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Embedded Software Development
Embedded Software Development
CouthIT’s Embedded Software Group offers software development services in the domains of multimedia and industrial communication sub-systems. We take up specific niche requirements or entire product development. We have vast experience in designing and developing complex embedded software solutions that have been internalized and deployed by our customers across the globe. CouthIT has been twice accredited as a Level 3 CMMI development organization.
- Firmware and Linux driver development for industrial Ethernet protocols (EMAC, RSTP, Switch, HSR, PRP, MRP, DLR, and EtherCAT)
- Firmware and driver development for industrial serial communication protocols such as the position encoder interface implementations, ARCNET, etc.
- Linux network stack/driver enhancements for specific hardware architecture.
- Linux XDP programming, Qdisc programming, and Time-Sensitive Networking
- Linux Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and PPS generation with support for OC, TC, and BC modes over EMAC, RSTP, Switch, HSR and PRP.
- Linux upstreaming.
- Analyzing and fixing Linux Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
- Porting and optimization of audio and video signal processing modules -- this includes rewriting critical kernels in assembly, rewriting the algorithm flow/design, parallelization for multi-core platforms, and floating- to fixed-point conversion.
- Signal processing research and development
- Multi-channel audio systems (surround sound, immersive and spatial audio, and 3D sound)
- Integration, validation, testing, and maintenance of multimedia signal processing modules.
- Fax communication using open-source fax-engines such as SpanDSP.
- Implementation of video conference application over IP stack on embedded systems.
- Voice, audio, and video quality evaluation for multimedia systems.
- Knowledge of 3GPP/ITU-T/IEEE standards and protocols specifications.
- TI AM65x SOC based Industrial Development Kit with RT Linux was selected by an OEM for their next generation PROFINET TSN compliance test platform (ETS). The AM65x SOC supports up to three instances of Gigabit Industrial Communication Sub-System (ICSSG), each of which can support two Gigabit EMAC ports managed by the Programmable Real-time Units (PRU). CouthIT enhanced the TI PRU ICSSG Dual-Emac firmware with TTS feature to facilitate precise packet transmission (as a packet generator) and reception with precise timestamping (as a packet analyzer) for deterministic, time-critical, and safety related applications. Several challenges were overcome in this project by using innovative solutions. These include the use of Linux XDP sockets for better performance, packet stitching/splitting in the firmware to improve the throughput performance for smaller packet sizes, use of dedicated hardware queue for PROFINET cyclical real-time traffic (time-stamped packets) via PRU ICSSG, use of advanced PRU ICSSG hardware features to ensure packets are transmitted within 50ns of the specified timestamp, support for pre-emption, and feedback packets from the firmware to the application with information on the actual transmit times and other statistics.
- OEM developing the next generation process interface units to be deployed in electrical sub-stations worldwide. These products support industrial communication protocols such as the Ethernet, Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP), High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR), Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) along with the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and are used for electrical sub-station automation. The product is based on the TI AM57xS SOC running RT Linux and uses PRU ICSS dual MAC ports at 100 Mbps line rate. CouthIT contribution includes major refactoring/optimization of the PRU ICSS firmware to achieve real-time performance, refactoring/optimization of Linux drivers to minimize the ARM CPU load and packet latency, refactoring of TI PTP4L by adding new features, improving performance, fault tolerance, and fault recovery. Currently, work is in progress to upstream the PRU ICSSM industrial Ethernet protocol drivers to Linux-next.
- Center for Development of Telematics is deveoping the next generation secure video phone based on the TI AM572x SOC. This SOC comes with a High-Definition Image and Video Accelerator (IVA-HD) for encdding/decoding and a Video Processing Engine (VPE) for scaling, color space conversion, and de-interlacing. CouthIT's contribution included enhancing their SIP client to add support for hardware accelerator based video coding, scaling, and color space conversion to achieve real-time performance at HD resolutions. Further, CouthIT also analyze the end-to-end flow of video and voice data and optimized the overall system performance for multi-party conference calls.
