CASE STUDY: iXBlue S.A.S.

About iXBlue S.A.S.

iXBlue S.A.S. is a global high-tech company specializing in the design and manufacturing of advanced marine, photonics and autonomy technologies. It is based in France and since 1998 delivering cutting-edge technologies from the oceans'​ depths to outer space.

The group’s expertise includes innovative systems and solutions devoted to inertial navigation, subsea positioning, underwater imaging, as well as shipbuilding and test & simulation. iXblue technologies support Civil and Defense customers in carrying out their sea, land and space operations with maximum safety, efficiency and reliability.

Employing a workforce of 650 people worldwide, iXblue conducts its business in over 60 countries.

Product Background

Mongoose Web Server Library is integrated the into the family of subsea acoustic positioning systems and enables a secure connectivity and remote access for the products like:

• Gaps Series - a light high-performance USBL system.
  Designed to provide accurate location, positioning and tracking of subsea assets, from ultra-shallow to deep water depths.
• Ramses - LBL Sparse Array Acoustic System.
  A flexible acoustic modem with self-contained computing, designed to perform full-LBL or sparse-LBL navigation capabilities to any type of underwater vehicle.
• Posidonia - High-depths USBL positioning system.
  An ultra-short baseline (USBL) acoustic positioning system dedicated to highly accurate and ultra-long range tracking of subsea vehicles.

We ran a short Q&A session with Sébastien Goyet, Software Developer at iXBlue S.A.S. to get his feedback on working with Mongoose Web Server Library.
Here are the key takeaways from it:

The challenge

Q: What challenges did you encounter that required Mongoose Web Server Library? How does Mongoose Library help you get your job done?

A: For the new embedded system, we needed to have a web server which supports TLS/SSL and a Websocket protocol. The main requirements for this web server were:

• Easy to integrate
• Simple to use in C/C++
• Low memory footprint
• EEfficient

The main challenge was to make the web server communicate with our embedded system transparently and quickly.

The decision

Q: Can you share a little about why you chose Mongoose Web Server Library and the process that led there?

A: After an extensive research, we were not able to find many available web servers which respected all of our needs. For example, several of them support TLS/SSL but not the Websocket. We could have used the alternative which is shipped with the OS we use itself, but it was really painful to use.
So we found Mongoose Web Server, it was very easy to evaluate (only 2 files to integrate) and it was shipped with many examples which covered all our needs.

The implementation

Q: What was it like integrating with Mongoose Web Server Library?

A: Mongoose Library implementation was very easy and the use of the API too. The examples provided with the Mongoose make it really effortless to use. We have quickly understood how to use it and were able to easily customize what we wanted.

The results

Q: What changed for you after you integrated Mongoose Web Server Library?

A: We did not experience any issues with the Mongoose Web Server, everything works reliably. What we really appreciate is the ease of use and configuration. Really quickly we had a web server we can easily customize to make communication with our embedded system.

Company

iXBlue S.A.S.

Launched in

Worldwide

Products

• Gaps Series - High-performance USBL system
  
• Ramses - LBL Sparse Array Acoustic System
  
• Posidonia - High-depths USBL positioning system
  

"Mongoose Web Server Library is really easy to evaluate (only 2 files to integrate) and is shipped with many examples. We did not experience any issues, with Mongoose everything works reliably. What we really appreciate is the ease of use and configuration. Really quickly we had a web server we can easily customize to make communication with our embedded system."
Sébastien Goyet, Software Developer, iXBlue S.A.S.