The Electronic Engineering department provides comprehensive know-how for the engineering of electronic applications based on customer specification. All the stages of the design cycle (hardware/software) can be taken over from the requirements up to the serial manufacturing.

Modular HARDWARE

ACT'L has been developing a unique hardware development capability based on hardware building bricks and a software toolbox. The keyword for this approach is modularity.

We build solutions tailored to your needs around our core CPU board to which we add the required building bricks to interface with the physical environment of your application. Each building brick is optimized using state-of-the-art, cost effective technologies.

Examples of hardware building bricks available (non exhaustive)

•  Internet CPU-Core
  Our most commonly used core module is based on ARM ™ technology and provides 100 Mbits access through Internet and PPP (modem). Its computation speed of 90 Mips Dhrystone outperforms most competitive hardware on performance/price ratio.
  
  
•  I/O modules
  We can offer a wide range of rugged analog and digital input/output modules. For each type of jnput/output signal, we have low cost (8 bits) and high precision (16 bits) options.
  
  
•  COM Interfaces
  RS232/RS485 serial links, USB, Ethernet, CAN, LON, Power Line, Wireless (serial and Ethernet), Optic Fiber links (serial and Ethernet)
  
  
•  Telecom modules
  We have a wide range of modems and local bus modules including: PSTN-modem, ISDN-modem, EGSM 900/1800-modems, GPRS-modem, ADSL-modem, GPS NMEA receiver + antenna

Flexible SOFTWARE

Our software design methodology starts from an existing package that is tailored to the specific needs of each application. The existing package has been validated on different types of hardware ranging from low-end controllers up to high-end PC-based platforms.

Examples of technologies and services available in our software toolbox (non exhaustive)

•  TCP/IP
  Internet technologies being our main focus, we are familiar with any of the web-related protocols: TCP, UDP, ICMP, FTP, SNTP, SNMP.
•  Field protocols
  Modbus, Modbus/TCP, JBus, raw UART, DeviceNet, WagonBus, Unitelway, MPI, LON, CAN-bus, custom protocols.
•  Remote access
  Remote access through all kind of modem, implies to be familiar with all internet protocols including, PPP, Ethernet, IP-routing, budget call, call management, dial on demand, ADSL connectivity.
•  Data Logging
  Data logging is made easy by our flash file system allowing real time logging of any field variable or file storage of any user defined custom web site. Keywords: FFS, circular buffering, real time data storage, formatting.
•  IP data servers
  Standard internet data servers are included, providing easy access to your real time data and to data logging files stored on the flash memory. Keywords: Web server, FTP, SNTP, email.
•  Alarm management
  Embedded alarm management engine available as option. Alarm processing includes: alarm generation, acknowledgement by the user, logging of alarm follow-up actions. Once triggered, an alarm can generate a set of actions such as: SMS-message, email, SNMP-traps, FTP-puts.
•  Interpreter
  A simple to learn Basic scripting language is available to allow you to program any action on your system by yourself.
•  User interface
  Any web page can be included in the system. Javascripts and Java applets can be included in custom web pages to create dynamic GUI containing your process data.
•  Remote upgrades & maintenance
  Our internet processor board, enables remote upgrades and maintenance using FTP transfers or HTTP browser..

You can rely on ACT'L to identify your electronic engineering needs, perform the analysis, develop, validate and implement the solution that will achieve your objectives.