Software engineering since 2003
Real-time software for machines that have to work in the field.
Mekinesis builds embedded, control, signal-processing and instrument software for robotics, autonomous vehicles, medical devices and life-science instruments. You work directly with the engineer who designs the system and writes the code, and who stays accountable for it after it ships.
What Mekinesis does
From the sensor to the system
Embedded and real-time
Multi-process, multi-threaded architectures on embedded Linux, RTOS and bare-metal SoCs. Interprocess communication, cross-compilation, and bringing up hardware on the bench with a scope and JTAG.
Robotics and control
Vehicle control for underwater and ground robots: behavior-based (subsumption) architectures, Kalman state estimation, sensor fusion, vectored thrust and motion control.
Signal processing and vision
Real-time detection algorithms on noisy measurements, digital filtering, and feature-tracking computer vision, with test harnesses that let the algorithm be developed and proven off the target.
Instruments and lab automation
Control software for high-throughput instruments: plate handlers, injection pumps, microfluidic liquid handling, and interfaces to mass spectrometers from several vendors.
Regulated and medical
Software for FDA-regulated diagnostic devices, including FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and HIPAA-compliant data systems and cloud infrastructure.
Data systems and applied AI
Scientific data pipelines and databases, and LLM-powered tools built on the Claude API, such as natural-language queries over a lab's own data.
Track record
Selected work
Systems designed and written from the ground up, and kept running for years.
-
Medical diagnostics
The calling algorithm for a prize-winning COVID-19 test
Owned all of the software for a rapid diagnostic instrument that won the XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing competition: the embedded C++ algorithm that reads impedance time series on a bare-metal SoC, a PC test harness to develop it off the device, and FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and HIPAA-compliant cloud infrastructure.
-
Lab automation
A high-throughput mass-spec screening platform
Co-invented the platform (US patent 7,588,725) and designed and wrote its control software, which is still in production use more than 20 years later. Large pharmaceutical companies still bring modifications back to Mekinesis.
-
Defense robotics
Onboard control for a fielded ground robot
A multi-process C++ control architecture on embedded Linux for an explosive-ordnance-disposal and reconnaissance robot, with a custom IPC compiler over POSIX message queues and shared memory, a Kalman vehicle-state estimator, and a framework reused across ground-robot platforms.
-
Underwater vehicles
Vehicle control for autonomous underwater vehicles
Software for a first Navy AUV as a founding engineer, and later the complete onboard control system of a micro-AUV: subsumption architecture, articulated-tailcone vectored thrust, and a Kalman estimator built from the naval architect's state model.
-
Autonomous vehicles
Fixing a LiDAR perception pipeline
Diagnosed and fixed critical throughput and stability problems in the primary perception pipeline feeding an autonomous vehicle's world model.
-
Assistive technology
Hands-free computer control
A feature-tracking computer vision system, developed with a university research group, that lets people with severe disabilities control a computer by moving their head. Over 3 million downloads, and still cited in NIH-funded research.
-
Signal processing
Real-time analyte detection
Signal processing for a medical diagnostic that reached 99% sensitivity and 99% specificity on its target analyte.
About
Donald Green, principal engineer
Mekinesis is the consulting practice of Donald Green, a software architect and engineer who has spent more than 25 years building the software inside robots, vehicles and scientific instruments. He has held director and VP titles, but has always been the one designing the system and writing the code.
He was a founding engineer at companies building autonomous underwater vehicles and high-throughput screening instruments, co-invented two instrument platforms, and has led software for a defense ground robot and an FDA-regulated diagnostic device.
Mekinesis is deliberately small. Clients work with the person who wrote their code, and many come back for years.
Based in Waikoloa, on Hawaiʻi Island, and working remotely with clients anywhere.
Contact
Tell me about your project
A few lines about the system, where it stands and what you need is plenty to start. I'll reply by email.