Keystone’s Embedded Systems Group has over thirty years experience designing specialized embedded systems specifically for industrial automation.

There are many industrial and plant automation applications where standard logic controllers are just not appropriate. This could be due to cost, size, speed or a combination of factors.

Our staff can design just about any circuit from the ground up to fit your industrial application. We can build a circuit “for” your application rather than selecting the most appropriate one for it.

Programming Languages

Firmware
We are well versed in many programming languages including assembler, C, PLM, BASIC and many others. We select a language based on the application and its requirements, but generally choose to write firmware in the C language. Our self developed C library of functions enable us to create intensive applications in a very short time.

Software
We are often called upon to develop applications in higher level languages. This is especially true in hybrid systems designs. We are well versed in all of the major languages including Access, Visual Basic and C++.

We have also done extensive work with databases and can usually import existing data and reformat it for a specific task. Data conversions are our specialty!

Microprocessors

Our embedded design team is well acquainted with all the popular microcontrollers that are on the market today. This includes the entire PIC series from Microchip, old style standard processors like the venerible 8051 family or the cutting edge ARM7 or ARM9 series.

Hybrid Systems Designs

In certain applications it is desirable to have a desktop PC, or a PC built into the machine to act as a front end for the process. These computers have the advantage of maintaining large databases where process and history records can be stored and analyzed. We have used this technique to create statistical data to review production quantities and speed, and use this data to suggest methods of increasing production.

The PC isn’t the only part of the hybrid system. It will often interface to hardware controller of some sort to control the actual machine. This can be a custom designed board, a series of boards or some off the shelf controllers. Whatever the layout for the hybrid system, Keystone will tie is all together into a working unit.