Case Studies by Markets

IPWireless
A multi-phase project consisting of: porting the Intel version of ANGEL (ARM debugging monitor), porting ThreadX RTOS and developing an on-board ethernet device driver. Target platform was a custom Intel StrongARM board.

Operating System: -
Development Skill: Embedded

PicoChip
We ported PicoChip's driver and library code to operate under QNX Neutrino whilst still maintaining support for the existing VxWorks implementation. The work included Direct Memory Access (DMA) and hardware interrupt support capable of efficient operation under the different architecture models used by QNX.

Operating System: QNX
Development Skill: Device Drivers Embedded

Derbyshire County Council
Specification, design and development of a Pocket PC 2002 application allowing Council surveyors to create and update building surveys electronically whilst onsite.

Operating System: Windows®CE
Development Skill: Application Embedded

MPC Data
A unique modified Fiat Panda was driven from the UK to Mongolia in order to raise monies for rural families in Mongolia and Africa. MPC Data sponsored the event by creating a Windows XP Embedded image that allowed Windows XP to run from a solid-state disk, thereby creating a fully solid-state solution for operating in the harsh environment of a vehicle. A custom application captures timelapse video from a USB webcam and stores the images on a USB memory stick. As a 'headless' system, startup and shutdown operations needed to be fully automatic and reliable.

Operating System: Windows®XP Embedded
Development Skill: Application Embedded

Ashby Microsystems
A data acquisition program for the SAPPAR pile driver project. Data acquired for force, frequency, depth, etc as concrete piles are driven into the ground.

Operating System: MSDOS
Development Skill: Instrumentation

Leading supplier of handheld terminals
A Windows CE 3.0 platform port for the customer's StrongARM-based handheld device used in warehouse stock control. Implementation of drivers for peripheral equipment such as bar code scanners and USB ports.

Operating System: Windows®CE
Development Skill: Embedded Porting

EG+G Astrophysics
Embedded controller for configurable timing and pulse generation within an Airport cargo X-ray system. Due to the short pulse widths and complex timing relationships the firmware was highly time critical.

Operating System: MSDOS
Development Skill: Embedded Time critical

Davis Derby
An access control and management information system for fork lift trucks. A detailed case study is available on request.

Operating System: Windows®95/98 Windows®NT Windows®2000
Development Skill: Application

Petrovend
Implementation of a configuration and alarm reporting utility for industrial Petrol Station Fuel-Monitoring equipment. Supports multiple industry-standard protocols for a broad range of different tank gauges and alarm condition sensors. Alarm conditions can be automatically reported directly to an off-site engineer via a dial-up connection.

Operating System: Windows®95/98 Windows®NT
Development Skill: Comms Protocols Application Internationalisation

Odenberg
Analysis and re-design of the panel firmware for Grademaster - a tomato sorting machine. The user interface was redesigned to make it more intuitive and easier to maintain, whilst still retaining much of the underlying tried-and-trusted code. Support for multiple foreign languages was also added.

Operating System: -
Development Skill: Embedded

Crane Electronics
Development of an application that allows a desktop PC user to view and print information collected by a Windows CE device.

Operating System: Windows®95/98 Windows®NT E
Development Skill: Application

Oxford Instruments
Development of an API 'wrapper' for an NT device driver to enable the customer's Windows 95 application to run under NT. This approach saved our customer a great deal of time and money by avoiding the need to make changes to a family of large legacy applications. The API communicates with industrial PLC devices to control a machine for manufacturing silicon wafers, and our software was fully multi-threaded to achieve the desired response times.

Operating System: Windows®NT
Development Skill: Device Drivers Comms Protocols Porting

Patientline
Creation of a new BIOS for a custom motherboard built around an STPC processor. The General Software Embedded BIOS was selected for its comprehensive support for STPC devices, together with an ability to launch Windows CE without the need for a separate loader. We configured and amended the General Software BIOS to suit our client's target harware.( CEPC ) with out the use of DOS.

Operating System: Windows®CE
Development Skill: Embedded Device Drivers

Patientline
Development of a bedside entertainment system for use within hospitals. Our clients' new entertainment console is based around Windows CE running on a custom hardware platform. We were contracted to perform the operating system platform port and to implement all of the device drivers, including a particularly complex driver to interface with the console's remote head unit. We also provided a simple custom shell for Windows CE.

Operating System: Windows®CE
Development Skill: Embedded Device Drivers

Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe
Functional design, software design and implementation of video editing software for reporters "in the field" to prepare video inserts on a portable editing console. The equipment is based on a standard notebook PC and custom docking station with video stored digitally on magneto-optical media. MPC Data developed the PC software and the docking station firmware which performed real-time MPEG video encode/decode.

Operating System: Windows®95/98
Development Skill: Windows application Embedded Device Drivers