British Research’s purpose is to enable clients to create high value products and services based around the latest electronic software, communications and display technologies.
British Research has a number of research projects looking at the next level of embedded technologies enabling our clients to react quickly to future market opportunities. One of our aims is to work alongside other organisations and manufacturers to provide them with the latest technology i.e. to revolutionise instrument manufacturing so that in the future these devices can be controlled via hand held touch screen technology (Smartphones & tablet PCs). It’s far easier, cost effective and quicker to modify and develop an interface for instrumentation on smart phones & tablets than a hardware interface using knobs, buttons and switches. This also has an additional advantage of being able to introduce improvements and modifications with ease via software updates.
British Research see the future in Instrumentation and equipments being controlled through commonly used and available portable smart devices (Smartphone etc..). We work alongside our clients to introduce these technologies into their products and to support them in the latest developments applicable to their industry.
We are currently focusing on solutions that are based around high quality platforms to develop proof of concept or prototype systems for market evaluation and low to medium volume production. If high volume production is required we would involve our mass production partners.
We specialise in creating networked solutions that can be both monitor and control assets through a variety of wireless and internet protocols creating the ability to manage processes directly from your desktop.
What can be achieved?
We believe our proposition is clear and focused. We work with clients to create network enabled devices that can be additions to existing assets, or new products in themselves. This allows higher value added services to be implemented as part of any designed functionality so that the opportunity for enhanced profitability can be developed.
Operating Systems
We focus on providing robust, cost-effective solutions which are individually tailored to client specifications. In order to achieve this, our engineers prefer to use the Linux Operating System as a base for most of our development but can design to customers’ needs.
Software Development
Our structured approach to programming follows methodologies like “C” and we use this extensively for application development.
For systems that require integration into a web based system with online database (such as MySql), PHP is generally the language of choice.
For larger scale applications JAVA is our language of choice with JAVA ME (J2ME) being our preferred route for mobile application development through, VB can often be useful on some mobile devices. Our engineers also have vast expertise in Android.
Human Interfaces
Apart from the standard Keyboard, Video, Mouse (KVM) Human Interfaces, British Research specialises in Touch Screen Systems. The screens can be implemented through a variety of technologies and we can advise you of the advantages of each and choose the optimum solution for your application.
In order to develop high quality solutions for Touch Screen based systems, we utilise two main development environments namely Android and Qt.
We have implemented applications for niche market instruments and portable test equipment on each of our standard platforms, and have both Android and Qt successfully implemented across the range.
Our R & D engineers have created demonstration packages for evaluation purposes in order that clients can appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of the variety of potential development routes that can be taken with touch screen and other display systems.
Analogue, Binary and Serial I/O
Measurement and control is the background to our business, with data acquisition being one of the fundamental functions that our systems provide.
Our solutions can provide direct analogue and digital inputs and outputs via general purpose I/O (GPIG) parts which provide high speed data transfer between “real world” sensors and actuators.
Platforms
We have experience in the use of a wide range of development boards and environments. However our experiences through development have caused us to focus for the present times on:-
We find these provide us with a sufficient spectrum of choices to suit most proof of concept and prototype developments for clients.
Communications
Our engineers can provide communications strategies which can be integrated into our solutions, for every type of application, from local to global ranges.
Most of our applications have some form of wireless solution built in, as clients often want an outcome that is not dependent on (or integrated) any existing network.
We can make our devices networkable via Bluetooth, Wireless LAN (WLAN) or through mobile internet (GPRS/3G/HSDPA).