Biosystems Device Data
A Seattle-based startup working on a Concussion Management System reached out about a need to collect data from a custom impact measuring wearable for inclusion in their product application. While another software development company was working on their general systems and a hardware device manufacturer to create the prototype hardware, both companies lacked the experience to work with low-level devices and interfaces for data transfers to the primary software.
Challenges & Objectives
Working with embedded systems and hardware is a specialty that not many modern development shops can handle. The client had resources for hardware device manufacturing and general software development to utilize the device data but was unable to bridge the gap between the two.
Most modern software development is done at highly abstract levels. This has several advantages in making it easier for less skilled programmers to be productive and providing more unified and predictable programming platforms at the sacrifice of raw performance and control. This is fine for many business applications but leaves a gap when a need arises for “close to the metal” programming.
Aside from a need to have the initial programming completed for prototyping, another challenge and goal was to do so in a way that could be utilized in the future by other, less-experienced programmers. Not only to enable the data transfer but to provide a lasting framework that could be adjusted at ease to meet future needs.
Dymeng’s Solutions
We have a core team of highly experienced developers, including founder and CEO Jack Leach. With our experience in low-level programming with languages like C and C++, operating system programming, and device driver development, we were able to look at the project needs and get right to work. We created an implementation to interface with the device and extract the data from it, placing it into the hands of the existing application that utilized it.
Results of Efforts
While this was a relatively small project, Dymeng was able to do what was needed in approximately two weeks, resulting in the successful transfer of data from the prototype hardware to the software applications. Additionally, due to our extensive experience in general business software systems, we were able to do this in a way that allowed highly repeatable processing and continued evolution, making it easy for the general software vendor to utilize the information and adjust it as needed in the future. Not only were we able to solve the core problem for the client, but we also delivered them a framework for their future prototyping and market use of the system.
