Author Archives: Andi

What is a Broadband Internet Connection?

To access the internet from homes, offices or mobile devices, internet services are necessary. This is offered in mainly four different forms – Digital Subscriber Line or DSL, cable, fiber-optic and satellite. All the above are commonly known as broadband services since they provide high access speeds compared to the old dial-up connection, which is the only non-broadband service. Although this is the cheapest way of connecting to the Internet, most users prefer faster connections such as provided by a broadband Internet connection.

The DSL connection makes use of unutilized telephone wires to provide Internet service. The speed of the connection varies with the distance of the user from the switching station – the speed will be slower the further away the user is.

A local provider of cable TV provides broadband Internet services through cable. Here, there will be several subscribers on a single service, sharing the bandwidth. The speed will vary with the number of users on the service at any specific time – decreasing as the number of connected users goes up. The speed is usually at its lowest at peak times, for example in the late evenings when many people will access the internet after the day’s work is over.

Fiber optics provides the fastest Internet connection and is the latest method. Since it is one of the newest methods, service areas are limited. In addition, laying fiber-optic cables under the ground is a time-taking task. Although the cost is comparable to that of both DSL and cable, the service provided by the fiber-cable is of a much faster connection.

Satellite services are one of the slowest forms of Internet connection and the most expensive. They are also notoriously complicated to set up and use. However, for people living in remote rural areas, a satellite broadband Internet service may be the only means of communication possible.

Broadband Internet services provide several advantages over more conventional means of accessing the Internet. DSL and cable connections are very easy to obtain and connect with the computer. The high speeds enable users to multitask while working on the Internet. For example, it is possible to surf the net while listening to music over the web.

At home as well as in the office, networking of several computers is made easier with a shared broadband connection. Both wireless as well as wired modems are available for this purpose.

Another trend recently introduced is the mobile broadband service. The modem offered is typically in the shape of a USB stick, only larger. It comprises a wireless device and a socket for the SIM card. When connected to the computer and supplied with the username and password, the wireless device searches for and connects to the transmissions of the service provider. Nowadays, with newer devices in the 4G or fourth generation, very high speeds are achievable.

One of the main advantages of broadband services is that it will not keep your phone lines engaged while you are surfing. This was the case with the old dial-up type of Internet service, where the user would not be able to make or receive telephone calls while connected to the Internet.

Two Delightful Robots Using the Raspberry Pi

Two kits are presented here for those trying to build a robot for the first time. The first is the GoPiGo, a complete robot kit from Dexter Industries and the second is TiddlyBot, a simple fun robot with lots of features. Both kits are great for introducing anyone to the exciting world of robotics and doing it in a fun and simple way. Building robots is a great way for learning Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), including basic robotics and programming.

GoPiGo

Apart from the robot itself, the GoPiGo kit comprises a full Linux computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi, USB and camera expansion for less than $100. You can turn GoPiGo into a full-fledged Wi-Fi robot for exploring unreachable corners of a closet. The inclusion of RBPi makes the possibilities endless. You can even control the robot with your mobile or phone over local Wi-Fi network.

GoPiGo has an acrylic robot body and associated hardware or mounting the RBPi and the Pi camera. It has a control board for motors, controls and extra hardware other than the encoders, wheels and motors.

You need only a screwdriver to assemble the kit. The kit comes with its power source in the form of an 8XAA battery pack along with its connector. You can use your desktop to program GoPiGo directly downloading the program wirelessly or via a USB stick.

The use of the Pi camera along with the RBPi increases the potential of GoPiGo many times over. There is a servo camera mount with the kit and it allows the camera to turn a full half-circle. This increases the robot’s potential for dynamic exploration – for details visit here.

TiddlyBot

If you are looking for something a little less complicated, TiddlyBot is sure to help. Under RBPi control, TiddlyBot begins with robot like movements, using a multi-colored light and progressing to line drawing and following. This is great for teaching children how to program robots as well as for simply playing games.

You can program TiddlyBot using any smartphone, tablet or PC with the provided Blocky Interface, out of the box. It has a web interface for remote control. Use TiddlyBot as a squiggly bot and draw programmatically or let it run freestyle. Use several pens with different colors to make modern art. Makers of TiddlyBot run many workshops for enabling young people pick up nuances of robot building and programming.

What can you do with these two simple but exciting robots? For starters, here are some suggestions:

• Use Wi-Fi To remotely explore a house or office
• Deliver drinks remotely
• Make sneak attacks on unsuspecting people
• Use it for herding pets and babies
• Use it for remote monitoring an event
The greatest benefit of both the robot kits is the inclusion of the Pi camera, which gives the robots their vision. You can monitor where they are going and manoeuver them remotely. This opens up possibilities of several awesome projects. You can make your robots follow hand motions, navigate and map rooms, track objects, follow faces, check on pets remotely, find lost stuff under the couch and so much more – the possibilities are endless.

How Does Wireless Broadband Work?

High-speed Internet access is a necessity nowadays, and people are not satisfied with the slow dial-up access. Different forms of broadband Internet services are available that provide high-speed access. Access speed is usually measured by bit rate, which is the number of bits processed per unit of time. You are using a broadband Internet service if your data speed is or above 256 kbps (kilobits per second). Typical speed figures for broadband downloads can range from 1.5Mbps to 159Gbps. Therefore, broadband is an evolution over the original high-speed internet service, ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, there is increasing need for mobile broadband services that do not restrict movement with cables and telephone lines. This requirement has brought forth another contender – the wireless broadband Internet service. As its name suggests, you have high-speed access to the Internet without any cable or wires trailing your device. Consumers are increasingly demanding wireless Internet service, as they perceive its versatility and its potential for improving their productivity.

Wireless broadband service is available increasingly at home, in offices and even at the local groceries or coffee shop. Service providers are offering packaged Internet service deals that users can access wirelessly from any location within the coverage area of the service.

You generally connect to a wireless broadband Internet service through a wireless network. Setting up this arrangement of a broadband wireless network in your home or office requires several pieces of equipment – a wireless transceiver and a wireless router – all a one-time expenditure. In addition, you need to invest in a continual expenditure in the form of a broadband service. Without this broadband service, your broadband tools will not work.

The wireless devices and the broadband internet service together make up your wireless broadband network. When deployed, the network will transmit data from your broadband Internet connection via these wireless tools using a special wireless technology called Wi-Fi. Only Wi-Fi enabled devices will be able to connect to the Internet from anywhere inside the coverage area defined by the location of your wireless router.

Although Wireless broadband Internet service is popular and is increasingly being used in homes and offices, there is another wireless technology gaining ground – Wireless Internet service. With wireless broadband Internet service, you have a package deal that involves the broadband service that you have to subscribe to and the hardware for the wireless technology. On the other hand, wireless Internet service is intended for use in a much larger location outside the home or office, such as a college campus or the downtown area of a city.

The growth of cell phones has increased the popularity of wireless Internet connectivity. Cell phones now feature several mobile applications designed with advanced wireless technology. Therefore, mobile devices can now connect to a wireless broadband internet service via Wi-Fi or directly to the Internet via their own cellular phone networks.

GSM or Global Systems Mobile has introduced a technology for improving mobile connectivity – EDGE. Likewise, their competitor CDMA has introduced EVDO, which is significantly faster than EDGE. Another upcoming technology in this field is the WiMAX, which is expected to provide speeds in excess of 40Mbps by the end of next year.

How does fiber-optic broadband work?

Fiber-optic broadband is a high-speed form of connecting to the Internet and works by sending and receiving signals over an optical fiber cable. Unlike the majority of broadband connections in the world that use mobile networks or the telephone lines, fiber-optic broadband transfers signals via special cables under the ground. These signals use light and optical fiber as against copper cables and move a lot faster offering speeds as high as 1Gbps.

Laying optical fibers under the ground is an expensive and time-consuming process. If you are in an area that is served by optical fibers, you can sign up for this superfast fiber-optic broadband service. Even the cheapest fiber-optic connection will provide speeds well in excess of any standard ADSL broadband service. Cheaper services often combine fiber along with copper wires to deliver the connection to your doorstep and are known as FTTC or fiber to the cabinet broadband. This type of connection usually has the fiber-optic line running from the provider to the junction box just outside your house. From here, normal copper wires carry the signal inside your home.

A better type is the FTTH or fiber to the home connection. This will have the fiber-optic cable run all the way inside your home. FTTH is better as it provides speeds up to 300Mbps as compared with speeds of about 75Mbps for the fiber to the cabinet service. However, FTTH services are not so widely available yet.

What can you do if you have a high-speed Internet connection? For example, with only a 50Mbps connection, you could download a 10GB Blue Ray movie in just under a half-hour or download an album of the size of 100MB within 15 seconds. FTTH provides several additional options such as to receive cable TV, phone lines and other excellent bundles with packages offered by service providers. The extremely high speeds offered by fiber optics has made it the backbone for much of the Internet deployed. In the US, the latest deployments are from Google Fiber and Verizon FiOS.

Fiber optics provides several benefits such as faster speeds over much longer distances as compared to the traditional copper-based technologies such as DSL and cable. Although the actual service you get depends on the company providing the service, but in most cases fiber will give you the best bang for the buck. In addition, fiber optics is future-proof as well. Even if broadband speeds increase by 1000 times in the near future, the existing single fiber-optic connection will easily support it.

Technically, fiber optics uses light in place of electricity for transmitting data. That means, much higher frequencies are used and the data capacity is enormous. The fiber-optic cable itself is made of glass or plastic and therefore, immune to electromagnetic interferences unlike metal cables are. Therefore, more data can be transferred to greater distances without any degradation.

Energy loss and interference are the limiting factors for most type of communication transmission, but fiber optics handles these factors in a much better way than any other modes of transmission. However, the biggest limiting factor that is currently hindering the widespread adoption of fiber optics for Internet access is the cost requirements of replacing DSL and cable networks.

Balance your robot with a Raspberry Pi

You may have seen the amazing two-wheel scooter, the Segway Human Transport system. It has only two wheels, a platform for a person to stand and a handle to guide the vehicle. The scooter operates on batteries located under the platform and between the wheels. Dean Kamen is the inventor of this amazing transporter, which can carry a person around while balancing on its two wheels without toppling over.

After watching the amazing Segway scooter, Mark Williams tried his hand at balancing a two-wheeled robot using the tiny credit card single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi. You can watch his success in the video clip here – it is almost like watching a human baby learn to take its first tottering steps.

Mark’s PiBBOT, or Pi Balancing roBOT, carries its own power source and the electronics, but unlike the Segway, does not have room for a passenger. The TFT displays the angles from the accelerometer, the gyro, the complimentary filter and the power drawn by the motors. There are two buttons on the top – one for turning on/off the motors and the other for resetting the gyro.

The PiBBOT uses the concept of an inverted pendulum to work. This is similar to how children balance a vertical stick on a finger on their outstretched hand – they move in the direction the stick is about to fall, thus attempting to keep its center of gravity below it. The balancing robot keeps itself vertical by using a control algorithm called PID or Proportional Integral Derivative. It does this by trying to keep the wheels under its center of gravity. Therefore, if the robot leans forward, the wheels carry the robot forward, trying to correct the lean. As the bottom of the robot moves forward, inertia keeps its top in the same place, thus righting it.

PiBBOT has an accelerator and a gyroscope to measure the angle of its lean. One axis of the accelerometer measures the current angle, while one axis of the gyroscope measures the rate of rotation. A well-timed software loop running in the RBPi keeps track of both. The RBPi makes calculations based on the measurements to provide power to the motors via the PWM. The RBPi must move the motors in the right direction to keep the robot upright.

Accurate angle measurements need readings from both the accelerometer and the gyro, which are then combined. Individual readings do not provide the necessary accuracy. The gyro measures the rate of rotation and requires to be tracked over time for calculating the current angle. The tracking usually includes noise, which causes the gyro to drift. However, gyros are useful for measuring quick changes in movement.

Unlike a gyro, accelerometers do not need tracking and they can sense both static positions as well as sudden movements – with gravity defining the static position of the robot. However, accelerometers are notorious for their noise levels. Both gyro and accelerometers perform well over certain sensitivity levels.

Mark is using a measurement range of 250dps with a sensitivity of 0.0875 dps/LSB for his gyro. For his accelerometer, he is using 8g full-scale, corresponding to 4mg/LSB and a full scale of 10. Read the full details here.

Rapiro the Customizable Robot with Raspberry Pi

If you have a kid aged 15 or above with a Raspberry Pi and he is clueless about his next project, Rapiro, the customizable robot may be very suitable for him. Designed for the tiny credit card sized single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi, Rapiro is a humanoid robot kit. It is an affordable kit and is very easy to assemble, needing only two screwdrivers. With an Arduino compatible controller board, the kit comes with 12 servomotors and limitless possibilities.

Even if you are not a programmer, Rapiro is easy to assemble and set up. The assembly instructions are simple and given in a step-by-step method, so anyone can follow them. Rapiro’s controller board is pre-programmed, so that Rapiro will come alive as soon as you have finished assembling it. However, if you are a programmer, you could make Rapiro sweep your desk or have him dance to a tune. For this, you will need to use the Arduino IDE to reprogram Rapiro.

Rapiro is highly customizable. Limited only by your imagination and the sensors you have at hand, simply install the RBPi board and go on expanding the capabilities of Rapiro. For example, you can add image recognition, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and anything else you can think of to make Rapiro livelier.

Rapiro has 12 servomotors to make it move. There is one servomotor in its neck, one in its waist, two each in its feet and three each in its two arms. There are six servos in its neck, waist and feet have a torque of 2.5kgf-cm each. The servos in its two arms have a torque of 1.5kgf-cm each. The operating speed for all the servos is 0.12sec/60° and the maximum angle they can move through is 180°.

You can program it’s eyes to give its face a full and colorful expression. Its eyes are made of bright LEDs, which can be programmed for different colors as they are of the RGB type. Plastic parts of Rapiro suit both models of RBPi – A and B. With small modifications, Rapiro can accommodate RBPi model B+ as well.

Rapiro’s controller board is very similar to an Arduino board and you can program it using the Arduino IDE. Anyone familiar with C++ development environment can use the Arduino IDE to program the 8-bit AVR based micro-controller on board Rapiro. However, that does not mean only those with programming skills can work with Rapiro – beginners can also learn how to program.

Once you have installed RBPi inside Rapiro, you can make it do more functions. With RBPi, you can use your favorite programming language on Linux to program Rapiro. For example, you could program Rapiro to watch over your home while you are away and to keep in touch by sending you text messages over Wi-Fi. You could have Rapiro acting as a security robot for your house if you give it vision by installing a camera module.

Rapiro requires five AA Ni-MH batteries to function. You can replace this with an AC adapter also. For transferring data, you will also require a USB cable to connect Rapiro to your PC.

How Do RCDs Protect?

If you touch something electrically live, such as a bare wire, chances are that you will receive an electrical shock that may even be fatal. An RCD or a Residual Current Device protects you from this danger, offering a level of personal protection not provided by circuit breakers and fuses. The RCD, being a sensitive safety device, automatically switches off electricity when it senses an earth fault.

Earth faults are associated with the risks of electrocution and fire. Such faults happen, for example, when you accidentally touch a faulty appliance or an exposed live wire, causing electric current to flow to earth. Outdoors, such faults may be the result of a lawn mower cutting through the supply cable.

When an RCD is protecting a circuit, it constantly monitors the electric current flowing through the different paths. The RCD switches off the circuit very quickly as soon as it detects an unusual electrical activity such as current flowing through the body of a person who has accidentally touched a live part. This reduces the risk of serious injury or death.

Using RCDs is an effective way of protecting oneself from electric shock in potentially dangerous environments such as gardens and bathrooms. To be as safe as possible, the RCD to be used must be chosen carefully from among fixed, socket-outlet and portable types.

Fixed RCDs are usually installed in commercial and industrial places at the consumer unit or fuse box. Typically, they provide protection to individual or groups of circuits. As all wiring, sockets and connected appliances on a circuit remain protected by the fixed RCD, it offers the highest level of protection.

Special socket-outlets can have RCDs built into them and you can use them in place of standard socket-outlets. This type of RCD will protect only the person who is in contact with the equipment plugged into the special socket-outlet, including the equipment’s lead.

You can plug portable RCDs into any standard socket-outlet. Just like the socket-outlet RCDs, It will protect any person who is using a device (including its lead) plugged into the portable RCD. This is a very useful device when neither the fixed nor the socket outlet RCDs are available.

Reliability of an RCD increases when tested regularly. Apart from reducing the risk of electric shock to you and your family, fixed RCDs will also defend your home against the risk of fire caused by an appliance or faulty wiring.

Although protection by using an RCD does reduce the risk of injury or death from electric shock, it does not mean that you should not be careful. Get your home wiring checked every ten years to ensure the safety of your home and your family. A registered electrician should immediately attend to any fault in the wiring or an appliance.

Be aware that if the RCD does not shut off the electricity supply even after you have held the test button for a long time, the RCD is most likely not functioning. Have it replaced or take advice from a registered electrician.

How Are Sensor Hubs Helping Android?

The duties of a sensor hub are rather specific. They usually take the form of an additional micro-controller unit, a coprocessor or a DSP that integrates data from various sensors and processes them for the benefit of the main central processor. Not only does this technology off-load several jobs from the main central processing unit of a product, it saves battery consumption and provides an upward jump in its performance.

Most smartphone, tablet and wearable manufacturers including application developers are targeting mobile devices in the near future that will always be aware of their surroundings and activities. This will lead to providing meaningful results and content to the user. Inputs for the Always-on Context Awareness will be delivered by numerous sensors located within a mobile device, a separate micro-controller or a sensor hub fusing and computing their data.

PNI Sensor Corp. is making such a tiny 2×2 millimeter package as a sensor hub. It is by far the smallest, smartest and the lowest power-consuming implementation of a sensor hub. Consuming barely 200µA, this sensor hub implements the complete sensors function for the latest KitKat Version 4.4, as mandated by Google. Furthermore, PNI has incorporated all the KitKat functions without implementing an extra processor. This will greatly extend the battery lives of Android devices, even if they are using all their functions 24×7.

Android device manufacturers have two other choices. They could write their own fusion software and have them run on processors such as from Atmel or ARM. They could even license such software from others. On the other hand, OEMs could use smart sensors that have some functions implemented on-chip, while running the rest on the application processor. However, both the above methods are power-hungry and likely to consume up to ten times the power compared to the solution offered by PNI.

SENtral-K hub (the K standing for Google’s KitKat), from PNI can handle all the hardware connections from the MEMS sensors, while managing the virtual sensor functions in the software including the dedicated state-machine logic. The hub uses a tiny processor, the Synopsys ARC, along with specialized state-machines. Together, they achieve 140-thousand FLOPS or floating-point operations every second, while consuming less than 200µA at 1.8V. Being sensor agnostic, SENtral-K allows OEMs to select the lowest power consuming sensors from all different suppliers. This includes sensors such as for ambient light, pressure, proximity, magnetometer, gyroscope, accelerometers and many more.

SENtral-K combines all the outputs from the raw sensors and provides KitKat with the necessary functions it demands. These include functions such as step-detect, step-count, significant motion, linear acceleration including all the functions based on location and others that Google wants to incorporate at all times for their apps such as Google Now. The tiny chip comes fully pre-programmed to handle all functions demanded by Google’s KitKat 4.4.

For example, SENtral-K is capable of handling Android 4.4 KitKat functions such as those with nine degrees of freedom or DOF – 3-axis magnetometer, 3-axis gyro and 3-axis accelerometer. It can also handle six DOF – accelerometer and gyro or accelerometer and magnetometer. Other functions it can handle include Timestamp, Data Batching, Uncalibrated Sensor, Calibrated sensor, Significant Motion, Step Detect/Count, Linear Acceleration and Gravity.

Expansion Board for Wi-Fi Connectivity for Raspberry Pi

The tiny credit card sized single board computer, the mighty Raspberry Pi or RBPi is mostly self-contained. However, the small footprint of the SBC has not allowed many important functions to be integrated within it. For example, the RBPi lacks an in-built Wi-Fi. This has led to several developments of Wi-Fi add-on kits, with the xPico Wi-Fi Plate from Lantronix leading the pack.

This pluggable, simple and easy-to-use expansion board from Lantronix provides a feature-rich and robust Wi-Fi solution that few can match. It enables the RBPi to attain several mobile-ready capabilities very easily and quickly. Not only does the xPico completely offload all Wi-Fi connectivity from the RBPi, it also provides many advanced capabilities such as Soft Access Point or Soft AP and Client Mode, along with QuickConnect and Wi-Fi connection management.

Combining xPico with RBPi allows developers to concentrate on the main application for RBPi. This is possible because xPico takes care of all the concerns about wireless connectivity management and wireless stacks while providing hassle-free Wi-Fi connectivity. Users get a robust and true 802.11 b/g/n solution, which provides a painlessly enabled Wi-Fi access either as a client or as a Soft AP. In fact, xPico offers a whole gamut of features along with industrial-ready quality and ease-of-use. Therefore, whether you are a hobbyist, a student or an engineer, you can readily enable your RBPi platform to achieve mobility by offloading the TCP/IP stacks and networking applications such as a web-server to the xPico Wi-Fi.

The xPico expansion board is an embedded wireless device server and has several useful functions. For example, it can provide a universal wireless technology to your tablets and smartphones. Your product designs can be faster now with the simplification of Wi-Fi implementation and integration. It provides unmatched flexibility as the footprint is compact and power consumption is very low. The proven feature-set includes simultaneous Soft AP and client mode, configuration by customization and zero host load. The user improves his competitive position by saving on cost and time-to-market. In short, xPico is designed with the necessary functionality to differentiate your Wi-Fi enabled products by providing flexible, mobile-ready Wi-Fi solutions for IOT and M2M applications.

If you are looking for a robust, full-fledged networking solution, the Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi module provides an extremely compact and low-power alternative. It will provide wireless LAN connectivity on virtually any platform that has SPI, USB or serial interface, such as on an RBPi.

Being one of the smallest embedded device servers in the market at present, you can utilize the xPico Wi-Fi module in designs that require chip solutions, as it befits the advantages to cost and time-to-market. The connected micro-controller need not have any drivers as xPico provides the zero-host-load feature. Therefore, implementation becomes very simple, since not a single line of code has to be written. That translates to a considerably reduced development cost and complexity. Additionally, xPico Wi-Fi meets all EMC and safety compliances such as EN, UL and FCC Class B.

Another advantage with the xPico Wi-Fi module is that it is compatible to a huge range of embedded microprocessors and controllers.

Is there anything better than OLEDs?

Almost everyone uses a smartphone today and the displays are getting ever bigger. Larger screens are a pleasure to watch, but difficult to put inside a pocket. Therefore, Qibing Pei, a professor of materials science, is researching highly flexible and stretchable OLED displays that could allow a small elastic OLED smartphone to fit easily into one’s pocket and the screen could be expanded when viewing. That would certainly be a great help if successful, but in the meantime, there is something else, which is better than an OLED.

OLEDs require power and are expensive. Instead, carbon nanotube field emitters powering up a lighting panel are less expensive. They stimulate a phosphor in the panel to glow, much as the cathode ray tubes of the yesteryears did. The phosphor is brighter than the current OLEDs, consumes much less power compared to LEDs and is far less expensive than both of them are. Professor Norihiro Shimoi, a lead researcher at the Tohoku University in Japan is working on this technology. He uses light through a neutral density filter to illuminate nanotube field emitters to stimulate the phosphor.

Although the prototype in Professor Shimoi’s lab has yet to achieve 60-lumens per watt, it is similar in design to the flat version of the old cathode ray tube. Not expected for a commercial release before 2019, the nanotube prototype is like a lighting lamp, but with a power consumption of 1/100th of standard LED devices.

LEDs are all the rage today, owing their advantages over fluorescent and incandescent lighting because of the very low power consumption of LED based devices. With large-scale lighting, however, several LEDs have to be used together, which complicates the engineering and thermal design. On the other hand, the nanotube design is flexible enough to be formed into flat panels of any size.

Incandescent bulbs are the least efficient at a mere 15lumens per watt. In comparison, LEDs and fluorescent bulbs both produce about 100 lumens per watt. The difference is LEDs are point sources of light, whereas fluorescent bulbs spread their light over a much larger area. Organic cousins of LEDs, the OLEDs, produce about 40 lumens per watt but have the advantage of being incorporated into panels. According to Shimoi, simulating large phosphor-covered panels with electron field emitters made of carbon nanotubes will be more efficient. With their much lower power requirements, and producing 60 lumens per watt, these phosphors will potentially be brighter than OLEDs that produce only 40 lumens per watt.

Shimoi is currently working on reducing the energy loss by heat. The device employs highly crystallized carbon nanotubes and phosphors. These are coated with ITO particles. Shimoi is attempting to increase the electrical conductivity to reduce energy loss by heat. The process involves optimization of the crystallization of the carbon nanotubes along with the design of the lighting device.

Where typically, carbon nanotubes are made using semiconductor diode junctions, Shimoi has made them into excellent field emitters of electrons so that they can stimulate phosphors. Furthermore, production of these nanotubes does not require expensive clean rooms or high-temperature ovens. The nanotubes are single-walled and are grown by arcing.