An edge server and PLC controller for industrial automation, field comms and IoT edge applications by Sfera Labs are based on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. The Strato Pi Plus edge server uses a Raspberry Pi RP2354 microcontroller to handle critical, real-time functions and system supervision, independently of the main processor. There is also an independent hardware watchdog designed to ...
I have been looking at the electrical installation of a retired ambulance, and am impressed with the interface that Mercedes optionally provides for those wishing to add things to its Sprinter vans. This is a CAN bus vehicle, so it is not full of separate wires that can be spliced into. Instead, for ‘upfitters’ (companies that convert plain vans into ...
Sfera Labs is shipping an expandable DIN rail industrial controller, built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. The units are pre-assembled with CM4s with up to 8Gbyte of ram and up to 32Gbyte of eMMC memory, plus an M.2 PCIe SSD can be added for further expansion. For extra security, Zymbit’s Secure Compute Module can be fitted instead of ...
Erqos has announced a phone and cloud connected programmable logic controller backed by an AI-based semi-automatic control code generator, and a similar tool for making matching phone apps. The DIN-rain controller, dubbed EQSP32, is built around an ESP32S3 microcontroller with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and the unit offers digital and analogue inputs and ouputs as well as serial busses. “EQSP32 lets ...
STMicroelectronics will be showing an evaluation kit that implements both power-line and sub-GHz RF comms for smart grid infrastructure this week at Enlit Europe. Called EVLKST8500GH-2, it combines the company’s ST8500 power-line communication SoC, STLD1 line driver and S2-LP low-power long-range sub-GHz radio transceiver – a chipset which is certified to the v1.4 Hybrid specification of power-line communication industry body ...
Arduino has released Arduino PLC IDE a new version of its IDE (integrated development environment) software for use with PLCs (programmable logic controllers). The software supports the use of Ladder Diagrams, Functional Block Diagrams, Structured Text, Sequential Function Charts and Instruction Lists – the five languages officially defined by the IEC 61131-3 standard. It would be used with the Arduino ...
Kontron is to introduce programmable logic controllers based on Raspberry Pi 4 at the SPS 2022 exhibition. At 1.5GHz they will be the fastest of the company’s Pi-based PLCs. “The main field of application of the electronic control based on the Raspberry Pi is in device and machinery construction,” according to the company. “PiXtend Pi 4 comes with the Broadcom ...
Microchip is aiming at smart metering with a family of microcontrollers and a power-line communication modem IC. The processors, nominally the PIC32CXMT family, have one or two Arm Cortex-M4F cores – all get a 200MHz application processor, and some get a 240MHz metrology processing core. The PIC32CXMTSH version in particular (see diagram) gets an ‘energy metering analogue front-end’ (EMAFE) as ...
Industrial control language Codesys will now run on Kontron’s Raspberry Pi compute module-based Pi-Tron CM3+ PCB computer (pictured). “The integrated development environment Codesys for programmable logic controllers according to the IEC 61131-3 standards is hardware-independent software for application development in industrial automation,” according to Kontron. “Thanks to its open interfaces and security features, Codesys has distinguished itself as an industry ...
Panasonic has adopted Renesas’ R9A06G037 PLC IC for its railway platform lighting control system. Panasonic and East Japan Railway Company jointly developed the system using G3-PLC, a narrowband standard (10-450kHz) for outdoor use. PLC makes it possible to transmit control signals over power lines, allowing operators to adjust the brightness and colour of lighting fixtures on platforms without requiring dedicated ...
