Clients
HDA has worked with a broad range of clients. Nearly all our business has been obtained through referrals from satisfied clients or continuing work with existing ones. For detailed descriptions of work we've done, click the below client names or scroll down-
MMS's Fluid Warmer
|
Brayton Energy's SolarCAT
|
UTC's RAPTOR
|
Rudolph Technologies, Wilmington, MA (2005–present)
Rudolph Technologies (formerly Azores) designs, develops, manufactures, and supports equipment for process control inspection, metrology, lithography, and data analysis systems and software used by semiconductor manufacturers. HDA worked on a three-axis closed loop control of a Sawyer motor stage using a VME bus based processing system and RTEMS real-time operating system. We also worked on multi-axis closed loop servo control of motors, which uses the MPC55xx family of micro-controllers and the RTEMS real-time operating system, and created vision-system alignment systems using the MVTEC Halcon vision library.
Rudolph Technologies, Wilmington, MA (2005–present)
Rudolph Technologies (formerly Azores) designs, develops, manufactures, and supports equipment for process control inspection, metrology, lithography, and data analysis systems and software used by semiconductor manufacturers. HDA worked on a three-axis closed loop control of a Sawyer motor stage using a VME bus based processing system and RTEMS real-time operating system. We also worked on multi-axis closed loop servo control of motors, which uses the MPC55xx family of micro-controllers and the RTEMS real-time operating system, and created vision-system alignment systems using the MVTEC Halcon vision library.
UTC Aerospace, Lexington, MA (1997–present)
UTC Aerospace designs, manufactures and services systems and components for commercial, regional, business, and military aircrafts. HDA worked on the Goodrich RAPTOR system, an airborne reconnaissance high-speed, high-resolution, dual-band digital imaging sensor running on PowerPC VME boards using VxWorks.
We performed the preliminary research into a hardware implementation of the image chain JPEG function based on a VHDL implementation of the algorithm on an FPGA; and implemented the RAPTOR Mission Plan Parser in YACC and C, running on Solaris, FreeBSD, Windows with Cygwin, and VxWorks.
HDA also helped develop the image chain of their airborne reconnaissance cameras, acting as lead architect of this for the dual-band camera products. The image chain processes high-rate image data applying nonuniformity correction, bad-pixel replacement, and JPEG compression to the data. The data is encoded per NATAO STANAG 7023 and stored on a solid state recorder, and is transmitted by data link to ground-processing stations. The image chain is targeted to PowerPC/VxWorks on VME using RACEway high-speed data fabric. We worked with the FPGA designers on the requirements, architecture, and interfaces of the FPGA.
Brayton Energy, Hampton, NH (1995, 2009–2012)
Brayton Energy (formerly Keseli Associates) is a thermo-fluids and energy consulting company. HDA designed and developed the software for its Solar Burner Controller. The software was used for real time control of a natural gas burner that was part of a hybrid solar–natural gas electrical generator. The system controlled the fuel input and air-to-fuel ratio of the burner to keep a vessel of sodium-potassium at a precise temperature under varying load, while continually displaying a status monitor.
The hardware was based on an Intel 80386-SX ISA bus PC, running a modified version of the publicly available BSD UNIX–derived operating system, FreeBSD. The modifications included a device driver, for a data acquisition board, and OS extensions that permitted real time control of control servos and a stepping motor throttle, while the non-real-time operator interface operated in a standard BSD environment. The identical software also ran in an MS-DOS environment.
When Keseli became Brayton Energy, HDA worked on the controls for the SolarCAT System, which utilized 20-meter-diameter reflective dishes to focus about 230 kW of solar energy on a receiver to heat compressed air. Two variations were developed, one incorporating a special-purpose-built gas turbine engine, and a second gas turbine version incorporating compressed air energy storage. We also designed and built the dSPI-TC16, a sixteen channel-thermocouple board designed for the controls of a hybrid truck.
Brayton Energy, Hampton, NH (1995, 2009–2012)
Brayton Energy (formerly Keseli Associates) is a thermo-fluids and energy consulting company. HDA designed and developed the software for its Solar Burner Controller. The software was used for real time control of a natural gas burner that was part of a hybrid solar–natural gas electrical generator. The system controlled the fuel input and air-to-fuel ratio of the burner to keep a vessel of sodium-potassium at a precise temperature under varying load, while continually displaying a status monitor.
The hardware was based on an Intel 80386-SX ISA bus PC, running a modified version of the publicly available BSD UNIX–derived operating system, FreeBSD. The modifications included a device driver, for a data acquisition board, and OS extensions that permitted real time control of control servos and a stepping motor throttle, while the non-real-time operator interface operated in a standard BSD environment. The identical software also ran in an MS-DOS environment.
When Keseli became Brayton Energy, HDA worked on the controls for the SolarCAT System, which utilized 20-meter-diameter reflective dishes to focus about 230 kW of solar energy on a receiver to heat compressed air. Two variations were developed, one incorporating a special-purpose-built gas turbine engine, and a second gas turbine version incorporating compressed air energy storage. We also designed and built the dSPI-TC16, a sixteen channel-thermocouple board designed for the controls of a hybrid truck.
Meridian Medical Systems, Bath, ME (1994–2001, August 2003–2006)
Meridian Medical Systems (formerly Microwave Medical Systems) is a developer of medical instruments that use microwave energy in medical applications. HDA developed the software for the MMS Fluid Warmer which is used to quickly bring and maintain fluids (blood, saline, etc.) to body temperature. The system is an Intel 80196 microprocessor implementing three 60-Hertz digital feedback control loops that meets FDA requirements for use in human patients. The software tests and monitors the equipment and process to guarantee safe operation, shutting the system down if it detects failure. It is written in ANSI-C, developed and tested in simulation on a UNIX workstation, and cross-compiled for the microprocessor target.
The Fluid Warmer includes host link software that collects key system data that can be transmitted to a host computer for calibration, manufacturing, and engineering tests. All its capabilities can be exercised from a remote GUI. We developed both a calibration station and manufacturing test station, written in ANSI-C and Tk/TCL on a FreeBSD UNIX workstation for production.
HDA also wrote the software for the precision control of microwave energy in a safety critical application. The software is a high-reliability Intel 80196 microprocessor system that implements a digital feedback control loop, and is written to share common functions with the MMS Fluid.
Seacoast Technologies, Portsmouth, NH (June 2004–2005)
Seacoast Technologies was a neurosurgical and neurocritical-care medical device company. HDA worked with Seacoast in designing the overall system for medical safety, and selecting the software environment, on a microprocessor controlled version of Chiller, a device designed to provide neuroprotection by chilling the brain's surface in settings such as after an operation or brain trauma. The device was controlled by an embedded PC running the RTEMS real-time executive and using Microwindows as the display interface. The multi threaded software was flash based and written in C++ and C.
GSI Group, Wilmington, MA (May 2001–November 2002, August–September 2003)
GSI Group (formerly GSI Lumonics) is a leading global supplier of precision photonic components and subsystems to OEM's in the medical and advanced industrial markets. HDA worked on a GSI memory repair system that used a laser to enable selected circuitry on memory chips in an integrated circuit fabrication line to increase chip yield. The software was written in C++ and Tcl/Tk, ran on Solaris and VxWorks, and was distributed across multiple embedded PowerPC-based VME boards and the network.
We ported preliminary software from WIN32 to VxWorks on a PowerPC VME board, developed the software for the embedded control of the precision fine stage, and developed a network accessible GUI written in C++ and Tcl/Tk that runs on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, and Windows XP. HDA also added the ability to collect large amounts of real-time data on to a network disk on Solaris or FreeBSD system while a fine stage trajectory is running, and added the interface required for tuning control parameters for the fine stage.
Resource Monitoring Systems, Bedford, NH (March–April 2003)
Resource Monitoring Systems (RMS) was a small group of investors and entrepreneurs working to develop a prototype home well monitoring system using acoustical echo measurement. HDA developed a proof of concept prototype for their Well Alert acoustic consumer device. This device was based on the PIC18F452 microcontroller, and sent an acoustic pulse down a well to measure echo, thus determining the depth of well water. The software was developed in C++ on Mac OS X, and tested on the target using the Microchip development system and Windows XP.
We also designed, built, and tested the prototype hardware and software to present the concept to investors, and developed a project plan with budget and schedule for the next phase of delivering prototype production units.
Guardian Solutions, Bradenton, FL (July 2002–February 2003)
Guardian Solutions was a developer of intelligent video surveillance software. HDA worked with them on a computer-aided surveillance system, a distributed network-based application written in C and C++ that runs on a combination of Linux and Windows XP. We implemented a generic interface to pan tilt zoom cameras to incorporate new cameras, carried out general user-space Linux software development, developed the product specification with others, and worked on general startup support such as manning trade booths and conducting presentations.
Abiomed, Danvers, MA (May–September 2001)
Abiomed manufactures cardiac support, recovery, and replacement devices. HDA worked on the user interface for a next generation product. The embedded platform was based on the Infineon ST10C167 microcontroller. The software was developed in C together with the Nucleus real-time OS. We ported Microwindows, an open-source windowing system for microcomputers, to the embedded platform driving a color LCD display; developed a small-footprint strict subset of the Windows API portable between Windows, FreeBSD with the X Windowing System, and the embedded platform.
Abiomed, Danvers, MA (May–September 2001)
Abiomed manufactures cardiac support, recovery, and replacement devices. HDA worked on the user interface for a next generation product. The embedded platform was based on the Infineon ST10C167 microcontroller. The software was developed in C together with the Nucleus real-time OS. We ported Microwindows, an open-source windowing system for microcomputers, to the embedded platform driving a color LCD display; developed a small-footprint strict subset of the Windows API portable between Windows, FreeBSD with the X Windowing System, and the embedded platform.
Software Partners/32, Topsfield, MA (May 1995–September 1997)
Software Partners/32 was a leader in network data management systems for UNIX and VMS. Their software scheduled file system backups for one or more workstations in a domain and catalogued and tracked physical media that contained data sets. HDA designed and developed the archiving module for their StorageCenter product. This allowed UNIX system administrators to delete unused or shelve little-used files from a file system (shelving is the process of copying a file to a backup medium and replacing the file with a smaller "marker" file). Users could "make space" on a file system (remove eligible files until a disk-space target has been reached) or "groom" a file system (remove any eligible file). Eligible files could be specified directly or selected using a query language based on an extension of UNIX's "find" semantics.
The Archiving module was written in ANSI-C using Standard C library and POSIX functions so that it could more easily be ported to the six UNIX platforms supported by SP/32 (DEC OSF/1, IBM AIX, HP HP/UX, SUN SUNOS, SUN Solaris and DEC Ultrix). We wrote a comprehensive test suite in UNIX shell (sh) language to validate the Archiving software.
Waters, Milford, MA (1994–1995)
Waters is a major developer of high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) instruments for pharmaceutical, analytical, and research environments. HDA worked with Waters to complete the functional requirements, design, and implementation of application control software, real-time kernel extensions, and test software for technical direction on Waters' LC instrument, the Separations Module. The software was written in C++ for the Motorola MC68332 using the VRTX real-time executive.
Waters, Milford, MA (1994–1995)
Waters is a major developer of high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) instruments for pharmaceutical, analytical, and research environments. HDA worked with Waters to complete the functional requirements, design, and implementation of application control software, real-time kernel extensions, and test software for technical direction on Waters' LC instrument, the Separations Module. The software was written in C++ for the Motorola MC68332 using the VRTX real-time executive.
Instrumentation Laboratory, Lexington, MA (1991–1994)
Instrumentation Laboratory is an international developer of medical instruments for laboratories and hospitals. Their products include clinical chemistry analyzers, blood gas analyzers, and coagulation analyzers.
HDA designed and implemented the real-time process control software, application interface, and low-level driver for an automatic blood coagulation analysis laboratory. The application was written in ANSI-C and ran on Venix (a real-time UNIX) on PC-compatible platforms. The software controlled the scheduling and loading of patient samples and reagents, and data acquisition of the chemical reactions to produce test results. Process scheduling rules were designed to optimize THE sample throughput while respecting the timing constraints imposed by the chemical reactions. The software was also responsible for instrument quality control and calibration; and a low-level driver included a simulation capability that allowed system development and test without the need of the instrument.
Instrumentation Laboratory, Lexington, MA (1991–1994)
Instrumentation Laboratory is an international developer of medical instruments for laboratories and hospitals. Their products include clinical chemistry analyzers, blood gas analyzers, and coagulation analyzers.
HDA designed and implemented the real-time process control software, application interface, and low-level driver for an automatic blood coagulation analysis laboratory. The application was written in ANSI-C and ran on Venix (a real-time UNIX) on PC-compatible platforms. The software controlled the scheduling and loading of patient samples and reagents, and data acquisition of the chemical reactions to produce test results. Process scheduling rules were designed to optimize THE sample throughput while respecting the timing constraints imposed by the chemical reactions. The software was also responsible for instrument quality control and calibration; and a low-level driver included a simulation capability that allowed system development and test without the need of the instrument.
Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA (1989–1992)
Alliant Computer Systems was a manufacturer of high-performance, multi-processor, real-time UNIX mini-supercomputers. HDA was a key part of their successful Custom Products Group that designed and implemented custom software and hardware for Alliant computer customers.
We designed and developed a real-time data-to-disk array system for the Alliant FX/2800 mini-supercomputer. The system could continuously write data to a 64-GB Maximum Strategy HIPPI disk array at 32 MB/second, while concurrently reading selected regions from the disk, and writing them to an AMPEX DCRSI tape drive at 10 MB/second.
HDA also developed drivers and support software for high-definition TV interfaces and hardware in the loop missile simulation and control systems.
Teradyne, Somerville, MA (1989–1992)
Teradyne is a developer of laser-marking systems for semi-conductor and other commercial industries. In the marker, a high-powered laser is positioned by x- and y-axis mirrors deflected by galvanometers. The application and real-time control software ran under DOS on IBM-PC compatible computers.
HDA designed and implemented an interactive, graphical job editor, used by customers to position graphics, text, and barcodes in the marking field, and to specify control parameters describing how the graphical objects were to be laser-marked. We also took over the development of and significantly enhanced the MCL marker driver. The driver is responsible for the real-time control of the laser power, position, and velocity when marking.
HDA also developed custom laser-marking applications for end users of the laser marking system.
Teradyne, Somerville, MA (1989–1992)
Teradyne is a developer of laser-marking systems for semi-conductor and other commercial industries. In the marker, a high-powered laser is positioned by x- and y-axis mirrors deflected by galvanometers. The application and real-time control software ran under DOS on IBM-PC compatible computers.
HDA designed and implemented an interactive, graphical job editor, used by customers to position graphics, text, and barcodes in the marking field, and to specify control parameters describing how the graphical objects were to be laser-marked. We also took over the development of and significantly enhanced the MCL marker driver. The driver is responsible for the real-time control of the laser power, position, and velocity when marking.
HDA also developed custom laser-marking applications for end users of the laser marking system.
Paragon Imaging, Woburn, MA (1988–1991)
Paragon Imaging was a developer of image-processing software for military and commercial applications. HDA was Paragon's initial technical resource when Paragon was founded in 1988, and continued to provide consulting services as Paragon grew. We wrote a translator to automatically port a "dusty deck" FORTRAN image-processing program to modern engineering workstations; this was Paragon's first commercial product. We also developed UNIX kernel drivers and related test software for SCSI image scanners, and reviewed products that Paragon was considering for re-sale.
Paragon Imaging, Woburn, MA (1988–1991)
Paragon Imaging was a developer of image-processing software for military and commercial applications. HDA was Paragon's initial technical resource when Paragon was founded in 1988, and continued to provide consulting services as Paragon grew. We wrote a translator to automatically port a "dusty deck" FORTRAN image-processing program to modern engineering workstations; this was Paragon's first commercial product. We also developed UNIX kernel drivers and related test software for SCSI image scanners, and reviewed products that Paragon was considering for re-sale.
Optronics, Chelmsford, MA (1989–1990)
Optronics was a developer of high-speed, high-resolution image scanners and recorders used by the scientific and graphics arts industries. HDA designed and developed the software and consulted on the system architecture for the Optronics ColorGetter, a high-speed, high-resolution color separation scanner. The scanner used an embedded IBM-PC compatible computer as the controller with a custom hardware interface to the electro-mechanical components of the scanner. The scanner controller communicated with a user's computer via IEEE 488 (GPIB) or SCSI interfaces. We wrote the embedded control software, the embedded test software, scanner and host interface protocols and host test software. All software was written in ANSI-C, and the system was originally developed on a UNIX workstation with software emulating the scanner during the time that the scanner was being designed. It was then re-compiled for the target environment.
Optronics, Chelmsford, MA (1989–1990)
Optronics was a developer of high-speed, high-resolution image scanners and recorders used by the scientific and graphics arts industries. HDA designed and developed the software and consulted on the system architecture for the Optronics ColorGetter, a high-speed, high-resolution color separation scanner. The scanner used an embedded IBM-PC compatible computer as the controller with a custom hardware interface to the electro-mechanical components of the scanner. The scanner controller communicated with a user's computer via IEEE 488 (GPIB) or SCSI interfaces. We wrote the embedded control software, the embedded test software, scanner and host interface protocols and host test software. All software was written in ANSI-C, and the system was originally developed on a UNIX workstation with software emulating the scanner during the time that the scanner was being designed. It was then re-compiled for the target environment.
Brooks Automation, Chelmsford, MA (1987–1989)
Brooks Automation is a developer of semi-conductor material handling and test equipment. HDA developed an embedded-PC application for the control of a large-format (450 mm x 450 mm) semiconductor substrate handling system (the Automatic Plate Handler). The handlers are used on semi-conductor fabrication equipment (manufactured by MRS Technology) used to make flat-panel video displays. The software is written in ANSI-C and in P3, a concurrent state-machine programming language designed by us.
HDA also designed and developed embedded-PC control applications for vacuum end station controllers (material handlers that operate in vacuum environments) and track station controllers (belt-driven material handlers for use in semi-conductor furnaces) based on the P3 architecture.
We designed and implemented a SEMI Equipment Communication Standard (SECS) communications protocol package which is used in the Brooks Automation Automatic Plate Handler so that the Panel Printer could control the Plate Handler. The SECS package implemented SECS-I (point-to-point communication) and SECS-II (message content) protocol layers. The driver was written in ANSI-C, and has been ported to embedded IBM-PC/DOS and embedded Motorola 68k/VxWorks environments.
MRS Technology, Chelmsford, MA (1987–1989)
MRS was a developer of semi-conductor fabrication equipment for the manufacture of large format flat-panel displays. HDA designed and implemented the same SECS communications protocol package described in the paragraph above, but for the MRS Panel Printer.