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Nowadays, system-on-chips have become critical since they support more and more safe applications due to their flexibility. However, they are susceptible to single-event upsets because the memory cell size has significantly shrunk. This article presents a triple redundant on-chip interconnect bus that provides low-speed peripherals with high reliability. In addition to correcting single errors and detecting duplicated ones, the proposed circuit offers zero latency and is transparent for both the embedded processor and the peripherals. These characteristics make it suitable for hard real-time applications. At the same time, the impact on area and power consumption is minimal.

Wind energy harvesting is a widespread mature technology employed to collect energy, but it is also suitable, and not yet fully exploited at small scale, for powering low power electronic systems such as Internet of Things (IoT) systems like structural health monitoring, on-line sensors, predictive maintenance, manufacturing processes and surveillance. The present work introduces a three-phase mini wind energy harvester and an Alternate Current/Direct Current (AC/DC) converter. The research analyzes in depth a wind harvester’s operation principles in order to extract its characteristic parameters. It also proposes an equivalent electromechanical model of the harvester, and its accuracy has been verified with prototype performance results. Moreover, unlike most of the converters which use two steps for AC/DC signal conditioning—a rectifier stage and a DC/DC regulator—this work proposes a single stage converter to increase the system efficiency and, consequently, improve the energy transfer. Moreover, the most suitable AC/DC converter architecture was chosen and optimized for the best performance taking into account: the target power, efficiency, voltage levels, operation frequency, duty cycle and load required to implement the aforementioned converter.

Wind energy harvesting is a widespread mature technology employed to collect energy, but it is also suitable, and not yet fully exploited at small scale, for powering low power electronic systems such as Internet of Things (IoT) systems like structural health monitoring, on-line sensors, predictive maintenance, manufacturing processes and surveillance. The present work introduces a three-phase mini wind energy harvester and an Alternate Current/Direct Current (AC/DC) converter. The research analyzes in depth a wind harvester’s operation principles in order to extract its characteristic parameters. It also proposes an equivalent electromechanical model of the harvester, and its accuracy has been verified with prototype performance results. Moreover, unlike most of the converters which use two steps for AC/DC signal conditioning—a rectifier stage and a DC/DC regulator—this work proposes a single stage converter to increase the system efficiency and, consequently, improve the energy transfer. Moreover, the most suitable AC/DC converter architecture was chosen and optimized for the best performance taking into account: the target power, efficiency, voltage levels, operation frequency, duty cycle and load required to implement the aforementioned converter.

Wind energy harvesting is a widespread mature technology employed to collect energy, but it is also suitable, and not yet fully exploited at small scale, for powering low power electronic systems such as Internet of Things (IoT) systems like structural health monitoring, on-line sensors, predictive maintenance, manufacturing processes and surveillance. The present work introduces a three-phase mini wind energy harvester and an Alternate Current/Direct Current (AC/DC) converter. The research analyzes in depth a wind harvester’s operation principles in order to extract its characteristic parameters. It also proposes an equivalent electromechanical model of the harvester, and its accuracy has been verified with prototype performance results. Moreover, unlike most of the converters which use two steps for AC/DC signal conditioning—a rectifier stage and a DC/DC regulator—this work proposes a single stage converter to increase the system efficiency and, consequently, improve the energy transfer. Moreover, the most suitable AC/DC converter architecture was chosen and optimized for the best performance taking into account: the target power, efficiency, voltage levels, operation frequency, duty cycle and load required to implement the aforementioned converter.

The present research work proposes a photovoltaic energy harvester and an appropriate direct current (DC)/DC converter for a harvesting system after the study of the devices and taking the operation conditions. Parameters such as power, efficiency and voltage are taken into account under different environment conditions of illumination and temperature in order to obtain the best possible response. For this reason, suitable metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), diode, coil, frequency, duty-cycle and load are selected and analyzed for a DC/DC converter with boost architecture.

The present research work proposes a photovoltaic energy harvester and an appropriate direct current (DC)/DC converter for a harvesting system after the study of the devices and taking the operation conditions. Parameters such as power, efficiency and voltage are taken into account under different environment conditions of illumination and temperature in order to obtain the best possible response. For this reason, suitable metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), diode, coil, frequency, duty-cycle and load are selected and analyzed for a DC/DC converter with boost architecture.

The present research work proposes a photovoltaic energy harvester and an appropriate direct current (DC)/DC converter for a harvesting system after the study of the devices and taking the operation conditions. Parameters such as power, efficiency and voltage are taken into account under different environment conditions of illumination and temperature in order to obtain the best possible response. For this reason, suitable metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), diode, coil, frequency, duty-cycle and load are selected and analyzed for a DC/DC converter with boost architecture.

As worldwide awareness about global climate change spreads, green electronics are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to diminish pollution. Thus, nowadays energy efficiency is a paramount characteristic in electronics systems to obtain such a goal. Harvesting wasted energy from human activities and world physical phenomena is an alternative to deal with the aforementioned problem. Energy harvesters constitute a feasible solution to harvesting part of the energy being spared. The present research work provides the tools for characterizing, designing and implementing such devices in electronic systems through their equivalent structural models.

The smart-grid concept takes the communications from the enclosed and protected environment of a substation to the wider city or nationwide area. In this environment, cyber security takes a key role in order to secure the communications. The challenge is to be able to secure the grid without impacting the latency while, at the same time, maintaining compatibility with older devices and non secure services. At the lower level, added security must not interfere with the redundancy and the latency required for the real-time substation automation communications. This paper studies how to integrate IEEE MAC Security standard (MACsec) in the substation environment, especially when used in substation system communications that have stringent response time requirements and zero recovery time as defined in IEC 62439-3.

The smart-grid concept takes the communications from the enclosed and protected environment of a substation to the wider city or nationwide area. In this environment, cyber security takes a key role in order to secure the communications. The challenge is to be able to secure the grid without impacting the latency while, at the same time, maintaining compatibility with older devices and non secure services. At the lower level, added security must not interfere with the redundancy and the latency required for the real-time substation automation communications. This paper studies how to integrate IEEE MAC Security standard (MACsec) in the substation environment, especially when used in substation system communications that have stringent response time requirements and zero recovery time as defined in IEC 62439-3.

The smart-grid concept takes the communications from the enclosed and protected environment of a substation to the wider city or nationwide area. In this environment, cyber security takes a key role in order to secure the communications. The challenge is to be able to secure the grid without impacting the latency while, at the same time, maintaining compatibility with older devices and non secure services. At the lower level, added security must not interfere with the redundancy and the latency required for the real-time substation automation communications. This paper studies how to integrate IEEE MAC Security standard (MACsec) in the substation environment, especially when used in substation system communications that have stringent response time requirements and zero recovery time as defined in IEC 62439-3.

Discontinuous loads frequently compromise the performance of their power source and electronics. They cause the voltage and current ripple at the source and load, and introduce electromagnetic interferences. Also, they affect the efficiency of the power source. The aforementioned issues are particularly relevant in battery powered electronics. In order to minimise these unwanted effects, it is necessary to introduce a power supply architecture between the load and the source that should filter and/or regulate the currents and voltages. This architecture could be made solely of passive components or could use DC–DC regulators. The present work classifies and characterises the most relevant architectures available. A novel switched power supply architecture for pulsed loads with adaptive input current is also introduced. A mathematical analysis of the conditions and characteristics that the regulated architectures should fulfil to obtain the maximum performance in terms of efficiency and green electronics is provided. The simulation and experimental results shown in this study demonstrate the theoretical analysis.

Critical systems require zero recovery time when a failure occurs in a communications network. The soon to be implemented standard IEC 62439-3 defines the only two protocols, parallel redundancy protocol and high-availability seamless redundancy, which fulfill this requirement and ensure no frame loss in the presence of an error. These protocols also provide a hot-plugging capability, which allows elements to be added to or removed from the network without interrupting communications and the operation of the plant. The electricity sector has adopted these for power utility automation in the recently published IEC 61850-90-4. The challenge is to obtain an efficient approach for use in electronic devices, capable of managing the characteristic duplicates, and circulating frames of these protocols, coupled with agile architectures capable of dealing with real-time processing requirements, fast switching times, high throughput, and deterministic behavior. The main contribution of this paper is the in-depth analysis it makes of network parameters imposed by the application of the protocols to power utility automation, and the proposition of a frame management system based on a segmented memory system that improves frame detecting time and uses the smallest memory required in order to resolve all the issues dealt with.

The IEC62439-3 defines two ways to obtain a high availability automation network: Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR). In order to do that, those methods include different paths to send information frames from source to destination and add a redundancy field to the frames. Nodes in the network must remember arrived frames so as to manage the duplicated information. In this paper the requirements of memory needed for a hardware implementation are analyzed.

Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR), defined in the IEC62439-3 about high availability automation networks and proposed as reference network topologies for substation communication networks by IEC61850, assure the upkeep of the communication when an error in a network occurs. Those methods consist in sending information duplicated through different and independent paths; so that nodes must be capable to eliminate the duplicated information circulating in the network. This paper analyzes ways to do the discard of those frames, which is crucial for a good implementation of the standard.

The IEC62439-3: Industrial communication networks - High availability automation networks - Part 3: Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR), defines two protocols which provides zero time recovery against a failure in the network. The first edition of the standard was published in 2010, and two years after a second edition has been published in July 2012. There have been some improvements which explain this actualization and an amendment between versions. This paper presents the most remarkable improvements included, others susceptible of being included and a software prototype to be run in PCs and/or FPGAs which implements this new version of the protocols.

Paper from the international conference on Electric and Electronics (EEIC 2011), The present paper is focused on designing small form-factor drivers for high-power LEDs, which are fed with one battery element. Standard power supply architectures are not suitable due to the design requirements and technical restrains imposed. The study evaluates power supply systems to solve the design case analyzing their advantages and drawbacks. In doing so it is introduced new power supply architectures of constant current drivers for LEDs that improve the performance of standard ones.