Fidus Solution Portfolio

A client requested Fidus to integrate their proprietary technology into a unique product. Fidus was responsible for the full development, including electronic hardware design, FPGA coding, mechanical and thermal design, and embedded software architecture. Using a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC, the project included signal conditioning, clock recovery, FMC interface, signal conversion, optical QSFP communications, and PRBS-based error detection.

The embedded application ran on Linux hosted on the quad-core Arm Cortex-A53. Deliverables included bootloader/BSP, IP over PPP, support for various USB peripherals, and data gathering from a Cortex-M4 for ADC and sensor information. We provided a Yocto build environment and Jenkins automation for future builds. The project concluded on time, within budget, and with a cohesive embedded software solution.

Having already developed an Automatic Identification System airborne receiver, we set out to design a compact AIS Class B Transponder for international maritime operation. Our AIS B solution utilized a AMD/Xilinx® Spartan-6® based software defined radio resulting in extremely clean transmit bursts, and an extremely sensitive AIS receiver. We wrote the AIS protocol stack to run on the onboard ARM processor. A vast number of different I/O options were supported. This system is a great example of Fidus delivering complex hardware, RF, FPGA, embedded software, and mechanical design- a real turnkey project.

This product was independently tested and complied with the international AIS protocol and RF performance requirements.