Method to improve efficiency

They work in harsh environments, and they get little or no recognition. But their impact on power plant efficiency can be significant. Valves and actuators are critical in almost every aspect of single board computer. They are used in a wide range of applications, including pollution control, feed water, cooling water, chemical treatment, bottom ash and steam turbine control embedded systems. They are exposed to a variety of chemicals, abrasive materials and very high temperatures. They are critical in optimizing efficiency, and they are often the final control element in the operation of a power plant.

Although the basic technology for most valves and actuators has remained unchanged, innovative applications and design modifications for problem solving have led to notable improvements in actuator technology. These improvements can reduce costs by supporting the control valve's ability to throttle accurately, thereby providing better performance for high-pressure steam bypass, turbine bypass and other critical power plant operations. Actuators regulate mass and energy flows by adjusting valves, flaps and cocks.

refer to: http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-117/issue-8/features/opportunities-to-improve-efficiency.html

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“It might sound curious, but maybe the most important part of a embedded computer. It is a good software support,” Budelmann continues. “The best hardware is useless if there is no BSP, or if the supported software is outdated. Writing the BSP on your own is normally too expensive and time consuming, so users should regard this important point when identifying and evaluating new COMs.”

“If it is a mobile application with low to medium computing performance requirements, then Qseven is the right choice,” says Christian Eder, Marketing Manager at congatec AG headquartered in Deggendorf, Germany (www.congatec.com). “Medical systems typically require special functionalities such as ultrasonic control or high levels of isolation in order to protect patients in case of a malfunction. Standard SBCs typically do not feature that. The embedded computer logical consequence is to create a custom carrier board that takes all specific functionalities and complete it with a standard COM. Once this combination is certified, it is quite easy to upgrade or scale to other CPUs while the certification remains or just needs to be updated. This provides a lot of freedom to choose the best-fitting CPU and graphics for a given application.”

refer to: http://smallformfactors.com/articles/qseven-coms-healthcare-mobile/

VITA Technologies among embedded industry

VITA Technologies reached out to the supplier community to ask “What is your vision of the embedded board/systems business five years from now? What does it look like to you, from an application, technology, and business perspective?”

The responses I got back were very interesting to me. They reinforce my embedded system observations on a trend to mass customization in the industry that I have commented on for several years. While many suppliers have not quite acknowledged the inevitable movement to mass customization, others have embraced the trend. They have adjusted their product strategies to better address the changing needs of customers who desire products that can be effectively and efficiently modified for their most specific needs. They have adjusted their embedded system  strategy to develop products that lend themselves well to customization, and can be implemented quickly and cost effectively.

refer to: http://vita-technologies.com/articles/technically-trends-mass-customization-fpgas/

Embedded computer versus cloud computing

Department of Defense (DoD) officials trying to keep the lights on in today’s budget constrained environment love how cloud embedded computer can reduce data center operational costs, bricks and mortar expenses, and staff overhead. Virtually storing data instead of physically in a hard drive is very appealing – especially to younger military personnel who have grown up with virtual technology such as the iPhone and the iCloud. However, military cloud services – just like military smartphones and tablets – will need to be much more secure.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines embedded computer as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

refer to: http://mil-embedded.com/articles/cloud-security-the-dod/

The emerginh Engineered COTS for embedded systems

A change in market dynamics is causing a fundamental paradigm shift in industry's thinking: Instead of continuing to invest precious Research and embedded Development (R&D) resources and dollars to build expensive, special-purpose proprietary systems with the hope that they will never fail, industry leaders are now assuming that there will be hardware and software failures and thus designing systems and applications that continue to provide end-user service in the presence of such failures. State-of-the-art software and related standards have made significant advances in recent years to support sophisticated schemes and quick embedded implementation of highly available applications and services that can run on relatively inexpensive COTS hardware systems. Some significant industry standardization efforts can be found lately....

refer to: http://xtca-systems.com/articles/engineered-cots-network-systems/

Revitalizing the gaming platform

Fortunately, the members of gaming platform recognized the need for mezzanine standards early in the emerging board industry. By the late 1980s, discussions started to standardize a few different mezzanine form factors. First to emerge were S-bus and PCI Mezzanine Cards (PMCs). S-bus was driven by Sun Microsystems while the gaming platform form factor evolved out of an IEEE effort. While neither was a VITA standard, PMC went on to become a widely used mezzanine for 6U cards for VME, gaming platform, Compact PCI, and other form factors.

refer to: http://vita-technologies.com/articles/stacked-standardizing-mezzanine-modules/

Upon operating system developments...

 

Software architects designing critical embedded systems have tough choices to make when selecting an operating system. Decisions can be both simplified and complicated with new framework and platform initiatives coming into being.

Operating systems that control critical embedded systems have many stringent requirements that they must be able to address in order for them to be considered for deployment. There will always be debate about the best operating systems to deploy in critical applications. However, improvements in real-time operating capabilities in Windows and Linux have opened up the door to options in addition to traditional Real-Time Operating Systems(RTOSs).

refer: http://vita-technologies.com/articles/operating-impact-critical-systems/