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The system architect’s sketchbook: The tree knows
Deepak Shankar, founder of Mirabilis Design and developer of VisualSim Architect platform for chip and system designs, has created this cartoon for electronics design engineers.
The post The system architect’s sketchbook: The tree knows appeared first on EDN.
Precision lasers boost safety and efficiency in smart factories
The drive toward greater accuracy, efficiency, and automation in manufacturing environments and smart factories is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. This includes the deployment of advanced robotic systems, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and collaborative robots working alongside humans, known as cobots.
The future of manufacturing depends on safe and seamless human-robot collaboration, requiring robots to dynamically adapt to the presence and movements of human workers. Maximizing the potential of these collaborative environments demands a critical capability: fast, accurate, and reliable 3D spatial sensing.
Traditional sensing methods often fall short in dynamic industrial settings that require reliable performance and high resolution. So, precision laser technologies, particularly time-of-flight (ToF) and frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar, are emerging as key technologies, providing the detailed environmental sensing technology necessary for robots to navigate safely around personnel and to optimize workflows without compromising human safety.
Advanced lidar systems enable highly precise obstacle detection, distance measurement and real-time mapping, facilitating safer interaction between humans and robots. Design engineers are integrating the technology into automated factory systems to address the challenges of modern manufacturing while boosting accuracy, operational safety, and overall production efficiency.
How ToF lidar uses light to measure distance in smart factories
ToF lidar delivers highly accurate distance measurements by timing the round-trip travel of laser pulses, creating precise 3D point clouds of all objects in the surrounding environment—giving AMRs and cobots a detailed, real-time picture of their workspace. A ToF lidar system emits a pulse of invisible laser light onto an object and receives the reflected pulse back.
The system then calculates the distance between the transmitter/receiver and the object based on how long that round trip takes. Figure 1 shows a high-level diagram of a single-point optical ToF lidar system.
Figure 1 Distance measurement is shown between the object and the ToF lidar. Source: Texas Instruments
Cameras and ultrasonic sensors fall short in dynamic applications
Camera-based systems and ultrasonic sensing cannot match the speed and precision that ToF lidar delivers for distance measurement. While cameras excel at extracting texture and color information from their environment, they struggle with depth perception, especially in challenging lighting conditions.
Cameras often require illumination of the entire area of interest to function accurately, while ToF lidar systems, such as the module on top of the robot in Figure 2, supply their own illumination in the form of laser pulses. Most ToF lidar systems use laser light with a 905-nm wavelength invisible to humans and can sense objects over 100 m away while remaining eye-safe. Some scanning ToF lidar systems can provide 360-degree distance measurements, making them particularly useful in AMR applications where spatial awareness in all directions matters.
Figure 2 AMR is equipped with a ToF lidar module on top to supply illumination in the form of laser pulses. Source: Texas Instruments
Obtaining accurate 3D distance information from cameras requires complex and computationally expensive image processing algorithms that can introduce latency and potential inaccuracies. Camera-based systems also require good lighting conditions to operate properly.
Due to light dispersion, most camera-based systems deliver accurate distance measurements only for objects a few meters away and lose accuracy at greater distances unless design engineers use large, costly lenses.
Ultrasonic sensors offer a low-cost solution for proximity detection, but suffer from limited range, poor accuracy, and susceptibility to interference from noise and surface characteristics. Accuracy for distance measurement typically falls within a range of several centimeters, and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and the object surface texture heavily influence results. Additionally, a wide field of view makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact location of an obstacle, increasing the risk of false positives.
FMCW lidar adds velocity measurement for safer human-robot collaboration
FMCW lidar is quickly emerging as a superior sensing solution for smart factories, particularly in collaborative robotic applications.
Unlike ToF, which measures distance based on the time it takes a laser pulse to return, FMCW lidar transmits a continuous wave laser that varies in frequency. By analyzing the frequency difference between the transmitted and received signals, the system applies the Doppler principle to directly measure both distance and velocity with extremely high precision.
This velocity measurement provides critical advantage in environments where robots work alongside humans and other robots, enabling a proactive response to movement and significantly reducing collision and injury risks. FMCW lidar also achieves longer distance measurement range at the same laser power as ToF-based systems. Figure 3 shows a high-level diagram of an FMCW lidar system.
Figure 3 The high-level diagram shows how an FMCW lidar system works. Source: Texas Instruments
In high-throughput manufacturing environments utilizing conveyor belts, FMCW lidar offers significant advantages over traditional camera-based vision systems for object detection and tracking.
Camera-based systems rely on image processing and pattern recognition, which can be computationally intensive and sensitive to object orientation. Conversely, FMCW lidar directly measures distance and velocity regardless of these factors, enabling quicker and more reliable detection even with fast-moving objects.
FMCW lidar’s ability to create a dense 3D point cloud allows engineers to determine accurate size and shape without complex image analysis, significantly increasing overall manufacturing line throughput and system accuracy.
Driving what’s next in smart factory automation
The increasing demand for automation, efficiency, and safety in modern manufacturing is driving the rapid adoption of advanced sensing technologies such as ToF and FMCW lidar. Both technologies offer substantial advantages over camera-based vision systems and ultrasonic sensors in dynamic environments where human-robot collaboration takes priority.
ToF lidar provides accurate 3D spatial data for reliable obstacle detection and precise distance measurements. FMCW lidar further elevates performance through the direct measurement of both distance and velocity, crucial for proactive collision avoidance and enhanced safety.
Companies such as Texas Instruments provide essential semiconductor building blocks such as transimpedance amplifiers, laser drivers, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and a comprehensive range of power products that are vital for designing and building high-performance ToF and FMCW lidar systems.
Ongoing innovation in laser technology and signal processing promises continued advancements in lidar capabilities, positioning it as a cornerstone technology in the evolution of smart factories and industrial automation.
Anthony Vaughan is marketing manager for high-speed amplifiers at Texas Instruments.
Special Section: Smart Factory
- Rethinking machine vision in industrial automation
- Smart factory: The rise of PoE in industrial environments
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Custom DIY DMM SMD fixture for low Z measurements
Leveraging a prior fixture design with different lab equipment once again enables highly reliable results.
High resolution bench digital multimeters (DMMs) are commonplace now in most work labs, even trickling down to home labs and one-person shops! These DMMs are great for all sorts of measurements, including those of low Z components when utilizing the popular 4-wire Kelvin-type probes and clips.
Wow the engineering world with your unique design: Design Ideas Submission Guide
However, attempting to measure low Z SMD components can be challenging even with the best probes and clips, thereby explaining why I developed a specialized custom fixture for bench-type LCR meters. This fixture has subsequently proven quite valuable when measuring various SMD inductors, capacitors and resistors. The thought of using a similar concept for high-resolution DMMs with four banana type inputs therefore naturally occurred to me. Specifically, since I’d already created custom PCBs with lever arm-toggling capabilities for holding SMDs in place, why not utilize the same PCB and lever arm concepts for DMM use?
DMMs require banana plugs as inputs; high-resolution DMM models have four total. As with the custom LCR meter fixture, my not wanting to have any potentially tangling cables would instead require a somewhat direct four-wire connection to the DMM utilizing banana plugs. Various bare banana plug options are available, such as the ones used in the Tektronix 577 adapter, along with commonplace ones found in audio applications. Since the audio types were handy, they’re what I used.
Mechanical support for the four banana plugs and the custom PCB was provided by a custom developed 3D-printed enclosure (Figures 1-3). The connections between the PCB and banana plugs were originally made by spade lugs (shown), but this approach proved difficult when tightening down the banana plugs. Instead, I later utilized direct-soldered wire connections.
Figure 1 Adapting a tried-and-true PCB design to a different kind of test and measurement equipment proved straightforward.
Figure 2 The design approach leverages commonplace audio banana plug.
Figure 3 The resultant fixture is compact and rugged.
Operation with low Z SMD components such as 2512 precision metal film resistors is possible with very good repeatability and stability, even on older DMMs such as the HP/AG34401A (Figures 4-6)!
Figure 4 The fixture delivers highly accurate, stable and repeatable measurement results.
Figure 5 This time, the fixture is being used in a full enclosed fashion.
Figure 6 The fixture works well even with legacy DMMs.
This custom fixture has been quite useful in my small home office/lab and didn’t cost me a week’s salary….actually, my week’s salary now won’t even buy me a coffee, since I’m now semi-retired, but you get the point! Hopefully, others will also find this fixture useful with their high-resolution bench DMMs.
Michael A Wyatt is a life member with the IEEE and has continued to enjoy electronics ever since his childhood. Mike has a long career spanning Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, Insyte/ITT/Ex-elis/Harris, ViaSat and retiring (semi) with Wyatt Labs. During his career he accumulated 32 US Patents and in the past published a few EDN articles including Best Idea of the Year in 1989.
Related Content
- Custom DIY LCR SMD fixture for low-Z components
- DIY custom Tektronix 576 & 577 curve tracer adapters
- DMM Plug-In Test Resistor with temperature sensing
The post Custom DIY DMM SMD fixture for low Z measurements appeared first on EDN.
onsemi and Geely expand collaboration to support next-gen 900V EV architectures
Built an 8-bit computer based on Ben Eater’s design
 | Built this last year based on Ben Eater’s 8-bit computer design using 74LS series ICs on breadboards. Implemented core modules including registers, ALU, program counter, memory address register, and control logic. The LEDs are used to visualize bus states and output during execution. Biggest challenges were signal stability and debugging wiring issues across multiple modules. Getting consistent clock behavior also took some iteration. Overall, it was a great hands-on way to understand how a simple CPU operates at the hardware level. [link] [comments] |
📋 Запрошуємо на KPI Career beAhead Expo. Spring 2026: твій крок до кар’єри
Центр профорієнтації та розвитку кар’єри КПІ ім. Ігоря Сікорського запрошує студентів, аспірантів і викладачів долучитися до кар’єрного заходу KPI Career beAhead Expo. Spring 2026, який відбудеться 6 травня з 10:00 до 15:00 у 18 корпусі, (ФІОТ).
"Група дезактивації води". Наша праця не була марною.
"Київський політехнік" уже згадував у своїх матеріалах про технологію очищення забрудненої радіонуклідами води, що її в перші ж тижні після Чорнобильської катастрофи розробила група науковців КПІ. Її впровадження до певної міри забезпечило збереження природних водних екосистем Київщини від значного забруднення радіонуклідами і захист здоров'я багатьох людей від імовірних мутагенних процесів і негативних генетичних ефектів. Про те, як формувалася ця група і як вона працювала, згадує один з її безпосередніх учасників Анатолій Крисенко.
Seoul Viosys expanding business beyond components to data-interconnect transceivers
Beijing Intellectual Property Court upholds validity of Innoscience’s GaN patents
Aeluma appoints Willy Rachmady as VP of strategic partnerships and ecosystem
Indium Corp gains $3.2m DOE TRACE-Ga grant to establish domestic high-purity gallium recovery
onsemi and NIO expand collaboration to accelerate transition to next-gen 900V EV platforms
Volta Metals receives $215,000 grant from Ontario Junior Exploration Program
I found a piece of a laptop with a fingerprint scanner from 2007 in a junk bin.
 | I found a piece of a laptop with a fingerprint scanner from 2007 in a junk bin. Surprisingly, it works perfectly with Windows 11 and reads my fingerprint without any problems. It requires a 3.3-volt voltage regulator to power it. I 3D-printed the enclosure and came up with a pretty good device. [link] [comments] |
Power Tips #152: Design considerations and topology comparisons for 48V intermediate bus converters
Increasing power demands in data centers demand high-efficiency, high-density power-conversion solutions.
Figure 1 shows a block diagram of power distribution inside an IT tray. A 48V bus bar goes down the back of the rack to distribute power to the IT trays. Inside each tray is hot-swap or e-fuse circuitry to limit inrush current during tray plug-in and to protect the upstream rack during tray failures. Intermediate bus converters (IBCs) convert 48V to the second-stage voltage, usually 12V or 6V. Final-stage multiphase buck voltage regulators complete power delivery by converting the second-stage voltage to the loads, with the majority of power going to sub-1V, high-current processors. In this edition of Power Tips, I will focus on the 48V IBC, covering design considerations, comparing topologies, and discussing system trade-offs of various approaches.
Figure 1 48V IT tray power distribution. Source: Texas Instruments
The IBC power distribution network offers a wide range of power-conversion approaches inside an IT tray (Reference 1). As the system architect, you have three main design choices:
- A modular or discrete solution (also known as chip-down design).
- Regulated, unregulated (also known as fixed ratio) or semiregulated IBC operation.
- The second-stage bus voltage to maximize system performance.
When selecting a modular or chip-down design power converter, your main trade-off will be power density vs. board design flexibility. Power modules, as shown in Figure 2a, are highly optimized solutions built on high-layer-count printed circuit boards (PCBs) (usually more than 16), offering prequalification and the highest power density. The drawbacks of power modules are a lack of flexibility, with fixed footprints and set features, as well as a higher cost per watt.
Chip-down designs, as shown in Figure 2b, are highly flexible solutions that offer footprint and feature freedom, with a lower cost per watt in high-volume production. Their drawbacks include longer upfront time and greater cost investments to qualify the design.
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Figure 2 48V IBC design examples of modular (a) and chip-down design (b) approaches. Source: Texas Instruments
When considering the output regulation of the IBC, your choice depends on two main factors: the load being powered and the operating range of the IBC’s input bus voltage. When the IBC directly drives 12V loads such as cooling fans, hard drives and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express cards, only a fully regulated output voltage (Reference 1) will ensure component safety. In modern data centers, the tray voltage has a more stable, narrow range, typically 40V to 60V. This narrow input range gives you the option to use higher-efficiency and higher-power-density fixed-ratio or semiregulated IBCs. The regulated second-stage voltage regulators following the IBC stage can absorb fixed-ratio IBC output voltage fluctuations.
Your third design choice is the second-stage voltage delivered by the IBC. Equation 1 determines system efficiency (ηsystem):
ηsystem = ηIBC x ηPDN x ηVR
For a given power load, decreasing the second-stage bus voltage will lower the IBC efficiency (ηIBC), because it must deliver more current at a lower voltage to provide the same output power. Similarly, for the motherboard power distribution network (PDN), which distributes current from the first-stage IBC to the second-stage voltage regulator, the PDN efficiency (ηPDN) will also decrease because of increased I2 x R ohmic losses. The benefit of a lower second-stage bus voltage is apparent when using final-stage, high-frequency, high-current voltage regulators with significantly reduced voltage-related switching losses. This results in higher second-stage efficiency (ηVR) and a potentially smaller size of the second stage.
Unlike a buck converter-dominated second-stage voltage regulator, a first-stage IBC has a wide range of power delivery approaches and thus a wider variety of power-conversion topologies available. In most modern IT applications, isolation for safety purposes is not required, so your power topology options increase further when you can consider transformerless options. Figure 3 shows four popular options for IBC module and chip-down designs.
The full-bridge converter shown in Figure 3a is a simple buck converter-derived transformer-isolated topology. The full-bridge converter’s strengths are ease of regulation and the ability to easily scale the intended output voltage by adjusting the transformer turns ratio for your chosen second-stage bus voltage. One drawback of the full-bridge converter is that transformer design is key to its performance, requiring a high-layer-count PCB that limits the topology to module-based designs. Another drawback of the full-bridge converter is that the primary devices are hard-switched, limiting power density and efficiency.
The transformer-isolated inductor-inductor-capacitor (LLC) converter shown in Figure 3b looks very similar to the full-bridge converter but uses an additional capacitor and two inductors to eliminate switching-related losses in the primary devices, enabling high efficiency and high power density (Reference 2). The LLC converter has the same transformer-related strength (an easily scalable output voltage) and weakness (it’s limited to module-based designs) as the full-bridge converter. The LLC converter operates with the highest efficiency at the resonant frequency set by the additional passive components (CR and LR), with efficiency decreasing as you move away from the resonant frequency to regulate the output voltage. For this reason, the LLC converter’s most common application in IBCs is fixed-ratio designs, always operating at the resonant frequency, ensuring the highest efficiency.
Two other popular topologies, the hybrid switched-capacitor (HSC) converter (Reference 3) shown in Figure 3c and the basic buck converter shown in Figure 3d, both offer benefits for chip-down designs because of their lack of AC-dependent power transformers. The HSC converter has a natural step-down ratio of 4-to-1, making it a strong candidate for high-efficiency 48V to 12V IBCs. The addition of flying capacitors limits the power density and hinders this converter’s operation in boost mode, making it a good fit for semiregulation, as regulating only occurs in step-down buck converter mode.
Because the HSC converter has a natural step-down ratio of 4-to-1, scaling the output voltage down further to an 8-to-1 6VOUT design (for example) is more challenging than it would be for the full-bridge and LLC converter options because the HSC converter must rely instead on a longer freewheeling period, requiring a larger output filter inductor, decreasing power density and efficiency.
The buck converter is the most common topology in power electronics, used exclusively in the second-stage voltage regulator, so it is natural to want to apply this simple and well-known approach to the IBC stage as well. The challenge with using a buck converter in the higher-voltage IBC application is that the power devices experience the highest voltage and current stresses when compared to the other topologies, limiting efficiency and power density.
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Figure 3 Popular IBC topologies: full-bridge converter (a); LLC converter (b); HSC converter (c); and buck converter (d). Source: Texas Instruments
Table 1 compares the different topologies and trade-offs.
| Module or chip-down design | Module | Module | Both | Both |
| Regulation type | Regulated | Fixed ratio | Semiregulated | Regulated |
| Efficiency | Medium | High | High | Low |
| Power density | Medium | High | Medium | Low |
| Output-voltage scalability | High | High | Medium | Medium |
| Complexity | Medium | High | High | Low |
Table 1 Comparing IBC topology characteristics.
With the maturation of gallium nitride (GaN) power devices (Reference 4), which have much lower switching-related charges compared to traditional silicon metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), simpler topologies like the buck converter topology become more attractive and viable options for higher-voltage applications like IBCs. See Table 2.
| VDS (V) | 100 | 100 | |
| RDS(on) (mΩ) | 1.1 | 1.7 | 35% lower |
| QG (nC) | 27 | 106 | 75% lower |
| QOSS (nC) | 98 | 205 | 52% lower |
| QGD (nC) | 2.5 | 26 | 90% lower |
| FOM1 = QG x RDS(on) | 29.7 | 180.2 | 83% lower |
| FOM2 = QOSS x RDS(on) | 107.8 | 348.5 | 69% lower |
| FOM3 = QGD x RDS(on) | 2.75 | 44.2 | 93% lower |
| Package (mm x mm = mm2) |
4 x 6.5 = 26 FET with gate driver |
5 x 6 = 30 Discrete FET |
13% smaller |
Table 2 Comparison of 100V GaN and silicon-based IBC semiconductor options.
The IBC power distribution network offers the widest range of power-conversion approaches of the systems inside an IT tray for good reason. As power requirements and architectures rapidly evolve, the best way to optimize performance for 48V IBCs changes. And as additional variables such as highly improved GaN semiconductors get thrown into the equation, it becomes even more important to understand design considerations, topology comparisons and trade-offs.
References
- Hsu, C., L. Olariu, S. Zou, et al. “48V Onboard Power Solution Requirements.” Open Compute Project, Version 1.0.0, Nov. 15, 2024.
- McDonald, Brent. “Overview of a planar transformer used in a 1kW high-density LLC power module.” Texas Instruments technical article, 2025.
- Li, C., and J.A. Cobos. “A Switched Capacitor and Autotransformer Hybrid Converter With DC Current in the Windings,” in IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics 37 (2), February 2022, pp. 1870-1884.
- Gallium nitride (GaN) power stages, Texas Instruments.
David Reusch is a systems engineer on the data center team at Texas Instruments, specializing in power electronics. David has more than 20 years of experience in power electronics, ranging from cutting-edge gallium nitride (GaN) technology to high-reliability space-grade DC-DC converters. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech.
Related Content
- Power Tips #151: Improving efficiency in 48V-input multiphase buck converters with GaN
- Power Tips # 141: Tips and tricks for achieving wide operating ranges with LLC resonant converters
- Power Tips #134: Don’t switch the hard way; achieve ZVS with a PWM full bridge
- Power Tips #127: Using advanced control methods to increase the power density of GaN-based PFC
The post Power Tips #152: Design considerations and topology comparisons for 48V intermediate bus converters appeared first on EDN.
Inside a 1970s Landis&Gyr 2kV lab supply
 | Thing of beauty! Wanted to clean it before testing it but its so pristine inside :O [link] [comments] |
SweGaN wins commercial orders worth SEK25m from global customers
Чорнобиль: щоб ніколи знову
Сорок років відділяє нас від техногенної катастрофи, що сталася на Чорнобильській АЕС. Тоді в Україні радіоактивна хмара накрила 12 з 25 областей – 2293 населених пункти. Але Чорнобиль – це не лише велика трагедія, а й безмежна мужність наших людей, які ліквідовували наслідки аварії. Ризикуючи життям і здоров'ям, вони захистили людство від згубного впливу й поширення радіації. Ще живі учасники і сучасники тих подій, жива пам'ять. І в серці кожного з нас одне: щоб ніколи знову.
Engineering the perfect flow with peristaltic pumps
In modern engineering, precision fluid control is vital across industries ranging from electronics manufacturing to medical device design. Peristaltic pumps, with their distinctive squeeze-and-release mechanism, deliver exceptional reliability, cleanliness, and accuracy in fluid transfer. By preventing direct contact between the pump and the fluid, they ensure contamination-free operation while reducing maintenance demands.
This post explores the fundamentals of peristaltic pumping and how electric-drive systems help engineers achieve the perfect flow in today’s most demanding applications.
Peristaltic pump vs. electric peristaltic pump
A peristaltic pump refers to the general pumping principle: fluid is moved through flexible tubing by a rotating squeeze-and-release motion. This design ensures accurate flow and prevents contamination since the fluid never touches the pump components.
An electric peristaltic pump, however, is a specific implementation powered by an electric motor. The motor provides consistent speed, programmable control, and higher precision, making it ideal for industrial automation, laboratory dosing, and electronics manufacturing processes. While the term “peristaltic pump” covers the entire category, “electric peristaltic pump” highlights the modern, motor-driven versions that engineers rely on for efficiency and repeatability.
Figure 1 A sample of today’s compact electric peristaltic pump—this battery-operable low-voltage DC motor version demonstrates modern design efficiency. Source: Author
Peristaltic pumps vs. dosing pumps
A dosing pump is a broader category of pumps designed to deliver exact volumes of fluid at controlled intervals. Peristaltic pumps can serve as dosing pumps when paired with electric drives and programmable controls, but other pump types—such as diaphragm or piston pumps—are also used for dosing applications.
In short, all electric peristaltic pumps can function as dosing pumps, but not all dosing pumps are peristaltic. Understanding this distinction helps engineers select the right solution depending on whether the priority is contamination-free transfer, chemical compatibility, or ultra-precise dosing.
As a quick aside, it’s worth noting the distinction between DC-motor-driven and stepper-motor-driven peristaltic pumps. DC motors provide continuous rotation with simple speed control, making them cost-effective and compact for general fluid transfer.
Stepper motors, on the other hand, deliver precise incremental motion, enabling highly accurate dosing and repeatability. The choice between the two depends on application requirements: DC motors excel in straightforward pumping tasks, while stepper motors are favored in laboratory and industrial settings where precision is paramount.
Figure 2 A stepper-motor peristaltic pump delivers responsive start-stop and reverse operation, offers a wide speed range, and ensures reliability, thus meeting the accurate and dependable flow control demanded by precision instruments. Source: Author
The inner workings of peristaltic pumps
At the heart of a peristaltic pump is a simple but ingenious principle: fluid is transported by compressing flexible tubing in a controlled sequence. As rollers mounted on a rotating rotor travel along the tubing, they push the fluid forward in discrete segments, creating a smooth, continuous flow. Because the fluid remains fully enclosed within the tubing, there is no risk of contamination or contact with mechanical components, making this design particularly valuable in sensitive applications such as pharmaceuticals.
The internal structure of a peristaltic pump reflects this principle with elegant simplicity. A rotor fitted with rollers or shoes provides the pressure needed to move the fluid, while the tubing’s elasticity ensures it returns to its original shape after each cycle. The pump housing supports and guides the mechanism, ensuring consistent operation.
This combination of mechanical precision and material resilience allows peristaltic pumps to deliver accurate dosing, reliable performance, and easy maintenance—qualities that make them indispensable in modern engineering systems.
Figure 3 Drawing simply depicts the mechanisms of single-roller and multi-roller peristaltic pumps. Source: Author
As a closely related note, industrial peristaltic pumps differ from those used in general and medical applications. Industrial designs often employ shoe mechanisms to achieve higher pressures and rugged performance, making them suitable for chemical transfer, mining, and other heavy-duty environments where durability is paramount.
By contrast, general-purpose and medical pumps typically rely on roller mechanisms, which minimize friction, reduce energy consumption, and extend tubing life—qualities essential for precision dosing, sterility, and reliable operation in laboratory and healthcare settings.
And when powered by an electric motor, the same mechanism gains programmable control, variable speed adjustment, and enhanced precision. Electric peristaltic pumps transform the fundamental design into a highly versatile dosing system, capable of delivering exact volumes with repeatability. This evolution from a simple mechanical concept to an automated solution makes them indispensable in neoteric engineering environments where accuracy, efficiency, and reliability are non-negotiable.
Pulsed flow: Quick pointers for makers and engineers
Now to a few compact cues and practical insights to keep your designs flowing with precision. First off take note that motor choice sets the tone for performance: DC drives are cost-effective for simple transfer tasks like irrigation or fluid circulation, while stepper motors deliver the precision required for accurate dosing.
Roller mechanisms are especially suitable for medical and laboratory applications, since they minimize friction, extend tubing life, and provide gentle, contamination-free fluid handling. They also make an excellent choice for hobbyist projects, offering simplicity, reliability, and low maintenance for makers experimenting with fluid transfer.
By contrast, shoe mechanisms are designed for rugged industrial environments where higher pressures are needed, though they accelerate tubing wear. Tubing selection is equally critical; silicone ensures biocompatibility, PVC covers general transfer needs, and specialized elastomers withstand aggressive chemicals.
Now recall that roller pumps themselves come in single-roller and multi-roller designs. Single-roller pumps are mechanically simpler, lower-cost, and easier to maintain, making them suitable for basic transfer or hobbyist projects where flow smoothness is less critical.
Multi-roller pumps, by contrast, provide smoother, more continuous flow with reduced pulsation, which is essential in medical and laboratory applications where dosing accuracy and patient safety matter. While multi-roller designs increase complexity and cost, they extend tubing life and deliver higher precision, making them the preferred choice in food and beverage industries as well.
Also, electric drives add programmable control and variable speed, enabling integration with MCUs or PLCs for automation, while compact low-voltage battery-operated designs balance efficiency with portability in point-of-care devices. Notably, to mitigate the risk of power outages, contemporary electric peristaltic pumps for medical applications are frequently equipped with hand cranks for manual fluid delivery.
In today’s market, DC drive versions are available with more than just a regular DC motor—many include extra leads for speed control inputs (often via pulse width modulation), tachometer outputs, and other control/feedback signals. These additions give designers greater flexibility in monitoring, closed-loop control, and seamless integration with modern embedded systems, making even basic DC drives far more versatile than before.
Figure 4 Datasheet snippet highlighting a brushless peristaltic pump that delivers multiple features, including speed and direction control. Source: Binaca Pumps
Maker tip: PPM-controlled “digital” peristaltic pumps simplify automation by emulating the behavior of standard RC servo motors. Because the motor driver is integrated directly into the pump, you can skip the complex external circuitry usually needed to manage speed or direction. This lets you control the pump directly from a microcontroller’s digital pin using standard libraries—saving you both space and setup time (here is a practical example).
Frankly, when it comes to real-world control challenges, few are as nuanced as those involving peristaltic pumps. The core difficulty stems from two inherent characteristics of their operation. First, these pumps often run at very low speeds, sometimes down to a complete standstill depending on the application. Second, the motor experiences highly variable loads as the rollers engage and disengage with the flexible tube.
For most of the rotation cycle, the rollers move smoothly along the tube with minimal changes in torque or fluid pressure. However, at the points of disengagement and re-engagement, the system encounters sharp pulses in both torque and pressure.
That is, the combination of low-speed operation (which challenges velocity controllers) and cyclic load fluctuations (which creates non-linear disturbances) is exactly what makes these pumps “fussy” to control. Addressing these dynamics requires specialized motion control strategies—but that is a topic for another discussion.
Closing note: Peristalsis in engineering form
I have more to share but let me close with the fundamentals at this time.
Peristaltic pumps are a class of positive displacement pumps inspired directly by biology. Just as peristalsis in the digestive tract moves food through rhythmic muscle contractions, these pumps transport fluids by progressively deforming flexible tubing with rollers or shoes. The motion sweeps fluid forward, but because the swept length is always less than the tubing circumference, each rotation introduces a brief pause, resulting in the characteristic pulsed flow.
Designs vary between fixed and variable occlusion systems: fixed occlusion maintains a constant compression force, while variable occlusion allows adjustment via springs to fine-tune performance. Accuracy is further influenced by the slip factor, a correction term that accounts for incomplete tubing recovery and backflow, which can cause measured dispense rates to differ from theoretical values.
In peristaltic pump engineering, slip refers specifically to tubing recovery and backflow losses, which differs from the slip factor used in turbomachinery but serves the same purpose of correcting theoretical versus actual flow.
In essence, peristaltic pumps mirror a biological process with engineering precision—balancing simplicity, safety, and adaptability across a broad range of applications. In healthcare, they provide sterile infusion for IV therapy, dialysis, and precise drug delivery. In laboratories, they handle chemical dosing, reagent transfer, and bioprocessing where purity is paramount. Industrially, they manage viscous fluids, corrosive chemicals, and food-grade materials without risk of cross-contamination.
In the food and beverage sector, they support hygienic transfer of juices, dairy, and brewing ingredients. For hobbyists, they simplify aquarium maintenance, hydroponics, and small-scale brewing. In agriculture, they excel at nutrient dosing in irrigation and supplement delivery in animal farming. Their gentle, pulsed flow and hygienic design make them a versatile solution wherever controlled, reliable fluid handling is required.
As you explore these designs in your own projects, consider how roller choice, hose selection, occlusion type, and modern drive features can shape performance, and share your insights to keep the conversation on precision fluid handling moving forward.
T. K. Hareendran is a self-taught electronics enthusiast with a strong passion for innovative circuit design and hands-on technology. He develops both experimental and practical electronic projects, documenting and sharing his work to support fellow tinkerers and learners. Beyond the workbench, he dedicates time to technical writing and hardware evaluations to contribute meaningfully to the maker community.
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The post Engineering the perfect flow with peristaltic pumps appeared first on EDN.
Please go all the way down, RX
 | If you saw my last post about accidentally frying my CH32V006 dev board into a working state, this is the next chapter of that mess. Quick recap: I'm building a custom CH32V006 dev board for OpenServoCore, my project to turn cheap MG90S-class servos into smart actuators with a Dynamixel-style single-wire UART. After the 0.84V rail saga, I had a working board. Time to bring up the Rust bootloader (tinyboot) over UART. Except UART didn't work. Specifically, TX worked perfectly. I could blast "Hello world" out of the chip all day. But sending anything into the MCU? Total silence. The HAL driver is essentially the same as the V003, which works fine, so I was pretty sure this was hardware, not firmware. I scoped the RX line while shoving a stream of 0x55 (UUUUUU…) into it from the host. Quick one-liner if you've never used it: yes U | tr -d '\n' > /dev/ttyACM0Alternating 1s and 0s, perfect for scoping. What I expected: a clean 0V to 3.3V square wave. What I got: a 180 mV ripple sitting on top of 3.3V. Min 3.20, max 3.38. The line was being held high so hard that my USB UART adapter could only sag it by a couple hundred millivolts when it tried to send a zero. Touching RX directly to ground snapped it cleanly to 0V, so the wiring was fine. The driver just couldn't drag it all the way down. Back to the schematic. The RX line passes through a 74LVC2G241 tri-state buffer that handles the half-duplex direction switching. TX_EN low = listen (DATA -> RX), TX_EN high = talk (TX -> DATA). I'd been picturing this buffer as a passive switch, like a piece of wire that conditionally connects two nets. By now you electronics gods here probably already figured out what's the issue by now, but I didn't... Anyways, when TX_EN is low, that buffer is actively driving RX with whatever it sees on DATA. And DATA sits at 3.3V via its own 10K pullup when the bus is idle. So the buffer was reading 3.3V on DATA and pushing 3.3V back out of its high-side MOSFET onto RX with ~24 mA of drive and very low R_DS(on). I was fighting a CMOS push-pull output stage with a USB UART chip. The buffer won. Always. The firmware workaround is to assert TX_EN while reading. That disables the DATA -> RX path and lets RX fall back to its own pullup, which the host can actually drive. Confirmed it live by poking 3.3V onto the TX_EN pad and watching the ripple snap into a clean rail-to-rail square wave. It's such a satisfying flip on the scope. The real takeaway, however, is thatTX_EN isn't really a transmit enable. From firmware's view it looks like one, but electrically it's a mux select that picks which buffer drives the bus. Calling it "transmit enable" is what put me in this mental hole in the first place. For Rev B, the actual fix is a hardware jumper that lets RX bypass the buffer for plain UART mode. Why hardware and not just firmware? Because tools like wchisp use the UART to read/write the CH32's Option Bytes outside of any firmware I control. If my UART depends on my firmware to function, a fresh chip or a half-flashed bootloader can lock me out of recovery. Recovery-path peripherals shouldn't depend on firmware to work. If you want a more details with scope photos, the schematic, a video of the workaround in action, here is the full writeup. [link] [comments] |
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