Certifying the perfect product to upgrade a marine Dynamic Positioning system

Finding a suitable upgradeable solution might be simpler with an unlimited budget, but as the unit to be replaced was a low-power, cost-effective Atom device that even before the performance upgrades in the specification, the budget was naturally tight. Impulse Design Engineers delved into their Product Toolkit and found two differing computing platforms that could potentially facilitate the upgrade, each with their own merits, but nothing that matched the requirements exactly as a Marine certified device of this specification didn’t currently exist.

To begin with, Impulse Design Engineers worked with the team at Wärtsilä Guidance Marine to test various platforms and benchmark them against their software requirements. To keep within budget, an Intel Quad Core Atom device was initially selected, but its GPU performance was not adequate for the new generation guidance software. Going back to the drawing board, our Design Engineers supplied another test unit which had a higher performance integrated GPU. With an ultra-low power Celeron processing unit, tiny form factor and two configurable RS-422 serial ports, the new platform passed the graphical benchmarking for the customer’s software. The next stage was to put the new system through EN 60945 certification.

With the Celeron system being such a perfect fit for the project’s unique requirements, Impulse began the process of putting the unit, along with its kit of parts, through EN 60945 certification. Once an initial EMC pre-scan was completed to give the project team confidence that the unit would pass the more costly certification process, the full kit of parts was put through the EN 60945 certification process by Impulse. This allowed Impulse to deliver a fully certified processing unit to Wärtsilä Guidance Marine with just a six month turnaround from concept, certification, build and delivery.

Due to our large 35,000 sq. ft. facility, we were able to offer flexible call-off schedules to Wärtsilä Guidance Marine, allowing them to balance the expenditure of their project and manage invoicing and product warranties. With thorough soak testing of all systems before shipping along with our dedicated RMA and support teams, Impulse continue to give long-term peace of mind to Wärtsilä Guidance Marine as they deploy the hardware to vessels across the globe. Due to the success of this project, Impulse have been selected to supply 19” type-approved Marine Displays to Wärtsilä Guidance Marine which are used in tandem with the new Celeron processing unit and compliment the upgraded overall graphical performance of the system.