Powerful In-vehicle Computing Platform with over 5 times the normal shock and vibration resilience

Over the past few years increasing competition in the logistics and transportation industries have resulted in a number of developments for these companies. In addition, rising fuel costs have forced many to devise methods of more efficiently coordinating their shipping fleets. The question was how to get this technology into a small and rugged enough system to withstand the unforgiving 24 hour operation in often harsh environmental conditions. The answer is the new 800 Series Embedded System designed specifically for vehicle operation and highly mobile applications.

Many vehicle/mobile applications utilize the following components:

1. Hardware: The vehicle computer (including GPS and 3G/GPRS/WiFi communications modules), antenna, touch display.

2. Software: Software can be divided into two categories: the operating system, such as Windows XP Embedded, Windows CE or Linux etc, and the application, such as an electronic navigation mapping system, vehicle fleet management, etc…

3. Communications: As a communication bridge between control centre and the vehicle, most of today’s systems adopted the GM/GPRS infrastructure, but future telecommunication operations will most likely migrate to the emerging 3G/3.5G as the main medium of communication.

In the past, this technology had typically been utilized by police cars, ambulances and other emergency vehicles. Low volume, niche markets stifled innovation and until recently this market stagnated. With the advent of everyday businesses such as taxis fleets, fleet management and coach & bus operators utilizing wireless and GPS technology to monitor their vehicles and provide in-vehicle ‘Narrowcast’ advertising the demand for rugged, high reliability computing platforms is growing substantially. In addition the use of Digital Signage, Kiosk Systems, narrowcasting and cameras & ticket printers for security and payment systems are but a few of the many applications for which the 800 Series was designed.

The feature rich design offers superb resilience to shock and vibration. This system is proven to withstand 5G Vibration at 10-500 Hz (IEC-68-2-6) which is over 5 times the typical industrial PC specification and survives an outstanding 100G peak acceleration for 6 msecs (IEC-68-2-27) which is over 6 times the typical specification of an industrial PC platform. Compact Flash is standard and offers maximum resilience for the operating system and data plus there is an Anti-Shock mounting for a 2.5” Hard Disk Drive. All this makes the 800 Series ideal for the tough world of automobiles, container tractors, commercial vehicles, trucks, buses and taxis, in fact most ground and marine transportation.

Extensive communication capability comes as standard with dual LAN, four serial ports and four USB ports for use with peripherals devices such as GPS, touch screen, scanner, card reader, etc. LVDS and VGA ports are also standard. The compact 166mm deep x 250 wide x 60mm high fan-less and dustproof cast aluminium enclosure will support Windows XP, XP Embedded, Win-CE and Linux running on Intel processors up to 1.8GHz Pentium M. And finally, a 9-32Volts DC Wide Range Power Module protects against the voltage surges and sags normally experienced in vehicles and an OS shut down delay function makes sure the system will turn off correctly when power is lost.

The 800 Series offers maximum reliability under harsh conditions at an exceptionally cost effective price.

For more information on one of the toughest PCs you can buy contact Nematron Europe or visit click here www.nematron.co.uk/featured.asp

Back to the Press Release Homepage