WiFi tag technology brings measurements to web pages, media sites, mobile devices

With its Widget Instrument, Cores Electronic is able to bring measurement data from sensors to web pages and media sites for much larger exposure to processing and display.

October 18, 2010

With its Widget Instrument, Cores Electronic is taking advantage of WiFi tag technology as well as the latest developments in Internet technology to introduce an entirely new concept in the way we perform measurement and analysis: the “widget instrument.” Powerful instruments which study large and very distributed physical phenomenon, such as climate, pollution, warming, and animal life, have yet to be created. This is because the measurement technology stopped at boxes and PC-based. The ability to bring measurement data from sensors to web pages and media sites is now necessary for much larger exposure to processing and display.

A sensor becomes a Cloud Instrument when it is connected to a WiFi tag. The tag digitizes the data to send it on to an Access Point, where the data is routed to the Internet and a Server IP. Here a customized engine is collecting the data for feed into web based applications like metering, charting, control, display, analysis, modeling, data mining, etc. These web based customized applications can now be embedded in web pages and media sites by using widget instruments.

The Widget Instrument is a small measurement application that can be installed and executed within a web page. The widget gets data from a Cloud Instrument and either displays the value as it is or it applies processing on the data before display. The unique features of a Widget Instrument are small size and embedded in a web page, media site or iPhone/Android/Blackberry/etc. device user interface. The Temperature and Voltage Widget instruments shown bellow display live temperature and voltage measurements acquired at 5sec intervals from the tag identified by MAC: 0012B800217E and located in the Cores Electronic office in Austin, TX, USA.

“The widget instrument technology revolutionizes the way we make measurements using the cloud, and also the way we make instrument data available to web sites, media sites and iPhone/Android/Blackberry/etc. portable media devices,” said company president Marius Ghercioiu. “We are working our way towards an ‘instrumentation cloud’ where not only the sensors but also the logging, analysis and control programs, and now widget deployment and display can be anywhere you want them."

www.tag4m.com

Tag4m, Cores Electronic

– Also read:

Web tags leverage RFID, Internet to create instrumentation cloud;

WiFi instrument tag sends data to real-time data-brokerage platform;

Control Engineering industrial network product area


– Edited by Amanda McLeman, Control Engineering, CFE Media, www.controleng.com