number of physically separate devices distributed along the length of a ‘backbone’. Principally intended for industrial control and instrumentation applications, where it will be used for powering and communicating with remote I/O sensors and actuators, the system is also likely to prove popular wherever an easily expandable, low-cost industrial control network is required. The contactless power system is being developed by the university’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology under a publicly funded research programme, and is about to move from design concept to prototype evalu...