Tensator Ltd, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
Manufacture and Design Consultancy for Crowd Control and Queuing Management
My main role at Tensator has been to provide electronic and software systems technical expertise (aka tech lead) to support the development of the company’s electronic queuing products. This was a fasted paced working environment and I enjoyed it while working alongside a great team and the company’s affiliates.
- Research into components, technology partners and new innovations.
- Requirements Capture, system design and verification and validation (V&V)
- Managing the outsourcing of software and electronics projects
- Hands-on in C#, VB .NET including ASP and MS SQL
- Business Travel (Europe, North America, Africa)
During my time at Tensator, I did a modernisation and re-development of the company’s queuing systems that are used in many stores across the United Kingdom, Europe and the world.
The main call-forward system comprised of a display screen, buttons for calling people to each cashier or service desk and display units for each of the positions. The system included FCC regulated RF units, and so, those documents are public I have a copy of them here:
Wireless Electronic Call Forward (ECF)
(Not sure why but this seems to have gone out as draft guys!)
I did create these pages on the web interface and the COM port does get updated on the comms control program. It was all running on an embedded windows system. The web interface is accessible via networking. The hardware was designed by a third party radio frequency (RF) electronics company. They did a great job and very professional. The control protocols for PC communication was by my specification the RF protocols were left to the RF company. The base RF unit connected to the PC by USB, we did an IP rated unit for us outside with special connectors.
You will note there is a red/green LED obviously this might be a problem for colour blindness but we decided it was not really critical enough to worry as there were no safety concerns. Tri-colour was considered as well. The RF was rated for use in airports (an application must be applied for and approved before each install). The RF is approved for UK and USA.
Power-Over-Ethernet (POE) LCD Screens
I worked with another third party to get some screens to work that were powered on the ethernet cables from a power-over-ethernet hub. This was great fun and I’ve never used POE before. The 3rd party wrote the code and provided the LCD displays. I wrote an application on the embedded system to control the displays and provide a locked-down DHCP that has each of the display MACs listed and the software then knows which display the call is going out to. (I can’t go too deep into the tech just because it is private.)
LED Positional Display Unit (PDU)
There are LED positional display units that are powered over ethernet cable (but not strictly POE). These connect back to a hardware USB unit with a separate power supply. It has an optically isolated USB chip so the power supply does not affect the PC or control hub that it is connected to. The connector box is backwardly compatible with the older LED units. I made the electronic board design and outsourced the manufacture. The case was designed by one of our other design engineers. It is a good robust solid unit at a reasonable price. This unit could be used in many applications as it is actually universal. (Again I can’t say too much more on that as it is private.)