Embedded systems engineering. Software, firmware, hardware bring-up, and the rest of the stack around them.

Building systems that work in the field

Op den Kamp IT Solutions is based in Landgraaf, Zuid-Limburg. The focus is embedded systems engineering: software, firmware, hardware bring-up, and the rest of the stack around them. Most of my track record is in ProAV, broadcast and high-tech industrial systems where products run 24/7 for years in the field, but the same approach fits anywhere software has to last.

In many engagements the firmware is just the start. Control protocols, frontends, unit-to-unit coordination, backend integration. Those layers are usually mine too.

A long-running ProAV engagement

One of my longest-running engagements is with Pulse-Eight in the UK, a manufacturer of ProAV products for the custom-installer channel: HDMI matrices, HDBaseT distribution, AV-over-IP and audio-matrix amplifiers. Their products go into residential and commercial AV installations through professional integrators, where they run 24/7 for years. An unplanned reboot is a callout.

Since 2013 I have been the primary author of MatrixOS, the firmware OS across the product range. Alongside the firmware authorship I do schematic review, flagging issues for the hardware engineer to address before fabrication. I am also the final escalation point for customer support: issues the regular team can't resolve land with me. Having schematic review, firmware ownership and field escalation in one engineer translates well to similar embedded work in other markets.

The range spans both video and audio. Alongside the AV-over-IP video work I am currently writing the firmware for the next-generation ProAmp8 matrix amplifier, deep in the audio signal path: FPGA audio crosspoint, ADC/DAC clock distribution and the on-board DSP.

Bench-driven engineering, not just code

A meaningful part of the work happens at a bench with an oscilloscope, logic analyser and multimeter, figuring out why the silicon disagrees with the datasheet. I bring boards up from first power-on, write drivers from datasheet PDFs, and capture the bus to confirm reality matches the code.

The work runs upstream of bring-up too: schematic review before fabrication, signal-integrity and bus-loading checks, and a steady stream of board respins driven by problems that surface in firmware bring-up.

I've also written the production-line test-fixture firmware that runs during board manufacturing. That's a different discipline from product firmware, with its own reliability constraints.

During the COVID-era chip shortage, when the primary NXP MCU became unobtainable, I ported the entire firmware family to TI TM4C as a drop-in replacement, with a parallel BGA100 LPC variant alongside it. Bench side: hand-soldered SD-RAM onto a TM4C dev board to prove the silicon could drive the existing peripherals, then validated peripheral compatibility against a real product board before committing. The product line kept shipping through the shortage. Fast invasive work under deadline pressure: hard to plan for, but valuable when it's needed.

My office runs a production-grade Pulse-Eight ProAV install at the same scale ProAV integrators put in for their end-clients. A deliberate reference setup, not a bench rig. Working with it daily means I see the field reality of every product I write firmware for, and that feeds the engineering directly.

Open-source foundation

I'm the original author and lead maintainer of libCEC, the de-facto open-source HDMI-CEC library. It powers HDMI-CEC bus access on commodity hardware in Kodi, LibreELEC and a long tail of integrator tooling worldwide, and is packaged in virtually every Linux distribution. I also contributed core architecture to the Kodi project itself: the peripherals subsystem, and the long-running PVR integration that became part of mainline.

That open-source surface is part of why commercial clients have hired me directly. Past direct engagements have included silicon vendors, set-top-box makers, ProAV manufacturers, motorsport teams and broadcasters. Same pattern available now, and equally open to longer-term embedded-firmware engagements across markets.