Bristol basestation network to test driverless cars
Researchers are rolling out a network of basestations across Bristol to communicate with driverless cars.
The basestations will use the latest Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) technology with a Bristol twist. Instead of using expensive dedicated hardware and software, the researchers have used low cost commercial Wi-Fi chips and their own software.
The technology can also be used with sensors on the infrastructure.
See much more about the FLOURISH project at Basestations roll out across Bristol to test driverless cars -TechSPARK.co
Würth buys SW timing specialist IQD
IQD Frequency Products in Crewkerne, Somerset, has been bought by German component maker Würth Elektronik.
The 44 year old company makes quartz crystals and oscillators that provide the timing for all kinds of electronics and along with its US subsidiary IQD Frequency Products Inc in Palm Springs will be part of the Würth Elektronik eiSos Group.
IQD is among the leading manufacturers of frequency control devices in Europe, and is active in over 80 countries. The deal will enable the company to make even greater investments in the further development of technologies and products, says Würth.
“With IQD our group has now acquired a highly innovative company with cutting-edge technologies and component solutions which are a logical extension of the range of products we offer. We are particularly pleased that we’re now able to offer valuable extensions for IoT, WiFi, GPS and 5G applications,” said Oliver Konz, CEO of Würth Elektronik eiSos Group.
IQD develops, manufactures and markets quartz crystals, oscillators, VCXOs, TCXOs, OCXOs, GPS-synchronised OCXOs and rubidium oscillators. The company also offers product solutions built to customer’s specifications.
“In our eyes, Würth Elektronik eiSos is the ideal partner for us,” said Paul Fear, former Group Managing Director of IQD. “Supported by Würth Elektronik eiSos’ global sales strength, IQD will be able to continue its growth whilst at the same time expanding its range of innovative product solutions.”
SW tech drives Amazon’s Internet of Things operating system for billions of devices
Amazon has tapped SouthWest technology for the embedded software to control billions of devices in the Internet of Things (IoT).
The company has launched its own version of the world’s most popular embedded operating system, FreeRTOS, developed in Bristol by Richard Barry who worked for Wittenstein High Integrity Systems (WHIS).
Last year Barry joined Amazon as a principal engineer and, as a result, the FreeRTOS kernel version 10 is now under the MIT licence – allowing it to be used freely (instead of its previous and more restrictive GPLv2 licence).
Simplified licensing has long been requested by the FreeRTOS community and the choice of the MIT licence was based on the needs of the embedded systems community. Open source Amazon has also developed its own version, Amazon FreeRTOS, which is based on the FreeRTOS kernel and adds support for Amazon Web Service (AWS) and IoT use cases. This includes software libraries that make it easy to securely connect devices to the cloud and on a local network. This works on boards developed by STMicroelectronics which also had a large embedded technology centre in the region for many years.
You can find out much more at Amazon taps Bristol tech for Internet of Things operating system -TechSPARK.co
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