Konsulko Group

The year 2025 saw Konsulko Group continue to deliver practical hardware and software engineering solutions for embedded devices, with a growing focus on deploying Edge AI. Here are a few of the highlights: Konsulko Orca OS: We launched this production-ready Linux operating system, built on the Yocto Project, for secure AI applications on NVIDIA Jetson platforms. It provides long-term support, secure boot, and reliable OTA updates. Custom Hardware: We continued to deliver hardware design services ranging from schematic capture and PCB layout to rapid prototyping, custom SOMs and carrier boards, to manufacturing management. Engineering Services: Our work included deploying Edge AI in medical and utility robotics, providing production-secure OS, and updating customers’ Yocto-based platforms with the latest NVIDIA SDK releases. Security Focus: We published a guide addressing hardware security on NVIDIA platforms, highlighting steps to secure the boot chain and file system. The process establishes a hardware-based root of trust, extended to verify the integrity of every subsequent boot stage, all the way to the Linux userspace, incorporating encryption-at-rest to protect sensitive intellectual property in deployed systems. Labgrid Automation: We presented a standardized testing infrastructure for Hardware-in-the-Loop testing, integrating physical boards into the Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, and leveraged this capability to support the U-Boot community. Windows CE to Linux Migration: We delivered modernized OS images that maintained existing application behavior while moving the underlying system to long-term supported (LTS) kernels, mitigating the security risks associated with end-of-life operating systems. Community Contribution: Konsulko engineers maintained their seats on the OpenEmbedded Board of Directors and the Yocto Project Technical Steering Committee, and played a key role in organizing and presenting at multiple community events. Our engineers continue in the role of project maintainers and make significant contributions to numerous Open Source projects. We look forward to working with you in 2026, helping you build your next embedded device. Read the full Year in Review report here: https://lnkd.in/g4QyjFFt

Electronic Design has just published AI in Embedded Systems: Navigating Challenges and Solutions by Konsulko Group CEO Pete Popov. The article focuses on emerging AI-driven security risks in embedded systems, everyday devices targeted by cybercriminals, and ways to ensure robust security for embedded systems. You can read it here: https://lnkd.in/g5Jwi93u

Konsulko Group is today introducing Konsulko Orca OS™, the Platform for the Edge Built on Yocto Project and optimized for NVIDIA Jetson Orin platforms, it’s a secure, production-ready, and commercially supported Linux operating system for Edge AI and IoT devices, delivered as part of Konsulko Group's software services. Konsulko Orca OS provides a robust foundation for products, featuring secure boot, encrypted storage, and reliable over-the-air (OTA) updates. Konsulko also offers end-to-end Jetson development services for the entire NVIDIA Jetson family (from TK1 to Orin and Thor), including custom hardware designs, board bring-up and application integration with OTA updates. Please contact us to customize the platform for your specific product needs. https://lnkd.in/gb_cm_y8

“Embedded Systems” is a term that often draws blank stares from professionals in other fields. Those of us working in this field for 20-30 years (or more) can sometimes forget that the basics — what these systems are and the steps we take every day to make them work — may seems very foreign to folks in corporate management, finance, or students and newcomers to embedded engineering. To this end, Konsulko Group has started a series of informational articles. The first asks the overarching question: What is Embedded Systems Design? https://lnkd.in/g85W5iiP

New Case Study from Konsulko Group:  Secure AI-Enabled Edge Platform Development Konsulko Group has developed a secure, Yocto Project-based Linux distribution for an energy company's NVIDIA Orin Nano edge platform. This solution addressed challenges like secure boot, disk encryption, and OTA updates, resulting in a maintainable, AI-ready software stack for large-scale deployments. Here's a brief overview: Hardware: Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Developer Kit Custom Orin Nano 8GB SOM with custom carrier board Jetson Orin Nano 8GB SOM with custom carrier board Services:  Yocto Project Distribution, Secure Boot, Disk Encryption, OTA Updates The Challenge Our customer needed a secure, production-ready Linux distribution for its NVIDIA Orin Nano-based edge platform. Their proof-of-concept work was implemented on Linux for Tegra but their production requirements drove a move to a Yocto Project based OS to leverage reproducible builds, software bill of materials, and long-term support for security issues. Requirements included factory secure key provisioning, secure boot, device-specific disk encryption, OTA updates, and converting existing Ansible-based configuration and middleware into Yocto Project packages. Our Solution Konsulko Group developed a custom Yocto Project Scarthgap LTS-based distribution with a Linux 6.6 kernel, supporting both developer and production images on NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin Nano SOM and custom-design Orin Nano SoC-based hardware. We implemented factory and development security fusing via NVIDIA’s Factory Secure Key Provisioning (FSKP) for secure high-volume manufacturing, read-only encrypted root filesystem and dm-crypt encrypted root and data filesystems, cellular modem support, and Mender A/B OTA update support, including binary delta updates, to enable efficient upgrades for bandwidth-constrained deployed devices. Additional work included custom UEFI lockdown and selective USB port disabling for security, Triton inference server integration, and solutions for private Rust crate packaging to support complex Rust application dependencies. The Impact The result was a secure, maintainable, and AI-ready edge software stack that streamlined updates, improved manufacturing security, and provided a solid foundation for large-scale product deployment in the field. Read more Konsulko Group case studies for Industrial, Energy, Defense and Heavy Equipment companies at https://lnkd.in/g4PwKB_f.

New Case Study from Konsulko Group: Modernizing a Rack-Scale Battery Management System The Challenge Recently, a leading company in the data center infrastructure market wanted to update its rack-scale battery management system for its UPS product line. Running on an aging TI AM335x-based design, the last Yocto Project update for their product dated back ten years. There was no CI pipeline, and field upgrades required mailing SD cards. Documentation was limited, and the original development team was no longer available. Our Solution Konsulko Group upgraded the platform to the Yocto Project Scarthgap LTS release, starting with a clean layer structure, integrating GitLab CI for automated builds and security checks, and implementing RAUC-based A/B OTA updates to replace the manual SD card process. The result was a secure, maintainable, and easily updatable software base, reducing operational costs, improving security, and enabling faster deployment of updates in the field. You can read many more case studies and learn about all our engineering services for the industrial space at https://lnkd.in/g4PwKB_f.

Cybersecurity on NVIDIA: Why Embedded Linux may lag Enterprise Linux in 5 key areas, and how Konsulko Group addresses them by building a chain-of-trust with secure boot processes, integrating security technologies with Yocto Project, key management, and on-going support. https://lnkd.in/dGUn2reF

Scott Murray of Konsulko Group talking about keeping AGL current with the latest The Yocto Project, A Linux Foundation Project release as we continue to get ready for their 2026 LTS release. #AutomotiveLinux #Yocto OpenEmbedded

Konsulko engineers are often asked to evaluate hardware for our customers. Senior Engineer Darko Alavanja has written a new Guide focussing on the Sterling LWB+. https://lnkd.in/dN5NytgN

Konsulko Group is proud to again be a sponsor of Embedded Recipes. See you in Nice, May 14-16, 2025! https://lnkd.in/gXnj6fYA