Month: September 2012

Every successful working business relationship relies on trust, co-operation and a pooling of either resources or expertise. Not all these relationships are guaranteed to be a success, but when the elements gel together well, they can prove to be particularly effective and mutually beneficial. Datron Technology has been in such a working relationship with Oxford Technical Solutions (OxTS) for over 10 years now, and the relationship continues to go from strength to strength. So, what makes this working partnership such a success? What were the mutual advantages and benefits that the two companies identified, and how does the relationship work in practice? We managed to catch up with Brendan Watts, Director of OxTS earlier this week and asked him for his opinions on the matter. In the first of this two part interview, Brendan discusses how the relationship first began and how it functions in practice, and in part two he talks about how he sees the relationship developing in the coming months and years.

OxTS designs and manufactures world leading products, by combining the best of Inertial Navigation and GPS/GNSS. Its focus is on low-cost INS, using MEMS gyros and precision accelerometers. It uses Kalman filters to extract the maximum information from GPS to deliver high accuracy measurements with low drift rates. They are a small company dedicated to designing simple to use products that deliver reliable results and back it up with first class service and support. The working relationship with Datron Technology began after a chance meeting at an exhibition in 2001. Both Datron and OxTS were relatively small companies at the time and both were looking to consolidate their respective positions in the market place. OxTS was looking to expand its product range into the automotive market and was looking for sales partners, as they preferred not to deal directly with end users. Datron had extensive experience of the automotive industry and was already dealing with the type of customer that OxTS wanted to target. The rest, like they say, is history.

Can you remember that first meeting?
"I think we met at an exhibition some time ago, but I'm ashamed to say I can't exactly remember when. Datron were making a product at the time which, whilst it wasn't a direct competitor to ours, was used by the same type of people. I think John (Grist) would agree that our product did a lot more than Datron's did, so they were of the view that we were competition. I guess John was interested in us because of that. We were of the opinion that Datron's expertise and extensive knowledge of the automotive industry could prove to be very useful to us. "

"I can't exactly remember how the working relationship initially got started, and by that I mean who made the first move. We were trying to sell our product to the UK and because there were only 2 or 3 of us at the time, we didn't really have the numbers to devote one of us solely to sales. It occurred to me that it was going to be better to sell through people who had experience in this market place, and new all the major players in the sector. We started distributing with John and Datron around about the same time as we started selling through a lot of our other international distributors. It made sense to sub-contract the sales process to outside distributors, rather than have our own dedicated sales people at OxTS. If we'd gone down the other road, we might've finished up with just one sales person dealing with the whole of the UK, and we would have therefore missed out on Datron's experience and in depth knowledge of the market. Besides, we couldn't have a dedicated salesperson for the French market because he couldn't be flying off every time a customer, or prospective customer, wanted to discuss issues with him. So, we followed John's advice and negotiated individual distribution and sales deals in different countries. We're certainly glad we followed this advice, and are really grateful. I guess in essence, John saw our product as being useful to his customers, and we recognised that John and Datron were the experts in knowing who these customers were. So it was a mutually beneficial arrangement."

So, how does the relationship work?
"Originally Datron sold just the RT 3000 for us in 2002, but since then we've added the RT2000, RT 4000 and the Inertial + system. The UK actually proved to be a difficult place to market to initially, a bit of a tough nut as it were, more so than other areas of Europe. But Datron went out and promoted it to people in the UK and interest and sales started to pick up. The advantage of using a company like Datron is that it has an exemplary reputation, and that generates interest and enthusiasm."

"We work together as a unified team: both sides of the business complement each other. We view Datron as being the sale's arm of OxTS. We do the marketing, and when we get any enquiries we then pass them on to Datron. From Datron's point of view I think the relationship with OxTS has helped them to get a foothold in markets they might previously have been unable to. It's the same in other territories we deal with, and works in precisely the same way. We ask that Datron, and the other companies we partner, go round their respective countries and attend exhibitions to promote OxTS products. They'll do the demonstrations at these exhibitions, and we'll provide whatever help might be necessary. Datron have their own demo equipment, but can borrow any other equipment they might need."

There can be no doubt that riding a motorcycle can be a thrilling experience. However, with speed also comes risk. That unfortunately is the problem of riding on only two wheels. Accidents do happen, and because of the nature of motorcycles these accidents can be especially nasty. Of course motorcycle leathers can offer some protection to the rider. However, the key to surviving any high speed bike crash lies in protecting and cushioning impacts to the upper torso and neck. Engineers and scientists believed that the solution to the problem lay in using the type of airbag technology found in cars: unfortunately, the cost, bulk and the practicality of incorporating airbag technology into motorcycle clothing presented their own set of problems.

2D were called upon to provide a small, lightweight, standalone datalogger/ sensor package capable of detecting the conditions for a crash, in order to trigger the airbags. 3 accelerometers and 6 angular rate sensors can detect even the most subtle of movements; combined with complex algorithms, the sensors can recognise the difference between a rider tucking the front, and snapping into a highside.

This is not the first time that 2D have adapted a system for use on the athlete, rather than the machine… using strain gauges reveals just how much force a pair of skis are subjected to during a jump, and GPS/ accelerometer technology on horses can quickly diagnose any problems (e.g. overloading one particular leg, lameness). 2D have even stretched to football, with GPS technology aiding in tracking players and revealing tactics!

So how does the Dainese D-Air suit work?
The Dainese D-Air suit uses an Intelligent Protection System that combines an air bag system with highly-evolved micro processor technology to increase the overall level of protection available to motorcyclists. The Dainese D-Air Race suit system uses a GPS sensor to measure a rider's speed combined with movement sensors which are built into the suit and which differentiate between a normal racing movement and a crash situation. These sensors can identify a high-side slide and the wearer tumbling across the track, which triggers the in-built airbags, and a low-side slide off the bike, which doesn't. The bags are triggered and inflated within 45 milliseconds within the suit itself and deflate after five seconds or so, and therefore, all being well, the rider can get back on the bike and continue racing. It is currently the only airbag suit on the market that works wirelessly without any connection to a motorcycle.

The Dainese system comes as a result of over 10 years of research between the company, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Padova and the German 2D Company which specialises in data collection, processing and development software. It has been developed with the help of motorcycle racers like Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi, Marco Simoncelli and Leon Haslam, and is now extensively used in Moto GP.

Does the D-Air suit have other applications?
In addition to its safety features, the D-Air Racing suit also features data acquisition software developed by German company, 2D, which also supplies software to some of the top teams in MotoGP and F1, providing riders with an effective tool to monitor their riding performance. With this new data acquisition software, the suit is able to record telemetry data, which can then be downloaded and displayed on a computer. Its functions include recording lap time data, assessment of braking spaces and lines through bends. Acceleration data is also available and the system is compatible with Google Earth, which enables plotting of racing lines on a mini map. 
The company is also planning to bring out a street version of its racing suit in the next few months. The D-Air Street shares many of the features of the Racing suit, but has been specifically designed for street use, as the name implies. The D-Air Street has a sensor on the bike which is linked to the front wheel and recognises if the bike is involved in a collision or if it starts to slide.

We are always looking for more partners to work with, and if you have an application that you want to discuss, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.