OUR EXPERTISE
New technologies feed our passion for innovation. Passion combined with our broad expertise, enables our intelligent designs.
With extensive expertise in systems development - including hardware, firmware, applications, software and infrastructure integration - our in-house teams have designed/built smart, innovative solutions according to the needs of the demanding recreation/commercial fishing/boating markets.
We humbly declare that we are experts in the following technology domains:
Wireless Communications
Embedded Systems
User Interface
Infrastructure
Mechanical designs
Certifications
Telematics (IoT)
Wireless communications
Navcast has extensive experience and expertise with wireless communications. Whether it is integrating with a satellite or a cellular network, with Wi-Fi to a hotspot or to a UI, with BLE to a custom device (e.g. sensor) or UI or with a sub-GHz device (ISM band), we have done it. We have worked with LTE Cat M1 services and are into “beyond the horizon” communications. We recently started investigating NB-IOT over satellite.
We have many advanced communications functions. For example, we are using global satellite burst services to do software concurrent updates on a large number of devices. This is a key feature that allows us to provide product future-proofing. We also built in BT5 Long Range (Coded PHY) into our products for inter-product mesh communications and “viral” software updating.
Embedded systems
Embedded systems is our core expertise. We can build an embedded system to do almost anything. We love communications hubs! Most of our products are very sophisticated devices, with a microprocessor complex, or microcontroller running Linux, RTOS, Mbed, Zephyr,… integrated with whatever modems, modules and peripherals that are required.
Our new systems have proprietary F/W to conserve power. We design-in ultra-low power technologies and have a new solar powered autonomous transceiver device that sets a new bar in terms of power conservation. And, we have created a new process to update F/W in the field with an over-the-air burst/broadcast.
user interfaces
We have developed a variety of UIs, from apps (iOS, Android, Windows and Linux) to web UIs (html5). We have field-proven, intuitive UI/UX design expertise. We have extensive app expertise in the graphical domain, since much of what we do is geo-referenced content… whether it is a vector map with graphical sea-state and weather overlays or geo-data telling you where boats or fish are.
The connectivity of our award-winning mazu® app connects the user transparently to the Internet (Wi-Fi or cellular) or over satellite… which is good for trip planning at home and navigation at sea. Or, with mazu® you can remotely monitor your boat, and control devices on it (automatically or manually).
We now have many years of virtual and augmented reality experience and have built an app that augment a view with vessels providing their position real-time.
Infrastructure
Navcast is a big user of server-less architectures. Our infrastructure, supporting our commercial and recreational users, local and global, have been running for over 20 years. We enable system activations, track customer usage, have automated billing,… we do everything required for an end-to-end system.
We use commercial clouds that provide the high-availability, high-scalability and secure services that we require. We use proprietary and standard connectivity protocols, as the technology demands.
We are very good at optimizing data transfer/communications, e.g. over satellite, to maximize end user “value per byte” of data.
Mechanical Design
We design, build and commercialize all of our custom parts. Miniaturization is one of our specialties. We prototype and field test all our products before we go into production. We have a lot of fun with our 3D printer.
Certifications
We know how to certify or Type-Approve systems, products, batteries, antennae and more. Whether it’s a CE mark, RCM, C-Tick, FCC, IEC, UL, CSA,… we’ve done it. Whether it is for North American or International markets
Telematics (IoT)
We have a long history of collecting marine vessel event data that has evolved into expertise to integrate sensor devices to our communications hub (aka Edge Device) to detect/collect and report data for pretty well anything (e.g. geo data, engine data, device tampering, illegal fishing, capsize, SOS,…).
We not only can remotely monitor systems, over satellite, but we can remotely control systems (e.g. via actuators and digital switches).