Mobile Control Solutions (MCS Ltd)
Brief Company & Technology Profile
MCS was founded in 2006 to develop new ways for humans to easily interact with their remote assets and information relating to important assets via mobile phone. The Current business has 3 Directors and three investors.
MCS grew out of another business which was originally involved in remote weather stations utilized for crop weather and disease prediction models. Further development occurred in the utilization of short range radio monitoring systems and then cellular based remote monitoring and control prototypes. In 2005 a mobile phone based monitoring prototype was entered in the Prototype Section at the Mystery Creek Fieldays Innovation Park where it was selected for a Prototype Innovation Prize. From this encouraging start further work was done to improve designs and operation. In 2006 a patent was lodged for a text free way for humans to interact with remote assets via cell phone etc.
MCS is now engaged in developing products in the marine asset monitoring, mobile commerce, and remote control and monitoring sectors. The focus is on developing new and easier ways for humans to use their mobile phones/internet to remotely control, monitor and interact with remote assets, information and services.
A number of hardware platforms are utilized to facilitate the operation of Sentinel Mobile products. Typically systems utilize a compact cell phone OEM module with integrated microprocessor, optimized I/O, power supply and several serial communications modalities including RS485, RS232 and Dallas 1 wire. MCS believes that mobile device technologies and related applications will continue to grow in many more areas.
MCS major focus is the human interface to mobile devices. This involves optimizing informatics and human interface to mobile devices by the innovative use of application software in mobile phone and related devices.
MCS Sentinel Mobile Modules -Technical
MCS Sentinel units utilize OEM credit card sized cell phone modules in conjunction with RISC based 8 bit micro controllers, efficient switch mode power supplies, flexible transient protected inputs and a number of serial communications channels including RS 232, RS485 and Dallas 1 wire. Typically the 8 bit micro controller is programmed to manage the cell module connections and data processing. Most OEM cell phone modules have the capability to run large applications as they generally have powerful ARM microprocessor cores. Additional memory is contained on circuit board in conjunction with a real-time clock. The Sentinel unit is able to support the connection of a wide range of sensors and serial devices via serial RS232, RS485 or substantial GPIO. The RS485 multidrop network capability gives the ability to add a large number of distributed sensor modules. At this time the RS485 network has a Modbus based communications protocol in development for a number of plug in sensor module applications.
iMonitor Cell Modem - Collaboration
MCS also utilizes iMonitor Cell Modem products via a collaboration agreement. These units are more compact units which have correspondingly less I/O capability. These units utilize the inbuilt cellphone modules processing capability and a native Java environment to a higher level thereby facilitating a smaller external microprocessor. As a further result of less I/O there is a significant difference in size and power consumption in this product. The unit also features an RS485 capability.
MCS focus with respect to these modules is to develop user friendly/interactive cell phone applications that enable humans to obtain useful, peace of mind information rapidly in conjunction with remote control and alarm capabilities. MCS hopes to provide new levels of convenience and timely management of remote assets via user friendly graphically based mobile phone user environments. A clear philosophy is “More should be appear to be less”