Outlining Client Needs
There are a number of challenges to deploying an operational PIS, both practically and with respect to regional regulatory requirements. By far the largest practical concern for clients is the question of whether the embedded technology they choose can withstand the demands of in-vehicle deployment. When deployed onboard trains, embedded single-board computers can face extreme changes in temperature, damage from fluctuating power sources, and are often required to fit into confined spaces.
With these challenges, it is clear that any environmental factor leading to the failure of an embedded board would have a consequential impact on the PIS as a whole, requiring frequent maintenance or in the case of failure, customer dissatisfaction.
The client in this instance had an existing relationship with AAEON, and took great reassurance not only in the ability of AAEON to meet its project requirements, but also in AAEON’s reputation for high standards when it came to testing the environmental resilience of its embedded boards.
Curating a Customer-Focused Solution
As a result of their initial consultation with AAEON, it was obvious that the efficiency of any potential solution was more important to the client than the prestige of having the newest or most powerful CPU for their system. As AAEON prioritizes the practicality of its products for any given application, and excels at customizing its standard solutions to fit the customer’s requirements, the obvious choice was to propose a board with low power consumption, yet performance substantial enough to power their application. Often, this involves AAEON illustrating its customization capabilities through services such as providing preloaded operating systems, custom thermal solutions, and flexible design considerations to ensure compatibility with other components of the customer’s solution.
A second factor in their decision was the environmental resilience that the chosen solution could offer. The customer required the board to be able to operate in extended temperature ranges, as its location and interaction with other system components within train carriages could see temperatures range from below freezing when at station depots to well above the standard operating temperature of most commercial components while in operation. The customer also expressed concern that the vibration and shock levels caused by the trains in which it would be deployed could cause modular solutions, such as those with socket-type CPUs, DIMM-based memory, or SSD-based storage to come apart in transit.
Despite prioritizing efficiency over raw processing power, the client still required the board to possess advanced computing capabilities, particularly with regard to ensuring time synchronization when communicating with other onboard systems. Another preference related to this facet was that the customer wanted the additional guarantee that comes with Ubuntu certification, as this would ensure long-term support for their solution on a software-level.
The PICO-APL3: A Fully Integrated, Configurable Solution