Night Vision Technology

          Night vision technology, literally allows one to see in the dark. It is originally developed for military use .Humans have poor night vision compared to many other animals.With the proper night-vision equipment, we can see a person standing over 200 yards (183 m) away on a moonless, cloudy night. 

     

• Types of Night Vision device:

        1) Image intensification (light amplification) and

        2) Thermal imaging(infrared).

•  IMAGE ENHANCEMENT  COMPONENTS

1.     Front lens                                                     
2.     Photo cathode
3.     Micro Channel Plate
4.     High Voltage Power Supply
5.      Phosphor Screen
6.      Eyepiece
7.      Image Intensifier 

   v  IMAGE INTENSIFICATION

•      It is also called light amplification                                                                                           

•       It is less expensive than thermal

•    Light amplification technology takes the small amount of light, such as moonlight or starlight, that is in the surrounding area, and converts the light energy (scientists call it photons), into electrical energy (electrons).

•      These electrons pass through a thin disk that's about the size of a quarter and contains over 10 million channels.

•     As the electrons travel through and strike the walls of the channels, thousands more electrons are released.

•     These multiplied electrons then bounce off of a phosphor screen which converts the electrons back into photons and lets you see an impressive nighttime view even when it's really dark.  

 v     THERMAL IMAGING

    SPECIFICATIONS

   

•  Scan 30 times per sec.

•  Sense temperature ranging  from -20 to 2,000 degree Celsius.

•  It shows a very minute difference of as small as 0.1 degree Celsius from more than 1,000 ft away. 

      v  TYPES OF THERMAL IMAGING DEVICES

           

 v       GENERATION OF NVT:

1.   Generation 0
2.    Generation 1
3. —   Generation 2
4.   Generation 3
5.   Generation 4 

Generation 0

• The earliest (1950's) night vision products were based on image conversion, rather than intensification.
     
  
  
    

 Generation 1

•      Vacuum Tube Technology
•      Full Moon Operation
•      Amplification: 1,000
•      Operating Life: 2,000 Hours

       Generation 2

•      First Micro channel Plate  Application
•      One-Quarter Moon Operation
•      Amplification: 20,000
•      Operating Life: 2,500 Hours 

       Generation 3

•      Improved Micro channel Plate  & Photo cathode
•      Starlight Operation
•      Amplification: 40,000
•      Operating Life: 10,000 Hour

       Generation 4

•      Generation 4 has less noise than generation 3, however it has shorter life.

     Improvements

•    MCP & Photo cathode
•      Starlight Operation
•      Amplification: 40,000
•      Operating Life: 10,000 Hour

         APPLICATIONS

• • Military
•           Law enforcement
•           Hunting 
•           Wildlife observation
•           Surveillance
•           Security
•           Navigation
•           Hidden-object detection Entertainment 

                                                                                    

v     NIGHT VISION DEVICES

• SCOPES :     They are monocular normally handheld or mounted on a weapon.
• GOGGLES:  They are binocular and  worn on the head.
• CAMERAS:  Used for transmission or recording of images mostly if the location is      fixed.

v  FUTURE ASPECTS

  

     1.The Army is pushing NVT into the digital aspects. Future NV goggles are being designed  not just to see better at night but also to allow soldiers to share images of what they see with other soldiers who may be miles away.

    2. Technologists are working to meet the challenges of the Army, which includes their requirements for power of capture, size  and weight of equipment.

Introduction to Arduino

What is Arduino?

        Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer.

        Arduino is an open source physical computing platform based on a simple input/output (I/O) board and a development environment that implements the Processing language. Arduino can be used to develop standalone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your  computer (such as Flash, Processing, or Max/MSP).

         The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free on www.arduino.cc

How differs from others?

• Multiplatform Environment so it can run on Windows, Linux, Macintosh.
• Easy to use Development environment
• Programmable via USB port, not Serial port
• Easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage
• Open source and extensible software- The Arduino software is published as open source tools, available for extension by experienced programmers. 
• Open source and extensible hardware - The Arduino is based on Atmel's ATMEGA8 and ATMEGA168 microcontrollers.

Arduino Board

Arduino Development Environment

       The Arduino development environment contains a text editor for writing code, a message area, a text console, a toolbar with buttons for common functions, and a series of menus. It connects to the Arduino hardware to upload programs and communicate with them.

        Software written using Arduino are called sketches. These sketches are written in the text editor. Sketches are saved with the file extension .ino.

reference: arduino.cc , Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi 

    You can download eBook  Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi  from Here

ADS:

Lets see some awesome gadgets at eBay.....

RFID Technology

How Does RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification) Technology Work?

RFID is an intelligent application of radio communication technology. Every RFID tag embedded in a product contains an integrated circuit chip,with memory, which can be used to store information about a product, along with a transponder mechanism, which can transmit this information over a radio carrier wave after encoding and modulating it.

                                               

An RFID tag can either be active or passive. When the tag is powered by a battery to transmit data, it's known as an active tag. Passive tags don't have on board power to transmit data. They borrow energy from the scanner antenna in the RFID reader to transmit data. An RFID reader consists of a scanning antenna which can receive signals from the tags, decode them and process them for storing it in a database. Here is how a typical RFID tag reading occurs.

Step 1: RFID Antenna Sends Scanning Signal
 An RFID tagged product may either be passed through a reader or scanner or brought into the vicinity of one. Line of sight identification is not necessary in case of RFID technology and the tags are embedded inside a product. The tag reading process begins with the RFID antenna sending a scanning signal which activates the transponder in a tag to respond. The scanning frequency is chosen to match with the transmitting frequency of the transponder.

Step 2: RFID Tag Transmits Signal
 As soon as the active or passive RFID transponder receives the scanning signal, it sends out its own encoded and modulated signal over a radio carrier wave. Active RFID tags can transmit signals over long distances.

Step 3: Tag Signal is Received, Decoded and Stored
 This transmitted signal is received by the reader through its tuned antenna. Subsequently, the signal is demodulated and decoded to register product information in a database. These RFID scanners are attached to computers where this information is stored.

 Bulk identification of products and short scanning time are two of the prime advantages of using RFID tags, instead of bar code labels. RFID tags find varied applications. They have been used to track dwindling populations of animals in the wild. Employee ID cards have built in RFID tags, encased in plastic layers that are used in most corporate and industrial settings nowadays. The US army is one of the biggest patrons of this technology, using it to tag all containers transported worldwide, followed by Walmart which uses the technology in all its retail outlets. RFID chip implants in humans have been used for providing medical history and identification purposes.

image source en.Wikipedia.com


ADS:
Lets see some awesome gadgets at eBay.....