Electronics News Future Awards 2012
Each year in Australia Electronics News gives out seven awards for Electronics Design. We are very excited to announce that we received two of these seven awards at the Electronics News Future Awards 2012. We are still waiting on official pictures from the awards ceremony held at the Australian Technology Park during the Electronex Exhibition.
The categories we won were:
- Environment
- Communications and Networking
Electronics News Future Awards 2012
Environment
For the Environment category the award was for the control, sensing and tracking electronics systems on a combined solar PV and hot water system. The core technology from the client was the concentrated solar PV system which converts sunlight to electricity at a much higher efficiency that normal solar panels. Because it tracks the sun during the day it also delivers more power over the course of the day than a fixed installation can. And because it is concentrated sunlight there is a lot of heat. This heat is used to generate hot water via a heat exchanger system. Its a double win for the environment.
The core Electronics Design and Embedded Software we developed covered the following requirements:
- Electrical Power Generation monitoring
- Wireless Telemetry to an In Home Display
- Heat differential measurements across the heat exchanger to 0.1C
- Sun position sensing to within 0.1 degrees
- Gravitic inclination sensing to within 0.1 degrees
- Solar almanac to allow best effort tracking on overcast days
- Solar tracking via a Brushless DC motor controller (BLDC)
- Pump control for the heat exchanger
- Logging of power and heat energy generation
Concentrated Tracking PV + Hot Water
Communications and Networking
This was for converting wired timing gates for athletics to a wireless format using low power RF communications to allow the gates to communicate back to a central hub. This project had a lot of technical challenges. The core Electronics Design challenges were:
- Use of IR through beam detection in full sunlight and without cross talk
- Timing accuracy to 10msecs
- Up to 4 sets of gates in operation in range of each other at the same time
- Long battery life, or low power
- Maintaining future expansion possibilities
This follows on from our wins in 2009 for the Analogue Design and Design Software and in 2011 for Industrial Electronics.
The awards ceremony was followed by a round table discussion on Australian Manufacturing which I will cover separately.
Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2012 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd
Well done to Ray and the team.
It is great to see local companies being recognised for their innovation and excellence in design.
Congratulations Ray & everyone at Successful Endeavours, excellent stuff!!
Hi Ray,
Since I am in Montreal Quebec right how, I will say it in French – Felicitations! (Congratulations) again!
When you have a great team to help you design and manufacture electronic systems, you can accomplish anything. Forget the fact that manufacturing in Australia is declining. It’s only declining for those who can’t keep up with change.
I see it in North America, manufacturing jobs are coming back, because design excellence and value chain integration are key to bringing a product to market successfully and then maintaining market domination.
Sure companies like Apple and other multi-nationals can afford offshoring, but for small manufacturers, retailers and distributors, there is nothing that beats made in Australia.
Good luck and congrats!
Dr Marc Dussault
The Exponential Growth Strategist
Congratulations Ray! Another fantastic award to make your About Us page even more impressive. Well done!
Daniel Lizurek
Internet Copywriter
Australia’s #1 Copywriting Blog
Clever product. Congratulations Ray and the team.
More awards! The shelves must be overflowing now. Very well deserved. Keep up the good work.
From humble beginnings Ray it has indeed been a delight to see your business mature and grow providing outstanding technologies that we can all make use of in the future. The Enviromental challenges we all face are enormous and your team seem to have taken sustainability to another level. Trust that we will see this technology mass produced to a level that all can use and be cost effective. All the best in your continued endeavors. Regards Adrian & Corrie BEKKER.
With the sky your limit, I often wondered where you would land Ray 🙂 First I thought it would be medical technology but obviously that wasn’t complicated enough for you. The solar tracking technology (including almanac) is fabulous. Imagine this scaled-up in solar farms – as Adrian indicates, we need sustainable energy solutions a generation ahead of the current flat panels. I’ll replace my 25 year old solar hot water system with a tracking unit when you go commercial. A far cry from building high end sound equipment at uni eh?. All the best to you and your team.
Kindly, Stephen
Congratulations Ray and the Successful Endeavours team (Very Successful).
Your signature is going to get very long at this rate
Regards
The Mondo Team
http://www.mondo.com
Congratulations Ray and Team. You are truly inspiring and it’s wonderful that you are being recognised for your achievements. Wishing you continuing success and many more awards to come. Jasmin Bishop (Monash University, Berwick Campus)
Amazing, Ray. You never fail to impress me with your winning attitude, talent, and dedication. I hope we get to work with one another very soon. I know you would make my concept a success.
Rima
Ray, you guys need to slow down some so the rest of the world can catch up. Terrific result.
Bob Bevan,
Matthew Davis Australia Pty. Ltd.
Your One Stop Shop for Valves, Tube, Pipe & Fittings.
Well done Ray and team! You guys are truly an inspiration. Keep up the good work.