https://community.element14.com/The community for engineers, technicians, makers and creators.en-USTelligent Community 12https://www.hardwarepioneers.com/Wed, 10 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:5450d9fe-42c8-47d6-a173-ce6f202b46cfIQD-FrequencyJoin us at Hardware Pioneers Max at ExCel London this June, at what is considered the UK's largest exhibition and conference dedicated to electronics, IoT connectivity and embedded systems. Taking place on the 10th and 11th of June in London, United Kingdom, visitors can find our team at IQD Frequency Products joining our colleagues at Würth Elektronik UK on stand S11 - so come and say hello! IQD has served the timing and frequency industry for more than 50 years, and we are thrilled to showcase our products at the event. Our tech experts and sales team are among the best in the industry, possessing extensive knowledge, and they will be more than happy to guide you through our oscillators and crystals and address any questions you may have. So mark the date in your calendar as we'd love to meet you. Either pop along to the stand to say hello, or arrange an appointment (you can use the Hardware Pioneers App or contact us directly) to talk in more depth about how we can help you with your latest project. Visit www.hardwarepioneers.com or IQD's Exhibitor profile for more information.crystalexhibitiontrade showelectronicsfrequencyhttps://community.element14.com/learn/events/c/e/1757Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:00:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:529a9eaa-7e14-484f-81eb-8bffc6ab37edJoRatcliffeJoin this webinar to examine how DC coupled, high speed Digitizers operate and discover the technical challenges that emerge as bandwidths extend beyond 1 GHz. We will take a focused look at the limitations inherent in conventional high-speed Digitizer front ends, including linearity, noise performance, dynamic range, and system level coupling issues. There will be a live demonstration of a new Analog Devices evaluation kit engineered to directly address these challenges, supported by detailed performance parameters and measurement data that demonstrate what next generation Digitizer designs look like. In less than an hour, this session will cover: A primer on the principles of DC-Coupled, high-speed Analog-to-Digital Converters The applications (and challenges!) associated with high-speed Digitizers and how they are solved with ADI’s New ADMX6001 Digitizer The different approaches to resolving/mitigating these challenges A demonstration of a high-speed Digitizer and how challenges can be addressed, using an ADMX6001 eval kit Live Q&A The Presenters: Will Drachler - Principal Marketing Engineer - Analog Devices Will is a Principal Marketing Engineer in the Instrumentation System Solutions group. He has more than 40 years of experience at Analog Devices spanning linear solutions, optical systems, and the digitization of high‑speed signals. Will holds a BSEE from the Rochester Institute of Technology. LinkedIn: Will Drachler Malcolm Sherman-Godfrey - Senior Engineer, Systems Design/Architecture - Analog Devices Malcolm is a systems design engineer in ADI's Instrumentation System Solutions group, experienced in architecting RF and precision elements of high-speed digitizers and vector network analyzers. He has a BSEE from the Rochester Institute of Technology and has been with ADI since completing an MSEE at the Georgia Institute of Technology. LinkedIn: Malcolm Sherman-Godfrey Jordan Ratcliffe - Marketing Program Senior Specialist - element14 Community Jordan Ratcliffe will be your host from the element14 Community for Introductions and Q&A. LinkedIn: Jordan Ratcliffe More about Analog Devices: Every day, electronic devices are becoming smarter with greater integration. Body sensors can monitor our health. Cars can drive themselves. Networked homes can power up when needed. At Analog Devices, we’re solving engineering problems and empowering design innovation, enabling our customers to create products that shape our world. We invent highly integrated solutions that make technology seamless. Our innovative and high-performance analog and mixed-signal products and technologies make systems smaller and smarter, with enhanced security and increased energy efficiency. We channel our collective expertise to stretch the limits of technology, understand your needs, and help you get to market faster. You can find out more about Analog Devices here . Attend and Learn to Earn a Certificate Watch the webinar until the end to earn a certificate. Read here for more information about how to get your certificate: /members-area/support/w/site-faq/27798/how-do-i-earn-a-certificate-for-viewing-a-webinar-or-webcast Are you prepared? This webinar uses the online service on24 to deliver the presentation. Click through and check that you meet the minimum system requirements before attending.linearityanalog-to-digital converterADI-e14DC coupled high speed digitizerADMX6001analog devicesdigitizersystem level coupling1ghznoise performancedynamic rangehttps://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235817Mon, 25 May 2026 18:51:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:b57571cb-8369-467e-ab69-702b29688e08beacon_dave[quote userid="521898" url="~/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235814"]Mobile citizen-sensing completely changes the game because it maps air quality at the exact breathing height of a human, rather than using a static municipal sensor mounted 10 meters up on a street lamp.[/quote] However, need to be mindful of the reliability and accuracy of the data. A municipal sensor 10m up can be sited, installed, calibrated and maintained under a controlled set of conditions. However most people are probably not actually breathing the air at a height of 10m so the recorded data may be very accurate and consistent but not be all that meaningful. Whereas with a citizen deployed sensor, you may potentially end up with more meaningful data being sampled at human height, but then lose control over accuracy. For example, the sensor was placed on the pram as instructed but then a garment or bag was placed directly on top of it affecting its reading throughout the capture period. [quote userid="521898" url="~/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235814"]the node only needs to log or transmit compressed, cryptographically signed data packets when a significant pollution spike occurs.[/quote] Perhaps need to be mindful that the 'significant spike' may have an unknown threshold or a value that reduces over time. If you want to be able to work with historical data in the future, then you may need to transmit data when values change, rather than when they cross a threshold. I was listening to a podcast recently about rubber pollution from tyres which is now becoming an increasing concern. While filters have been cleaning up particulate matter from diesel emissions, apparently this is now being offset by increased particulate matter produced from tyre wear due to the increased weight and acceleration from EVs. It sounds like it is still relatively unknown whether rubber particulate matter is any more or less harmful than diesel combustion particulate matter. [quote userid="521898" url="~/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235814"]Have you ever experimented with localized data filtering on the Uno R4 to optimize battery life in remote sensor applications?[/quote] I've not done much with the R4 as yet. Too busy watching/listening to podcasts... Not R4 but Doug's weather station project used solar combined with supercapacitors for energy harvesting for sensor applications: Just Encase Solar Super Capacitorhttps://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56884/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e5-work-tech-life-balance/235816Mon, 25 May 2026 16:16:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:b3733823-834e-4195-a3a9-71cb85016373DipeshkachhiThis is a profound observation. Linking Dr. Le Cunff’s insights on toxic environments to the concept of Ikigai is the perfect framework for this episode. Ikigai sits right at the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. When an engineer or creator is stuck in a toxic, micromanaged corporate cage, that entire intersection collapses, and cognitive friction spikes. ​@kmikemoo and @beacon_dave, you both have a lot of experience navigating the maker ecosystem. Do you think the rise of open-source platforms and independent development tools has made it easier for engineers to break away from traditional, rigid corporate environments to pursue their own 'Ikigai' through freelancing and technical content creation? Or do the structural instabilities of freelancing just introduce a different kind of workflow anxiety?https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56959/are-you-using-ai/235815Mon, 25 May 2026 16:09:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:73b53b70-a775-491f-b150-12a0b9f5f2d5obonesI've been using AI for a few month now, mainly tinkering with lots of caution, carefully reviewing what commands it runs, what files it touches to be sure it does what I tell it, and nothing more. I've been in "programming" for more than 30 years and I have quite an opinion on what is acceptable and what is not, hence the careful approach. But it appears I'm quite an exception here as we've had a two day workshop at work to help us reach the 20x speed gains purported by many advocates in the field. The consultant doing all the talking was adamant that my approach is no more: "craftsmanship is dead" was his motto, parading amongst our desks. Apparently, the "human in the loop" is just there to act a a shepherd to a flock of agents, that are writing both the code and the tests that verify it directly from the ticketing system or the written specifications. And the warden is just there to proofread everything at the end, getting the hang of the code in minutes, just like we've been doing code review for human created content. But with the amount of code generated it's very strenuous to achieve this, there is a very heavy cognitive load. And for me, it's worse, I love writing the code, trying various options, so that I am really confident the code I wrote is the best possible approach, after having justified rejecting the others. Doing code review has always been a pain point, even if it has its undeniable use, human interaction is quite fruitful. Sadly, this AI usage means I'm left with doing only the thing I do not like: managing "other minds" and "reviewing" their work, when they have the attention span and propensity to lie of bored teenagers: if you give strict rules to match your desire for clean code, it either loops indefinitely or straight up ignores them! It's not all dark in there, though, because the LLMs are quite formidable at finding correlations (not causation) in lots of data, finding patterns that I would have had a hard time identifying. So for initial exploration of an issue, providing suggestions, it's quite great. What's bothering me most, is that it's all built on a giant theft. I mean, I kinda of regret taking part in so many open source projects where the premise was to share the knowledge with fellow humans, which the license I released it under was quite clear, but now we must pay to get back the knowledge we gave for free over the years! Or even worse, I gave for free the basis for destroying my own employment. For those versed in history, the revolt of Canuts in Lyon or Luddites in the UK should ring a bell, with, I fear, the same sad outcome. And all this is even ignoring the economical and environmental sustainability part. We are collectively getting hooked up on a "drug" that is (almost) free today as a "tryout product", but when the dealers will start to recoup their costs, I'm worried many won't be able to afford it anymore with unforeseen circumstances. In the end, I'm starting to seriously look at what I like doing which would be valuable to others to pay me decent money for it, and that would be quite safe from this AI monster lurking in the shadows. Maybe I should ask a LLM, after all these are just gain function optimization platforms, so it should have ideas for me to solve this equation and escape its grab...https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235814Mon, 25 May 2026 16:03:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:cfc84fec-de51-42a2-b97f-012f8dda3363DipeshkachhiThose pram-mounted sensor studies from Surrey and Bristol are the absolute perfect real-world example of what Carlo Ratti means by a 'living, breathing data canvas.' Mobile citizen-sensing completely changes the game because it maps air quality at the exact breathing height of a human, rather than using a static municipal sensor mounted 10 meters up on a street lamp. ​The major engineering bottleneck with those early citizen-science deployments was data ingestion and power—they often relied on heavy, power-hungry logging shields or continuous cellular uploads that drained batteries rapidly. ​That’s exactly why I’m looking at the Arduino Uno R4 for prototyping this open-source node array. With its 32-bit RA4M1 Renesas processor, we have enough computational headroom to run localized data-filtering algorithms (like running average filters or threshold analytics) right on the edge. Instead of broadcasting massive streams of raw, noisy sensor data continuously, the node only needs to log or transmit compressed, cryptographically signed data packets when a significant pollution spike occurs. ​If we can keep the hardware low-cost and power-efficient enough to run off a small battery or energy-harvesting setup, deploying these onto public transit or citizen vehicles becomes completely viable. Have you ever experimented with localized data filtering on the Uno R4 to optimize battery life in remote sensor applications?https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235813Mon, 25 May 2026 16:00:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:a2a08099-0cdc-4441-9aa4-15e0ea7c17a8beacon_daveAlso interesting are the views on decreasing birth rates resulting in a decrease in population. However this perhaps is not always the case as sometimes the death rates are decreasing at a faster rate resulting in an increase in population for the time being. This could result in an aging population which could have an impact on urban design and technological infrastructure. There is also the impact of migration to consider. If climate change starts to make places inhabitable, then some people may start to migrate to more habitable zones rather than trying to adapt.https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235812Mon, 25 May 2026 16:00:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:15ffa0e0-8cf9-4a92-9da0-d7cd98927d4cDipeshkachhiThat is a phenomenal breakdown, and you’ve highlighted a terrifyingly realistic point about 'data cross-linking' . It’s exactly like metadata analysis in cybersecurity—even if an Edge AI node strips out a citizen's MAC address or name at the sensor level, a third party can easily reconstruct identities just by cross-referencing timestamps from an automated traffic camera with local smart-meter spikes. The anonymity completely breaks down in a centralized cloud. ​Your point about municipal authorities filtering or 'smoothing out' peak readings (like long-term averaging pollution data to avoid legal negligence) is an incredible insight into why top-down smart systems inevitably face public skepticism. ​If policy is lagging so far behind the hardware rollout, do you think the only way to enforce true transparency is through immutable edge logging? For instance, if an open-source environmental sensor cryptographically signs and publishes its raw data directly to a public ledger or distributed network the moment it captures it, the authorities couldn't manipulate the averages retrospectively to hide defects or pollution spikes. ​It seems like until we build systems where the hardware itself prevents data tampering, citizen trust will remain at zero.https://community.element14.com/technologies/embedded/b/blog/posts/programming-a-ti-mspm0-microcontroller-via-usb-uartMon, 25 May 2026 15:48:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:57244355-f6f8-4d50-8067-ea852474995cshabazTable of Contents Introduction Obtain a USB-UART Adapter Wire It Up! Obtain the MSPM0 Programmer Software Procedure Summary Further Reading Introduction The Texas Instruments MSPM0 series ( PDF MSPM0 Product Portfolio ) of microcontrollers are low-cost parts containing ARM Cortex-M0+ cores. There are dozens of MSPM0 blog posts on element14 describing various tips and tricks with the MSPM0. They are really nice to use, from either command line or with multiple Interactive Development Environment (IDE) options, across Windows, Mac and Linux, and TI has gone the extra distance to make sure there are plenty of tools and example software apps. Ordinarily, ARM based microcontrollers can be programmed via an interface called SWD , however many of the TI MSPM0 parts also support a built-in bootloader that allows for programming via UART or even I2C. In this short blog post, I will describe how to program MSPM0 devices using the UART interface (specifically, using the pins labelled BSL UART on the microcontroller). I will skip the steps regarding how to write code and build it into a .hex file; check out some of the other blog posts (type MSPM0 in the search bar at the top) for information on those steps. Obtain a USB-UART Adapter Although not necessary (any cheap ready-made USB-UART could be used), I used a Pi Pico as a simple USB-UART adapter. There are several Pi Pico USB-UART emulation implementations online (including a dual USB UART!) however I used my own project, which is based on older code that performs double duty as an I2C adapter too (that’s not required for this of course). The firmware, including a pre-built binary that can just be drag-and-dropped into the Pi Pico USB Storage drive (when plugged into a PC with the BOOT button pressed down), is available in a E-Z I2C Adapter and UART Bridge repository and then when you plug the USB connection into a PC, you’ll see two COM ports appear; the first one is the I2C adapter (unused) and the second is for the USB-UART function. Wire It Up! The diagram shows approximately the bare minimum needed to program the MSPM0 via the BSL UART pins. For example, this is the miniL1105 schematic, which is a practical implementation of an almost-bare-minimum MSPM0 microcontroller board ( PCB Gerber files available here plus all files for a full development board called EasyL1105 explained here: (+) EasyL1105: A Dev Board for the TI ARM Cortex-M0+ L-Series - element14 Community ): As you can see at the lower-left of the schematic, there are a couple of pull-up resistors on the BSL UART connections. They are not strictly always essential, but it may be worth putting them at least as “Do Not Populate” footprints on a PCB initially, in case they are beneficial for any real workflow. For instance, R6 is useful to pull up the BSL UART_RX line to a known state if a USB-UART is not attached until after the boot button has been pressed. R12 may be useful with some USB-UART adapters which may not like the BSL UART_TX connection being high impedance until after the first bootloader instruction is sent from the PC. Obtain the MSPM0 Programmer Software Texas Instruments offers a GUI-based tool called UniFlash , but it’s large since it supports thousands of TI parts, has an odd user interface as a result, and takes ages to flash the device. As another option, one can download the far simpler and easier-to-use mspm0_prog Python software To use it as discussed in the next section, first pyserial needs to be installed: pip install pyserial Procedure With the USB-UART adapter UART connections wired up to the MSPM0, and the USB cable from the USB-UART adapter plugged in to the PC, this is the command to flash the .hex file into the MSPM0 microcontroller (change the COM port number and path/filename as required): python ./mspm0_prog.py --port COM3 C:\DEV\projects\myproject\firmware.hex If all goes well, you’ll be prompted to hold down the BOOT button on the MSPM0 board and then press the RESET button and then release both and hit Enter . With a small microcontroller like the MSPM0L1105, programming will complete within seconds. Summary Although the normal (and more capable) way to program up (and debug) ARM chips is via the SWD connections, if all you need is to program up the Flash, then it is also very quick an easy to just use the built-in bootloader capability that many of the parts within the MSPM0 range possess. Very little is needed, just a USB-UART adapter, and if that’s not available, then a Pi Pico can be repurposed in a pinch, to emulate such a device. The programming software is Python-based, and should run on Windows/Mac/Linux (not tested on Mac!). Thanks for reading. Further Reading TI Bootloader Guide (PDF) 18-page MSPM0 Quick Reference (PDF) Simple Setup Guide for MSPM0 Development, for Win/Mac/LinuxMSPM0L1105MSPM0arm cortexcortex-m0+easyL1105arm cortex-mtexas instrumentsMiniL1105MSPM0L1106tihttps://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235811Mon, 25 May 2026 15:30:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:b4a245ee-4fd3-491f-a950-f85c8102a69bbeacon_dave[quote userid="521898" url="~/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235736"]I plan to use the Arduino Uno R4 to build an open-source, edge-computing nodes array for micro-climate and localized air quality tracking—directly mirroring the philosophy behind his 'City Scanner' project.[/quote] I recall that there was a study by University of Surrey involving the use of sensor box devices fitted to prams in order to sample the air quality as they were pushed around urban areas. https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/when-are-babies-prams-most-exposed-air-pollution https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019345593#s0010 I think Bristol may have done something similar as part of their Smart Cities project. It was featured in a documentary programme but can't recall which one. I recall members of the public were invited to fit them to prams to build up a wider picture of daily pollution exposure in urban areas.https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235810Mon, 25 May 2026 14:35:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:dc64ada3-e2bc-4f9c-a906-7e7f7f07ed7abeacon_dave[quote userid="41967" url="~/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235688"]At the time, I recall that there were quite a few interesting TV programmes about the type of stuff they were doing[/quote] This was one: The Joy of Datahttps://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/spring-clean/m/managed-videos/151371Mon, 25 May 2026 14:31:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:b3879f84-aa18-4f8a-b513-eb91aaed7308abtAmithttps://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56961/top-tech-voices-podcast-s2-e6-smart-cities-urban-tech/235809Mon, 25 May 2026 14:06:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:72f92d73-f9d9-41d4-b2da-9965abe16640beacon_daveI think that citizen trust probably has already been lost with the number of historical cases of data leaks and data being sold onto private companies without any citizen approval. Not only that, there is a problem that 'data x' may appear to be safe to openly share now but when combined with new 'data y' in the future, then it may not have been such a great idea to have shared 'data x'. Equally data processing and analytics has now become powerful enough to combine multiple large data sets and it could end up too late for the citizen to do anything about it retrospectively. Policy and governance may be reluctant to openly share data as it could start to be used against them. One example might be the condition of the road network. If citizens can openly access data that shows that the authorities had access to information about the location of a defect in the road prior to an accident or damage, then this data could potentially be used in law to support a claim of negligence resulting in compensation pay-outs. Similar with air quality monitoring if it can be shown that it was known that pollution levels regularly exceeded safe limits, then a sensor network originally for safeguarding the community then it could become a weapon in the hands of the legal system. With that being the case, then any open data may end up being filtered or manipulated (e.g. filter out peak readings or use a long term averages to round off them off), causing distrust. A lot of data is already held centralized on municipal servers and is openly made available already (if you know where to look) but it tends to be anonymized summary data rather than raw live data, and often with little information on how exactly it has been collected and processed. In some cases, I think the line has probably already been crossed. With the likes of forced roll-out of 'smart' utility meters, then data is already being collected and probably not being securely stored and may already being shared with partner companies without the knowledge of the citizen. Often there is also no clarity on what data is actually being captured, transmitted, stored, shared. Similar with the likes of data from traffic cameras. Edge processing requires trust in the person that is providing the product to ensure that the data is strictly anonymized both in normal use and can remain so even after an unexpected device security breach. Also need to consider the integrity of anonymity when multiple devices are in use and a third party has access to multiple data sets which can be cross-linked. I think the issue is perhaps that the technology is developing at a far faster rate than the policy required to protect the citizen being exposed to it.https://community.element14.com/members-area/f/forum/56973/introduction/235808Mon, 25 May 2026 13:55:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:18a727d7-e4ff-4de3-ace5-796ce5bfb867battlecoderWelcome!