HP - Components of Transportation

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The Components of Transportation

The driving force in innovation: RF and optoelectronics for transportation

The current revolution in ever smaller and faster electronics is having a profound effect on the transportation industry. Continuing advances in technology are making existing modes of travel safer, more efficient, and more cost-effective than ever before.

At HP, we have long been a pioneer in developing and producing components for the transportation industry, with products for highway vehicles, marine, rail and air carriers, and intelligent transportation systems.

LED solid state lamps

HP is a world-leader in high-performance, visible light-emitting diode technology. Materials such as aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) and aluminum indium gallium phosphide (AlInGaP) are being used to produce today’s highest-brightness and highest-efficiency red (620-650 nm wave-length), red-orange (615 nm), orange (605 nm) and amber (590 nm) LEDs.

These materials can easily produce lamps of one candela output, with efficiencies higher than those of incandescent lamps, and feature lifetimes in the thousands of hours range. HP already offers moderate-efficiency and -brightness blue LEDs, and is in the process of developing blue and pure-green LEDs with much higher efficiencies.

RF and microwave components and communications ICs

HP manufactures innovative radio frequency (RF) semiconductors and assemblies for wireless applications through 18 GHz. In addition to a broad line of general purpose devices--from discrete diodes and transistors to RF integrated circuits--the company also provides products specifically designed for use in mobile communications handsets and base stations, satellite communications and other applications. HP also supplies a number of general-purpose and specialized silicon ICs intended for high-speed digital communications systems, to data rates in excess of 1 Gb/s.

Infrared components

With the ever increasing electronic content in transportation vehicles and systems, getting information into and out of the vehicle or system is extremely important. Critical information for diagnostics/ servicing, programming, calibration and On-Board Diagnostics II (for automobiles) requires a robust, convenient I/O. Electrical connectors and wires, however, are often damaged or contaminated, while RF solutions can be expensive and are regulated by the FCC.

Infrared components, on the other hand, provide low-cost connectivity through the Infrared Data Association (IrDA) standard for data communication applications. This standard ensures compatibility with a growing number of off-the-shelf devices. HP provides a family of IrDA-compliant optical transceivers for these applications and was the first optoelectronic manufacturer to provide a fully integrated transceiver for 115 Kb/s data transfer. A 4 Mb/s fully integrated transceiver that meets the latest IrDA higher-speed extension is also available. For other applications, such as security systems, collision warning systems and rain sensors, HP provides a family of discrete emitters and detectors that provide the versatility needed to address these designs.

Optocouplers and optically isolated amplifiers

Among our wide range of optically-isolated components are power switch (MOSFET/IGBT) gate drive optocouplers focused on addressing the needs of electric motor control applications, specifically variable speed motor drives, which match a motor’s output (speed and torque) to its load. HP also supplies optically-isolated amplifiers specifically designed to address the needs of current sensing in motor drives, where accurate, stable, and linear performance under severe noise conditions is of critical importance.

Fiber optic components

Transmission over fiber optic cable provides voltage and current isolation; it does not radiate, nor is it susceptible to electromagnetic radiation. With proven performance in applications such as those found in factory floor environments, HP’s fiber optic links can meet the harsh operational and environmental requirements of many areas of transportation-- both for vehicles and infrastructure. HP offers several different families of low-cost multimode fiber optic links for signal rates from dc to 622 Mb/s and distances from a few meters to over two kilometers, as well as single-mode fiber products capable of operating over distances greater than 15 kilometers.

Motion control components

HP’s motion-sensing products include rotary and linear encoders for commercial and industrial applications, encoder modules for high-volume computer peripheral applications and digital potentiometers to replace analog potentiometers for manual data entry. These encoders can be used to indicate the absolute or relative position, velocity and acceleration-- offering a precision input source for many potential transportation sensor applications.

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