Introduction to the Classic Breadboard
You’d be hard pressed to search out a carpenter who didn’t own a hammer, or a painter that didn’t have a few brushes kicking around. Some tools are in order that fundamental to their respective craft that their ownership is basically a given. The same may very well be said of the breadboard: in the event you’re working with electronics on the hobby and even skilled level, you’ve actually spent an honest period of time poking components and wires into one in every of these quintessential prototyping tools.
The Future of Breadboards
There’s little danger that the breadboard will lose its relevance going forward, but when researchers have anything to say about it, it would learn some impressive recent tricks. Developed on the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, VirtualComponent uses augmented reality and a few very clever electronics to rework the classic breadboard into a robust mixed-reality tool for testing and simulating circuits. It’s not going to switch the $3 breadboard you’ve got hiding at the underside of your tool bag, but sooner or later it could be standard equipment in electronics classrooms.
How VirtualComponent Works
The short version is that VirtualComponent is basically a dynamic breadboard. Holes in the identical row are still electrically linked like within the classic breadboard, but with two AD75019 cross-point switch arrays and an Arduino in the bottom, it has the power to virtually “plug in” components at arbitrary locations as chosen by the user. So moderately than having to physically insert a resistor, the user can simply tell the software to attach a resistor between two chosen holes and the cross-point array will do the remainder.
Simulating Components
What’s more, lots of those components could be either simulated or not less than augmented in software. For example, through the use of AD5241 digital potentiometers, VirtualComponent can adjust the worth of the virtual resistor. To provide variable capacitance, the same trick could be pulled off using an array of real capacitors and a ADG715 digital switch to attach them together; essentially automating what the classic “Decade Box” does. In the demonstration video, this capability is prolonged all the best way out to connecting a virtual function generator to the circuit.
Controlling the System
The whole system is controlled by the use of an Android tablet suspended over the breadboard. Using the tablet’s camera, the software provides an augmented reality view of each the physical and virtual components of the circuit. With just a few taps the user can add or edit their virtual hardware and immediately see the way it changes the behavior of the physical circuit on the bench.
Conclusion
People have been attempting to improve the breadboard for years, but to date it looks like nothing has really stuck around. Given how complex VirtualComponent is, they’ll likely have a good harder time gaining traction. That said, we are able to’t help but be excited in regards to the potential augmented reality has for hardware development. The way forward for electronics prototyping is looking brighter than ever, and it is going to be interesting to see how VirtualComponent and similar technologies shape the industry within the years to come back.
