Case studies

Case study 1: Real-time GPS tracker with centimetre accuracy.

A client approached us, frustrated with their previous engineers. Their partially complete product used GPS to track assets in real time. Initially, the client had many reliability issues with failing GPS trackers that would switch off unexpectedly and some that appeared to simply crash. The client’s target of centimetre accuracy trackers was a distant dream given all the problems they had with the current design.
Pennywise Peripherals took on the work to investigate the existing design, suggest any improvements and to incorporate additional functionality with the goal of achieving centimetre accuracy.
After extensive analysis of the existing design, Pennywise found that there were errors in both the hardware and software. Pennywise redesigned the tracker hardware, included additional hardware and software functionality and corrected software errors. Also, with the design and construction of a reference station, Pennywise achieved the client’s goal of real-time reporting of position with centimetre accuracy.

Case study 2: A great idea to automate cinema projection.

A technician who worked in the cinema industry for years had a great idea to reduce the number of projectionists used to screen a film. In the 1980’s there were typically two projectionists for every four film projectors. This technician worked out a way of using a programmable logic controller (PLC) to automate the starting and stopping of the projector. However, the problem became too complex when more and more equipment was added to each cinema.
Pennywise helped the technician by using one of their existing processor boards and wrote software to control the cinema. Its popularity with a large cinema complex chain made Pennywise develop a completely new unit that operated stand-alone with networking that was easy to program and configure.
A new user interface design for this automation increased its popularity to the point of being used in most developed countries around the world.