Over a century ago two men independently invented the Yagi-Uda antenna. Ever heard of it? Neither had we before we started looking at the history of the invention. Invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University and Hidetsugu Yagi, Kiyoshi Kawakami, and other colleagues at the same university, it was the first antenna designed to exploit the advantage of receiving signals from multiple directions to cancel out noise or jamming with high gain, high directionality, and uninterrupted … [Read more...]
What is a Heat Sink : Working and Its Applications
In recent years, various devices such as integrated circuits, personal computers having GPU units, IGBT, and semiconductor power devices unprecedentedly generates a large amount of heat. It came to know that the heat generation concentration from these devices is approaching a level matching that of nuclear reactors, which becomes almost difficult to dissipate such a heat rate. For that reason, there is a requirement for heat dissipation through heat sinks where these devices can efficiently … [Read more...]
What is PID Controller : Working, Types & Its Applications
Any Industrial Process or automated system should run under a controlled process. One such control system which keeps any automated system or a process to be intact is a PID controller. It was initially developed by Elmer Sperry in the year 1911, but it was not evaluated until 1942 when Nicholas and Ziegler added a few parameters and gave life to the PID controller. PID controllers were initially used in Pneumatic control systems and later from the mid-1950s it is extensively used for industrial … [Read more...]
What is CAN Protocol : Architecture, Working and Types
Formerly, automobile manufacturers used to connect various electronic devices in automobiles using a number of wires through point-to-point connections. This resulted in huge wire connections which were very expensive and bulky. Later, this complicated wiring system got replaced by dedicated wiring that enhanced communication speed between devices and provided high integrity, and was named as controller area network. The CAN was first developed by Bosch in the year 1985 for in-vehicle … [Read more...]
What is Potentiometer : Working & Its Applications
Potentiometers are variable resistors that were first invented to amplify radio signals. You could find it in an old radio or a stereo system as a volume control. Earlier it was named 'multiplier' by Charles William Siemens and but nowadays it is commonly called 'POT'. It is used today in both electrical and physical applications and is an integral part of electronic circuits, motor controls, and many other areas. In this article let's look into different types of the potentiometer, its … [Read more...]
What is an Open Collector : Configuration, Working & Advantages
In the digital chip design, microcontroller applications and operational amplifiers, the open collector outputs are commonly used either for driving high loads such as relays or for interfacing with other circuits. As we know that BJT is a transistor and it has three terminals (Emitter, Base and Collector) where these terminals can be configured mainly in three switching modes. Those are Common Base, Common Collector and Common Emitter modes. Today, we are going to discuss about open collector … [Read more...]
What is Power Capacitor : Working & Its Applications
A Capacitor is an electrical component, which is used to store electric charges temporarily. The unit of a capacitor is the farad (F). A Power Capacitor is a special type of capacitor, which can operate at higher voltages and has high capacitances. This article gives you a brief introduction to a power capacitor and its working principle, formula, connection, types of applications, and more. Want to learn more about capacitor and how it works? Read our article: Capacitor Working & Its … [Read more...]
What is Ultrasonic Sensor : Working & Its Applications
Ultrasonic sensors are in available for the past many decades and these devices continue to hold huge space in the sensing market because of their specifications, affordability, and flexibility. As the automation industry has been progressing, the employment of ultrasonic sensors in multiple domains such as drones, EV vehicles is emerging. In the year 1914, Fessenden developed the first modern transducer employed in sonar where it can be able to find the items in water but not the direction of … [Read more...]
What is a Trimmer Resistor : Working & Its Applications
Trimmer resistors are also called trim pots or variable resistors that allow you to manually fine-tune the resistance in a circuit. They're often used for calibration in applications like amplifiers and radios to make sure that the circuit output is as close to the ideal level as possible. In this article, we'll discuss everything you need to know about awesome little components like a trimmer resistor and how they work, how they're manufactured, and how you can use them in your own … [Read more...]
What is a 7-segment Display : Working & Its Applications
7 segment display is an old school Opto-Electronic Display device mainly used to display alphabets and digits. As the name suggests, these displays include seven segments that switch ON & OFF to display the required digit or alphabet. The segments in this display are normally single LEDs or liquid crystals. These displays are extensively used in electronic meters, digital clocks, displays in home appliances, basic calculators, cars & different electronic devices that display numerical … [Read more...]