Executive summary Executive summary
Client background
Our client is an Australian company with a long history of building intelligent parking solutions which began with the development of its first parking meter decades ago. Since then, it has been designing, manufacturing, and operating parking equipment and software across Australia and New Zealand, as well as within Asia and the USA.
Business challenge
The client needed to improve the efficiency and user experience of their embedded solutions by modernizing the existing secure storage product and developing a new version of the parking meter.
Value delivered
The new embedded solutions we developed together with our client allowed them to enhance the quality of their services. Additionally, after modernizing the original version of the parking meter, which was intended for the Malaysian market, our cooperation has moved on to developing it for other markets.
Success story in detail
Our client’s goal was to modernize and improve their existing embedded solutions. The main solution that required modernization was the solar-powered parking meter. The client wanted to make it more energy efficient and improve its usability by enabling it to use a touch screen.
The second solution was a legacy safe cabinet that also needed to be made compatible with a touch screen. The client required deep embedded engineering expertise to find new approaches to solving the challenges they faced during modernization (for example, with the UI) and make the process as efficient as possible.
Our partnership started with the development of the UI design for the embedded application. The challenge was to implement custom configurations, including rule-based configuration, alarms, web integration, and hardware interactions within Linux. The safe cabinet has the user record synchronization feature. Access is configured on the web part, where new users are added and various permissions are distributed.
We have significantly rewritten and improved the solution’s existing microservices architecture. The microservices communicate with each other via D-Bus. We have rebuilt the UI architecture to a newer format from MVC to Flux. Our team has created a high-level application logic and implemented the service for network communication via ConnMan.
Additionally, the N-iX team has developed a hardware simulator to enable testing on the desktop environment.
Our team has developed a brand-new solution that uses the microservices architecture. Similarly to the safe cabinet, we have used C++ 14, Qt 5, QML, D-Bus, and YOCTO Linux. The embedded device is powered by solar energy and has a solar battery. Our team has helped make energy consumption more efficient, which resulted in an increased duration of device operation.
The device uses the 3G signal to connect with the web. One of the features that we have developed is the ability to view the balance and paid parking time.
After developing the original solution for the Malaysian market, the client has moved to expanding its use to other countries.
By taking an active part in the modernization process of both solutions, N-iX has helped the client to:
- Improve the quality of provided services by modernizing the legacy security storage product, developing a new smart parking meter solution, and enabling them to utilize a touch screen;
- Boost operational efficiency of the new parking meter by optimizing solar energy consumption;
- Facilitate market growth by developing the new parking meter for the Malaysian market and preparing for the development for other countries.