a positioning and head tracking device, a display, and double lens optics.

“In the near future the Hacker Development Kit will also be able to offload software processing tasks such as optical distortion correction using its hardware and potentially perform image enhancement functions,” said Lee Yang.

The OSVR Hacker Development Kit has started shipping to selected developers.

 

 

 

Richard Wilson

Digital power chip gets PWM signalling feature

linearLinear Technology has added a three-state PWM signalling feature to its LTC3887 range of dual output synchronous step-down DC/DC controllers with I²C-based PMBus interface.

The intention of adding the PWM signal is to support the use of DrMOS, power blocks or similar power stages.

The LTC3887-1 also has a faster 70ms power-up time and a fast ADC mode that provides an 8ms update rate for one parameter.

The controller can be used to regulate two independent outputs or can be configured for a 2-phase single output from 0.5V to 5.5V.

Up to six phases can be interleaved and paralleled for sharing among multiple ICs. The result is a reduced need for input and output filtering in high current or multiple output applications, says Linear.

The voltage controller operates over an input voltage ranging from 4.5V to 24V, and it produces ±0.50% accurate output voltages from 0.5V to 5.5V with output currents up to 40A per phase over the full operating temperature range.

 

The device is available in a 40-pin 6mm x 6mm QFN package with an operating junction temperature range from -40°C to 125°C.

 

Richard Wilson

Digital power chip gets PWM signalling feature

linearLinear Technology has added a three-state PWM signalling feature to its LTC3887 range of dual output synchronous step-down DC/DC controllers with I²C-based PMBus interface.

The intention of adding the PWM signal is to support the use of DrMOS, power blocks or similar power stages.

The LTC3887-1 also has a faster 70ms power-up time and a fast ADC mode that provides an 8ms update rate for one parameter.

The controller can be used to regulate two independent outputs or can be configured for a 2-phase single output from 0.5V to 5.5V.

Up to six phases can be interleaved and paralleled for sharing among multiple ICs. The result is a reduced need for input and output filtering in high current or multiple output applications, says Linear.

The voltage controller operates over an input voltage ranging from 4.5V to 24V, and it produces ±0.50% accurate output voltages from 0.5V to 5.5V with output currents up to 40A per phase over the full operating temperature range.

The device is available in a 40-pin 6mm x 6mm QFN package with an operating junction temperature range from -40°C to 125°C.

Richard Wilson

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Anite Nemo Outdoor - Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight Technologies’ latest acquisition, Anite is also now the latest test firm to become a partner in the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey. This is the UK’s largest collaborative research programme into the technology for 5G mobile communications.

Keysight paid $600m in cash for Anite, which supplies development software for wireless. It will contribute channel emulation and protocol testing software tools for the 5GIC project.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the 5G Innovation Centre commented:

“Anite’s contribution to our 5G research programme will enable the development and testing of future technologies in a real environment and in an end to end manner.”

This is not the only 5G research project using Anite’s radio channel emulators.

Earlier this year, Anite announced that the Anite-led task group within the METIS project finalised the world’s first 5G radio channel models.

The 5GIC, which houses 170 researchers in a purpose-built building on Surrey University campus, is funded by £12m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and over £68m co-investment from the Centre’s industry and regional partners.

Partners include Aircom, BBC, BT, Cobham, EE, Fujitsu, Huawei, Imagination, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung, Telefonica and Vodafone.

See also: Blu Wireless WiGig comes to 5G Innovation Centre

 

Richard Wilson

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Anite Nemo Outdoor - Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight Technologies’ latest acquisition, Anite is also now the latest test firm to become a partner in the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey. This is the UK’s largest collaborative research programme into the technology for 5G mobile communications.

Keysight paid $600m in cash for Anite, which supplies development software for wireless. It will contribute channel emulation and protocol testing software tools for the 5GIC project.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the 5G Innovation Centre commented:

“Anite’s contribution to our 5G research programme will enable the development and testing of future technologies in a real environment and in an end to end manner.”

This is not the only 5G research project using Anite’s radio channel emulators.

Earlier this year, Anite announced that the Anite-led task group within the METIS project finalised the world’s first 5G radio channel models.

The 5GIC, which houses 170 researchers in a purpose-built building on Surrey University campus, is funded by £12m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and over £68m co-investment from the Centre’s industry and regional partners.

Partners include Aircom, BBC, BT, Cobham, EE, Fujitsu, Huawei, Imagination, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung, Telefonica and Vodafone.

See also: Blu Wireless WiGig comes to 5G Innovation Centre

 

Richard Wilson

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Anite Nemo Outdoor - Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight joins 5GIC project in UK via Anite

Keysight Technologies’ latest acquisition, Anite is also now the latest test firm to become a partner in the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey. This is the UK’s largest collaborative research programme into the technology for 5G mobile communications.

Keysight paid $600m in cash for Anite, which supplies development software for wireless. It will contribute channel emulation and protocol testing software tools for the 5GIC project.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the 5G Innovation Centre commented:

“Anite’s contribution to our 5G research programme will enable the development and testing of future technologies in a real environment and in an end to end manner.”

This is not the only 5G research project using Anite’s radio channel emulators.

Earlier this year, Anite announced that the Anite-led task group within the METIS project finalised the world’s first 5G radio channel models.

The 5GIC, which houses 170 researchers in a purpose-built building on Surrey University campus, is funded by £12m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and over £68m co-investment from the Centre’s industry and regional partners.

Partners include Aircom, BBC, BT, Cobham, EE, Fujitsu, Huawei, Imagination, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung, Telefonica and Vodafone.

See also: Blu Wireless WiGig comes to 5G Innovation Centre

 

Richard Wilson

Linux development gets faster in the cloud

linux-logosAndorid and Linux developers can take advantage of parallel processing to speed development times using a suite of software tools from a Tel Aviv-based company, IncrediBuild.

The company claims that development times can be significantly reduced using the tool which runs development processes in a distributed fashion.

The IncrediBuild software uses a proprietary distributed container technology which allows tasks to be processed in parallel on multiple computers in the cloud.

IncrediBuild for Linux and Android supports the most popular Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS.

It will also accelerate multiple Linux distributions running on the same platform.

“We are very excited to be launching IncrediBuild for Linux and to provide Linux and Android developers with the leading development acceleration tools that, until now, have only been available for Windows developers,” said Eyal Maor, CEO of IncrediBuild.

According to the company, up until now Linux and Android developers could only accelerate Make and GCC, two build tools. Now it is possible to accelerate different development tools and applications such as Make variants (GMake, QMake, CMake) Gradle, Scons, WAF, Rake and Ruby.

It also works for testing tools such as GTest, as well as many compilers out-of-the-box, such as gcc, c++, g++, clang, icc, cc1, arm variants, java, javac, cuda, Intel C++ compiler.

The company already has accelerator software for Windows development, but its first Linux tools were announced this week in the US at LinuxCon.

 

 

Richard Wilson

Linux development gets faster in the cloud

linux-logosAndorid and Linux developers can take advantage of parallel processing to speed development times using a suite of software tools from a Tel Aviv-based company, IncrediBuild.

The company claims that development times can be significantly reduced using the tool which runs development processes in a distributed fashion.

The IncrediBuild software uses a proprietary distributed container technology which allows tasks to be processed in parallel on multiple computers in the cloud.

IncrediBuild for Linux and Android supports the most popular Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS.

It will also accelerate multiple Linux distributions running on the same platform.

“We are very excited to be launching IncrediBuild for Linux and to provide Linux and Android developers with the leading development acceleration tools that, until now, have only been available for Windows developers,” said Eyal Maor, CEO of IncrediBuild.

According to the company, up until now Linux and Android developers could only accelerate Make and GCC, two build tools. Now it is possible to accelerate different development tools and applications such as Make variants (GMake, QMake, CMake) Gradle, Scons, WAF, Rake and Ruby.

It also works for testing tools such as GTest, as well as many compilers out-of-the-box, such as gcc, c++, g++, clang, icc, cc1, arm variants, java, javac, cuda, Intel C++ compiler.

The company already has accelerator software for Windows development, but its first Linux tools were announced this week in the US at LinuxCon.

 

 

Richard Wilson

Low cost flexi-satellites to be built by Airbus in the UK

Low cost flexi-satellites to be built by Airbus in the UK

Low cost flexi-satellites to be built by Airbus in the UK

The UK’s latest multi-million pound space facilities, for flexi-satellites, were officially opened last month with the signing of  a first €180m contract.

The new European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) is a joint initiative between the UK government and the European Space Agency (ESA).

RAL Space’s R100 building is a major expansion of their test facilities; including two new 5m diameter Space Test Chambers along with a vibration facility, clean rooms and AIV (Assembly, Integration and Verification) control room.

These enhanced facilities will be used for important future projects including ESA’s Sentinel 4 mission as part of Europe’s Copernicus programme and solar and heliospheric physics with the Solar Orbiter mission. Phase Two of the development is currently expected to be completed by June 2017.

The opening of the centres and the partnership between Airbus Defence and Space, ESA and Eutelsat will result in advanced telecommunications satellites being built in the UK.

Called the Quantum Programme, a new geostationary communications satellite will be manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) in the UK using payload technology and a new platform from Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL).

Speaking at the event, Minister for Universities and Science Jo Johnson said:

“Putting cutting-edge knowledge and innovation and world-class space testing facilities right on the doorstep, the opening of the European Space Agency and R100 facilities at Harwell today are a major boost to the UK’s space sector.

“Our investment in collaborative space science means the UK has the know-how and technical expertise to provide exciting and innovative space solutions that will drive growth and create jobs.”

ECSAT, which is now ESA’s main UK facility, has been created following the UK government’s decision in 2008 to increase its contribution to ESA.

One facility will host more than 120 jobs including teams in telecommunications and integrated applications.

The centre will be involved in the development of new satellite, ground infrastructure and product developments through original schemes of public–private partnerships with global operators.

The building will also house the Earth Observation Climate Office, Science and Exploration teams and Technology and Quality Management teams supporting ESA research and development programmes in the UK, focusing on ‘game-changing’ technologies and capabilities.

The first Quantum satellite – planned for launch in 2018 – will be primed and manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space (UK) and use a new platform by Surrey Satellite Technology (UK).

The aim is that satellites developed as part of the Quantum programme will be lower cost compared to current methods by using generic sub-systems and equipment. Quantum will also be able to completely transform while in-orbit.

“This will make it the first generation of universal satellites able to serve any region of the world and adjust to new business without the user needing to procure and launch an entirely new satellite,” said the UK Space Agency.

This programme is supported by strategic investment from the UK Space Agency through the European Space Agency’s advanced telecommunications R&D programme.

 

 

 

Richard Wilson