Tag: Smart Neighborhood

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What is the Z-Wave protocol?

Z-Wave-Technology

EE World – Smart homes need wireless connectivity, and Z-wave has emerged as the ultimate solution for home automation. The Z-wave protocol is a wireless, radio frequency protocol designed primarily for smart home networks. All the existing wireless communication protocols had one or the other problem. Bluetooth and Zigbee often shortfall of range while Wi-Fi poses its own limitations in a low-power ecosystem. Interoperability has been another major issue as popular wireless standards have different protocols and implementations for different applications. No one solution could cater to the requirements of an automated home. Z-wave is, now, the solution for all those lingering issues.

Z-wave devices are interoperable and can be easily accessed through the internet or a Z-wave gateway. With a range of around 40 meters, a Z-wave network limited to four hops can connect at most 232 devices. Irrespective of their make or application, all devices can have simultaneous two-way communication over the Z-wave network secured using AES. With sufficient range, optimum data speed, AES security, low-power wireless solution, and interoperable protocol, Z-wave is just perfect for home automation. There are now thousands of Z-wave products in the market, serving as intelligent devices for smart home ecosystems.

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SambaNova Emerges From Stealth With Record-Breaking AI System

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EE Times – SambaNova, one of the AI chip startup “unicorns,” has emerged from stealth mode after three years to announce its first product, a system-level AI accelerator for hyperscale and enterprise data centers and high performance computing (HPC) applications. SambaNova’s business model includes selling various configurations of the DataScale rack-based system, as well as renting them out for a monthly subscription in an offering the company calls “Dataflow-as-a-service”.

Founded in Palo Alto, California in 2017, SambaNova has been in stealth mode until now, though the company has released some details about its “software defined hardware” chip architecture. The startup has raised $456 million in three rounds of funding to date, and is reportedly valued at more than $2.5 billion.

DataScale is built on SambaNova’s Cardinal SN10 reconfigurable dataflow unit (RDU) chip. SambaNova still hasn’t given away much about this chip, with VP product Marshall Choy telling EE Times only that each chip offers “hundreds of teraflops and hundreds of megabytes of on-chip memory with direct access to terabytes of off-chip memories.” Choy argued that SambaNova’s customers, to an extent, do not care about the details of the chip; they are buying or renting the rack-based system which is SambaNova’s first product.

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The EV Market Is Accelerating

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T&D World – Will utilities lead, follow, or get out of the way?

The electric vehicle (EV) wave has come ashore. EV penetration is transitioning from its embryonic stage to the market growth stage across many transportation industry segments: cars, light trucks, buses, light commercial vehicles (LCVs), even Class-8 trucks (those more than 33,000 pounds). Although some segments are electrifying faster than others in terms of market penetration, overall this change will be the single most transformative event in the transportation sector since Henry Ford invented automobile assembly-line manufacturing. This change impacts everything — how far vehicles travel before requiring refueling (recharging in this case), the time recharging takes, where and when vehicles recharge — the very nature of replenishing the vehicle’s energy reserves. With this change comes opportunities for a new set of players to enter the marketplace, with the most impacted entity, the electric utility. These new market entrants will also bring new business models into a marketplace that is still evolving and will take some time to mature.

Over the past decade, following significant advances by the European Union (EU), upwards of two dozen investor-owned and municipal utilities in the United States have launched significant EV charging network infrastructure pilots. Initially, state governments drove these initiatives to achieve aggressive carbon reduction targets, but now EV charging capability is rapidly expanding into a national priority.

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FREE Online Electrical Engineering Calculator Tools

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3 Phase Associates – Try out our FREE and basic electrical engineering calculator tools that aid you in performing some basic electrical engineering calculations, like: transformer fault currents, short circuits, substation physical electrical clearances, voltage drop, power factor correction, motor full load, conductor ampacities, grounding, lighting design, grid-tied solar power systems, etc.

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IEEE Smart Grid Webinar – The Business Case for Utilities Supporting Public EV Charging

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IEEE Smart Grid Webinar – In this presentation, we will offer some fact-based thoughts to fuel utilities’ push toward developing sound EV strategies. Our suggestions are inspired by the actions of some of North America’s leading utilities, which we have had the privilege of assisting with data and strategic advice over the last few years. Done right, EVs prove to be good for utilities and their ratepayers.

Essentially, three value streams exist to support the case for utilities to support public EV charging. First, research has shown that light-duty EVs put downward pressure on electricity rates through increased demand requiring little incremental investment. Second, EV drivers are prime targets for other utility programs, because they are the most digitally engaged of all customers. Finally, leading utilities see new business opportunities from home, public, and workplace charging.

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Designers Can Synchronize Clocks Without External Oscillators Thanks to IEEE 1588

IEEE-1588

All About Circuits – The Updates to the IEEE 1588 standard protocol map out a low-cost method for synchronizing distributed clocks. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved a standard protocol to synchronize independent clocks running on a shared network. This will, in hopes, allow designers to perform accurate and precise measurements on control systems across a broad range of applications.

Designers that are involved in test and measurement for industrial automation or mobile communications can face challenges around maintaining synchronized data collection from multiple devices. Modern electronics that are separated by distance or have frequency rates varying over time and temperature will cause propagation delays that lead to unsynchronized timing clocks.

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