IEEE Awards Booklet - 2017 - 6

2017 IEEE SPECTRUM CORPORATE AWARDS

IEEE Corporate Innovation Award

IEEE Spectrum Technology in the
Service of Society Award

Sponsored by IEEE Spectrum

Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Madras
Analog Devices, Inc.
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M), in conjunction with industrial partners, relies on solar-powered direct current (DC) micro grids. For homes not connected to the grid, a
125-watt micro grid can serve as the sole source of electricity.
For connected households, the micro grid acts as a backup power
supply to let lighting and essential appliances continue operating
even during brownouts. In 2014, IIT began field-testing the DC
micro grid systems in dozens of buildings at IIT-M. The micro
grid will enable homes to be fitted with energy-efficient DC devices like LED bulbs, television, cellphone chargers, and brushless
DC motor-based fans, designed by IIT-M. In India, micro grids are
expected to evolve rapidly. With thousands of Indian villages still
un-electrified, the decentralized micro grids are a viable solution
to power them. A low-maintenance micro grid has the potential
to eliminate dependence on expensive diesel fuel and the grid.The
deployments have started expanding to about a thousand homes in
three cities and multiple villages. Now, with funding from India's
Ministry of Power, ITT has two large-scale projects under way that
will eventually reach more than 100,000 households.
IEEE Spectrum Emerging Technology Award
Sponsored by IEEE Spectrum

SpaceX

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has achieved a milestone
in space flight by creating and demonstrating a suite of technologies
capable of returning a rocket-booster safely to Earth. These technologies promise to reduce the cost of getting to Earth's orbit by
enabling the rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The technology
has been used to recover the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon rockets, which have been launching supplies to the International Space
Station under a contract with NASA since 2012. The company
achieved a major milestone on 8 April 2016, when a Falcon 9 rocket
was launched at Cape Canaveral in Florida to bring cargo to the
space station. A few minutes after the launch the first-stage burned
out. Then, nine minutes after liftoff, the empty booster landed itself
vertically on a drone ship 300 km from the Florida coastline. That
achievement was followed by another milestone on 30 March of this
year, when the company relaunched that very same Falcon 9 booster
and then landed it on a barge off the Florida coast. Technological
breakthroughs that enabled the Falcon 9 booster to land safely included control systems, rocket-ignition, and thermal protection.The
project's long-term objectives include returning not only the first
but also the second stages of a launch vehicle and enabling the reuse
of an entire rocket within 24 hours of the first launch.

For sustained innovation and leadership in the development
of high-performance data converter technology and products

The converter products developed by Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI)
are intelligently bridging the gap between the analog and digital worlds to help the digital revolution reach new markets and
applications. Having introduced over 3,000 innovative converter
products since 1965, ADI continues to push the state of the art in
performance, allowing a wide variety of systems to connect the
emerging world of digital processing to real-world analog signal
processing. ADI's products enable the acquisition of analog data;
conversion of that data into digital format for computation, manipulation, storage, and transmission; and the return of the data
back to the real world as analog control, display, or sound. ADI
introduced the first generations of "complete" converters, providing high performance and ease of use. The ability to integrate
more functionality with precision converters-such as programmable gain amplifiers, multiplexers, self-calibration, and digital
isolation-has greatly enhanced key industrial applications such as
smart sensors, field instruments, programmable logic controllers,
and distributed control systems. ADI's contributions to modern
delta-sigma measurement converters revolutionized high-precision
applications such as weigh scales, strain gauges, and temperature
measurements that have led to lower production costs and more
environmentally friendly factories. ADI's advances in delta-sigma
converters have also driven the revolution in portable audio devices by enabling wide dynamic range at very low power levels,
and on-chip analog and digital filtering has enabled radios that are
many times smaller and lower in power than previous generations.
ADI's ability to add precision analog circuits to standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) digital circuits has
led to the introduction of microconverters that combine precision amplifiers, voltage references, and temperature sensors with
industry-standard microprocessor cores to improve automotive
battery life and the accuracy of healthcare vital-sign monitoring
devices.
With headquarters located in Norwood, MA, USA, Analog
Devices, Inc. is led by Vincent Roche, president and chief executive officer. Ray Stata is cofounder of the company and chairman
of the board.

Scope: For an outstanding innovation by an organization in an IEEE
field of interest.

6 | 2017 IEEE AWARDS BOOKLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2017