Promod Research and Software: Unique Solutions to Unique Problems
Promod Research and Software is a research firm providing services in hardware/software integration, engineering software development, control design, and implementation. Promod Research and Software, founded at Bilkent Cyberpark in 2005, has based its activities at ODTU Teknokent since 2009.
Promod’s core competencies are real-time systems, vision-based automation systems, control systems, hardware/software integration, model-based design, image processing, and software quality control. The company’s principle is to implement its project-specific solutions by selecting the most appropriate technology and applying it in a specialized way. Promod’s most important investment is its research and development work, and its particular focus on remaining on the cutting edge of technology. As a research and development company, Promod’s goal is not to adapt technology, but to transform original academic-quality research to innovative products.
Promod’s mission is to contribute to the advancement of technology through its products and services in modeling, algorithm development, and hardware/software integration. Promod creates a work environment that rewards continuous development and innovation to ensure high-quality and original solutions. Promod staff consists of solution-oriented engineers with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, experience in their respective fields, both foreign and domestic, and with a distinct research mindset.
Domestically, Promod’s primary customer is the defence industry. The company has completed projects for top defence companies and provided technological solutions for large-scale projects. Promod’s projects help defence companies not only to improve their internal research and development processes, but also to offer better products to their customers. Some of the algorithms developed in this context qualify as original academic work and provide a direct competitive advantage to the Turkish defence industry.
Promod Research and Software has developed multiple software packages to facilitate system design and development in defense companies. These packages accelerate and improve R&D in the processes that range from data analysis to system design, real-time verification to final implementation. These software packages also enable automation of processes and shorten the time to the end product. Promod has proven itself as an expert on application-specific engineering software and has become a preferred vendor in this regard.
Another contribution in the defense industry by Promod has been in the area of device drivers. As real-time operating systems become an integral part of testing and even production, the ability to utilize the wide range of devices available on the market, but only for common operating systems such as Windows, becomes a requirement. Promod has provided its special expertise in this field to the defence industry and has been developing device drivers for real-time operating systems since 2006.
Another group of Promod’s projects focus on laboratory and test automation. In these projects, several different devices, communicating over various mechanisms such as VMIC, RS-232, and TCP/IP, has been brought together in a system, synchronized and controlled, in order to create and run various test scenarios in the lab environment. This resulted in cost reduction and increased reliability.
Promod has led the modeling and simulation initiative in many defense companies, small and large. The company provides training services and focuses on project-specific custom training offerings, both for joint projects and companies’ own projects. until today, Promod has trained hundreds of engineers on modeling, simulation, and programming, and increased their productivity and efficiency at their jobs.
The company has also completed successful projects both in R&D and production phases, and pioneered many technologies in the Turkish automotive industry. Its main contributions are in the area of communication protocols used in automotive: Design of protocols such as CAN, LIN, and FlexRay, data and control transfer over these protocols, and the analysis of data. Promod’s work on image processing, quality control, and control systems, all technologies with increasing importance in automotive R&D and manufacturing. The company’s 3-D vision-based measurement system has been developed to provide a competitive advantage by enabling 100% quality control in manufacturing, and presents the foundation of the ongoing vision-based automation projects.
Promod also works on automation projects as a natural extension to its automotive and hardware/software integration work. Projects that bring together emerging technologies such as OPC and existing technologies such as PLC find application in manufacturing centers of all scales.
Promod also takes part in significant European and American projects. The majority of customers for its projects abroad are in the automotive field, and software service exports comprise 70% of Promod’s revenue. Promod’s ability to work flexibly in different teams and adapt to different work cultures is the foundation of its success abroad. With successful partnerships abroad, Promod participated in establishing the design foundation for main players in automotive, and with this foundation enabled adoption of industry standard requirement management tools in related markets. Promod’s contribution enables tracking of not only requirements, but also design and implementation of system components.
Promod’s vision is to become a leading force in overcoming the limits of technology by offering unique solutions for research and development. The work done for defense, automotive, and manufacturing companies, successful partnerships with foreign companies, and the reputation the company enjoys all indicate that this vision is quickly becoming a reality.
