Movement Sensor Switch product line now available in Bengaluru region through our dealers

We have now appointed a dealer in Bengaluru area for our products. Neo Technologies Inc, will be providing sales and support for our Movement Sensor Switch line of products.

For any of your sales enquiries, or a demonstration of the product or to understand ROI (Return on Investment) calculation for installing the 'Movement Sensor Switch' product lines please get in touch with Neo Technologies contact information provided below.


Neo Technologies Inc
No. 81, kailasanagara
Venkatadri School Road
Konanakunte Cross
Bengaluru - 560 062

Contact: Mr. Some Gowda
Tel : +91-80-26860287
Mob : +91-99809-80029
E-mail: sales.neotechnologies@gmail.com

Change of company logo

We have embarked on a venture to launch a line of Home Automation products carrying the brand 'Ideas Unlimited'. So we have modified the company logo to suit branding on product lines.

Old Logo

New Logo

Nothing else has changed.We are still the same! Our website is also due for a major revamp, to showcase the products we have just taken to production. More announcements will follow. Watch this space for announcements on products.

High Wattage DC Motor Speed Control Development platform

We have developed an IP to manage multiple high wattage DC Motors, with a control system fed with feedback from sensors to precise maintenance of speed under varying load conditions.


Demo software showing varying speed control from very low RPM to high RPMs in both directions

The design can drive up to 6 motors with the same hardware and control speed of all six with a software controller. The team who  developed this hardware used this for developing  a software based P-I-D control system. The same hardware can also be used for developing Fuzzy logic control as well.

The hardware for controlling high wattage DC motors

The application for this technology includes electric vehicles, automation (industrial and home) and it can also can be used in Mobile Robots.

The following students of Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore were involved in the development of this hardware:

1. Srinivas Ramesh
2. Preetham Tenkila
3. Preveen KS

Concept: Braille Tutor with Sound playback support

Greetings! It has been a while since we posted an update on this blog. A few projects in progress and a few products going out kept us a little busy. But now we hope to provide regular updates.

The Braille system [Link: Wikipedia on Braille] is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing. Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each.

The idea for this concept evolved by observing the training given to young blind children at a local blind school in Mysore. Conventionally blind children are given training using a wooden base plate with 6 slots and six marbles.Children who have not yet been introduced to braille are taught with this in a class where both the instructor and children are blind. Most of the time marbles get dropped and the children end up searching for them more than actually learning Braille. So this device was invented to help the training of blind students easy and faster.

Conventional Method of teaching Brialle. Wooden board and Marbles. Picture above shows Braille alphabet 'A'

Number '1' shown in braille using conventional teaching methods.

 The first version just had loud beeps to indicate next and previous characters. This version actually has Voice to speak out the character being shown by the solenoids. The device spells "A" and then sets the solenoids to show 'A".

This device uses six micro-solenoids with wooden beads mounted on top to create a braille impression. The beads are large in size so that it compares to the training methodology used in Blind schools in India. Along with solenoids, the device also has an in-built speaker with sound playback capability! Recorded PCM Audio is played back for each character before the solenoids pop up to show a particular Braille Character.

The Braille Tutor's Remote Control

The Braille Tutor Unit

A simple and user-friendly remote has been designed to make one hand operation (left hand at that) possible while right hand is free to feel the braille character by the blind student. Remote provides following buttons for navigation.

1. Next Character (A --> B --> C ... )
2. Previous Character (D --> C --> B ...)
3. Home (First letter in language)
4. End (Last letter in language)
5. Language change (Supports Kannada, English, Numbers and Symbols as of now). 

This concept has been realized by the following students of SJCE with lab and technical support  from Ideas Unlimited:

Chaithra V	Shweta Subramanyam	Apoorva P	Akshata Puranik

Our next update on this blog will be on GeOS-1M GLONASS Navigation Module from Geostar Navigation Design Bureau - who have provided us with one sample GeOS-1 GLONASS module and dev kit for evalutation.

Touch enabled Graphical User Interface

This demo showcases a touch screen enabled GUI written from the scratch, which is lightweight, responsive and can be adapted for use in any kind of application.The GUI is completely proprietary and implements the good things found in a touch interface.

We are excited to put up this demo finally. This project has been 'Work in Progress' for last several months and will continue to be under development for a few more months. We have an early Alpha testing going on now. This Touch enabled Graphical User Interface designed for a standard Monochrome Graphic LCD module with resistive touch screen available in market.





The software runs on a '8-bit microcontroller' @16 MHz. We have some neatly optimized software built on it. In this alpha release we have standard GUI controls like buttons, text boxes etc that are demoed in the video.

The 'idea' behind this project was to build a generic touch enabled user interface that is easy to use, low cost and it can be adapted as the primary user interface for any kind of small and medium sized control applications. It can be adapted for control panels for consumer electronic products, industrial systems, CNC systems or just any system that requires a reasonably complex set of parameters to be managed on a user interface.

It can also be used in complex remote controls of remote controlled systems.

The software is written modular enough to be adapted for any other LCD module as well with some effort. We are also working on a similar idea that uses a TFT Color LCD along with touchscreen. It will be however a few more months before we can put up a demo on this blog.

We are open to any enquiries to adapt this system for your control panel needs for products and we provide both design and manufacturing support for systems designed by us. Feel free to contact with further enquiries on this concept using this e-mail id. 

Embedded Web Server Concept for Industrial/Home Automation

Greetings for a prosperous and Happy New Year 2011! It has been a busy 2010 and here is to hoping for a more exciting 2011!

We have been busy last year getting some basic infrastructure ready for our Automation related endeavors. Keeping in line with the earlier peeks and posts on automation, here is the next installment of what we have been working on.

This video below shows an Embedded Web Server. It is a small, low power consumption device that serves as a WEB SERVER (you can connect to it from your regular browser) and can be used in Industrial and Home Automation applications. It is a very simple demo, just enough to demonstrate the concept of embedded web server.

Demo of Embedded Web Server at Work:




The Embedded Web Server is implemented on a generic off-the-shelf Embedded Ethernet Development kit, using freely available TCP/IP stack and HTTP server open source software. The software has been adapted for the specific purpose of Home automation in this demo. We also utilizing it for industrial automation applications.

Possible Applications of Embedded Web Server:

1. Industrial Automation: Near real time monitoring of large number of parameters in an industrial environment. Ethernet allows fairly long distances of cabling to be done. A Web Server (embedded) in this scenario can connect to the process/manufacturing equipment and can provide data to a central control/monitoring station at lower costs.

2. Home Automation: For the ultimate geeks, how about controlling and monitoring all the lighting, fans, geysers in your home from a web browser from anywhere? :-)

For further details click here. For any product design/technology related queries e-mail us. You can find out contact info at our website http://www.ideas-unlimited.in

Concept: PIR Switch for energy saving/security applications

It is said that necessity is the mother of all inventions. This is one such product that evolved based on one of our internal needs.

To save energy in our lab where several 36W lights glow most of the time when nobody is using the lab. Considering the work at lab, it would be a difficult proposition to ask the people working in the lab to switch off lights when not in use. So we designed our own PIR sensor based Switch that switches off lighting when nobody is around. Also, when someone enters the room the lights come up again.

PIR sensors rely on changes in passive infra-red light received to determine presence or non-presence of people. This combined with a controller/timer to switch off light after the preset duration of non-activity and to switch on the lights when someone enters the room solved the problem!

There are many designs of such products available in the market with different cost and features.

Issues with PIR sensors:
Like all optical sensors, Sunlight can play havoc with it and make it generate false positives. After some due exploration we found a technique to eliminate false positives from the sensors and make it work. So our prototype works very well compared to the raw sensor signals. It avoids false triggers when used indoors despite sunlight peering in from Windows/doors.

Outdoor applications?
As much as we would love to have an outdoor version of this, sunlight plays havoc with the sensor. However these sensors can be used for night time applications of security/monitoring of any movement/people inside a compound/perimeter.

To know more about the product, visit our website and check out the 'Activities' link on the left side. 

We are in the process of turning it into a formal product. For any product/design enquiries, you can get in touch with us. Contact info at our website: http://www.ideas-unlimited.in

Robot designed by SJCE students with lab support from Ideas Unlimited...

This robot along with another matrix navigating robot was designed by students from the Mechanical and Instrumentation Departments of SJCE, Mysore (Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore) for a robotic contest at IIT Mumbai. The students developed two robots as part of this contest. Ideas Unlimited allowed these students to use the lab facilities at our premises for their activities.

Gripper Construction:
One the key elements on this robot was the construction of gripper. The gripper was constructed using ordinarily available aluminum channels and hand tools for cutting/drilling them. the gripper claw was put together using blind rivets. (Ingenious technique using available off-the-shelf material). The gripping portion of these parts were lined with rubber to ensure adequate grip is available on any material the claws may hold.

Disclaimer: Ideas Unlimited was not involved technically in making of these robots. At that point of time when these robots were built by the students of SJCE, Mysore, due to legal obligations Ideas Unlimited consciously avoided getting involved in any aspect of this robot development. Funding for the project was done by Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore.

However Ideas Unlimited due to its association with Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, provided the lab area and lab test and measurement equipment, mechanical tools, and equipment  for doing the necessary mechanical, electronic fabrication and software programming devices to these students.

The team:
The design of this remote driven robot is owned by the following students of SJCE, Mysore:

Vinod T S   Mechanical

Chaitra R Instrumentation

Preetham T S Instrumentation

Chaitra V Instrumentation

Sreenivas R Instrumentation

In one of the future posts, we will post about the matrix navigating robot made by the same students using line-follower technique.

e-thumb: Electronic Thumb-wheel Switch concept from Ideas Unlimited...

Eventually when made into product form, this prototype will be tiny electronic-thumb-wheel switch module that can be mounted on a panel. The device uses a 5X7 dot-matrix LED display. It uses EEPROM to store the chosen setting. Video below demonstrates how the switch mimics a mechanical thumb-wheel switch.

Applications:
1. Industrial applications to replace mechanical thumb-wheel switches with bright and visible displays.
2. In-flight/In-Automobile (Commercial) entertainment system - can display currently chosen channel number etc. (Software can also be adapted to scroll additional text if required.)
3.Panel meters to display any slow changing parameters. (Including automotive).

For any further queries or general interest on this technology, e-mail us.

GLONASS Navigation modules from Geostar Navigation Design Bureau

(Technical information republished with permission from the company that makes these modules.)

Following up on from the earlier post on different navigation systems,this post talks specifically about commercially available and off-the-shelf GLONASS based modules that are just becoming available in the market.  'Geo-Star Navigation Design Bureau' has a host of GLONASS/GPS Hybrid modules. Instead of competing with GPS system, these modules use both GLONASS and GSM signals and the module vendors claim to achieve accuracies of under '3 meters'! 

As mentioned in the earlier post about different navigation systems around the world, the GLONASS system was designed to be compatible with GPS, Galileo and Compass Navigation systems, so a GLONASS module can get the best from every navigation system available.

A wide variety of modules for different applications and casing options including a SMD module GeOS-1M that is 33 X 35mm. Geo-Star also provides Demo-Kits for developers who want to adapt/try out the modules.

Ideas Unlimited is in the process of evaluating GLONASS modules for a specific area of Navigation application which could use high accuracy.

If you require any further technical information about the modules, do get in touch with Geo-Star Navigation by e-mail. If you require any kind of evaluation or development/development support on these modules, you can contact Ideas Unlimited by e-mail.

Satellite based Navigation systems from around the world.

GPS (Global Positioning System) launched by USA is the dominant satellite navigation system around, and also the most commercialized navigation system available as of today. Many other countries are building their own or competing systems for terrestrial navigation for their commercial and/or military needs.

System [External Links]	Status	Country of Origin	Notes
GLONASS	Fully Operational since Sep 2010	Russia	Started during Soviet Union in 1976, system was restored starting 2001. Now fully operational since Sept 2010.
GALILEO	Targeted to be operational by 2014	EU and European Space Agency	Intended to provide more accurate signals than GPS and GLONASS. Project jointly run by EU and European Space Agency
COMPASS /BEIDOU-2	To cover China and adjacent regions by 2010/Early 2011, to expand to rest of the world by 2020.	China	Not an extension, but an alternate to GPS and GALILEO systems.
IRNSS	Expected to be operational by 2014.	India	Regional Navigation System envisaged by India, to be developed by ISRO expected to be operational by 2014.

Among the projects, GPS and GLONASS are now fully operational. This link here provides a brief two page technical comparison between GPS and GLONASS [External Link, PDF].

Commercially for civilian applications, a lot of ready off-the-shelf modules are available.  GLONASS modules have just started to emerge for civilian/commercial use.

Advantage of GLONASS:
By design, in GLONASS three signals were added around 2007 where the carrier signal frequencies were placed nearby to GPS, COMPASS and GALILEO signals, however not to interfere with the other systems. This enables GLONASS modules to be easily compatible with GPS, GALILEO and COMPASS signals by design resulting in low-cost and easier design for Multi-Standard GNSS receivers based on GLONASS standard. (Source: Wikipedia).

This arrangement results in more accurate and precise positional information due to a Multi-standard receiver and also a more reliable service availability. Military applications are finding it attractive because of the availability of an Alternative in the event of a hostile situation.

Some of the GLONASS modules now becoming available commercially demonstrate higher accuracy using this scheme. In one of our future posts, we will analyze one such GLONASS/GPS Hybrid module.