16 case studies featured in Konsulko Group’s Year in Review

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As we reach the end of 2024, we want to thank our customers, partners and engineers for another successful year (our 12th!) helping companies around the world develop their embedded products.

We’ve collected sixteen new case studies across multiple industries to showcase our work and give a sense of the scope and breadth of our engineering across multiple industries.

Healthcare Industry Solutions

At Konsulko Group, we provide engineering services to help our customers develop innovative, secure, and FDA-compliant healthcare products. With expertise spanning biometric sensor integration, secure embedded Linux development, and scalable system design, we provide software and hardware engineering services to support our customers in the medical industry as they develop innovative and reliable products. 

Our work spans a wide range of applications, and we are engaged by Point-of-Care Diagnostics companies, Medical Device Startups, Robotics and Automation developers, Biometric Sensor Integration projects and established Healthcare manufacturers.

Read two case studies:

  • Secure Point-of-Care Diagnostics
  • Communication Hub Proof-of-Concept

Industrial Automation, Heavy Equipment Manufacturers and Smart Energy

Konsulko Group provides engineering services to support customers in designing and developing innovative products across the industrial and heavy equipment market. Our clients rely on our expertise to bring their ideas to life, whether they are building advanced agricultural machinery, mining systems or industrial automation equipment. While we do not deliver turnkey solutions, we offer the hardware and software engineering capabilities necessary to help our customers achieve their goals.

We work with a diverse range of customers, including global leaders in Agriculture Technology, Mining Equipment, Transportation and Railway Technology providers, Heavy Machinery manufacturers, and Food and Manufacturing Equipment suppliers. 

We’ve published five case studies:

  • Secure Device Management in Industrial Automation
  • Scalable IoT Device Management on Kubernetes for Construction/Home Automation
  • Addressing Emissions Issues in i.MX8M-based hardware for MIL-STD461G Compliance
  • Custom Yocto Build for Nvidia Jetson Xavier AGX for Defense/Industrial manufacturers
  • Real-Time PRU and Xenomai Integration for ADC Data Acquisition on BeagleBone Black for the Smart Energy industry

Services for the Telecommunications Industry

Konsulko Group has extensive experience providing engineering services to support our telecommunications customers in designing and developing innovative technologies. With expertise in embedded Linux software and hardware engineering, we help our customers create next-generation products. 

We collaborate with a diverse range of customers in the telecommunications industry, including Network Infrastructure suppliers, Wireless Communications innovators, Satcom Technology developers, Telecom Monitoring and Optimization specialists, and Defense and Secure Communications providers.

You may read detailed descriptions of five of our engagements here:

  • Prototype Development of New Networking Architecture
  • Embedded Linux Engineering for Networking Routers
  • Yocto Project Customization for Advanced Telecommunications Hardware
  • Secure Embedded System with Webserver and Device Driver Development
  • Driver Development for High-Performance FPGA Ethernet Systems

Engineering the Next Generation of Transportation

The transportation industry is undergoing a technological revolution, and Konsulko Group is at the forefront, helping customers develop embedded systems that drive innovation in connected vehicles, autonomous platforms, and advanced automotive technologies.

We work with a diverse range of customers in the transportation industry, including Connected and Autonomous Vehicle developers, Semiconductor leaders, Mapping and Navigation innovators, Industry Consortiums and OEMs, and Silicon Valley Innovation Offices.

We’ve posted four case studies of a few of our engagements:

  • Audio System Integration for Autonomous Vehicle Platform
  • Apple CarPlay Integration for Automotive Infotainment
  • Multimedia Audio System Development and Integration
  • Debugging and Resolving Infotainment System Freeze Issues

Expanding Konsulko’s reach and expertise

Embedded hardware engineering

Konsulko Group offers complete hardware services including design, integration, validation and certification, rapid prototyping, biometric signals, sensors, wireless communications, low power applications and manufacturing test/support.

In April, Konsulko Group welcomed three veteran hardware developers to our growing team. Alexandar Kalaydjiev now serves as Konsulko Hardware Director. Marin Balkandjiev and Tsvetan Mudrov, PhD joined Konsulko as Principal Hardware Engineers.

Customers can leverage their technical expertise and extensive experience to create comprehensive products and solutions tailored to their specific requirements.

Konsulko hardware engineers can manage and facilitate the production of the developed products, ensuring their successful realization. We can provide deployment support as required, ensuring a smooth transition for the end-customer.

New in 2024 to our expert team of engineers

In addition to our Hardware group, Konsulko continues to attract outstanding talent to our team. This year we have added three individuals who represent some of the best in embedded Linux and open source engineering.

  • Peter Tyser has designed hardware and software for rugged, high performance computers targeting military, aerospace, and industrial applications. He has hands-on experience with hardware design, board bring-up, board debug, firmware development, OS development, documentation, failure analysis, product verification, and anti-tamper security.
  • Andrew Bradford (bradfa) is an author/developer of the “Cross Linux From Scratch” embedded book and has contributed patches to the Linux kernel, u-boot, and Yocto/OpenEmbedded projects. He also has extensive experience with EnergyStar and EMC/EMI testing, compliance, and certification.
  • Filipe Pires has crafted robust, efficient, and user-friendly applications that run seamlessly on Linux platforms. Filipe is experienced in build automation, scripting, and web development, with proficiency in multiple frameworks and industry best practices.

You can learn more about the whole Konsulko team of embedded hardware and software consultants on our Meet the Team page.

Open source contributions and conferences

Konsulko’s senior leadership have been contributors in the Linux kernel and other OSS communities since the late 1990s. In addition to our commercial engineering work for our customers, the Konsulko team continues to have active roles in a number of Open Source projects including U-Boot, Yocto Project, OpenEmbedded and Automotive Grade Linux (AGL).

Konsulko engineers made presentations at open source and commercial conferences and developer gatherings including Embedded Linux Conferences (North America and Europe), AGL All Member Meetings and Yocto Project Summits. We also published seven new technical articles as blogs on our website.

All of us at Konsulko Group look forward to working with you in the coming year. Contact us to explore how our engineering services can help bring your innovative products to life in 2025 and beyond.

Konsulko to speak at multiple OSSE events, September 16-19

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We’re heading to Austria for Open Source Summit Europe, with a large contingent of our engineers, as well as four speakers for this always important conference.

September 16: AGL updates to Yocto Project 5.0

Principal Engineer Scott Murray will join the Linux Foundation’s Walt Miner to present “What’s Happening with Automotive Grade Linux and How Our Update to Yocto 5.0 Went.” Walt and Scott will share some lessons learned from upgrading from the 4.0 to 5.0 versions of the Yocto Project and provide an update on the latest AGL features included in the Ricefish release.

September 17: Rewriting zblock in Rust

Vitaly Wool, Principal Engineer and GM of Konsulko AB will discuss “Rusty Swapping: Rewriting a Zswap Backend in Rust.” Rust has gained popularity as the second Linux kernel high-level language. Recently, Vitaly rewrote a zswap backend called zblock in Rust. This talk will cover the main principles of zblock (which stay the same no matter which language is used), the obstacles met while implementing it in Rust, and finally the comparison of the two.

September 17: Best Practices for Scarthgap

Principal Engineer Tim Orling will present “Are You Ready For Scarthgap? Best Practices For The Latest Yocto Project LTS Release.” Tim will discuss setting up your own “distribution” and board-support package (BSP), and share techniques for managing and discovering layers. He’ll discuss best practices to ensure your public layers are ready for the Layer Index, and investigate meta-lts-mixin layers. He’ll look at the latest tools for Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), license compliance (SPDX), and software vulnerabilities (CVEs), and share ways to leverage new IDE tools added in this release.

September 19: A/B Update Solutions with Yocto Project

At Yocto Project Developer Day 2024 (co-located with OSEE) Senior Engineer Leon Anavi will provide a “Side-by-side Comparison of Dual A/B Update Solutions with the Yocto Project.” Leon’s talk will provide a detailed exploration of Mender, RAUC, and swupdate, comparing them on the same hardware platforms. He’ll discuss their advantages and disadvantages and how to select the most appropriate open-source solution for specific projects. Leon will delve into various use cases and practical examples, concluding with a side-by-side comparison.

We hope you’ll be able to join us in Vienna.

Konsulko engineer speaks at AGL All Member Meeting in Berlin

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Scott Murray, Principal Software Engineer at Konsulko Group presented at the summer Automotive Grade Linux AMM. Scott shared details around the work done the past few years to prepare AGL before it upgraded to the new Yocto Project long-term support release, Scarthgap, earlier this year.

Two technical talks about the Yocto Project at TuxCon 2024

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TuxCon is an annual open-source conference held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, aimed to promote the adoption of open-source hardware and software, and organized by passionate volunteers. Since the conference’s inception in 2014, Konsulko Group engineers have participated and supported this important local event.

The 2024 edition of TuxCon took place on May 11th and 12th at the Technical University of Sofia, Plovdiv branch, featuring presentations on various interesting topics. This edition featured a couple of talks (in Bulgarian) about the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded.

Konsulko Group junior engineer Atanas Bunchev spoke at the event, sharing his experience with Balena on Raspberry Pi and PHYTEC phyBOARD-AM62x. Balena.io, commonly known as Balena, is a platform that simplifies the deployment and management of embedded Linux devices using images based on the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded. It leverages Docker containers for streamlined application deployment across various Internet of Things (IoT), offers centralized device management for monitoring and updates, and supports scalability from prototypes to large-scale projects. Atanas further elaborated on the utilization of Balena AutoKit for conducting automated QA testing on embedded Linux devices.

The second talk about the Yocto Project at TuxCon 2024 was delivered by Sadika Hasan, a senior-year student from “Paisii Hilendarski” University of Plovdiv. She demonstrated how to create a custom Linux distribution and Software Development Kit (SDK) by extending Poky, the Yocto Project’s reference distribution. Additionally, she covered the integration of the custom SDK with Visual Studio Code and the remote debugging of a C++ application on a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2.

Sadika’s presentation is part of her bachelor thesis, supervised by Professor Dimitar Tokmakov from ECIT (Electronics and Information and Communication Technology) department of “Paisii Hilendarski” University of Plovdiv and Konsulko engineer Leon Anavi.

Professor Tokmakov, with the assistance of engineer Nikolay Nedelev from Romit LTD, is actively involved in the ECOVEM project (European Center of Vocational Excellence in Microelectronics). As part of their efforts, two students from PU developed diploma theses for their Bachelor of Science degrees utilizing the Yocto Project. These theses were based on real-life problem solving and the practical experience of the Konsulko Group with industrial embedded Linux devices.

From the early days of OpenEmbedded and the Yocto Project, Konsulko engineers have actively contributed upstream and engaged with the community, offering their expertise in developing high-quality commercial products. If you are developing a new product, get in touch to see how Konsulko’s engineering expertise can enhance your project. Additionally, if you are a Linux software developer passionate about open source, we invite you to explore potential opportunities to join the Konsulko team.

Konsulko Group speaks at EOSS North America 2024 in Seattle

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Vitaly Wool and Tim Orling, both Principal Software Engineers at Konsulko Group are presenting at the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) North America in Seattle Washington, April 15-18, 2024.

EOSS (which incorporates the Embedded Linux Conference) is an umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration, discussions and education.

Vitaly Wool

Vitaly, who is also general manager of Konsulko AB in Lund, Sweden, will give a technical talk on “Rusty Swapping: Rewriting a zswap Backend in Rust.”

Rust has gained popularity as the “second” Linux kernel high-level language. There’s been discussions about its applicability in various kernel subsystems which yielded tentative conclusions. Engineers have been advised by kernel gurus to use Rust for subsystem implementations rather than for drivers.

Vitaly will explain how he rewrote a zswap backend called zblock in Rust, then compare the performance and complexity of the two implementations.

Tim Orling

Tim, who serves on the board of directors of OpenEmbedded, will speak at the Yocto Project half-day mini-summit “Journey to Scarthgap 5.0” on Monday, April 15. With other YP community leaders, he will deep dive into upcoming features and improvements in the upcoming LTS release.

The rest of the week, you may find Tim in and around the Yocto Project booth in the exhibition hall. Please stop by with all your Yocto questions.

Konsulko Group extends its hardware services business

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Konsulko Group welcomes three veteran hardware developers to our growing team. Alexandar Kalaydjiev will serve as Konsulko Hardware Director. Joining as Principal Hardware Engineers are Marin Balkandjiev and Tsvetan Mudrov, PhD.

Customers can now leverage their technical expertise and extensive experience to create comprehensive products and solutions tailored to their specific requirements.

Konsulko hardware engineers can manage and facilitate the production of the developed products, ensuring their successful realization. We can provide deployment support as required, ensuring a smooth transition for the end-customer.

Meet the new members of the Konsulko team

Alexandar Kalaydjiev (middle photo) was an integral member of a team that developed a DVD writer in the early 2001, focusing on the control mechanisms for the semiconductor laser during the writing process. His contributions extended to the mechatronic design of both pneumatic and electrical robotic manipulators, specifically tailored for critical procedures in the manufacturing of DVD discs. Over the last 15 years, he has dedicated himself to comprehensive product design encompassing electrical design, PCB layout, CAD modeling, and production management.

Marin Balkandjiev (left photo) has spent over 8 years in the Telecom industry working with access multiplexers, data link converters and other key hardware. He has 10 years experience in the Automotive industry developing automotive interior products, and 10 years building consumer and industrial products, IoT, and sensors. He worked previously for Johnson Controls Automotive Electronics.

Tsvetan Mudrov (right photo) has 20 years of experience in development of Medical Electronics including external defibrillators, biomedical signals acquisition and processing (including ECG, EEG, PPG, bio impedance), medical telemetry and long-term monitoring. His expertise includes development of hardware and software for embedded systems, PCB layout routing, production management and final testing. He is experienced with ISO9001, ISO13485, MDR and other quality management procedures and certification. Tsvetan wrote his PhD dissertation on “HV generators for external defibrillators.”

Hardware Design and Development

Konsulko Group offers complete hardware services including design, integration, validation and certification, rapid prototyping, biometric signals, sensors, wireless communications, low power applications and manufacturing test/support. Please visit our Hardware Design Services page or contact us for more information.

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Konsulko Group engineer to speak at Yocto Project Summit

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Konsulko Group senior engineer Leon Anavi will be presenting at the Yocto Project Virtual Summit, Tuesday, November 28 through Thursday, November 30, 2023.

Formerly known as the Yocto Project Developer Day, the Summit has an expanded scope to include both workshops for engineers building customized Linux distributions and applications, as well as an open forum where maintainers, trainers and users present papers on how the project is evolving and how they are using it.

On Wednesday, November 29, Leon will present Integrating VNC in Weston with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded. Weston 12 introduces Virtual Network Computing (VNC) support, allowing remote connection and control through graphical desktop sharing.

Leon will examine the technical aspects — dependance on Neat VNC and AML libraries, TLS support and user authentication — followed by a step by step tutorial to demonstrate remote connection from another computer.

The presentation aims to simplify the process of setting up the VNC backend in Weston and empower developers to utilize this powerful feature seamlessly within their projects.

We hope you will join us for this presentation, and all of this new edition of Yocto Project Virtual Summit.

Helping Yocto Project secure important new funding from STF

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Yocto Project has received major funding from the Sovereign Tech Fund to aid and drive significant transformation. The funded work improves the long-term sustainability of the project by attracting a new generation of developers.

Konsulko Group is proud of the work done by principal engineer Denys Dmytriyenko and the Yocto Project Technical Steering Committee to help secure the funding. Together, they spent many hours over several months to identify development areas that can be self-contained and measured, then estimated required efforts for the proposal so the funding might be approved.

The work the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) is commissioning aims to improve the Yocto Project’s efficiency, security, user experience, and developer engagement in these specific areas:

Build Process and Workflow

  • Core workflow improvements, including enhancements to build tooling and workflows.
  • Development of the Yocto Project Reference Binary Distribution, focusing on workflow improvements and policies.
  • Introduction of Patchtest, an automated testing tool for code patches submitted via mailing lists.

Security and Quality Improvements

  • Strengthening security processes and the security team.
  • Advancing Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) for improved transparency.
  • Addressing tooling issues and enhancing quality-of-life features in Devtool, Recipetool, and Pseudo.

Integration and Usability Enhancements

  • Updates and improvements to Toaster, a web-based UI for BitBake.
  • Integration of VSCode with Yocto Project for enhanced developer features and usability.

Layer Management Standardization

  • Integration of OpenEmbedded Core best practices into Meta-OpenEmbedded.
  • Development of standard tools for managing Yocto layers, promoting layer tooling standardization.

STF is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK) and supported by the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation GmbH (SPRIND).

Konsulko Group a sponsor of Embedded Recipes 2023 in Paris

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Now in its fifth edition, Embedded Recipes is a small, technically-focused, informal conference about embedded software and hardware, held in Paris, France on September 28 and 29, 2023.

With two days, 15+ presentations and lightning talks, Embedded Recipes takes a deep dive into the developments, contributions, tools and platforms that Open Source developers use to create solutions.

Konsulko Group is proud to be a supporter sponsor of Embedded Recipes 2023. We hope you will join our engineers, together with some of the main contributors of the embedded world from throughout Europe and North America, at the Fondation Biermans Lapotre in Paris for this event.

Konsulko Group updates Embedded Linux devices at TuxCon 2023

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Held on June 10th and 11th, 2023 in the beautiful city of Plovdiv (Bulgaria), TuxCon 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of this annual local two-day conference. Organized by dedicated volunteers, the event aims to advocate the adoption of open source hardware and foster the use of free and open source software.

Konsulko Group intern Atanas Bunchev participated as a speaker, and demonstrated remote updates and troubleshooting of connected embedded Linux devices using Mender.io. The presentation was in Bulgarian and spread the word about the Yocto Project, OpenEmbedded and various Mender features among the local community.

Mender is an open-source, over-the-air (OTA) software update management platform specifically designed for embedded devices. It provides an efficient way for software updates and management of fleets of connected devices in various industries, such as IoT (Internet of Things), automotive, industrial automation, and healthcare. It provides options for ensuring the resilience of system-wide updates and also for updating individual applications. Furthermore debugging of devices is possible with the troubleshooting package, such as the File Transfer and Remote Terminal Add-ons.

Konsulko Group, a partner of Northern.tech, often works with Mender.io. If you are developing a new product, we would be thrilled to discuss how Konsulko’s engineering expertise and experience can contribute to your project. Or if you are a Linux software developer who is passionate about open source, we invite you to reach out to us regarding potential opportunities to join the Konsulko team.