VInstrumentation - History of the company

VInstrumentation>Company>History

1963 ~ 1976
	After graduating with a degree in Electrical Engineering (electronics was not a separate subject in these days) and a PhD in Control Theory, Dr Gardiner taught electronics and control in a number of Universities. In the early seventies he worked as a design engineer for a company in the south of England who produced control and display equipment.
1976 ~ 1996
	In 1976, he set up Alron Electronics Ltd to design and build the world's first paperless chart recorder - the Alron Visu-Trend Display. This instrument could display 8 channels of real-time analogue data on a TV monitor. The company subsequently designed and built a number of realtime instrumentation systems for some of the UK's major companies including British Steel, Scottish Power, Ciba Geigy, Powergen, British Energy and Rolls Royce & Associates.
1996 ~ 2003
	By 1996, the Windows based PC was becoming dominant and the concept of Virtual Instrumentation using a PC as display and control was envisaged. This led to the development of what is now called the VInstrumentation system. This product was licensed to TTi Ltd and marketed by them as the TTi VIPS (Virtual Instrument Pod System). The Virtual Instrument Control Laboratory was developed which led to the CLIO interface (Control Laboratory Input/Output) and the Introduction to Control Theory course marketed by LJ Group. A development of the CLIO box is in the VInstrumentation range as the VInterface box. Various bespoke systems were also developed during this period.
2003 ~ Present
	The VIPS products were taken back in-house and renamed theVInstrumentation range. The interface pods have been redesigned and renamed VIPodS. The company is now concentrating on developing this range.