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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:	Intel x86 family, Intel MCS-48 family, Microchip PIC family, Analog Devices Sharc family, Motorola DSP96002
Programming Languages:	C++, C, Basic, Fortran, Assembler for most of the processors listed above
Operating Systems:	QNX, Windows NT & XP, MS-DOS, Virtuoso
Networking Protocols:	TCP/IP, UDP/IP, ATM AAL5

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:

Navigation Systems

• 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.
• 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

• 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.
• 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

• 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.
• 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

• 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.
• 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.
• 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

• 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.

(c) Aardstorm Software 2005
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