Complete product design and development (hardware, software, firmware, mechanical) of the platform for the customer’s next generation data acquisition and vibration controller device family.
DornerWorks designed and developed the platform for the customer’s next generation data acquisition and vibration controller device. While similar to existing products, this product was designed to be portable with long battery life and compact size without sacrificing performance. The new platform has sixteen high performance analog channel inputs, two high accuracy output channels, USB and SD Card support for storing data acquisition, GPS support for high accuracy time, gigabit Ethernet for transferring data acquisitions, and a Wi-Fi interface allowing for control and monitoring via a tablet.
DornerWorks developed a set of requirements from the customer’s initial statement of work and refined them through a series of working meetings with the customer. After the requirements were realized the majority of the design and development was performed in-house by engineers experienced in each of the different disciplines. Simultaneously, a plan to meet environmental and regulatory compliance standards was put into place to ensure a smooth certification process. Regular meetings with the customer kept them apprised of our progress, and multiple deliveries throughout the development ensured quality feedback. Open-source software was leveraged to allow for rapid software prototyping and development.
A Zynq 7000 “System-on-Chip,” with two ARM Cortex-A9 and an Artix®-7 FPGA, with 1GB of DDR3 was selected to provide the processing power necessary for the specialized customer data transformation and control algorithms while remaining within the power consumption profile. A MSP430F235 was chosen to provide ultra low power management of the system for even greater battery life.