The man who brought fail-safe brakes to railroads once had a major role in the 20th-century industry, but a combination of events and decisions have left only his braking system as a recognized legacy. Thus far, we have looked at the classic, and still widely used fail-safe pneumatic brake (Part 1 and Part 2) However, […]
FAQ
A fractional Fourier Transform? Yes, there is such a thing.
The Fourier Transform, outlined by French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) in The Analytic Theory of Heat (1822), asserted that any function of a variable, whether continuous or discontinuous, can be expanded in a series of sines of multiples of the variable. His focus at the time was the propagation of heat in an […]
Westinghouse and the fail-safe train air brake, Part 2: The solution
The man who brought fail-safe brakes to railroads once had a major role in the 20th-century industry, but a combination of events and decisions have left only his braking system as a recognized legacy. Part 1 established the need for a reliable, fail-safe braking system. This part looks at the system design in more detail, […]
Westinghouse and the fail-safe train air brake, Part 1: The problem
The man who brought fail-safe brakes to railroads once had a major role in the 20th-century industry, but a combination of events and decisions have left only his braking system as a recognized legacy. Some innovations seem so obvious and pervasive that we assume they have always been with us, but, of course, that is […]
Energy harvesting applications considerations – Virtual Roundtable (part 2 of 2)
The second part of EEWorld’s two-part “virtual roundtable” discussion on energy harvesting delves into applications considerations for engineers using energy harvesting power sources. Joining us for this virtual roundtable are: Dr. André Mansano (AM), CTO at Nowi; Graeme Clark (GC), Marketing Manager, Energy Harvesting Business Unit, at Renesas Electronics, Ken Imai (KI) Sr. Manager, Product […]
Design challenges when using energy harvesting – Virtual Roundtable (part 1 of 2)
The first part of EEWorld’s two-part “virtual roundtable” discussion on energy harvesting considers technical challenges and design tradeoffs for engineers using energy harvesting power sources. Joining us for this virtual roundtable are: Dr. André Mansano (AM), CTO at Nowi; Graeme Clark (GC), Marketing Manager, Energy Harvesting Business Unit, at Renesas Electronics, Ken Imai (KI) Sr. […]
Optimizing in-vehicle data networks
Physical channels have limits that affect the practicalities of automotive network architecture and communication protocols. Here’s the lowdown on current work aimed at breaking bandwidth bottlenecks. CHRIS RUSCH, BERT BERGNER | TE Connectivity It has become a truism that we have an insatiable appetite for data. Not so obvious is the effect our need for […]
The sense-think-act model of autonomous vehicles
Electronics and software tend to be more important than the mechanics of autonomous vehicles. This shift has serious implications for how vehicles are designed. Puneet Sinha | Mechanical Analysis Div., Mentor, a Siemens business Though certain autonomous functions, especially driver-assist and active-safety features, have started to show up in some recent-model vehicles, the goal of […]
Open standards for driverless cars
Why unsafe autonomous vehicle systems are passing undetected during development. Dr. Luca Castignani, MSC Software In February, McAfee exposed the alarming gap between the road test and real-world performance of autonomous vehicle sensors. In a demonstration, McAfee was able to fool a Tesla car into accelerating to 85 mph in a 35 mph zone using […]
The difference between measuring magnetic flux and magnetic fields
Simply stated, a magnetic field is analogous to electrical voltage, while magnetic flux is analogous to electrical current. A magnetic circuit is analogous to an electrical circuit with important differences. Electromotive force in an electrical circuit corresponds to magnetomotive force. Resistance and its reciprocal, conductance, in an electrical circuit corresponds to reluctance and its reciprocal, […]