Whether you are an electronics enthusiast or engineering professional, this book provides the reader with an introduction to the use of the CadSoft’s EAGLE PCB design software package. EAGLE is a user-friendly, powerful and affordable software package for the efficient design of printed circuit boards. It offers the same power and functionality to all users, at a smaller cost than its competitors. A free version of EAGLE is available to enthusiasts for their own use. EAGLE can be used on the main computing platforms including: Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista or Windows 7); Linux (based on kernel 2.6 or above) and Apple Mac OS X (Version 10.6 or higher). Any hardware that supports these software platforms will run the EAGLE application. The book is intended for anyone who wants an introduction to the capabilities of EAGLE. The reader may be a novice at PCB design or a professional wanting to learn about EAGLE, with the intention of migrating from another CAD package. This book will quickly allow you to: obtain an overview of the main modules of EAGLE: the schematic editor; layout editor and autorouter in one single interface; learn to use some of the basic commands in the schematic and layout editor modules of EAGLE; apply your knowledge of EAGLE commands to a small project; learn more about some of the advanced concepts of EAGLE and its capabilities; understand how EAGLE relates to the stages of PCB manufacture; create a complete project, from design through to PCB fabrication. The project discussed in the book is a popular, proven design from the engineering team at Elektor. After reading this book while practicing some of the examples, and completing the projects, the reader should feel confident about taking on more challenging endeavors.

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RFID technology has conquered many areas in which barcodes, magnetic strips and contact smartcards were used previously. Everyday applications, such as electronic ticketing, access cards, debit cards and electronic identity documents would not be possible without this technology. MIFARE is the most widely used RFID technology, and this book provides a practical and comprehensive introduction to it. Among other things, the initial chapters cover physical fundamentals, relevant standards, RFID antenna design, security considerations and cryptography. The complete design of a reader’s hardware and software is described in detail. The reader’s firmware and the associated PC software support programming using any .NET language. The specially developed PC program, “Smart Card Magic.NET”, is a simple development environment that supports sending commands to a card at the click of a mouse, as well as the ability to create C# scripts. Alternatively, one may follow all of the examples using Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition. Finally, the major smart card reader API standards are introduced. The focus is on programming contactless smartcards using standard PC/SC readers using C/C++, Java and C#.

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Computer vision is probably the most exciting branch of image processing, and the number of applications in robotics, automation technology and quality control is constantly increasing. Unfortunately entering this research area is, as yet, not simple. Those who are interested must first go through a lot of books, publications and software libraries. With this book, however, the first step is easy. The theoretically founded content is understandable and is supplemented by many practical examples. Source code is provided with the specially developed platform-independent open source library IVT in the programming language C/C++. The use of the IVT is not necessary, but it does make for a much easier entry and allows first developments to be quickly produced. The authorship is made up of research assistants of the chair of Professor Ruediger Dillmann at the Institut für Technische Informatik (ITEC), Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH). Having gained extensive experience in image processing in many research and industrial projects, they are now passing this knowledge on. Among other subjects, the following are dealt with in the fundamentals section of the book: Lighting, optics, camera technology, transfer standards, camera calibration, image enhancement, segmentation, filters, correlation and stereo vision. The practical section provides the efficient implementation of the algorithms, followed by many interesting applications such as interior surveillance, bar code scanning, object recognition, 3-D scanning, 3-D tracking, a stereo camera system and much more.

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Microcontrollers have become an indispensable part of modern electronics. They make things possible that vastly exceed what could be done previously. Innumerable applications show that almost nothing is impossible. There’s thus every reason to learn more about them, but that raises the question of where to find a good introduction to this fascinating technology. The answer is easy: this Microcontroller Basics book, combined with the 89S8252 Flash Board project published by Elektor Electronics. However, this book offers more than just a basic introduction. It clearly explains the technology using various microcontroller circuits and programs written in several different programming languages. Three microcontrollers from the 8051 family are used in the sample applications, ranging from the simple 89C2051 to the AN2131, which is designed to support USB applications. The programming tools include assemblers, Basic-52 and BASCOM-51, and several C compilers. Every reader can thus find the programming environment most suitable to his or her needs. In the course of the book, the reader gradually develops increased competence in converting his or her ideas into microcontroller circuitry. All of the sample programs can be downloaded from the Elektor Electronics website or the author’s website. That has the added advantage that the latest versions are always available.

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The software simulation of gauges, control-knobs, meters and indicators which behave just like real hardware components on a PC’s screen is known as virtual instrumentation. In this book, the Delphi program is used to create these mimics and PIC based external sensors are connected via a USB/RS232 converter communication link to a PC. Detailed case studies in this Book include a virtual compass displayed on the PC’s screen, a virtual digital storage oscilloscope, virtual -50 to +125 degree C thermometer, and FFT sound analyser, a joystick mouse and many examples detailing virtual instrumentation Delphi components. Arizona’s embedded microcontrollers – the PIC's are used in the projects and include PIC16F84A, PIC16C71, DSPIC30F6012A, PIC16F877, PIC12F629 and the PIC16F887. Much use is made of Microchip’s 44 pin development board (a virtual instrument ‘engine)’, equipped with a PIC16F887 with an onboard potentiometer in conjunction with the PIC’s ADC to simulate the generation of a variable voltage from a sensor/transducer, a UART to enable PC RS232 communications and a bank of 8 LED's to monitor received data is also equipped with an ISP connector to which the ‘PICKIT 2’ programmer may easily be connected. Full source code examples are provided both for several different PIC’s, both in assembler and C, together with the Pascal code for the Delphi programs which use different 3rd party Delphi virtual components.

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