The end of the year in pictures

With my camera-enabled Blackberry (or any phone), its much easier to record life's little snipets for posterity. Eventually though, its time to get those images off the phone's memory, to start a new collection of moments for sharing. And so this week I find myself cleaning out my camera's memory at years end.

I'm not one to take pictures frequently (with a camera or phone), but I did travel quite a bit for work towards the end of 2010 and that is when I am most likely to "snap a few shots". And so here's a quick photo essay of the end of 2010, from the perspective of a roving Microwave Journal editor. Got some industry related shots of your own? Send them to me at dvye@mwjournal.com and we'll consider posting them in a master photo album for the holidays. Enjoy !

Back in November, I travelled with our Northeast Regional Sales Manager, Mike Hallman to the Garden State, where we met a number of hard working RF/mW vendors. New Jersey has a great community of Microwave shops including Voltronics, Synergy, Wireless Telecom Group, MECA, Anatech, Pulsar, GT Microwave, Astrolab, and Anadigics just to name a few. I used to travel there frequently back in my Ansoft days (former Compact Software facility) and have a fondness for the state.















George Apsley, Chief Engineer Product Development and Amy Kulp, Marketing Director, GT Microwave with Mike Hallman, Regional Sales Manager, Microwave Journal.

It was at GT Microwave that I took these pictures. Its not every company whose founder is married to a stained glass artist. If that was the case, perhaps more lobbies would be adorned like GT Microwave. An RF power combiner in stained glass is certainly a thing of beauty. The detail in the coax connectors is amazing, right down to the flange screws. If you're in Randolph New Jersey, pay GT Microwave a visit.





APMC/MWE 2010

Here's MWJ publisher Carl Sheffres and Horizon House Event Manager Michel Zoghob together at our booth at APMC/MWE 2010 in Yokohama, Japan. They've been working so closely for years that they are starting to look related. Dont you agree? This was in early December. Great time for a long flight, a glimpse of the Japanese microwave market and some Sushi.

I loved this display. A famous radio tower in Japan constructed from semi-rigid coax cables and a variety of connectors (BNC, SMA, N-type, etc.). I was informed that last year they used similar components to reconstruct a famous Tokyo bridge. Perhaps next year they will go for a Godzilla design. Either way, very creative use of coax and connectors and a good way to get a show attendee to stop by the booth and hear some more about the company. OK MTT exhibitors, here's an opportunity to raise the bar on creativity.






I call this the Microwave Menora but actually it is a very interesting, millimeter-wave waveguide combiner for 60 GHz. Again this is from APMC/MWE. Japan has long been interested in 60 GHz applications, often tied to collision avoidance radar for automobiles. This is a fine example of the precise engineering and machining on display at APMC.


EuMW 2010

Final image for the year goes back to the roving editor in Paris at European Microwave Week this past September. Here I am after the first day at the show in the Latin Quarter, worried that I have arrived too late for the early bird, frog leg special. Our first European Defense/Security Executive Forum went off smoothly. The success of this event and the superb food (no frog legs but plenty of Fois Gras) made for a memorable trip.

Android In Spaaaace!

Here at Google, we’re all about exploration. It’s no surprise that some of our favorite products are built to let you explore the world in ways never before possible. Google Maps lets you find your way all around the world. Google Earth lets you explore the planet in detail, complete with trees and oceans. And Google Sky Map lets you explore the skies right from your Android device. Well, we wanted to do a little exploring of our own, so we decided to venture into near space, with the help of some Androids.

Recently, we travelled to Ione, CA and sent seven payloads up, up, and away into near space, each equipped with a Nexus S. We took some cues from others who have sent homemade weather balloon rigs far up, and we wanted an opportunity to collect some interesting data about the sensors in Nexus S – GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. We also couldn’t resist what looked like a great way to spend a weekend. Sending the balloons up also gave us an opportunity to capture some stunning imagery and videos of Earth. Take a look at unaltered footage of an Android at over 100,000 ft above the Earth’s surface:




The Rig
How did we get our little Android commanders that high up? Well, first the Android platform provides a robust development environment and Nexus S has a great set of embedded sensors, both of which made it easy for us to write the apps we needed for this project. Going forward with other similar projects we have an open environment that we can modify at any level necessary. We then worked with UCSC student Greg Klein to prepare each of the payloads, which were housed in foam coolers. We secured a nylon load line to the cooler and attached to it a radar reflector, a parachute, and finally, a weather balloon. Every payload had an APRS transmitter attached to a GPS that was known to work at high altitudes, as well as batteries for power. The remainder of each payload was different for each balloon: some had digital cameras taking pictures and some had video cameras mounted at various angles (up, down, and at the horizon).

These phones were running a variety of apps: Google Maps for Mobile 5.0 (with offline map data) which allowed us to see what was directly below the balloon, Google Sky Map to see if we could identify the real stars in the backdrop, Latitude to report location when the phones had a data connection, and our own custom sensor logging app that sampled all the available sensors on the device. We even manned our payloads with some special astronauts: small Android robots, and boy did they fly. Check out an in-depth look at how we prepared and launched the payloads:




What We Found
The payloads collected a lot of data, and many reached high altitudes, with the highest topping out at 107,375 ft., over 20 miles high, or over three times the height of an average commercial jet. We also clocked one of the payloads at 139 mph at its fastest.

In tracking the sensors on each of the phones, we observed that the GPS in Nexus S could function up to altitudes of about 60,000 ft. and would actually start working again on the balloon’s descent. We also saw that Nexus S could withstand some pretty harsh temperatures (as low as -50˚C). Some interesting data we collected:
Maximum Speed: 139 mph
Maximum Altitude: 107,375 ft (over 20 miles, over 30 km)
Maximum Ascent Rate: 5.44 m/s
Average Flight Duration: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Average Descent Time: 34 minutes

By analyzing all the collected data, we were able to find some interesting trends. For instance, we determined the speed and altitude of the jet stream: about 130mph at 35,000 ft.

In the end, the team recovered all of the payloads sent up, we even recovered the payload we sent as a test a week prior to the actual launch. We had a blast taking Android all the way up to near space. If you're interested in launching a balloon of your own, click here for more info. We have more exciting things coming your way as we use the openness of the Android platform to experiment here at mission Android headquarters.

*Special thanks to Arshan Poursohi, Greg Klein, and Tommy Nourse for all their help.

Posted by Zi Wang, Captain, Mission Android Headquarters