Mechatronic Solutions LLC specializes in extracting value from IoT and test measurement data, and the deployment of hardware and software for data collection. My 32 years of experience with product durability and performance testing, data acquisition, data analysis, and validation in the automotive and agriculture vehicle industries is leveraged into my services. I bring a full scope of mechatronic solutions to my customers by including my life long passion for programming and electronics.
Before you start collecting data, you should have a good understanding of the factors that influence your product or process performance, robustness, and efficiency. It would be ridiculous to go fishing with every type of bait and lure, fishing in every location, at all times of the day, in all tidal conditions. Eventually you will catch the target fish, but you will have wasted a lot of time and money. If you don't know these factors for sure, then conduct a design of experiments to determine what they are.
Once you know what factors affect your product / product performance, the next step is to determine the order of magnitude of the frequency content of whatever factor you intend to measure with a sensor. The frequency content of what is being measured will drive the choice of sensor used for measurement, and the sample rate required. If your sensor's response time is too long relative to the frequency content of what you are measuring, or if the sample rate is too low, then the data collected will be confusing, misleading, and useless.
The final step is to determine the required structure for the data measured and recorded. Although the industry norm is to push raw data from the microcontroller to a cloud service, a much more efficient tactic is to first analyze the data locally at the microcontroller, and then transmit the results out to the cloud. Using the microcontroller as an Edge Device can reduce the IoT device to cloud communications by an order of magnitude or more, and enable low power MCU operation of the IoT device.
Visit my blog to see a step-by-step guide on how to plan a data measurement strategy that will prepare you for the implementation of a global enterprise IoT connectivity management platform.
I can help you determine the frequency content of whatever you are measuring, and then tell you the maximum sensor response time and minimum sample rate that should be employed. I will work with your team to determine the product characteristics or process variables that influence your product/process performance, and I can guide them through a design of experiments if necessary.
Once the basic data collection parameters are determined, I can help you to either choose and deploy commercially available product and services for your needs, or I can create a custom hardware and software solutions, beginning from data collection and all the way to data storage, visualization, and analytics. I am fully proficient in developing custom and very low cost electronics with firmware within a custom enclosure when the project dictates that need. I know how to minimize transmitted data payloads, and to use secure protocols efficiently.
My specialization is the management and analysis of Big Data. Throughout my career, I worked with very large pools of test data, and in my last years with a major agricultue manufacturer, I developed and deployed a global system for the management and analysis of test data. That data consisted mostly of gigabytes of data collected daily by thousands of different types of machines working for months in the field worldwide. I made it easy to import and enrich that recorded data with metadata, so that it could be categorized and searched. The final system enabled any engineer worldwide to, for example, look at the performance of a component in a particular engine model, across different products distributed worldwide.
Rich Marando
Founder & CEO of Marando Industries Inc
“Mechatronic Solutions LLC has made a hudge impact on my company's success. Their expertise in the field of IoT, data analysis, and product testing has helped improve out bottom line tremendously. I recommend them to any person or company looking to take their services to the next level. “
Andrew Tarman
Engineer for CNH Industrial
“Mark has assisted me with several data analysis projects. Each time, he has gone above and beyond the scope of the project to confirm that the solution delivered meets our needs and functions exactly as promised.”
Chip Hunter
CEO of Hunter Hobbies LLC
”Mark helped streamline my business by converting a manual assembly of electronics components to a printed circuit board. He also created an easy to use e-commerce store. The time this has saved me is priceless and has helped my business to grow.”
Vinitha Moskal
CEO of SmartCost Inc
“When you are on a mission to build and deploy highly connected business processes across the manufacturing and supply chain operations, understanding data and having the ability to gather it is crucial. Having a trusted partner who can brainstorm, test, and help deploy such solutions is critical for our organization. Mark Kiehl and Mechatronic Solutions LLC has never let us down. Managing various industry needs while ensuring supply risk is mitigated in all our designs, Mark is my go-to solutions partner when it comes to developing custom IoT solutions and providing data analytics.”
Andrew Tarman
Engineer for CNH Industrial
“Mark developed and delivered DIAdem training specific to our needs. The resulting videos, printed training materials, and examples are exactly what we needed to help develop our team.”
South West Cape Coral Action Committee (SWCCAC) Board of Directors
"Our association was at a crossroads when we hired Mark Kiehl to provide consulting services. We needed an honest assessment of our technological strengths and weaknesses in order to make policy decisions after a change in leadership, and his expertise and patience have given us the understanding and direction we need to move forward effectively as an association. "
Clients for large projects I am sub contracted for are not listed below for confidentiality and other reasons.
Do you need help with your project? Send me an email using this form or to requesting a free phone / web share consultation.
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