Altreonic, a Belgian company specialising in creating unified methodologies for the development of embedded hardware and software, recently hosted a workshop in Johannesburg showcasing what it can offer local electronics designers.
The success of this, the first workshop the company has held on South African soil, has prompted it to plan another tour in October this year, which will likely see it visiting regions outside of Johannesburg as well, taking in not only public workshops but also internal presentations to a selection of particularly promising companies. An announcement will be made in Dataweek as soon as details are confirmed.
The topic of Altreonic’s well attended June workshop was ‘A novel, unified approach to systems and software engineering, in particular where it concerns safety-critical applications in the embedded sector’. According to CEO Eric Verhulst (pictured), participants were very positive about the clean model and combination of process-related and project-related activities.
The methodology in question is based on a metamodel that covers everything from early requirement statements down to the smallest implementation item (whether it be software, hardware or mechanical). Altreonic supports this methodology with two tools. The first one, GoedelWorks, is an Internet-based portal with a central repository that helps project teams to organise their development in a systematic way, while generating the supporting evidence for qualification or certification.
The second tool is OpenComRTOS Designer, in which developers start by defining a model of the application from which initial source code is generated. Later on, the source becomes the master to regenerate the model. Unique is that OpenComRTOS itself is a formally developed, network centric real-time operating system (RTOS). Not only does it support heterogeneous systems in a transparent way, but the kernel itself is no larger than 10 KBytes on most targets. And yet it has been used to convert applications written on top of POSIX style RTOS that are often 50 times larger.
Commenting on the relevance of Altreonic’s offering to the local market and his anticipation of its future SA workshops, Verhulst said, “following the success of the workshop, Altreonic has been encouraged by follow-up meetings to organise workshops again at multiple locations in early October. Altreonic’s technology is an enabler that brings trustworthy systems and software engineering within reach of smaller companies, while its unique Open Technology Licence creates big opportunities for larger companies. Stay on the lookout for upcoming announcements in Dataweek.”
For more information contact Eric Verhulst, Altreonic, [email protected], www.altreonic.com
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version