Sysgo Partners With Zodiac Data Systems

SYSGO, supplier of software solutions for safety and security applications, partners with ZODIAC Data Systems GmbH (formerly known as HEIM Systems GmbH), a developer of data recorders for the construction of aircraft prototypes. As a result of their joint development activities, cheaper and more flexible devices are now available as the ongoing success of the HEIM DATaRec series can prove it.

ZODIAC Data Systems GmbH (ZDG) is developing amongst others data recorders for the construction of aircraft prototypes. One main issue is the collection and analysis of a large variety of data. The data loggers are connected to very different data sources and busses such as Ethernet, CAN, ARINC429, sensors, Digital data streams etc. As this can typically lead to very high data rates, special mass storage devices with very high capacities (as for example complete SCSI-Arrays) were available in the past.

More than five years ago – in the context of the development of the next hardware generation – ZDG made the decision to skip that concept and searched for intelligent mass storage devices that are able to pre-convert data before saving them. As such a storage system wasn’t available at this time, ZDG decided to take over the development with the assistance of external experts.

"When we had the idea to develop an intelligent mass storage device more than five years ago we were looking for an expert who could support us in that challenging task", said Michael Guhl, Marketing Manager at ZDG. "In SYSGO we found a partner that offers a high-level technical expertise and that is not only a software expert but understands the hardware too. Their deep knowledge combined with our expertise in the area of dynamic measurement methods and complex test methods in realization made our collaboration a big success."

After SYSGO and ZDG agreed on their collaboration, they planned and developed an intelligent mass storage device – an embedded system that is able to make an adjustable preprocessing and data reduction, and that saves the data on a mass storage device. The use of embedded Linux within the control module helped to manage the data manipulation in real-time. Using an OS had further advantages: scalable systems could be developed and measurement system integration could be provided. This enabled an extension to more data sources with a higher band width.

In the context of perfective maintenance and cost reduction, the two companies developed after the SCSI version a fire wire, USB, SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) and SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) version of the data logger. As a result cheaper and more flexible devices could be provided. The main task of SYSGO was the delivery, adaptation and hardening of the Embedded Linux OS as well as the development of special driver and interfaces for data channels and storage media. Thanks to its technical support and expertise, SYSGO made an important contribution to the ongoing success of the HEIM DATaRec series of ZDG.