Wireless connectivity attracts consumers because it allows a product to take advantage of burgeoning Bluetooth- and Wi-Fi-wireless technology “ecosystems” – dramatically enhancing the device’s usefulness. Named for the indigenous Australian word for “place of the Moon”, Jannal Intelligent Design Environment is targeted at software engineers who want to enhance their product with wireless functionality and who are experienced in developing embedded applications but lack sufficient project time to fully investigate the low-level complexity inherent in wireless protocol stack software.  

Choosing the right software components of the protocol stack, and subsequent testing and debugging, is challenging and time consuming. Consequently, time-to-market pressures often result in projects involving a wireless element being outsourced. However, with Jannal, any competent software engineer can quickly select and test the wireless connectivity component of their embedded software.  

Jannal leads the engineer via an intuitive Eclipse-based graphical user interface (GUI) through the design phase tasks of plan, create and test, in order to add Bluetooth- (including v4.0 which includes Bluetooth Low Energy) or Wi-Fi-wireless connectivity to their product.  

The Intelligent Design Environment enables an engineer to quickly converge on the optimum design for their application. After selecting the wireless protocol software stack, the designer can choose from a range of RTOS and target microprocessors and see an estimate of the hardware cost and resource implications of the choices made. Without the flexibility of the Intelligent Design Environment, experimentation with such a wide range of variables would be impractical.

If an engineer chooses to use Jannal to incorporate existing Intellectual Property (IP) wireless protocol software elements and a standard sample application, then they don’t need to learn the details of the underlying architecture. Alternatively, if the engineer wishes to undertake a more ambitious approach and is prepared to develop a more detailed understanding of the protocol software and framework libraries, they can access the power of the Clarinox proven framework, ClarinoxSoftFrame, to guide them in the building of more complex applications.

“Adding wireless connectivity to a product is a sure-fire way of significantly enhancing its functionality,” comments Trish Messiter, Clarinox CEO. “Unfortunately, implementing the technology is far from trivial. Even for a software engineer there’s a huge learning curve to overcome to understand the wireless protocol stack, and to then construct, test and debug an application layer to utilise the many features within the RF technology in an optimal way that matches the specific requirements of the end product.

“But with Jannal Intelligent Design Environment, engineers with limited RF knowledge can plan, create, test, debug and then deploy embedded software to target wireless hardware without the need to learn the entire underlying system architecture,” continues Messiter. “The software helps to manage the inherent complexity within the development process and relieves the developer from much of the distraction that takes the focus away from the end application.”

Jannal Intelligent Design Environment software will be launched at Embedded World Feb 25-27.

Clarinox has published a white paper about Jannal Intelligent Design Environment, written by the company’s engineers and entitled “Intelligent Design Environment: The key to rapid wireless embedded system development”. The white paper is available for download at the company’s websitewww.clarinox.com.