Linux OS Porting for a Europe Based Telematics & Fleet Management Solution Provider

 
About the Customer:

One of the global leaders in fleet management solutions, our customer has headquarters in Belgium. Their fleet management software and hardware solutions have been deployed in over 1,15,000 connected vehicles.

With customer base of more than 1,400 customers spread across 23 countries, this European innovator has been delivering fleet management products for the transport industry for more cost –effective and efficient processes.
 

Business Challenges:

 
One of the successful commercial telematics products of our customer has been designed on Windows CE operating system. But Windows being a proprietary OS meant that our customer had to pay high costs every time the Windows OS had to be installed or updated or a technical support was required. All this lead to the additional license cost and investments in software/hardware development.

Hence our customer decided to make a switch to a more robust and open source platform such as Linux, which is available for zero license cost, is more flexible, compatible, and came with multiple technical support options available in the market for free.

Customer was also looking for a trusted and experienced embedded product development company who could make the transition seamless without affecting the performance of the Telematics application.

The Embitel Solution:

After the first technical workshop, the customer developed trust in our embedded product development expertise.

Since our Linux team had previously worked with other customers for Android/Linux porting projects, we were well-equipped for this new challenge

In this telematics project, our team was tasked to ensure that the ported Linux OS should be of production grade quality ; within the challenging timeline set by the customer.

Linux porting on Telematics Unit:

• Establish and Customize YOCTO Build System for different versions of hardware platform
• Customizing u-boot, kernel and rootfs
• Provide SDK for further development at customer end
• Integration Of:
  • Vendor Provided device drivers
  • 3rd party drivers
  • Open Source Drivers
• Customizing standard Linux drivers
• Implementing power management as per customer requirement
• Develop Hardware Abstraction Layer for modules GPS, GSM etc…
• Develop Validation Test Framework for required modules like GPS, GSM Power Management, CAN etc..
• Design and develop Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA)
• Testing and Integration

Embitel Impact:

Our customer was able to successfully switch from a licensed platform (Windows CE) to an open source and a more cost effective platform ( Linux).
 

Tools and Technology

• Cross compiler tool chain for ARM
• Pin Mux Configuration Tools
• AM3354 processor from TI
• TI’s SDK