The Future of Autonomous Vehicles
We live in an incredible era of human history, one where work and labor are constantly being moved from the burden of people to the work of machines. With the …
Software Development
Case Study: Simplifying Complex Hardware with Modular Software Architecture
CHALLENGE A major construction vehicle manufacturer faced challenges with tech debt and code quality in their Primary Display Unit (PDU) application. The PDU was responsible for communicating with and displaying …
The Future of Business with AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been, and continues to be, one of the most exciting topics in recent times. The potential for AI to accelerate business is remarkable and many businesses …
Journey to DISTekian Agility: Mind-over-Methods
At DISTek, we pride ourselves on the ability to remain adaptable. We make it a priority to listen and are quick to adapt to the processes, tools, and approaches of …
Participating in a Hackathon
One of our client partners, like many other large tech companies, holds Hackathon events once per season. Engineers are tasked with coming up with innovative ideas to improve upon a …
Merging ISO Designer: Part 2
If you followed my previous blog post you will know that merging ISO Designer project files is something desirable when multiple developers are working on an ISOBUS project, but is …
Devops Days Des Moines
Conferences are one of those things you hear about and see all the cool swag from those who attended. After hearing about it for years, I finally decided to take …
Variant Management using ECU-TEST
The ECU-TEST platform, used for automated testing of automotive software, has numerous features that significantly simplify the process of testing the diverse hardware variants that today’s software is designed to …
The Taming of the Code: Elevating Embedded Development through the Art of Software Craftsmanship
“The fault…is not in our code, but in ourselves.” A while back, a colleague and I were lamenting the lack of a strong ‘craftsmanship’ ethos across the field of embedded …
How Software Abstraction Made a Complicated Project More Manageable
My team works with a specific product that is hard to handle for several reasons. First, it has high visibility with the client because it is a large-volume selling product …
Merging ISO Designer: Part 1
DISTek Integration has been heavily involved in ISOBUS development for a long time now. We have helped many clients develop and integrate custom VT solutions for their vehicles and implements …
Arduino Saves the Day
In my work, I build Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) test benches. We connect prototype vehicle Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and their software to the HILs. The HILs replicate the various electronic actuators controlled and monitored by ECUs when they are connected to vehicles. We try to use the actual devices that would be used on the equipment, but there are a myriad of different reasons why this is not feasible for testing. A lot of the devices would take up too much space on the HIL. Some can be rather noisy when operating and others require complicated cooling systems to operate for extended periods of time. That is why I often create electronic circuits that will simulate the current feedback characteristics of the actuators.
