Wireless technology for the masses

Removing cabling from hand held devices has been a challenge for many design teams over the past 30 years or so. Passing simple data between 2 or more units without wires can be tricky – what transmission type is applicable? How much data? How fast? Once the transmission medium has been chosen, the data protocol must be designed, noise immunity must be considered and then there is the obvious problem of EMC.

Many technologies have been implemented, including Ultrasonic, Modulated infra-red, Low power data radio and so on. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks but all have one aspect in common – both the remote end and the fixed end need to be designed in each application.

With the advent of Bluetooth and WiFi (wireless networking), there is a distinct advantage over other wireless systems, especially if the fixed end is a PC or other network able, generic device.

Bluetooth excels in point to point wireless communications and with its moderate data rate, provides the ideal platform for “remote control” applications. In fact, Bluetooth exceeds of all of the proceeding technologies including cost in most cases.

Embedded Wifi offers an excellent solution in situations where many remote units need to communicate with / via a central “hub”. The fixed end could be a host PC and wireless router. This device could even post the data from the wireless end to the internet in a seamless manner.

Over the past year, PaniK Technology have developed a strategy to implement both Bluetooth and WiFi communications from a simple embedded processor to a PC or another embedded processor using proven hardware and software modules. This could open new opportunities for your product and allow cost effective wireless communications to be implemented.

To find out more about adding wireless communications to your existing product, or to discuss a new requirement, please contact Paul Mullen at PaniK Technology.