Background · 1992–2000

Industrial automation

The trade everything else comes from. Not a service I offer today: it is what I did for eight years, and it explains how I write software now.

From 1992 to 2000 I worked in the electronics department of a company building machines for working stone. There I looked after the electrical design and wrote the control software, through to commissioning in the factory.

It is why, when I write an application today, I already know what happens at the other end of the cable: I have watched the machine move — and I have seen what happens when the code is wrong.

The whole story →

Metalworking

Skills

What I worked on

Selected work

What I delivered in those years

Machine control software the full range for stone working

Control software for the whole range of machines for working marble and granite: polishing lines, gang saws, milling machines, block cutters.

Plant supervision serial and socket · data analysis

Supervision software for monitoring plants.

  • Connection over serial or socket between host PC and machine (PLC, CNC)
  • Acquisition of production data
  • Statistical analysis of the data
Dedicated HMI applications C++ · wxWidgets · Windows and Linux

HMI applications built around the specific needs of the machine.

  • Connection over serial or socket between host PC and machine
  • Setting and managing machine variables
  • Machine status mimic diagram for monitoring and control
Soft PLC applications embedded PC · C++ · Linux Xenomai

Machine control software with Soft PLC requirements.

  • Control based on an embedded PC, written in C++ on Linux with the Xenomai real-time extensions
  • Character device drivers for Linux Xenomai, to access custom PCI cards
  • HMI software written in C++ with the wxWidgets graphics library