Albatronics

Albatronics provides expert consultation services for hardware or embedded system development. The consultation ranges from requirement specification and design requirements for hadware, software or mechanical design. Following the consultation phase, the scope of work can optionally be expanded to a full turnkey project, provided by Albatronics.

System Design & Development
Albatronics develops complete systems combining mechanical, hardware and software elements such as:

• Embedded and PC computer systems;
• Voice over IP applications;
• Airborne systems;
• Traffic controllers;
• Support for various communication wireless technologies (e.g. RF/WiFi);
• Fiber optics and wireline communications modules (Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps, ATM, xDSL);
• Synchronous/Asynchronous (HDLC, Ex/Tx, CDMA etc.);
• TCP/IP protocol based control applications;
• USB-2 - USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 compatible systems;
• Various signal processors;
• Windows XP monitoring and simulation applications utilizing friendly GUIs.

The solution system can comprise multiple modular plug-in cards that comply with common standards, for example: PCI, Compact PCI and VME to enable maximum modularity. The system level design defines which of the tasks will be assigned for hardware implementation, and which for software implementation, followed by:

• Design of Hardware with mechanical aspect considerations;
• Design of Software and the Software to Hardware integration interfaces.

Mechanical Design
Albatronics can optionally  provide mechanical design and development that meet commercial and military product requirements including: optimal spacing, compliance with strength requirements, operational solutions for high g conditions such as those present in military and airborne systems. Compliance with material requirements, with QC requirements and with optimal cost effectivity.

Software Design and Development
Based on the applicable requirements, the software is designed, QC tested and only then developed together with in-line source documentation for easy maintenance and high upgradability. The software is delivered with a Board Support Package (BSP) which includes: BSP APIs for application development, BSP APIs sources (optional), BSP APIs documentation, BSP software downloading application and BSP test applications.

The BSP test applications include communication simulators and loggers for enhanced debugging capabilities. Moreover, using the Windows XP platform, Albatronics develops such capabilities as GUI applications e.g. for monitoring network equipment with user friendly interface. The supported software languages currently include: ANSI C, MS-Visual C++, C-Sharp, Visual Basic and Studio-C.

The following are Operating Systems that have already been used by the company for development:

• Embedded Linux
• VxWork
• pSOS
• VRTX
• Proprietary RTOS

Hardware Design and Development
Albatronics uses the following hardware development environments:

• Motorola and Texas Instruments DSP and RISC based systems;
• Motorola and Intel computers such as the Power QUICC;
• Power QUICC II, Power QUICC III and Pentium based systems;
• Additional environments can be supported to meet project requirements.

The hardware development consists of the following stages:

• PCB Layout design using Mentor Graphics, Orcad or any other designing environment as required by the customer;
• Design of the Digital and Analog Hardware;
• Digital design based on FPGA chips;
• FPGA chip design using high-level language tools (e.g. VHDL);
• ASIC chip design and implementation;
• Layout creation process;
• ICDs (Interface Control Documents) production;
• VCD (Vendor Control Document) production

Integration
The quality of integration is the key for excellent and high value final delivery.
Albatronics has an extensive experience in integrating various types of analog and digital applications e.g. analog sensors, video cameras and digital processing units. The integration is tested by the QC department with unit and module inspection, to ensure compliance with the specifications.

Testing
Providing customers with the best quality and with long lasting operational solutions is the company's flagship. Therefore, Albatronics considers the testing aspect to be one of the most important elements of the product development process, and their deliverables are well tested.

An assortment of testing procedures is applied to the developed solution throughout the entire development phase, up to the final delivery milestone, maximizing the deliverable quality. The various tests include mandatory and project specific ones, provided by Albatronics to ensure best price performance and quality results:

• Unit tests
• Visual inspection
• Environmental tests
• Final Acceptance Tests (FAT)
• Acceptance Test Results (ATR)

A group of products based on the MCDC module (a Multi Channel Down Converter), designed by Albatronics as a common platform for various Software/ firmware defined applications, such as: IF recorder/ analysis, FDM demodulator, DF etc.  The MCDC Module consists of analog and digital boards, fit for standard PCI/64 bit Bus, as well as standalone configuration, operated via Ethernet LAN interface.

• Up and down conversion is performed by the MCDC100XX – no need for additional components
• Powered by a Power QUICC III (MPC8560) and two Xilinx Virtex-II pro FPGAs, the MCDC100XX provides outstanding performance – up to 100Mega Hz
• Support various standard interfaces: 1GB LAN, E1, Optical 2.5 Gbps
• Fast and efficient A/D and D/A
• Wide band, high resolution and high Decimation/ extrapolation Digital Down/Up convert
• Two independent IF inputs and two IF outputs