You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Hans van de Groenendaal’ tag.
Due to potential interference, the TV band usually has unused spectrum inbetween any two stations which seems a waste of valuable spectrum that could be utilised to provide broadband connectivity, particularly in rural areas. In July 2011 the IEEE accepted the IEEE 802.22 standard which is aimed at using cognitive radio (CR) techniques to allow sharing of geographically unused spectrum allocated to the television broadcasting services on a non-interference basis… (more)
While in some quarters fibre is being touted as the be all and end all, if there are any myths and misconceptions about satellites, then top of the list would be “satellites are a dying breed” and “satellites are expensive.” I agree that sub-marine and terrestrial fibre has brought broadband to the masses in the metropolitan areas but those on the “platteland” are sadly passed by. For them there must be other solutions – satellites being one. If satellites are a dying breed, where would pharmacies and chain stores in rural areas be? Many rural pharmacies rely on VSat networks to check medical aid benefits when dispensing medicine, chain stores need access to customer accounts and ATM facilities and banks in rural areas rely on VSats… (more)
South Africa’s new Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act protects 12,5-million hectares in the Northern Cape as a radio astronomy reserve to ensure the future of radio astronomy in the region. The question is – how will it affect people living in the area? Will they still have acces to TV, radio, cellphones and to the internet? According to Adrian Tiplady, Square Kilometre Arra (SKA) site characterisation manager, great efforts are being made to ensure that people in the area will have access to telecommunications and broadcasting, with full co-operation from the various role-players… (more)
Conventionally, expanding the capacity of mobile networks has been achieved mainly by adding more base stations to the existing infrastructure. However, it is a relatively slow and costly way to roll out capacity and this has impeded the expansion of mobile broadband, which in today’s highly competitive market is challenging. Although smaller cells have been enabled to provide a more cost-effective and faster way to add capacity in selected hot spot areas and to fill coverage gaps, especially indoors, small cell deployment will not replace, but rather, will complement the macro layer as a key provider of capacity and coverage… (more)
In the automotive industry robots have been used for many years but in some other sectors their use has been slow to take off. We asked a number of people from the automation industry to participate in a virtual panel discussion on robotics. Hopefully we take the lid off some of the mysteries that many believe surround these useful combinations of electronics, metal and software. Our point of departure was to explore the deployment of robotics in modern day plants… (more)
When I recently did research on ruggedised and embedded computing systems for the industrial processing environment I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Le Plastrier, divisional director of Invensys Operations Management, an EOH company. We started talking about ruggedisation of equipment in the process environment but soon the conversation moved to IT. Le Plastrier had some definite views on ruggedised equipment which we came back to later in our conversation… (more)
On 31 March 2011, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) published the new Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations in the Government Gazette. The ink had hardly dried on the document when ICASA received a flurry of complaints about mistakes and inaccuracies… (more)
Franck Cohen, president of SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa, recently visited South Africa as part of the company’s 40th anniversary. While most companies were still in the recovery stage when new dark clouds started gathering – mainly driven by the debt crisis in several euro zone countries – SAP celebrated its 40th anniversary with a 25% growth during 2011. In its annual results the euro zone’s financial woes are clearly reflected by a flat European market… (more)
Is intelligent building automation (IBA) just about being green, or is it a business imperative, given the climate of ever-increasing energy costs, and worse, a dwindling supply? It is a point of debate that is surely appearing on many boardroom meeting agendas. Some still argue that it is about being green, others will say it is about reducing cost, and yet another group believes that it is about saving the environment… (more)
With fuel prices at an all-time high and airfares skyrocketing, telepresence, video conferencing and teleconferencing should be taking off. Every vendor tells prospective clients how much their companies can save on travel costs and time and increase productivity, but as yet the market has not seen large scale adoption… (more)
A few years ago there were only a handful of data centres in South Africa, now they seem to be everywhere. The growth is obviously driven by demand, migration to the cloud and more companies outsourcing their IT services. In many respects data centres offer better business continuity as many of them have a large amount of redundancy and redundant connectivity built-in, which is often not affordable by small and medium sized companies. Security is another major consideration… (more)
Many South African-engineered and -manufactured products find their way overseas, yet we seldom read about it in our local media. One example is a tunnel FM radio system designed and manufactured by Broadcast Solutions Electronics in Cape Town. The company was created by the management buyout from Plessey in 2000… (more)
SA AMSAT (Southern African Amateur Radio Satellite Association) announced a CubeSat building project in 2011. I caught up with Hannes Coetzee ZS6BZP to track the progress so far. Designing and building a satellite measuring only 10 x 10 x 10 cm and weighing just over 1 kg is not an easy task… (more)
A R126-million Centre for High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy has opened at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth. This will enable our scientists to analyse materials right down to atomic level. The newly completed centre puts South Africa on a par with international peers in terms of cutting-edge research facilities… (more)
PCB design has comes a long way since the dot and tape era – having moved from PCAD to the latest Altium software. EDA has designed boards for the space industry including for SA’s own satellite, SumbandilaSat. Altium provides design solutions that break down barriers inherent in electronic designs by unifying the separate processes, all within a single design environment, working off a single data model which links all aspects of product design into one process… (more)
There are a large number of communication services in the cloud and new ones are being added almost daily. In this article we look at a couple of interesting services that operate in the cloud – one of them being printing in the cloud. Epson has expanded its mobile and cloud printing services for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets… (more)
Visual, mechanical and cognitive distractions while driving are legion, but systems are now being developed that will revolutionise in-car communication. Patrick Tchankue Sielinou, a student in the Department of Computing Sciences at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Port Elizabeth presented a paper last year at Automotive UI 2011 in Salzburg, Austria, covering the usability and the safety of in-car communication… (more)
We asked a number of experts in the field of measurement and instrumentation to give us their thoughts on the application of wireless technology in the measurement and instrumentation sector… (more)
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recently established the ITU-UJ Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security (CoECS), a dedicated centre to act as a central point for all aspects related to cyber security and critical information infrastructure protection in Southern Africa. The centre is headed by UJ Research Professor in Information Security, Prof. Basie von Solms… (more)
“Reducing IT cost is undoubtedly the single most important driver in the IT market today, not just in South Africa but on a global basis”. This is how my conversation started with Oracle’s CEO Pieter Bensch when I asked him how he sees the IT market. “Hand in hand with that goes the question of how do we get new innovative technology in data centres and in IT infrastructure without spending more? “… (more)
Cloud computing – are we past the hype? It is a question that elicits many answers, with as many qualifications. The only unqualified answer to my question came from Jacques du Toit, MD of Vox Orion who said it is not a hype any more.” We see many applications in the cloud and widespread adoption particularly amongst the small to media enterprises. Perhaps the exceptions are the banks and financial institutions that are still holding onto their own systems and infrastructure.”… (more)
The debate about long term evolution (LTE) and LTE extra will continue for a long time and while the WiMAX Forum is still making its voice heard, it appears that a large chunk of the telecommunications industry has accepted that WiMAX is great for backhaul but that LTE will lead the mobility drive… (more)
Despite giant strides in the right direction over the past few years to open up the telecommunications market, there are still pockets of monopolistic behaviour. This is the view of Dr. Pieter Streicher, MD of Bulk SMS. “One of these is the application-to-person (A2P) SMS market which is worth more than a billion rand annually for local mobile network operators.”… (more)
Thirty years ago a group of radio amateurs in Johannesburg met to put together a weekly one hour radio programme about ham radio. And it is still going strong. Content and presentation is very different from the early days, but it still focuses on radio and technology… (more)
Articles of interest: New booster keeps you talking; At last – an easy-to-read cellphone; Portable TV player with massive storage; eContent with WiFi eReader… (more)
Due to potential interference, the TV band usually has unused spectrum in between any two stations, known as “white space”. This appears to be a waste of valuable spectrum that could be utilised to provide broadband connectivity, particularly in rural areas… (more)
In November 2011 EngineerIT invited the lightning protection industry to respond to a number of questions on how companies and individuals should go about protecting their equipment against lightning strikes and mains surges. Respondents made some useful suggestions… (more)
In recent years research into the formation of thunder storms, and the impact of severe weather on man and machine has given scientists new insights and understanding that will lead to more efficient ways of minimising the impact, damage and loss of life caused by electrical storms. .. (more)
Converged telecommunications has been a hot topic for a while, but up to now it has remained only a promise of what is to come. Technically it is possible and equipment is available on the market – (see “Social communication – enabled in the core” page 20, EngineerIT Nov/Dec 2011) but no operator in South Africa is as yet offering one number for multiple access devices… (more)
The 18th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) was held from 28 August to 2 September 2011 in Milan, Italy. This congress is of historical significance for Africa and South Africa, as Prof. Ian Craig from the University of Pretoria was elected as president – the first IFAC president from an African country – and only the second from the southern hemisphere, in the 55-year history of the federation… (more)
Advances in electronics and manufacturing standards in recent years have seen the introduction of cost-effective robots with rapidly-improving onboard computational power and hardware capabilities. As a result of these improvements, it is now possible to program autonomous robots to perform highly complex tasks… (more)
Collaborative information retrieval (CIR) may be defined as an information access activity that involves people interacting with other people in an information-seeking and -retrieval process. This may be directly between collaborators and with collaborators, using documents as information sources… (more)
Benoit Neel recently visited South Africa to meet with Agilent’s South African partner, Concilium Technologies. This gave Hans van de Groenendaal the opportunity to discuss with him the developments in the electronic measurement industry. Agilent’s philosophy is that measurement touches virtually every aspect of our daily lives: the quality of our air, water and food, the performance of our smartphones and the effectiveness of our pharmaceuticals… (more)
Looking back over the past year it is difficult to focus on anything other than ICT as it again provided much to talk about and comment on. Communication dominated the technology media with debates about broadband, uncapped ADSL and local loop unbundling (LLU)… (more)
Documents for South Africa’s bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) have been submitted to the international SKA Siting Group. The South African response to the group’s request for information issued in June 2011 covers a range of information on the physical condition of the site in the Northern Cape province that was identified to host the SKA radio telescope. The SKA will allow astronomers to see billions of years back in time with the telescopes using the science of radio interferometry, where several telescopes observe a single body and the data is combined to give a more accurate picture… (more)
It is difficult to believe that after all these years the scourge of cable theft is still with us. It is costing the country billions, not just the cost of replacing communication and electricity cables, but also huge losses in productivity. Telkom has given up replacing stolen cables and in many areas has resorted to delivering services wirelessly or via satellites. In our own case at EE Publishers we have installed a microwave system to keep our telephone, internet and data services running. Mines are also being targeted and have replaced many of their communication services with fibre cable just to find that cables thieves, unaware that fibre has no scrap metal value, continue to pull cables from trenches. Many of the mines now use microwave systems for communication between the shafts… (more)
In August this year South Africa hosted the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Region 1 triennial conference. This was the first time since the formation of the international body that this important policy-making meeting has been held in SA and hosted by the South African Radio League (SARL)… (more)
Wireless applications empower industry and pave the way for remote control and SCADA applications, as well as providing platforms for remote monitoring of industrial plants, infomring management of what is happening in the plant. In our panel discussion we addressed the subject with four participants from diverse wireless perspectives. I started by asking: How pervasive is wireless in the automation and control industry? Paulo da Silva from Honeywell Automation said that wireless technologies in automation and control have become a fact of life, although not yet in all sectors… (more)
It has been predicted that by 2015 80% of devices connected to corporate networks will be privately owned, ranging from smartphones to iPads to laptops – or whatever device takes an employee’s fancy. Analysts believe that by then many employees will be almost completely mobile with their home or their favourite coffee shop as their place of work. “How will we be managing this and how will we be sure that our data is secure?”… (more)
A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is conceptually very similar to an electronic IC. While the latter integrates many transistors, capacitors and resistors, a PIC integrates multiple optical components such as lasers, modulators, detectors, attenuators, multiplexers/de-multiplexers and optical amplifiers. Large-scale PICs, like their electronic counterparts, extend the scope of integration so that upwards of dozens or more distinct optical components are integrated into a single device… (more)
The two satellites being built by students of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) include a beacon operating in the 20 m amateur band. The first of the two is a single CubeSat 10 x 10 x 10 cm with a mass of one kilogramme… (more)
This story has its origin in a garage, where in 1975 Andy Chisholm started making printed circuit boards (PCBs) at his home in Cape Town. As his list of customers grew, so did his need for staff and working space. He formed a company called Renak and moved from his garage to premises in Plumstead and later to a larger factory in Diep River… (more)
Laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs and now smart phones are rocking the world of cyber security. Not so long ago companies would only allow their own desktops on their networks –now it seems that anything goes, as companies virtualise, and, worse still, allow employees to bring their own devices to work and connect to the corporate network… (more)
Broadband issues have again dominated the telecoms scene during the past year, but at a different level- moving from international connectivity to local backbone issues… (more)
Seldom in South Africa’s industrial history has there been four companies working together to bring one unique product to market. It is called MAPS… (more)
“I have installed a cheap surge and lightning protector I bought at the Hypermarket – so what is all the fuss about?” This is often heard in the home as well in the office… (more)
Lalela is the Zulu word for “listen” and that is exactly what radio amateurs around the world are invited to do: listen to signals coming from a balloon travelling around the world at a height of approximately 22 km. Once at that height the prevailing winds will drive it around the world… (more)
There are so many electronic functions in the modern car, that the traditional motor mechanic or car enthusiast can often no longer easily tune the engine or fix something, without sophisticated electronic equipment to locate the simplest of faults… (more)
Recent Comments