IoT has been the focal point across nearly every industry for over a decade – and for a good reason. The Internet of Things is fundamentally changing the way that new and legacy industries are doing business just as much as it is changing the way that we live our day-to-day lives. IoT, in almost every definition of the word, is absolutely here to stay will only keep growing and evolving. Analog Devices makes some of the industry’s leading components for designing your IoT solution. This article will highlight some of the distinct areas of technology focusing on the IoT products coming from Analog Devices, as well as make related product recommendations.
Sensor Networks
Analog Devices now offers the SmartMesh IPª wireless sensor network kit, which is designed as a stand-alone solution for sensing in industrial IoT environments. Sensor networks are extremely valuable in large IoT applications, as they allow scalable design depending on the number of nodes required in your design. The SmartMesh IP VManager software-based network manager allows designers to implement up to 50,000 motes in a single network, which allows for a large geographic range of IoT sensing and network reach. Best of all, these battery-powered modules can last years in the field and have 99.999% data accuracy.
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High Performance Sensing
IoT is useless without the presence of accurate data and more often than not, that data comes from sensors. Whether you’re measuring the temperature of a manufacturing floor, the moisture of soil, or anything in between, a sensor’s accuracy and durability are imperative to your IoT application. Analog Devices has a plethora of sensors and configurations that enable low-power, accurate sensor data. This MEMS accelerometer, for example, operates at 1.0 mA with a per-axis sensitivity of +/- 1%.
MEMS accelerometer:
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Measuring and Interpreting Data
With great data comes great responsibility. To correctly interpret signals, signal conditioning is imperative, especially in the Internet of Things where inaccurate data has nearly immediate consequences. Take for example Analog Devices electrocardiogram (ECG) integrated AFE, which is a single-chip solution for diagnostic-quality ECG measurement, respiration measurement, and pacemaker pulse detection. This design can be optimized for noise, power, or data rate, which makes it suitable for home or clinical ECG machines, all of which require extremely important signal interpretation as the patient’s life could depend on those signals.
Electrocardiogram:
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The Processor – The Brain
As true for almost all connected solutions, IoT data tends to actually influence the eventual output of a system, which is often done with a microcontroller. Microcontrollers can range from high capability with high power demands to lower capability with extremely low power demands. In the case of products used in the IoT, the latter is generally ideal, but manufactures are slowly building more functionality in extremely low power microcontrollers. Analog Devices has focused on making ultra-low power microcontrollers, just like ADuCM4050, which is an ARM Cortex M4 with 512 KB of embedded flash memory that supports a whole slew of exciting features to process your digital or analog sensor inputs.Microcontroller:
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Connecting Data
Once data has become executable, sharing the data is what makes the IoT so definitive and groundbreaking. However, power is always a concern when transmitting information. With their robust offerings of extreme quality IoT radio products, Analog Devices supports a wide array of radio bands across a number of wireless protocols and range requirements. The below Sub-GHz radio transceiver has a wide range of data rates, low power operation, and faster encryption via read protection.RF Transceiver:
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Powering the IoT
Obviously, nearly every category of focus up to this point has at least mentioned the ability to be low power. Even in a design where every component is ultra-low power, the integration of an effective power management device is crucial. Every day, new designs feature innovative ways of collecting non-standard power. To handle this power, Analog Devices has created an Energy harvesting PMU with ULP boost and charge management that supports a PV or TEG harvest. Best of all, Analog Devices has unmatched design expertise around low power systems and this product is living proof.Energy Harvester:
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