Situation

Over a number of years, our customer had developed a line of devices which it had implemented as single-purpose embedded systems. In order to control these systems, control units had to be built for each unit. Boxy, engineering-looking controls based on knobs, switches, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were custom-designed and built for each type of device. The need for a cable restricted its users to the immediate vicinity of the embedded device.

Our customer saw the need to evolve its product line by providing its users a more attractive and functional user interface. A side benefit was to be the reduction in the cost of designing, building, and maintaining custom control units. In order to do so, they turned to Flick Software, as experts in software development for handheld computers, and asked us to build their mobile monitoring and control unit.

Solution

Working with our customer, we designed and built a complete monitoring and control environment running on a handheld computer for their embedded system. This involved developing a number of integrated elements including:
The Human Machine Interface (HMI) which the user sees and interacts with. The HMI provides the user with information about the processes implemented by the embedded system and enables the user to control the operation of the embedded system. The control logic manages the operation of the Mobile Monitoring And Control environment running on the handheld computer.

The communication software exchanges messages between the Mobile Monitoring And Control environment running on the handheld computer and the embedded system. A simulator which served, at the beginning of development, as a communication stand-in for the yet-to-be-built embedded system. The simulator also served as a model for the communication system to be built into the embedded system as it was developed.

The Mobile Monitoring And Control (MoMoCo) system developed by Flick Software for our customer allows users of the embedded system to monitor and control the operation of the embedded system using an attractive, interactive, software-driven human-machine interface running on a handheld computer. Users have the choice of cabling the MoMoCo system to the embedded system or of interacting with it using a Bluetooth wireless communication infrastructure. This allows users to move about in such a way as to best accomplish their own tasks without being tethered to the embedded system they are using.

Benefits Of The MoMoCo Solution

The MoMoCo solution we developed for our customer provides the user an attractive, intuitive means of controlling the embedded system at a distance. By implementing the MoMoCo solution in software, it can easily be updated as new requirements emerge.
Flick Software’s MoMoCo approach allows the same handheld computer to assume the personality of and to monitor and control any one of a variety of embedded systems from a distance. As the user approaches an embedded system, the MoMoCo application becomes the HMI of the appropriate embedded system based either on proximity or on user selection.

This approach allows a manufacturer to forego the usual design, Bill Of Material (BOM), manufacturing, and support costs associated with HMIs based on physical buttons, knobs, dials, and LEDs.Changes can be made to the HMI at a greater frequency than to the embedded device and can evolve to support latent functionality within the embedded system.
Eventually, Flick Software’s MoMoCo approach will allow for a single handheld computer to provide a process view. This will provide views of and control over the entire process being undertaken by a group of collaborating machines rather than a focus on individual operations within those machines.

Working With Flick Software Inc.

Our customer was able to consign the complete responsibility for the engineering of the handheld control system to Flick Software Inc. We assigned a dedicated team to design and develop the product based on our customer’s requirements.
Our HMI development specialists teamed with our communications and control logic groups to design a unified product which interacts seamlessly with the embedded system. Specializing in the development of software for handheld computers, we developed the complete solution including dynamic, interactive graphics, program management, and data communications.
We reported to our customer in writing every week and more frequently by telephone as the need arose.