Expertise
Career — Thomas Keilbach, Dipl.-Ing. (FH)
The stations in reverse order, newest first — and in the first person, because behind keiltronic stands one person; Dipl.-Ing. (FH) is a German engineering degree. Whoever enquires here talks to the engineer whose path this is.
Since 2019 — keiltronic, Osterburken
Founded as keiltronic UG, a GmbH since 2021: hardware and firmware development as a small engineering firm, with an in-house lab including EMC pre-compliance — shielding tent, line impedance stabilisation network, spectrum analyser. From this period, among others:
- a sensor module for professional cleaning, developed through to series production — cellular connectivity and firmware updates into the field over the same link
- the takeover of running series projects in hardware and firmware for KODRA GmbH, in ongoing series support ever since
- feasibility and concept studies from gas sensing to small-parts logistics
All projects with pictures and details are in the references.
2016–2019 — Employed hardware and firmware engineer
Moved full-time to HyHelp AG, a start-up for clinical hygiene systems — the first customer of my own side business. There, a wearable device guiding hand disinfection was created entirely from a single source: idea, first prototype with schematics, layout and assembly, firmware, development through to a device in use on hospital wards, ongoing updates. Plus the matching infrastructure: a base station that connects to the network via Ethernet and to the devices via Bluetooth, collects measurement data and distributes firmware, and coin-cell-powered radio beacons for indoor positioning in rooms and corridors.
2009–2016 — Development engineer, power electronics and drives
Seven years at Mosca Elektronik und Antriebstechnik in Buchen (Odenwald): customer-specific electronic drive solutions up to about 1 kW — project responsibility from the first customer call, hardware concept and prototype build, pre-series and series support, manufactured in-house. Devices that must work outdoors — the drive of an electric golf caddy, spreaders for vehicles, an electrically opening bathtub door, the control of self-propelled industrial gate systems, plus the heating-element control of a plastic-strapping machine. Alongside: supervising student projects and theses in-house.
2012, in parallel: built up my own engineering business alongside the job. The first customer brought the idea for the wearable hygiene device — it became important enough that I gave up my permanent position for it in 2016.
2008–2009 — Diploma thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg
"Development of an amplifier board for closed-loop stepper motor control": an FPGA card combining the strengths of a servo motor (closed-loop control) with those of a stepper motor (torque and holding torque) — eight motors in parallel, logic in VHDL, motor parameters in EEPROM, connected via I²C. Controllers like this move the precision mechanics of telescope instruments; the card still stands as a project in the references.
2003–2009 — Communications engineering and electronics, Mannheim University of Applied Sciences
Graduated as Dipl.-Ing. (FH). Focus areas: low-level programming (embedded systems), analogue — low-noise — and digital circuit design, digital signal processing, high-frequency engineering, measurement and control, sensing, communications. Two industry placements during the degree:
- 2007 — Audi AG / quattro GmbH, Neckarsulm: validation of software and hardware components for production vehicles, functional and endurance tests in the lab and in the car, a self-built microcontroller system (8-bit AVR) for analysing bus communication, installation and trials of a UMTS router in a concept car
- 2005 — EnBW, Obrigheim nuclear power plant: industrial placement in the energy sector