New-Tech Europe Magazine | Aug 2018

easy to deploy and do not require sophisticated routing algorithms. Battery powered operation The ultra-low power characteristics of the AMB8826 allow for easy integration into battery-powered applications. Consider the temperature-monitoring example. Typical operation would involve reading the sensor data every minute and sending it to the remote host. Let us assume a transmit power of 14 dBm, a radio data rate of 100 kbit/s and a 42-byte payload (resulting in 64-byte packet length). The battery budget for a 3V lithium coin cell battery can be calculated as shown below. For 64-byte packet at 100 kbit/s, the transmit time would be approximately 6 ms during which the average current consumption will be 33 mA. The radio- idle time when the sensor is read, data is received and forwarded to the local host is approximately 10 ms during which the average current consumption is 9 mA. With this, we get the following energy usage. Engineer’s toolbox For any design engineer, the fastest way to evaluate a design is by building a prototype. In these terms, evaluation of wireless linkage using the AMB8826 for our temperature monitoring application would involve creating an end-to-end wireless link. We could select from a range of development tools to achieve this goal. From a hardware perspective, the module is packaged in a convenient USB stick form-factor (AMB8865) which can be directly connected to any computer. Available PC software can configure and evaluate different modes of operation. Alternatively, the Amber-Pi, an add- on module to the popular Raspberry Pi platform, could be used to get more hands on. With a complete SDK written in C, the Amber-Pi acts as an evaluation platform to implement the host drivers before switching to custom hardware.

Summary The emergence of the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 have made wireless connectivity an essential part of any system. However, implementing this offers several challenges from hardware design to software implementation and standard certification. Würth Elektronik’s wireless connectivity division offers elegant solutions to overcome these challenges, which

simplifies the wireless connectivity process. This enables the user to concentrate more on their application and go wireless with a few simple steps.

Adithya Madanahalli, Software Developer, Würth Elektronik eiSos – Division Wireless Connectivity & Sensors.

Figure 3: Developer’s toolbox

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