Frugal Engineering, Smart Device based Auto HMI and Engineering for EMC

Having trouble viewing this email? View in browser

Electronic Design
Embedded Software
Product Engineering

August 2012 / Issue #5

From the CTO's desk

	Greetings to all our readers! It feels great to see that our newsletter is inviting several interesting observations and discussions. We are thankful to our readers for evincing their keen interest in this effort and for sharing their curiosity to learn more about turnkey product engineering at Ascenten and various innovations we have enabled.
A recent article on India’s eminent healthcare visionary motivated me to share a brief note on ‘Frugal Engineering’, for it offered truly inspiring analogy with our practice of Gandhian Engineering (term popularized after Tata Nano's frugal engineering success). Being an engineering design services company with unwavering focus on R&D driven innovation in electronics design and embedded development, we have come to develop a sincere understanding of several distinguishing underlying principles that takes ‘Frugal Engineering’ beyond stereotypical precincts of ‘cost effective engineering outsourcing’ or ‘bells and whistles intertwined with economies of scale’. With a view to demonstrating this in our methodology, we ensure that process engineering and ideation takes precedence over product engineering. By linking people, processes and purpose in a holistic perspective, we nurture essential values of Frugal Engineering that include robustness in innovation, earnest focus on product / solution attributes and features rationalization, engineering with energy awareness and commitment towards low-cost operations and efficient service ecosystem. Our approach on ‘Frugal Engineering’ is thus based on devising engineering brilliance in a way that earns us a significant place in building solid corporate reputation and brand equity for our customers and partners. We have also used this edition of our newsletter to provide you with some thought-provoking information, which shall certainly add to your curiosity. Please share your views with me at JigarPatel@Ascenten.net. I would be happy to share some insights. Thank you and happy reading!
Cheers! Jigar Patel

Smart enunciator for automobiles

Vishal Jani (Software Engineer, Ascenten)

In recent times there has been tremendous growth in the market for smart devices. Not only have they become entrenched in our daily lives but are also becoming very powerful and business oriented. Indeed we depend on our smart devices for everyday tasks more than ever-and for tasks that didn’t even exist only a year or two ago. And the possibilities that make the smart device ‘smart’ are continually changing. Automotive telemetry, for example is one such domain where smart devices are unlocking unprecedented levels of innovations, usefulness and benefits (safety, guidance, convenience & the like) for car drivers.

Success Story: LPG/CNG Changeover Switch for
MPFI and Carburetor Vehicles

Ascenten CDS Series advanced dual fuel changeover switches boast a combination of compactness and state of the art technology and intelligent functionality eliminating redundant changeover operations and enabling efficient changeover. A progressive five staged fuel level display is provided using four indicator LEDs, reserve level being indicated by the first LED blinking. An internal output overload protection protects the electronics from valve coil failures and accidental shorting of outputs to ground.

Features:

Compact Size: 82.0 x 33.6 x 21.1 mm (LxWxH)
Functionality selection as per MPFI or Carburetor vehicle at the time of fitment
Operating Voltage Range: 8V to 18V DC (Note: Customized design available for vehicles with 24V battery)
Vehicle Suitability: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Cylinders, 4 Stroke, MPFI and Carburetor based Vehicles
Intelligent Operation
Output overload protection (CDS-xxS models only)
Available with Relay or Solid State Switching
Available with Rocker or Dome type switch
Mounting under dashboard or in side slot
ESD Safe, Microprocessor based design
RoHS compliant

Application:

MPFI based LPG/CNG Vehicles
Carburetor based LPG/CNG Vehicles
OEM fitment and after market conversion kits

News from the Industry

Voice input processing for automotive speech recognition systems

Sverrir Olafsson, Conexant

In a quiet, controlled environment, today’s speech recognition engines have become quite effective. Whether doing dictation with a quality headset in a quiet office, or giving search-phrases to a smartphone in a silent room, hit rates of close to 100 percent are now commonly achieved. However, adding a few disturbances tends to quickly degrade the performance.