Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Esprit de K0RE

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 10:14:26 -0400

http://www.necelam.com/k0recontest/results/koreindustrial.cfm
-- 
  		"NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
		Note The New address 
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

		"NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

		"WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
 	   The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get a FREE REFINANCE QUOTE - click here!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/2CXtTB/ca0FAA/ySSFAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 

Contest Results: Industrial Application

Contest Results
Home Page

Top 50 entries by application category:

Consumer

Industrial

Home Automation

Microcontroller
Product Information

Design
Contest Results Press Release

See larger
image

Interior view

FIRST PLACE: WiFi
SniFi monitor

Roy Franz

This wireless LAN (WLAN) monitor and troubleshooting
tool captures and displays 802.11b frames while remaining
quiet on the network. The SniFi also allows testing
of WLAN infrastructure by associating with an access
point and acting as a network node. In monitor mode,
the SniFi can listen to a specific channel or scan all
channels. Information captured includes the type of
frame, the channel, the signal strength, and the frame
number.

Color meter

Lawrence Duarte

This meter checks for consistency of color in manufactured
products for quality-control purposes. By using three
inexpensive color sensors and the comprehensive features
of the NEC µPD78F9418A microcontroller, the meter
seeks to reduce the cost of commercial color measurement
dramatically. Pressing the unit against a hard object
or pressing a keypad button initiates a comparison with
one of 12 stored colors. An audible signal indicates
whether the colors match to within a 3% tolerance, so
users can keep their eyes on their work.

Inertial measurement
unit

Tom Niemi

This system uses a 3-axis accelerometer and three angular
rate sensors to determine a vehicle's position and velocity.
The target vehicle in this case is a radio-controlled
aircraft. Three LCDs display X, Y and Z location relative
to the starting point.

Serial communications
monitor/debugger

Robert Koenen

This monitor includes both wire-line serial ports and
infrared (IR) ports. It can thus provide a through-connection
between two wire-line devices or two IR devices and
can also connect a wire-line device to an IR device.
These port choices are software-selectable. The monitor
displays captured data on a 4x40-character LCD, while
a separate LCD shows the running time. Users can search
for and trigger off of strings in the serial data. A
separate serial port is available for transferring captured
data to a PC.

CATV emissions detector

Ben Stelle

This device detects RF emissions from CATV infrastructure,
allowing service providers to find "leakage" in their
system. If emissions are found, a service technician
can use the detector to measure the RF signal strength
and determine whether the emissions lie within FCC limits.
The detector narrowly discriminates the radio frequency
(within about 25 kHz), so service providers can place
a specific tag frequency on the cable that is unique
to the system being surveyed.

Two-channel temperature
controller

Earl Campbell

Using a pair of heaters with feedback from thermistors,
this controller maintains a selectable temperature using
a form of the PID algorithm. An LCD shows the selected
and actual temperatures, as well as individual PID parameters
that the user can set. The thermistor inputs are linearized
in software, which also generates the appropriate pulse-width-modulated
drive signals for the heaters. Optical isolators separate
the microcontroller from the heaters' power-transistor
drivers.

Helicopter controller

Jim Ledin

Managing complex flight characteristics in real time,
this controller works with a tabletop helicopter system
that has three degrees of freedom. The system has two
motor-driven propellers and feeds back position information
from optical sensors. The controller allows joystick
inputs to control the motors manually or uses the joystick
position to determine autopilot settings. In random
mode, the controller automatically moves the chopper
to new travel and elevation positions every 10 seconds.

Digital satellite
command monitor

Mark Giebler

This device demodulates and displays the command signals
sent from a digital satellite receiver to its coax-connected
dish antenna. These commands allow the receiver to control
the frequency of the dish's low-noise block (LNB) converter,
the dish position and other parameters. The monitor
demodulates the pulse-width modulated command signals,
and then uses the A/D converter of the NEC µPD78F9418A
microcontroller for detecting the pulses and timing
them to determine whether they represent 0 or 1. Command
values in the form of hex-encoded ASCII bytes are sent
via a serial link to a PC, where they can be viewed
with a terminal program.

Multi-purpose LED
display

Sameer Cholayil

Rather than using a full LED array to form characters,
this display engine uses a single column of LEDs that
is moved into different positions as needed. With a
column of eight individual LEDs, the display engine
creates a 5x8-pixel character by moving the column into
five positions and lighting the appropriate LEDs in
each position. A stepper motor controls the movement.
The display suits a variety of applications, such as
clocks, timers and shop signs.

Programmable analog
interface

(name witheld by request)

Coupling a field-programmable analog array (FPAA) with
the NEC µPD78F9418A microcontroller gives the microcontroller
a versatile analog I/O capability. For analog inputs,
the FPAA acts as a pre-processor that scales and filters
signals to achieve the best resolution with the microcontroller's
A/D converter. Gain and filter characteristics can be
set during run time. For outputs, the FPAA can synthesize
a wide variety of analog signals based on data from
the microcontroller.

Industrial machine
controller

P. Scott Harris

This controller for photolithography equipment offers
a light-weight, software-reconfigurable design to replace
a bulky mechanical control box. The mechanical switches
of the original are replaced by two analog-potentiometer
joysticks and a membrane keypad. The on-board NEC µPD78F9418A
microcontroller interprets these inputs and sends them
to a PS/2 keyboard interface that connects to a PC.
The PC sees the inputs as keyboard entries, in parallel
with the normal keyboard, and the virtual keystrokes
control the software that controls the photolithography
equipment.

Proton beam monitor

S. Sarkar

This design provides independent safety monitoring of
a proton beam system used for cancer treatment. Such
systems must be centered before each treatment and positioned
correctly during treatments. Additionally, the beam
current must be kept within limits. The monitor checks
these parameters via six analog inputs from an ionization
chamber placed in the beam. The monitor also measures
ambient pressure and temperature as well as the ionization
chamber's high-voltage bias supply because these variables
may affect the chamber's output values.

Remote control detector

Nick Butts

This design detects the infrared pulses from a standard
remote control and converts them to a numerical value
that is transferred to a PC via a serial port. The numerical
values then control an MP3 player running on the PC,
allowing the user to play, pause, rewind, fast forward,
etc. by pressing keys on the remote control.

Serial port data logger

C. Molson

This monitor captures data from the serial port of a
computer, microcontroller or similar device. Up to 2
Mbytes of data can be logged into an NV SRAM. The monitor
also provides a transmit mode in which captured data
is sent back through the serial port.

Dragline/shovel swing
counter

James Smith

Using a quadrature encoder, this design detects the
direction and number of swings made by a dragline or
shovel. The total number of swings is displayed continuously
until the reset button is pressed. Normally, the count
would be reset each shift or each day, but the 6-digit
LCD has enough capacity to display about a year's total.
The quadrature encoder provides approximately one to
10 pulses per degree of swing. After a pre set number
of degrees, the NEC µPD78F9418A microcontroller sends
a count pulse to the display.

Vector network signal
analyzer

David Halverson

This analyzer generates quadrature direct digital synthesizer
(DDS) test signals and receives signals from the network
node under test. By sampling an array of zero-bias microwave
diodes, seven 10-bit A/D converters make it possible
to derive a voltage standing wave ratio, which then
allows the vector impedance of an unknown load to be
calculated. The raw test data is transferred to a PC
for such calculations via a 400-Mbps IEEE 1394 link.

Ethernet cable tester

Evan Harris

This design detects crossed or misrouted wires in Ethernet
cables. The user plugs both ends of a cable into the
tester's RJ45 jacks, presses the start button, and waits
for either the pass or fail LED to indicate whether
the cable is good. The tester looks for faults on each
wire in the cable in succession, driving one wire high
and checking to see whether that wire and only that
wire at the other end of the cable goes high.

RMS power line monitor

Steve Bennett

This monitor provides a true RMS calculation of power
line voltage. The design precision-rectifies a single-phase
AC waveform and attenuates it for an A/D input of the
NEC µPD78F9418A microcontroller. The microcontroller
takes readings at fixed intervals of the line cycle,
squares and averages the readings and finally takes
the square root to determine the RMS values. These values
are displayed on an LCD. An alarm output is also available
as is a serial PC interface.

Controlling EMI

Ken Farrier

This entry is a design layout guideline for placing the µPD78F9418A on a circuit board. It includes the analog ground plane, power and ground planes, EMI compliance, and edge rate control of signals going into and out of the circuit board.
It also describes a useful software delay timer, before the counters and interrupts are enabled in the
software during power turn-on.

Tilt control for handheld
computers

Dave Mills

This module makes it possible for users to tilt handheld
computers or ebooks as a way of emulating keystrokes
such as the arrow keys or page-up/down keys. For example,
a user could scroll rapidly through a large spreadsheet
on a handheld device by tilting the device slightly.
The control module reads the tilt by monitoring several
mercury switches.

Balancing inverted
pendulum

Chris Giese

This system balances a box with two parallel wheels–an
idea inspired by a wheelchair that balances on two wheels
and the Segway scooter. With feedback provided by an
inclinometer, the NEC µPD78F9418A microcontroller generates
pulse-width-modulated signals that drive the two wheel
motors as needed to maintain balance.