Sensorless high-speed FOC solution for uav ESC

The ESC module is a very important subsystem in non-military uav. Users need more efficient models to achieve longer flight time, better dynamic behavior and smoother and stable performance.This design USES electronic speed regulators (ESC) commonly used for unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) or uavs.

Speed control was achieved in a sensorless manner, using FOC speed control to test the motor at up to 1.2kHz electrical frequency (12kRPM, 6-pole to motor).Our uav ESC high speed sensorless FOC reference design has first-class FOC algorithm implementation, which can achieve longer flight time, better dynamic performance and higher integration, so the circuit board size is smaller and BOM components are fewer.Sensorless speed FOC control using TI FAST ™ software observer, using the InstaSPIN - Motion ™ C2000 ™ LaunchPad and DRV8305 BoosterPack.

Range of application

Drones and uavs

High speed motor

Battery-powered power tools

features

InstaSPIN - FOC ™ sensorless FOC can achieve the highest dynamic performance;

Three lithium polymer batteries were tested at speeds up to 12,000 RPM.

High dynamic performance: the rotation speed was increased from 1kRPM to 10kRPM (electrical frequency from 100Hz to 1kHz) in less than 0.2s, so as to achieve high performance deflection and pitching action.

The quick flip ability suitable for completing the flip action;

The FOC efficiency can be improved by blocking reversing, so longer flight time can be achieved.

Higher PWM switching frequency (up to 60kHz) can reduce current/torque ripple for low inductance and high speed motor, and can avoid interference with ultrasonic sensor;

Flexible power stage supports two to six lithium polymer batteries;

Due to instaspin-foc's automatic motor parameter identification: automatically tuning sensorless FOC solution, the time to market can be shortened.

The motor temperature is estimated according to the change of winding resistance to protect the motor from damage in case of temporary overload.

System block diagram

ESC module block diagram

Uav system block diagram

Link:Tenco

More than 50,000 warehouses will be using robots by 2025

More than 4 million commercial robots will be installed in more than 50,000 warehouses by 2025, up from fewer than 4,000 in 2018, according to ABI Research.The need for flexible, efficient and automated e-commerce drives this trend, as same-day delivery becomes the norm.As more and more infrastructure -- lightweight robots -- becomes more affordable and ROI increases, the global use of warehouse robots will also be boosted as they are a compelling and more capable alternative to traditional fixed mechanical automation or manual operations.

Flexibility and efficiency have become major differentiators in e-commerce's market performance as retailers and third-party logistics (3PLs) struggle to cope with fluctuating product demand, seasonal peaks and rising consumer delivery expectations."Robots enable warehouses to scale up or down as needed, while providing greater efficiency and alleviating inherent challenges related to workforce and staffing."Said Nick Finill, senior analyst at ABI Research.

Automated guided vehicle (AGV) and autonomous mobile robot (AMR) cargo to human systems can directly replace heavier mechanization and automation, which usually requires substantial upfront investment and rigorous physical infrastructure.Robots can optimize space in expensive warehouse facilities, reducing the need for new and expensive operations centers.Mobile robot systems also offer great flexibility advantages.Robot vendors such as FETCH, Geek+, and invia enable additional robots to be added to or removed from the queue as required by the operation.They also allow for easy and relatively quick reconfiguration of entire workflows and operations if product lines or basic operational requirements change.This is a major advantage of the unpredictable and dynamic e-commerce market.

Thanks to impressive innovations in computer vision, artificial intelligence, deep learning and robotic mechanics, robots are also becoming better at performing tasks that have traditionally been harder to automate.Economically viable mobile robots, such as dextrorobots and Kindred systems, are now allowing a wider variety of personal items to be automatically selected and placed into completion operations.By combining mobile robots, picking robots, and even automated forklifts, operations centers can achieve higher levels of automation in an efficient and cost-effective way.

Many robotics vendors offer additional value by offering flexible pricing options.The robot-as-a-service model means that a large number of capex costs can be replaced by more easily available operating costs, which are proportional to the consumption of technology or services, thus improving the affordability of robot systems in the intermediate market and further promoting the adoption.

"Suppliers are changing the broader logistics value chain by lowering barriers to the use of robots in warehouses."Finill explains, "if advanced automation is possible for medium-sized e-tailers, they will be able to push back against the dominant enterprise and bring the implementation back inside the company, changing the relationship between retailers and 3PL."

Link:Tenco

Infineon technologies introduced XDP ™ digital power XDPL8221 platform of LED application series of new members

New trends in smart lighting and the Internet of things call for a new generation of LED drivers.Infineon technologies introduced XDP ™ digital power LED application of the new members of the series XDPL8221 platform, help to realize intelligent lighting.The device is "PFC+Flyback" integrated control IC, PSR control, and with communication interface.The all-new IC drive was demonstrated at the APEC2019 in Anaheim, California.

XDPL8221 has many advanced functions, can achieve constant voltage, constant current and constant power control, operating parameters can be configured through the GUI.This helps engineers easily design multi-function and high-performance LED drivers.

The XDPL8221 scheme can achieve high efficiency.The driver IC supports a wide input voltage range of 100 VAC ~ 277 VAC or 127 VDC ~ 430 VDC.The digital control system built into IC will switch between quasi-resonant, discontinuous conduction (DCM) or Active Burst Mode according to the input and load conditions to achieve the optimal operation Mode.

XDPL8221 with communication interface, is the ideal choice of intelligent lighting system LED Driver.The Driver IC can provide the running state information of the LED Driver through the UART interface, and the control system can control it.

The drive IC can achieve as low as 1% stroboscopic dimming, while the current regulation can still ensure high precision.The chip also provides dim-to-off dimming for low standby power when the lights are off (less than 100 mW, depending on the drive design).

XDPL8221 can reduce BOM material and minimize total system cost.XDPL8221 adopts the dso-16 package, which is easy to design with the support of debugging tools. In this way, the product design cycle can be shortened and the step of bringing the product to market can be accelerated.

Link:Tenco

MIT has developed a system that lets toddlers write interactive robots by pasting stickers on them

Researchers at the Massachusetts institute of technology's media lab are developing a system that will allow toddlers to write interactive robots by sticking stickers on them.

The system will not only introduce children to programming principles, but also serve as a research tool to help determine what computing concepts children can master and how interactive robots can best be integrated into educational curricula.

Last week, at the international conference on human-computer interaction of the computer society and the society of electrical and electronic engineers, researchers presented preliminary results of the system, which looked at the use of children ages 4 to 8.

"We don't want to put it in the digital world, but in the physical world," said michal Gordon, a postdoctoral fellow in media arts and sciences and lead author of the new paper."It's a sandbox for exploring computing concepts, but it's a sandbox, and it comes into the world of children."

For their study, MIT researchers used an interactive robot called Dragonbot, developed by the personal robotics group at the media lab and led by Cynthia Breazeal, an associate professor of media arts and sciences.Dragonbot has audio and visual sensors, voice synthesizers, a range of expressive gestures, and a video screen for facial expressions.The programs created by children determine how the dragon fair responds to stimuli.

"It's programmed in a relational and interactive environment with robots," says Edith Ackermann, a developmental psychologist and visiting professor in the personal robotics group, who co-authored the new paper with Gordon and Breazeal."That's what kids do, they're learning about social relationships.Therefore, it is appropriate to express this calculation principle to the social world."

The lessons of perseverance

The root part of the programming system is the triangle and circle sticker, representing stimulus and response respectively, and the arrow sticker, representing the relationship between them.Children can create computational "templates" by pasting triangles, circles, and arrows onto laminated paper.They then filled in details with stickers representing specific stimuli, such as thumbs up or down, and responses, such as the narrowing or enlargement of the eyes in the keel.There are also blank stickers where older children can write their own verbal cues and responses.

Researchers at the personal robotics group are developing a computer vision system that lets children send new programs to Dragonbot simply by sticking sticker pages on their cameras.But for the purposes of the new study, the performance of the system must be completely reliable, so one of the researchers will use a tablet computer with a touchscreen interface to manually enter a sequence of stimuli and responses designed for children.Icon that represents all available options.

To introduce a new theme into the system, the researcher asks him or her to issue a separate command, with a response sticker attached to a small laminate.Dragonbot executes this command when a worksheet is provided.But when it comes to a program, it nods and says, "I've got it."Thereafter, as soon as it receives the corresponding stimulus, it executes the specified response chain.

Even the youngest subjects were able to distinguish between individual commands and programs, and interviews after their sessions showed that they understood the difference between programs and commands, modifying the internal state of the robot.The researchers plan further studies to determine their level of understanding.

Paradigm shift

In fact, the sticker system is designed to encourage a new way of thinking about programming that might be more in line with 21st-century computing.

"The systems we program today are not sequential because they were 20 or 30 years ago," Gordon said."" a system has many inputs, goes into complex states and many outputs.For example, the phone might be monitoring incoming traffic over wi-fi and cellular networks while playing video, transmitting audio over bluetooth, and running a timer when the rice on the stove is finished cooking.

Gordon explained that as a computer science graduate student at the Weizmann institute of science in Israel, she worked with her advisor David Harel on a new programming paradigm called scenario-based programming."The idea is to describe your code in very few scenarios, with the engines behind them connecting them," she explains."You can think of it as rules, triggers and actions."Gordon and her colleagues' new system can be used to introduce children to traditional sequential programming principles.But it's great for scenario-based programming.

Link:Tenco

Kodak will develop a new technology that can be applied to any image sensor

Kodak has developed a new image sensor technology that could overcome a major flaw in digital cameras: poor imaging quality in dim environments.

Mike DeLuca, marketing manager for kodak image sensor solutions, says the new technology increases the sensitivity of existing image sensors by half.This means that the camera's shutter speed can be reduced by half or a quarter of the time, reducing the problem of camera shake or motion blur.It also allows photographers to take pictures with less image "noise" in low-light environments.

The sensitivity of digital cameras has become a serious problem, the higher the image pixel, the more noise problems.IDC analyst Christopher Chute said: "noise is really annoying, mainly because there's not enough light.Kodak's new technology is quite revolutionary.

Unlike other technologies, kodak's new technology can be adapted to any image sensor, and kodak hopes to license the technology in the future to make it widely available.In addition, kodak's technology can sense the actual movement of people's eyes.This technique does not require fundamental changes to the core of the image sensor.It simply adds "panchromatic" pixels to the usual array of red, green and blue pixels.A software program is then used to reconstruct the full color image.

Link:Tenco

The numerical value writing method of 51MCU is introduced

1. In MCU, the calculation is carried out in binary form.

2. In programming, we usually use decimal numerical form and hexadecimal numerical form, such as 52,0 xfe;

3. The size of the value depends on the type of data.

4. Commonly used are "unsigned int" and "unsigned char".

The range of "unsigned char" is "0-255", which corresponds to the maximum 8-bit (0xff) of the MCU port.

The range of "unsigned int" is "0-65535", which corresponds to "0xffff".

5. Numerical writing:

In 51 MCU, the values written can be decimal and hexadecimal, but not binary.

Such as: P1 = 4;P1 = 0 x04;

When writing the statement "P1=4;"when

P1 ^ 0 - P1 ^ 7 level of "0010 0000"

When writing the statement "P1=65;"when

P1 ^ 0 - P1 ^ 7 level of "1000 0010";The hex code of 65 is: 0x41

As can be seen from the above two values, the low order of the port corresponds to the low order of the value, and the high order of the port corresponds to the high order of the value.

6 in the use of digital display Numbers, is a digit number, a digit write, such as 26, write 2 first, then write 6.

Using digital tube to write 2, for example: chose digital tube broken abcdefgdp respectively from P1 ^ 0, P1 ^ 1...P1 ^ 7;

To display 2, abcdefgdp is required: 1101 1010

It would be wrong to write P1=0xda according to the corresponding port.

The binary is also the high order before the low order, so the port should also be low to low and high to high when writing data, so "1101 1010" should be

"0101, 1011"

So the hexadecimal code of digital tube display 2 is "P1=0x5b"

Similarly, the hex code for "0-9" is "0x3f, 0x06, 0x5b, 0x4f, 0x66, 0x6d, 0x7d, 0x07, 0x7f, 0x6f"

Link:Tenco