New tenant integrates capacity development and engineering innovation

Dawie Janse van Vuuren, Director of Periseo.

Electronic engineering solutions provider, Periseo, recently joined The Innovation Hub community as a tenant in the Maxum Business Incubator. Originally based at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), Periseo has now established its front office at the Hub for marketing and client interfacing.

Since inception in 1999, the company has developed several products, provided consulting services and been involved in a number of projects for companies such as De Beers, Denel and Netshield.

Periseo Director, Dawie Janse van Vuuren, is a specialist in opto-electronics, while other staff members in the company are experienced in signal processing and control, software languages, embedded hardware and software development, PC board schematics and layout, and mechanical draughting.

Close to half of the Periseo team are BTech and MTech graduates from TUT and other tertiary education institutions. The company provides in-house training and support to students, who are actively involved in projects - some of them THRIP-funded (the National Research Foundation's Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme). Van Vuuren himself lectures in opto-electronics to BTech students at TUT.

Among Periseo's product development successes is the Smart Vehicle Harness (SVH) - an intelligent in-vehicle network for the bus industry. According to van Vuuren, the body functions of conventional vehicle harnesses - indicators, brake lights or windscreen wipers - are wired individually to the dashboard or driver interface. The SVH uses only two wires to communicate to node units placed throughout the bus to which all the bodily functions are connected.

"All of these functions can be easily managed and reconfigured through a PC application using a simple drag and drop facility", says van Vuuren. Not only is the SVH a much simpler and more robust option, its self-healing capabilities enhance road safety features and the built-in diagnostic facility improves vehicle maintenance. It also includes a GSM/GPRS interface that links to mobile phones for fault reporting and diagnostics.

Periseo's client base covers a wide range of industries, from military to commercial. The company is currently developing a solution for a Malaysian client in the driver-licensing industry that is aimed at fully automating the off-road or yard element of driver testing. This is a product that van Vuuren believes has significant export potential - one of the many reasons why the company chose The Innovation Hub as the location for its front office. "The Innovation Hub is very accessible and provides an ideal platform for networking, both locally and abroad", he says.

For more information on Periseo, contact Dawie Janse van Vuuren on +27 82 447 7536.

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