This means that feasibility studies vary between projects and might not be necessary at all.
Most of the “feasibility studies” we undertake are really invention and system concept development for ideas that are patently obviously feasible. However not long after our first Bluetooth project, we were approached by a start-up who asked us to carry out a feasibility study for a whole home integrated audio distribution system. Our client planned to use the Bluetooth 1.0 standard to distribute the audio between devices which would use voice recognition for user controls. This group were a decade or more ahead of their time and unfortunately, we had to tell them that at the time their concept was not feasible due to the limited bandwidth and radio range of the early Bluetooth technology. We recommended that they wait the year or two that it would take for the then proposed 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to be launched.
A client asked us if we could provide the electronics for a rechargeable UV wand for curing adhesives used in the body during surgery. We carried out a feasibility study. We identified solutions for the Electrical safety strategy, fault detection and tolerance. We identified components for power management including battery charger and monitor, safety interlock circuit, the UV LED and its drive circuit. We also estimated the size and cost of the programmable logic device required for the control logic, the required battery capacity and hence the battery size. We also estimated the PCB area and component height. We concluded that the combined constraints of the device size, functional requirements, storage time required between charging and total curing time per charge were feasible. After the successful feasibility study we carried out the detailed design and produced prototypes before the product was transferred to manufacture.
