Programming

Posts that deal with software code editing

FPGAs for Innovating Digital Communication Interfaces

symonmkCommunication, Engineering, Programming, Research

It’s 11th May, and we just arrived at a client’s studio at 11:45pm. I assure my colleague that we’ll get it right this time. Our job that night was to link two studios over an Ethernet connection. Simple enough despite the fact that neither of us had done it before. We had gone through the manuals over and over again, 4 different manuals in fact, that’s why I felt certain, at least 80% certain it would be possible. In the end, we achieved connecting two LAWO audio engines over a VLAN network that could send and receive digital audio channels over MADI (AES 10). More on that later. After our 5 hour stint, I couldn’t help wonder how even such an interface was achieved. In this post I cover what it takes for hardware and communications engineers to prototype, test and innovate such interfaces using FPGAs.

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Off-Grid Communications For The Masses: Smart Metering

symonmkCommunication, Engineering, Programming, Projects, Research, Signals

In East Africa, a large percent of the population still does not have access to electrical energy and its benefits. To address this, several companies have developed micro-grids to provide AC power to rural East Africa. In order to sustain these grids, a remote, robust communication system has to be developed for purposes of metering and billing. In this post, I propose several efficient designs of a communication system that could be used to monitor and manage off-grid customers. Specifically, it proposes the technologies that can be used, the hardware and software implementation of such as system and how it can make business sense addressing equipment and operation costs.

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Simplification in Design of Wireless Systems: 5 Useful Steps

symonmkCommunication, Engineering, Programming, Research, Signals

As we all know, wireless is the preferred method of connectivity between most of our devices. This is going to take more precedence in coming years. The number of connected devices per person and the demand for fast, reliable content delivery within a network is rapidly increasing. Add that to the already ongoing craze of developing IoT devices and the super-scaling of server farms to support them. In my view, RF, DSP and embedded systems engineers will have a lot going on. This shift is largely dependent on the wireless systems we build. In this post, I try to figure out the best way forward in design of wireless systems.

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Recognizing “ndiyo” and “hapana” speech using MATLAB algorithms and FFT functions

symonmkEngineering, Programming, Projects, Skills, Uncategorized

Ndiyo means yes in Swahili and hapana means no. The two words were chosen as they can be used to make very simple applications that may require a yes/no response such as an automatic telephone prompt system. Swahili translations of yes/no applies to the national language of Kenya, and an interface that recognizes the words can be used in local applications.

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