Universal Serial Bus Connection Research Articles

A Wireless Instrumentation Control System Based on Low-Cost Single Board Computer Gateways

Nowadays, most of the automatized measurement processes are carried out by VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) compatible instruments, that execute the instructions provided by a host computer connected through wired standard buses, as USB (Universal Serial Bus), GPIB (General-Purpose Instrumentation Bus), PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation) or Ethernet. To overcome the intrinsic limitations associated to these wired systems, this work presents an instrumentation control system based on the IEEE 802.11 wireless communications standard. Intended for instruments having a USB control port, this port is connected to a gateway based on a compact Raspberry Single Board Computer (SBC) and thus the instrument can be connected to the host computer via Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), easily allowing the deployment of an ad-hoc instruments communication network in the working area or its connection to a previously deployed general purpose WiFi network. Developed under Python, the operation commands, wireless link protocol, and USB connection allow two modes of operation to provide system flexibility: a live mode, where commands are sent individually from the host computer to the selected instrument; and a standalone mode, where a full measurement process can be entirely downloaded in the gateway to be autonomously executed on the instrumentation. The system performance in both operation modes, distance of operation, time latencies, and operating lifetime in battery operation have been characterized.

Voltage control for microchip capillary electrophoresis analyses.

This paper presents an inexpensive and easy-to-implement voltage sequencer instrument for use in microchip capillary electrophoresis (MCE) actuation. The voltage sequencer instrument takes a 0-5V input signal from a microcontroller and produces a reciprocally proportional voltage signal with the capability to achieve the voltages required for MCE actuation. The unit developed in this work features four independent voltage channels, measures 105 × 143 × 45mm (width × length × height), and the cost to assemble is under 60 USD. The system is controlled by a peripheral interface controller and commands are given via universal serial bus connection to a personal computer running a command line graphical user interface. The performance of the voltage sequencer is demonstrated by its integration with a fluorescence spectroscopy MCE sensor using pinched sample injection and electrophoretic separation to detect ciprofloxacin in samples of milk. This application is chosen as it is particularly important for the dairy industry, where fines and health concerns are associated with the shipping of antibiotic-contaminated milk. The voltage sequencer instrument presented represents an effective low-cost instrumentation method for conducting MCE, thereby making these experiments accessible and affordable for use in industries such as the dairy industry.

A Mobile Cloud-Based Health Promotion System for Cardiovascular Diseases

In this paper, we propose a mobile cloud-based health promotion system targeting clinical cardiovascular diseases for use with both the Windows and Android operating systems. The prototype system can provide health promotion recommendations by physicians via so-called mobile cloud-based health promotion. These recommendations are based on users’ own the systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), pulse, sleep time, electrocardiogram (ECG), climate, diet, and movement records, utilizing remote video conferences, and asynchronous messaging with users. More specifically, the system integrates cloud-based BP and ECG healthcare module, a remote video technique, a video recording module, a message module, and a cloud-based climate, diet, and movement module. Furthermore, it includes a cloud-based cardiovascular disease electronic bookshelf module to provide healthcare education, as well as a cloud-based health promotion module, which utilizes physicians’ preventive health recommendations. We demonstrate the use of this system for cloud-based health promotion and healthcare procedures for cardiovascular diseases. The system integrated BP and ECG machines, which obtain data on systolic and diastolic BP, pulse, sleep time, and ECG signals, utilize a universal serial bus connection to send these vital signs to a computer, laptop, tablet, or smart phone, from which they are transferred to a health promotion center using Wi-Fi, or third and fourth generations mobile communication technologies. This mobile health promotion system can be used in the self-management of various chronic and cardiovascular diseases, anywhere and anytime. The aims of this system are to improve costs, time, efficiency, health management and monitoring, and quality of care.

Electromechanical Impedance - Based Structural Health Monitoring Instrumentation System Applied to Aircraft Structures and Employing a Multiplexed Sensor Array

The electromechanical impedance method has been seen as a promising tool for structural health monitoring regarding different types of structures and purposes. Most importantly, this method can be used in real-time applications. Frequently, massive, high-cost, single-channel impedance analyzers are used to process the time domain data, aiming at obtaining the complex, frequency-dependent electromechanical impedance functions and therefore infer about the presence, position and extent of an existing damage. However, for large structures, it is desirable to deploy an array of piezoelectric transducers over the area to be monitored and interrogate these transducers successively, in order to increase the probability of successful detection of damage at an early phase. The literature describes many miniaturized systems that can monitor large structures, however, presenting serious restrictions on data acquisition capabilities. This paper presents a hardware that is not limited to any data acquisition restriction, exhibiting an innovative way to measure the electromechanical impedance of multiplexed bonded transducers. Each logical block of the proposed architecture is presented in detail. The proposed system not only avoids costly fast Fourier transform analyzers/ algorithms, but also evades high-speed data acquisition hardware. A prototype using inexpensive integrated circuits and a digital signal processor was built and tested for two different types of structures: an aluminum beam and an aircraft aluminum panel. Simulated damages were introduced to each structure, and the detection performance of the prototype was tested. The actual prototype uses a universal serial bus connection to communicate with a personal computer.

Low cost (audio) recording (LCR) for advancing soundscape ecology towards the conservation of sonic complexity and biodiversity in natural and urban landscapes

Low cost (audio) recorders (LCRs) represent a new opportunity to investigate the sonic complexity of both natural and urban ecosystems. LCRs are inexpensive sampling audio recorders which have the external shape of a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, and are composed of a microphone, an analog-to-digital converter, central processing unit with permanent internal non-volatile memory, rechargeable battery, and a USB connection. The reduced dimensions allow the device to be deployed inconspicuously within any environment, in any configuration and for an extended time period. This investigation tested a specific type of LCR (UR-09) with a spectral range of 8 kHz - sufficient to cover the acoustic range of most western Palearctic songbirds. The reliability of the UR-09, compared with other commercial recorders (Zoom H4 and Song Meter SM1) and based on the quality of recordings quantified by the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), was tested and confirmed. An example of the application of LCRs is presented in an evaluation of the audio patterns occurring during dawn and dusk choruses within a forested ecosystem. Results of this investigation are encouraging and a new generation of LCR devices is currently being designed with real-time acoustic data processing capabilities, timer programmability, a larger frequency range and wireless communication compatibility. LCRs are revealed to be ideal instruments to conduct surveys in fragile or protected areas and also in urban environments. Moreover, due to their low cost, they can be used to encourage research in soundscape ecology, especially within developing countries, where large areas can be monitored by professionals or incorporating citizen science models of data collection.

Design and Implementation of a Continuous Wave Near Infrared Spectroscopy System for Bedside and Home Monitoring

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technology is widely used in non-invasive biomedical monitoring and has a significant importance in neurophysiopathology research. This paper shows the design and development of a multichannel, continuous wave near infrared spectroscopy system. The main characteristics of this system are that it is small, multi-channel, reconfigurable, portable, low cost and can be applied to cerebral monitoring. This system consists of a NIR optode, a signal conditioning and control unit and a graphical user interface (GUI). NIR signals are acquired real-time and transferred via USB (Universal Serial Bus) to a laptop, post-processed and visualized with an embedded stand-alone Matlab GUI. The USB connection also powers the system, without the need for external power sources. This new system, called NIR§HARD is designed to be fully integrated with a processing system (called NIR§SOFT) which we previously developed and it can perform time, frequency, and time-frequency analyses

A secure control protocol for USB mass storage devices

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) has become the most popular interface standard for hardware connection, and there has been an explosion in the number of USB peripheral devices. External USB storage devices, in particular, are finding widespread application. Unfortunately, because USB affords high transmission speeds and is extremely convenient, many workplaces and businesses have prohibited the use of USB devices to prevent confidential data from being extracted from computer systems via USB ports. However, this compromises the convenience of the USB connection and demonstrates a lack of flexibility in management. Therefore, finding a way to take the considerations of both convenience and management into account has become a significant issue. This study proposes a secure control protocol which provides mutual authentication and key agreement between client and server to solve this problem.

Lensfree on-chip holography facilitates novel microscopy applications

Lensfree on-chip holography facilitates novel microscopy applications

USB interface for Medipix2 pixel device enabling energy and position-sensitive detection of heavy charged particles

Abstract We have designed an interface board between the Medipix2 single photon counting chip and Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is presently the most widespread PC interface. All necessary detector support is integrated into one compact system ( 80 × 50 × 20 mm 3 ) including the detector bias source (up to 100 V). Power supply is internally derived from the voltage provided by the USB connection, so no external device is required. This solution allows to achieve maximum portability of the measurement setup. One of the most significant advantages is the support of back-side pulse processing. The charge generated by an ionizing particle is measured in the bias circuit and can be used for spectroscopic purposes or for triggering. With the present design, the energy resolution of such spectrometry is about 44 keV.The interface board has been designed for connection with present chip-boards carrying one or four Medipix2 chips.

Music instrument system and methods

A method and system (10) which allow even a novice performer to easily play music which is not disharmonious and which is pleasing to the performer and his or her audience. The music is prefrably created by the performer breaking one or more beams of light (15, 17), which are emitted by one or more beam emitters (26) and received, or detected, by one or more beam detectors (28). When a beam detector determines that a beam has been broken, a trigger (51) is sent to a synthesizer (56), with such synthesizer preferably being a computer interfaced to the beam detectors via a universal serial bus connection. The synthesizer selects from one or more electronic sounds, based on a pre-programmed collection of sounds. An amplifier (60) and speakers (62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72) play the sound.