Here are some of the great reads you will enjoy.
Are you a drone spy?
This is the era of drone technology. Drones have become a useful tool for tracking and surveying, particularly for the emergency response, animal protection, security and journalism industries. They are also becoming popular with private users to make videos or even survey an area. However, if private users do not use them within the bounds of the law, they could face serious prosecution. For example, an individual who sends a drone over another person’s house is disregarding the privacy rights of that person. Drone laws and regulations in South Africa are closely modelled on existing aviation law, which distinguishes between commercial, corporate, non-profit, and private operations of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) is the agency responsible for drone safety and it regulates the legal and regulatory framework for the use of drones in South Africa. Read what the legal experts say!
What will 1700 satellites per year mean for Africa?
According to the latest Euroconsult report, the global satellite industry is now on course to build and launch some 17 000 satellites over the next decade. The next ten years will see a race to deploy the first mega-broadband constellations, plus a new constellation for real time earth observation. What implications will these developments have for the African market?
The golden rule of board layout for switch-mode power supplies
This article explains the basis for achieving an optimised board layout, a critical aspect in the design of switch-mode power supplies. A good layout ensures stable functioning of the switching regulator and minimises radiated interference as well as conducted interference (EMI). This is widely known by electronics developers. However, what is not generally known is how an optimised board layout for a switch-mode power supply should look!
The gig economy
The widespread acceptance of hybrid work and international workforces raises questions around whether a gig economy will favour only those IT professionals who already have workplace experience, and how young professionals will gain practical knowledge working in isolation. This emerged during a webinar hosted by the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) and the authors of the 2022 JCSE-IITPSA ICT Skills Survey, Prof. Barry Dwolatzky, director of the JCSE at Wits University, and Adrian Schofield, production consultant at the IITPSA. Aiming to unpack what a borderless world of work will mean for IT, the webinar discussed the changes that might be expected in IT working environments and skills development in a new world of work.
Solving Industry 4.0 challenges with software configurable I/O
This article presents a software configurable input/output (I/O) device and its dedicated isolated power and data solution that helps solve the challenges in bridging the legacy analogue signalling to the industrial ethernet. It explains the benefits of channel flexibility, fault detection and diagnostic capabilities that are inherent to the software configurable I/O device. System-level evaluation results are also presented to showcase the overall benefits of the system solution including system robustness and power dissipation.
These five are just a small selection of articles in the August edition of EngineerIT. Read it here
