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Monthly Archives: September 2017

  • September 28, 2017
  • 0

An End-to-End Actuator Design Solution for a Throttle Control Unit (ECU)

Tags :

Category : Automotive control units-design and development , Product Engineering

 
Customer:

A U.S. based Automotive Supplier with presence in more than 35 countries. They are a reputed name in ADAS, suspension, transmission automation, braking and stability control systems for commercial and off-highway vehicles.

 

Business Challenge:

  • Our customer had identified an Automotive ECU (from their existing product lines), that was best suited for the Throttle Control Application.

  • Next step was to develop an Actuator to complete the closed-loop system for Throttle Control.

  • After a detailed feasibility study, customer’s in-house R&D team realized that it was imperative to partner with an expert automotive embedded engineering partner, for this actuator development project.

  • The following were the most critical reasons for outsourcing this actuator software and hardware development project:
    • Customer realized that this project had some inherent challenges. Since this actuator was to be deployed as part of the powertrain system (near the engine area). The actuator design & components were required to sustain harsh operating conditions (temperatures up to 200 0C, high levels of noise and pressure) and perform optimally.
    • Commissioning this challenging actuator development project in-house, meant increase in time-to-market and overall project cost.

 

Embitel Solution:

  • With the Value Engineering approach, our embedded system development team was able to successfully deliver the ECU actuator by overcoming the challenges of difficult operating conditions.

  • Our expert team leveraged their automotive domain know-how and the expertise in recognizing and sourcing the best suited automotive grade components. We also implemented some critical design best practices to make sure that the ECU actuator performs optimally under all operating conditions.

  • E.g. – Our team designed enclosures protected by closing thermal channels in order to make Capacitor, with Dielectric X8R, perform optimally under operating temperatures of up to 200 0C

  • Following is the step-by-step snapshot of this ECU Actuator development project:
    • Thermal and Electromagnetic Analysis and Simulation of the operating conditions using HyperLynx, FloTHERM and PSpice.
    • Schematic system design using OrCAD.
    • Building the ECU Actuator Prototype using Allegro (for layout design)
    • Functional testing of the Actuator Prototype using proprietary tool of the customer.
    • Prototype testing – Endurance Testing, Burn-In Testing and Performance Testing.
    • Support for issue resolution or bug-fixing post testing.
    • Support for End-of-Line testing, pre-compliance and post-production maintenance.

 
Block Diagram: Actuator & External ECU Architecture

Wabco Case-study-Actuator-ECU Development -Bangalore-India-Embitel

 
Embitel Impact:

  • Successfully resolved the design challenges related to harsh operating conditions and delivered a cost-effective solution.

  • Our expert team helped customer choose right tools for PCB and system layout design. This ensured that we deliver a stable and reliable actuator solution.

  • Reduced time-to-market and overall project cost.

 

Tools and Technologies:

  • OrCAD for Schematic design

  • HyperLynx for thermal and Electromagnetic analysis

  • FloTHERM for Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis

  • PSpice for Simulation
  • September 25, 2017
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Magento is a Leader in The Forrester WaveTM: B2B Commerce Suites for Midsize Organizations

Tags :

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

Magento Enterprise
In the recently-released The Forrester WaveTM: B2B Commerce Suites for Midsize Organizations, Q3 2017, Magento Commerce has been included in the top category of Leaders.

 
This Forrester Wave is a respected periodic evaluation of ecommerce service suites catering to the B2B domain.

In this report, Forrester evaluated 11 significant B2B ecommerce suite providers across 35 exhaustive criteria, from experience management to the vendor’s market presence and growth. Forrester identified 4 of the 11 vendors evaluated as leaders, including Magento. In The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q1 2017, Magento was recognized as a ‘Strong Performer’. In this Q3 report, Magento Commerce is recognized as a ‘Leader’.

Magento is cited as a ‘Leader’ for:

  • the vast range of easily available and popular extensions integrations (built by commercial partners as well as Magento Commerce), and
  • the platform’s inexpensive and open nature.

The  report further states that Magento is the “best fit for midsize B2B companies that want an open, feature-rich solution that they can extend easily and inexpensively by way of a large network of Magento Commerce system integration partners and developers.”

With this report, Forrester Research recognizes the demand in the B2B sector to adopt ecommerce. The report states that “midmarket and midsize divisions of large distributors and branded manufacturers are upgrading and re-platforming their commerce infrastructure to capture and – very importantly — retain demanding, channel-agnostic customers.”

As per The Forrester WaveTM: B2B Commerce Suites for Midsize Organizations report, digital business professionals now seek B2B ecommerce solutions that go beyond the shopping cart to offer full-spectrum customer engagement.

Factors that set B2B commerce service suites apart are experience-management tools that enable personalization, data-driven merchant tools to improve decision-making, and agility with a reduced time-to-market.

As a B2B platform, Magento checks all the above boxes. Magento Enterprise Edition is an open and flexible platform that supports B2B commerce through features such as account management, inventory tracking, quick order features, negotiated pricing terms, and responsive design.

With Magento, global brands have successfully lowered operational costs and developed the ability to grow.

The complete report of The Forrester WaveTM: B2B Commerce Suites for Midsize Organizations, Q3 2017 can be downloaded here.

Embitel Technologies is a Magento Enterprise Solution Partner with certified Magento developers who have rich experience in implementation for B2B and B2C businesses of varying scale, and across sectors.

  • September 22, 2017
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From Connected Cars, Healthcare to Uranium Enrichment Facilities, 5 IoT Security Hacking Instances to Take Note of!

Tags :

Category : Embedded Blog

As predicted by Forbes report, by 2025 there will be more than 80 billion active smart devices connected to the internet worldwide.

Well that’s the bright side of the IoT growth story. And like all technology advancements witnessed so far, IoT story too has many shades of grey!

When such humongous volumes of devices become online, it is a paradise for Hackers. World has already witnessed the consequences of Internet of Things (IoT) hacking and there is a realization for being prepared better for the future.

Such hacking attempts and IoT security issues across global IoT facilities, have resulted into privacy violation, security breaches, loss of business, crippling of infrastructure and in some cases even health and medical emergencies

IoT Security Breaches


( Image Source: McCune Wright website )

Following are some successful IoT security breaches (some are actual incidents, while rest are IoT hacking demonstrations) that were able to threaten the integrity of the entire IoT system:

  1. STUXNET:

    In 2014, a malicious computer worm called Stuxnet was responsible for causing substantial damage to Iran’s nuclear project. This was a clear case of internet of things security issue.

    The attack was purposed to sabotage the Uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. STUXNET was developed specifically to target PLCs responsible for  extracting nuclear material.

    STUXNET was designed to gain control of the PLCs connected to a computer running on windows OS. It was installed inside the computers through an infected USB device and had ability to control over thousands of factory assembly lines and centrifuges.

    To prevent such IoT security breaches, Siemens released a detection and removal tool for Stuxnet.

    Siemens also suggested to install Microsoft updates , prohibit the use of third-party USB flash drives and update password access code to avoid such IoT security breaches.

  2. MIRAI BOTNET:

    A Japanese malware called Mirai was developed to attack Linux based devices connected to a network and turn them into remotely controlled bots.

    In 2016 this BOTNET was launched to attack numerous IoT devices, primarily home routers and IP cameras.

    According to a White hat malware research group, it was the largest attack leading to a widespread Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

    This attack was purposely made to make certain online business unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.

    The Marai program identified vulnerable IoT devices through a table of 60 default username and password, logged in to infect the devices with the Mirai malware. The malware persisted in the system unless the system is rebooted and the password is changed after the boot.

    This IoT security breach was a reminder that the best practice of updating system password and the operating system should always be followed as a thumb rule.

  3. Connected Cardiac devices with sweet spot for IoT hacking:

    Earlier in 2017, the FDA recognized and confirmed that the St. Jude Medical implantable cardiac devices (pacemakers and defibrillators) are hackable.

    The FDA implied that the hackers can break into the device, can deplete the battery of the device or can cause incorrect pacing and even shock.

    The FDA said that the device transmitter which is responsible for reading and sharing of the device data with the physician is a vulnerable spot for an attack.

    Though St. Jude professionals have developed and implemented a patch fix for the existing bug, This case depicted how the health and lives of people can be at risk due to shortcoming in Iot device security.

  4. IoT hacking demonstration on Connected Car:

    Earlier in July 2015, two researchers demonstrated to the WIRED magazine the existing loophole in the digita network of the connected vehicle of Chrysler.

    The vehicle’s digital system could be remotely hacked over the internet by sending a software update that the car owner can install through the port on their vehicle dashboard.

    After taking control, the hackers demonstrated how they were able to cut the brakes, shut down the engine and drive the car off the road.

    To prevent the existing bug from turning into an IoT security issues, Chrysler immediately implemented a bug fixing software that was deployed across 1.4 million Chrysler vehicles.

  5. HACKABLE SNIPER RIFLES:

    At Black hat Hacker conference in 2015, a pair of security researchers demonstrated how a wirelessly connected sniper rifle of a company named TrackPoint, can be hacked.

    The set of techniques, demonstrated by the hacker couple, depicted how the WiFi connected device allowed the attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities in the software remotely over the network.

    This is done by logging in to the gun’s network that has a default password, thus allowing anyone within the range to connect to it.

    Then the hacker can access the API and change the key variables in its target application. The hacker then can change the parameters involved in the calculation of the scope of the target and can make the rifle either change its target or permanently disable the rifle.

    The founder of TargetPoint agreed to work along with the couple to develop a patch fix for the existing hackable flaw in the rifle’s software.

    These IoT security issues clearly point out the need for optimal IoT security solutions. The success of any technology is possible only when the end-users find it trustworthy and relevant.

    Now that the relevancy of IoT applications and their impact has been realized, IoT solution providers and businesses are consistently investing in developing foolproof IoT systems.

    This is being achieved by developing a highly secure hardware and the Operating system for IoT applications, advanced IoT monitoring systems and regular up-gradation of the software and patch fixes.

In this game of ‘catch me if you can’, as a responsible IoT community we are required to be on our toes 24/7. This is because for IoT Hackers, success means breaching the IoT system once, but for us success lies in foiling all their attempts, 24/7!

  • September 20, 2017
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Speed Up Magento Website with these Magento Speed Optimization Tips

Tags :

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

 
Magento is one of the most popular platformchoices for ecommerce businesses. As an ecommerce business owner, you need to optimize your website to stay ahead of your competitors. To get better ecommerce website organic traffic and improve ROI, you need to rank for popular keywords which bring sale. Hence SEO plays an important role for the growth of an ecommerce business. Another important factor in SEO which affects the credibility of the website and the ranking of keywords is page loading speed. From the user’s perspective, a slow loading speed provides a very average user experience. You don’t want to be average, right?

Here we have compiled important speed optimization tips to speed up your Magento website and improve your website performance. Apart from the usual tips like image optimization, CSS and JavaScript optimization, let’s look at the Magento-specific tips to power your website and provide a better user experience.

  1. Go for the Latest Version

    2. Magento releases frequent updates to their software so, whether you’re using the Enterprise edition or community edition, it’s important to upgrade your website to the latest version of Magento. Every version is released with improved security checks and better features so it’s beneficial to upgrade your site to the latest version. Always have an expert work on the upgrading process as a small mistake can have a high cost.

    Consider our Magento2 upgrade service if you haven’t yet upgraded

  2. Caching Management

    3. Magento has built-in caching modules that are effective to an extent to handle caches. You could also combine Memcache + APC + NGINX +Varnish caching to get better results. If you’re looking for more advanced options, then you can also choose 3rd party cache extension to manage your cache better.

    Finally, make sure you have enabled all the Cache Types, you can find this at the following path: System ->Cache Management.

    cache management

     
    You should also leverage browser and page level caching. Magento 2 htaccess file comes with all the required snippets to enable browser level caching so there’s no need to worry if you’re using Magento 2. For page caching you could choose extensions like Full Page Cache to serve your webpages much faster.

  3. Flat Catalog

    4. Enabling the flat catalog is vital to improve the speed for large (>500 products) ecommerce websites. Magento stores product data using EAV model and enabling the flat catalog will merge product data into one table to improve the database response and hence improve the loading speed.

    You can enable it in the following path:  Stores ->System -> Configuration -> Catalog > Frontend

    In this page change “Use Flat Catalog Category” and “Use Flat Catalog Product” to “Yes.”

    Flat Catalog

     

  4. Database & Logs Cleansing

    5. Magento stores your website logs for 180 days which makes the database very large. Clean your database logs once in every 2 weeks to eliminate unnecessary logs to clear up space. You can find it in the following path: Configuration -> Advanced ->System ->Log

    In this page, change the setting under “Save Log, Days” to 14 days and save the configuration.

  5. Minimize 3rd party extensions usage

    6. Remove all the unused extensions in your Magento store to improve page loading speed. Having more extensions will increase the server load and increase the number of HTTP requests which is not good for the stability and speed of your website. You could disable or delete unused extensions.

  6. Better Hosting

    7. Always choose a trusted hosting provider and avoid falling in the trap of cheap hosting. Having a cheap hosting service will increase your operational cost over a period of time and decrease your website performance. Choosing a hosting provider is the first step and you need to have continuous server monitoring processes in place to optimize your server and improve the page loading speed.

    We hope you have found these tips for optimizing your loading speed of your Magento site helpful. Embitel is a full-service ecommerce development firm which handles all tech aspects of an ecommerce business such as design, development, marketing and server support. Contact us to book a free consultation with our ecommerce developers.

  • September 13, 2017
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7 Tips to Hire the Best Ecommerce Development Company

Tags :

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

Every brick and mortar retailer, from small to large, is trying to have an online presence with an ecommerce website. As the number of ecommerce players grows, so does the number of ecommerce development companies. Choosing the right ecommerce technology partner is bit difficult considering the number of options in front of you but we will make that decision-making process simple with these 7 key checkpoints to select an ecommerce development company.

  1. Check for Reviews and Testimonials

    2. The first step in selecting a company for your ecommerce development project is to check for the company’s reviews online or check their testimonials. This step will validate the company’s credibility and help you understand the company from their previous client’s perspective.

    Embitel Ecommerce Reviews

     
    You can check Embitel’s reviews and rating on Goodfirm’s Embitel review page. You can also check more ecommerce web development testimonialson our testimonial page.

  2. Check Portfolio

    3. After you validate the company’s credibility the next step is to validate their previous experience in your target segment. Let’s say you need to launch a “T-shirt selling site”, check for their previous experience in the “Apparel and Fashion” segment. If your idea is unique, check experience which is close to your idea. Having a look at their portfolio will help you assess their relevant experience and also check if their design pattern is matching with your vision/taste.

    Do check our ecommerce case study page to evaluate our experience.

  3. Request the profiles of developers

    4. Your experience with the company relies mostly on the person you’re going to work with, irrespective of the company’s credibility. So, request the company to provide the list of developers and designers who will be working on your project and validate their profiles and make sure it suits your project requirement.  Also, if you have the technical knowledge, you can ask few technical questions to validate their experience and skills. The team you select should understand your objectives, though it might have been explained by their team leader, it’s good to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth. You don’t want to select developers who “do exactly as you say”, they should also share valuable input for your project.

    Do you know that Embitel has the highest number of Magento 2 Trained Developers in India?

  4. Cost Estimation

    5. Discuss the cost of your ecommerce development project with the firm and make sure it’s within your budget. Request them to provide a breakdown of the pricing such as pricing by design, database configuration, server management and development. Compare the pricing with few more vendors and select the vendor who matches with all your criteria such as credibility, experience and pricing.

  5. Time to market

    6. Time = Money. You don’t want to wait for a year to get your project completed. A professional firm can implement your project relatively quickly yet with reliable quality as it will have many experienced developers to support your project. A good team is essential to launch a bug free website in reduced development time. Ask for a statement of work to understand the project related tasks and the timeline to deliver them. This will help you to streamline your project and complete the project on time. Project extensions will also lead to a rise in development cost.

    Testimonials can also help you understand the company’s ability to deliver on time.

  6. Communication is Key

    7. During the evaluation process, validate your technology partner’s communication skills and the medium of communication. Personal meetings will not always go as scheduled, so validate if they also offer an alternate channel of communication such as Skype chat or Google hangout for a quick chat. Remember: A key person from the development team must available during your working hours (or atleast overlap few hours during your working day), actively present on a chat messenger. Poor communication is a door step to a project failure, so ensure that communication is of top quality with your agency.

  7. Post go-live support

    8. The firm you select should be able to provide service as well after you launch and go live. You might need support for server management or digital marketing once the site is launched and it’s good to have an all-in-one company for these needs. You don’t want to handle multiple vendors and touch points to manage your ecommerce site—instead you want be able to focus on maximizing profit. Having a single vendor to handle all these is a boon for your business as it will reduce the operational hassles. Hire a firm who has experience in handling all your current and future needs and give you a better ROI on your time and money.

We hope you have found these tips for hiring a suitable ecommerce website development company useful. Embitel is a full-service ecommerce development firm which handles all aspects of an ecommerce business such as design, development, marketing and server support. Contact us to book a free consultation with our ecommerce developers.

  • September 11, 2017
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Portable ECG Device Development for Global Medical Equipment Company: Bootloader, Firmware, HMI, FOTA Update Features

Tags :

Category : HMI/UI & Infotainment , Product Engineering

 
Customer:

Our customer – a Europe based renowned and world’s largest manufacturer of medical equipment – was working on a flagship product development project

Their vision was to develop a connected & portable ECG solution for early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. The device is designed to offer simplified workflow to both patients and healthcare professionals or doctors.

 

Business Challenge:

Customer’s in-house R&D engineering team kick-started product development of portable ECG device with an ARM based embedded controller.

However, the in-house product engineering realized the need for additional embedded software and hardware developers for the project. Hence customer was on a lookout for an experienced IoT and embedded product development partner in Bangalore.

After diligent software and hardware vendor evaluation,customer partnered with our team in Bangalore. Following are some of the technology challenges that were discussed during our requirement gathering workshops:

  • Design and development of a device HMI to display patient’s ECG data in real time and enable end-users to record ECG of the patient remotely from host application and/or locally.

  • HMI allows easy interface to end user (technical assistant) to quickly browse through patient data and prepare the device to record ECG for a particular patient.

  • HMI was also required to support wireless up gradation of the ECG software and firmware (FOTA).
    (Using PC/mobile application over WiFi).

  • During the technical discussion, customer shared the challenges they faced in automation of the software code testing and production environment programming.

  • Our customer required expertise in firmware development of the power management modules of the ECG device. The designed firmware modules were required to comply with strict safety tests mandatory for medical devices

 
Embitel solution:

  • Our team implemented FOTA (Firmware update Over The Air). To ensure safety and security, adequate measures were taken in the bootloader level. Also strict authentication mechanisms were established to ensure validity of the application as well measure to revert back the update in case of any issues found during the process.

  • Devise settings are stored locally and were synchronized with the remote server to ensure proper synchronization.

  • Automated software testing solutions: Our embedded software developers designed an unit test code for automation of the software code testing with the help of CppUTest unit test framework

  • Design and development of end-to-end HMI for portable ECG device.

  • The designed HMI framework is used to simulate the interface on any Windows based desktop.

  • Our team implemented a firmware for a robust fail safe power management module to overcome the power related hardware limitations.

  • Automation of production server programming: We developed a command line software tool for automation of the production software programming.

 

Embitel impact:

  • Helped our customers in implementation of several key components of firmware, bootloader and UI.

  • The Firmware over the Air (FOTA) updates mechanism designed by our team is very robust, secure and reliable. This ensured that the end-users of our customer’s ECG device will have a seamless consistent experience with secure and updated application

  • Developed custom solutions wherever standard frameworks or off the shelf components are not available.

  • The unit test and production programming automation solutions has helped our customer achieve time and cost savings on testing and programming

 

Tools and Technologies used:

  • Segger’s graphical library – EmWin

  • Controller: 32 Bit ARM Controller from ST Micro.

  • IDE : IAR Workbench

  •  Language: Embedded C

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