Sphere Systems Proprietary Limited was formed in 1986 by a group with wide experience in engineering, electronic measurements, hardware and software. Aims
The company aims to meet the requirements for its products from Australian sources and to use local technology whenever possible. Sphere Systems Pty Ltd has a very active design and development team and believes that local equipment can compete successfully against foreign products. Our equipment is all designed and manufactured in Melbourne, Australia. Company Philosophy
Sphere Systems is an engineering research and development company. It employs highly capable and experienced people to produce robust and reliable systems. These systems are designed so that they can be programmed and supported by both installers and end-users. The company believes that by staying close to the end-users that their feedback will enhance and improve the products.
Sphere Systems' key market is Building Automation. This includes Direct Digital Control (DDC) Building Management Systems for control of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), Lighting and Access Control. The flexibility of our products allow our systems to participate in the monitoring and control of other equipment installed in buildings such as freezers, refrigerators, cool rooms, computer rooms and other technical services.
Robert was attracted to Sphere Systems full time in 1996 as Director, Building Systems. He has established a distrubution team and setup training programs for contractors and operators and provided key input into the design of our Microsoft Windows based Facility DDC and Security Access Systems. He manages the training, sales and the National Support Operations office in Victoria.
Robert has an expert skill base in control and monitoring of the built environment, expert programming skills in configuring and programming building systems. He also has unsurpassed skills in application of systems to HVAC, Access and Lighting Controls combined with a very strong theorectical and practical knowledge of HVAC.
Dr Peter Hammer (ARMIT,
BSc(Hon), PhD) Director of Research and Development
Peter joined the company full time in 1994 into the position of Director,
Research and Development. Since then, he has developed the hardware, embedded
software code and user frontend for both the companys DDC and Access Control
Systems. Peter has also developed the Powercom, which automatically monitors
and controls predetermined loads to achieve demand management and consequential
savings in energy costs.
Peter has expert skills in embedded systems hardware and software design,
expert programming skills in a variety of languages and expert skills
in hardware design. Peter also has a very strong academic and theoretical
knowledge in Physics and Electronics.
History
Sphere Systems was formed in 1986 by a group of engineers to build and
market a low-cost Unix computer based on the National Semiconductor NS32000
chip set. The team ported Unix to this platform which was sold to value-added
resellers for incorporation in computer controlled systems.
The application of computers to building monitoring and control systems
was just emerging and the team developed a controller for this market.
The first was a Forth based system which was followed by a modular, object-oriented
system which operated on a multi-drop RS485 network.
A powerful user-friendly graphical frontend was designed and built to
simplify the user interface with the system. A standard SQL database was
used to ensure that all information in the system was accessible to users
in a non-proprietary matter.
Having an innovative and sophisticated customer such as Austin Health
led to the realisation that, with training, many customers will be able
to program and manage their own systems. To facilitate this, the system
was designed with in-built objects for all of the control operations required
within a building system. End users were able to set properties of these
objects and establish their required control without resorting to any
form of programming language. These objects included powerful logical,
timing and state machine functionality.
In the mid-1990's Sphere introduced an access control product as a partner
to the DDC product. This shares the same firmware and design philosophy
and allows close integration between these two components on building
managment. The access control product has been installed at many sites
including a prison and a state police headquarters. It has also been used
as a tool for OH&S where staff must operate in hazardous areas and
it is necessary to be able to track their location and movements.
New communication technologies such as GSM, SMS,
GPRS and CDMA allow access to the system and alarms to be delivered promptly
on a global basis.
Sphere Systems is a proud member of the Australia China Business Council and the Building Automation and Controls Contractors Association.
