Previous Experience
Aardstorm Software is a very small company. It is also very young, having been
established at the beginning of 2006. However, staff at Aardstorm have over 22
years of experience working in the defence electronics industry. This
experience is primarily in embedded software development, for both
microcontrollers and larger microprocessor systems, together with some hardware
development.
Aardstorm has extensive experience in the following technologies:
Processors:
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Intel x86 family, Intel MCS-48 family, Microchip PIC family,
Analog Devices Sharc family, Motorola DSP96002
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Programming Languages:
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C++, C, Basic, Fortran, Assembler for most of the processors
listed above
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Operating Systems:
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QNX, Windows NT & XP, MS-DOS, Virtuoso
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Networking Protocols:
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TCP/IP, UDP/IP, ATM AAL5
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Aardstorm is now offering its services as for embedded software development,
using its own facilities. It can therefore put its extensive experience in
embedded software and hardware development to good use developing the software
for your project.
Previous projects with which staff at Aardstorm have been involved include:
(click on the headings below to show or hide the project details, or see
here for a non-interactive version of this page.)
Navigation Systems
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A family of flexible data distribution systems for warships. These systems take
ship's navigational information from the sensor systems, and pass it on to the
ship's other systems that need it, such as weapon or display systems. The data
is received and transmitted in a variety of digital and analogue signal
formats, with the number and types varying between classes of ship. A major
requirement for these systems is to distribute the data with minimum delay from
input to output. The distribution systems are designed to be highly modular in
both hardware and software, so that a system for a new ship can be assembled
quickly and easily by plugging together an appropriate set of standard
components. Aardstorm staff developed the overall architecture and an initial
set of components for the software for a new generation of these systems, which
ran on standard embedded PC processor and interface cards, and also applied the
new components to systems for two different classes of ship. This project also
included developing an in service diagnostic monitoring tool based on a
standard internet browser.
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A console display unit for ship's navigation and weather data. This displayed
various data parameters both numerically and graphically on a standard LCD
panel, driven by an embedded PC processor card. The data was received
periodically over a serial link. Aardstorm staff developed the software for
this unit.
Degaussing Systems
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A simple microcontroller-based degaussing control system for a particular class
of frigate. This system adjusted the currents in the ship's degaussing coils in
response to changes in the ship's heading, received in synchro form from the
ship's navigation systems. Aardstorm staff developed both the software and
control unit hardware for this system.
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A more sophisticated degaussing control system, designed to as a standard
product that could be easily adapted to individual types of ship with varying
numbers of coils. This system offered higher-resolution control of the coil
currents than the previous system, and included a function to calculate the
Earth's magnetic field from the ship's current position, using a mathematical
model. Aardstorm staff developed both the rack-mounted processor card (based on
an Intel 80186) at the heart of this system, and the control software.
Sonar Systems
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An 'intercept' sonar system for submarines. This system listens passively for
sonar signals from other vessels and torpedoes, analysing any received signals
in real time to alert the crew of any detected threat. It uses multiple digital
signal processor devices working together to achieve the necessary processing
performance. Aardstorm staff developed the signal processing algorithms and
much of the signal processing software for this system.
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A sonar beamform signal processor subsystem for a noise measurement range. This
subsytem combines and processes the signals from an 'array' of sensors to
attenuate incident signals coming from directions other than a desired
direction of 'look'. The rest of the system 'steers' this beam onto a target
vessel as it passes the sensor system, so that the acoustic signals generated
by that vessel can be measured while reducing the influence of extraneous
noises from other sources. This system is based on a number of rack-mounted PC
processor cards, each with an associated digital signal processor card. The
signals are received from the sensors, and passed between the PCs, over an ATM
network. Aardstorm staff developed the signal processing algorithms and much of
the signal processing software for this system.
-
The beamform signal processor subsystem described above was subsequently
re-engineered for another customer. The signal processor cards used previously
had become obsolete, while the processing performance of the PCs themselves had
increased significantly, so the signal processing software was rewritten to run
on the PCs themselves, using the Intel signal processing libraries. Aardstorm
staff developed the revised signal processing algorithms, overall software
architecture, and much of the software for this system.
-
The signal processing software for the 'intercept' sonar system described above
was also subsequently re-engineered for a different customer. The software was
optimised for active torpedo detection, and rewritten to run as a software
component within a larger sonar system, running on array of standard
processors. Aardstorm staff developed the revised signal processing algorithms
and software architecture for this system, together with a MATLAB model of the
software to allow the customer to simulate the perfomance of his overall
system.
Test Systems
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A flexible serial message generation program, for stimulating the data
distribution systems described above with both realistic and erroneous data
during testing. This program runs on a standard PC with appropriate serial
interface ports, and provides flexible control of the generated messages in
real time, with a user-friendly interface. Aardstorm staff developed this
entire program.
-
A flexible serial message monitoring program, for displaying and verifying the
serial outputs of the data distribution systems described above during testing.
This program also runs on a standard PC with appropriate serial interface
ports, and displays the data received in real time, with a user-friendly
interface. Aardstorm staff developed this entire program.
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A simple time interval measurement unit, for gathering input to output delay
statistics during testing of the data distribution systems described above.
This consists of a microcontroller-based time interval measurement unit that
sends individual measurements over a serial link to a standard PC for real time
statistical analysis and display. Aardstorm staff developed the software for
both the microcontroller and the PC.
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A data acquisition, analysis and display system for a power system test bed
that was used to investigate the interaction of a number of commercial AC motor
control drive units with a ship's power supply system. Aardstorm staff
developed the software for this system using LabView and associated PC-based
acquisition hardware.
Other Projects
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A small microcontroller-based switch and indicator interface unit for a larger
system. This communicated with the larger system over a serial link, informing
the system of the state its switch inputs, and operating its indicator outputs
in response to received instructions. Aardstorm staff developed both the
hardware and software for this unit.
