Problem

Hughes sells mobile satellite terminals that provide internet and phone service to customers. Some customers who purchased terminals in bulk (~1000) required non-default settings. The configuration process of manually changing settings on each terminal was tedious and error-prone.

Task

My job was to develop a Windows 7 / 10 program that would automate the terminal configuration process.

Result

I designed and developed a GUI program in C# that detects which terminal model is connected and uses the available interface (REST API or FTP) to copy the configuration of the master terminal. This can then be used to automatically configure subsequent terminals.

Customer Feedback

"Btw the tool you sent us is helping a lot. Thank you so much."

Problem

Hughes mobile terminals allow customers to have internet and phone access in remote areas via a satellite connection. Some customers may find value in a GPS feature built into the terminal. In this situation, the terminal would send GPS coordinates to a server at regular intervals of time, distance, and/or velocity as configured by the end-user.

Task

My task was to investigate a way to minimize the data packet size of GPS coordinates and to update the terminal's software to send these data packets to a server configured by the end-user.

Result

This project was assigned to me after the completion of my previous project, which was intended to last the entire internship. I was able to determine that MQTT-SN was a good option as it simply sends a data packet to a server without checking for acknowledgement and the packet header is sufficiently small. I successfully implemented the packet structure and delivery to the server on the terminal software written in C. However, I was unable to get the server to recognize that it received the packet in my remaining time at Hughes. Using Wireshark, I confirmed the reception of the packet, but none of the open-source MQTT-SN brokers I used worked.