Circuit Cellar - September 2024

In this issue

4: Exploring Infrasound — Tornado Early Warning Detection Project Using Raspberry Pi Pico and a Python Supervisory Program, By Dev Gualtieri
10: Retro-style Miniature Sports Scoreboard — RGB LED Matrix and Raspberry Pi Provide In-Game Updates, By Tyler Bisk
16: No Blues with Bluetooth! — Part 5 – Understanding Higher Protocol Layers Provides Interoperability Help, By Robert Lacoste
22: TECHNOLOGY FEATURE: Fill AI with Computer Vision — On the Leading Edge of Adoption in Industrial IoT, By Tom Murphy
28: DATASHEET: IoT Protection with MCU Security, By Tom Murphy
32: PICKING UP MIXED SIGNALS: The Blues Wireless Notecard-LoRa, Brian Millier
42: EMBEDDED SYSTEM ESSENTIALS: Power Analysis Over JTAG Ports: Hidden Debug Dangers — Block Side-Channel Analysis Attacks, By Colin O'Flynn
46: EMBEDDED IN THIN SLICES: Mobile APP Development with React Native, By Bob Japenga
52: FROM THE BENCH: Thin Film Transistor LED Displays — Visual I/O, By Jeff Bachiochi
62: TECH THE FUTURE: The Future of Sparse AI — Bringing Cost-Effective, On-Device AI to Home Appliances, By Sam Fok

Exploring Infrasound - Tornado Early Warning Detection Project Using Raspberry Pi Pico and a Python Supervisory Program

Inspired by the possibility of building an early warning system for tornadoes, Dev developed an infrasound detector. Tornadoes are rare in his area, but his detector found other infrasound activity using sensor circuitry based on a Raspberry Pi Pico, combined with a Python supervisory program that stores data on a computer for analysis.

9 mins

Retro-style Miniature Sports Scoreboard - RGB LED Matrix and Raspberry Pi Provide In-Game Updates

This Cornell University graduate describes how he built a miniature, retrostyle scoreboard that pulls and displays live college and professional sports scores from the ESPN API-bringing the excitement of being at a sporting event to your living room. Pre-game information, in-game scores, and post-game results are displayed on a built-in PiTFT touchscreen.

10 mins

No Blues with Bluetooth! GATT Explained - Part 5 - Understanding Higher Protocol Layers Provides Interoperability Help

After exploring low-level layers of Bluetooth Low Energy in previous editions, and establishing connections in Part 4, Robert examines Attribute Protocol and Generic Attribute Profile or GATT in Part 5. These higher layer protocols provide developers with greater opportunity for interoperability with third-party applications or products.

10+ mins

Fill AI with Computer Vision - On the Leading Edge of Adoption in Industrial IoT

In just about any factory, production lines hum along like a symphonic orchestra. However, makers of artificial intelligence hardware are pushing transformative technology with mind-boggling productivity gains to unlock unrealized potential. Just how fast will AI seamlessly integrate into the means of production?

10+ mins

IoT Protection with MCU Security - Ward Off Attacks with Trust Zones, Encryption, Secure Keys and Tamper Detection

Security breaches jumped 107 percent as malevolent forces increasingly focused on IoT devices for side attacks, IP and data theft. Semiconductor vendors supplying on-chip cryptography, memory protection, unclonable technology, random number generation and other measures hope to shut the door on attackers.

2 mins

The Blues Wireless Notecard-LoRa

After having built a number of Wi-Fi IoT gadgets for the home, Brian became curious to see how LoRaWAN-based IoT devices would work. He decided to investigate the Notecard LoRa IoT modules made by Blues Wireless.

10+ mins

Power Analysis Over JTAG Ports: Hidden Debug Dangers - Block Side-Channel Analysis Attacks

Small changes in the phase of clock signals can encode power leakages. An attacker can use standard interfaces such as the JTAG port to drive clocks across targets, using them as measurement techniques for sidechannel analysis attacks despite limited physical access. This article demonstrates how you can test devices for vulnerability and how to modify devices to prevent attacks.

7 mins

Mobile APP Development with React Native

This month, Bob continues his series on mobile app development from an embedded designer's perspective. He programs a React Native app and he offers guidelines for picking a tutorial for React Native. He further explores how it handles concurrency and asynchronous programming. Bob expected a few nuances during the process but to say there were more than a few would be an understatement.

9 mins

Thin Film Transistor LED Displays - Visual I/O

To add a resistive touchscreen on top of a TFT display, Jeff explores the technology offerings and libraries needed to accomplish his task. Calibrating the touchscreen's computed coordinates with the actual pixel coordinates of the display proved difficult with a modular framework but separating functions allows easy expansion.

9 mins

Bringing Cost-Effective, On-Device AI to Home Appliances - Sparse Weights and Interactions Negate GPUs and Cloud Computing

GPU silicon and cloud computing infrastructure are too costly for mass markets devices like refrigerators and washers. By deploying compute resources only to the necessary parts of AI inference, Sparse AI allows product designers to practically incorporate new AI features like natural voice interfaces into their consumer offerings without breaking the bank or electric bill surprises.

5 mins

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Circuit Cellar Magazine Description:

Circuit Cellar magazine features engineering tutorials, detailed microcontroller-based projects, and embedded systems industry news for professional electrical engineers, EE/ECE academics, and highly skilled electronics enthusiasts. Since 1988, Circuit Cellar has featured projects and tutorials from the world's top engineers on subjects such as embedded development (e.g., prototyping and programming), signal processing (e.g., DSP chips and signal conditioning), programmable logic (e.g., FPGA projects), sensor systems (e.g., smart sensors and MEMS), 'Net-connected devices (e.g., IoT projects and protocol stacks), robotics (e.g., robotic systems and proximity sensing), and much more. Circuit Cellar is the ultimate resource for all of your electrical engineering-related needs.