nr. 2 - DSP Valley DSP Valley apr-mei_2_ 2017_v5.pdfDSP Valley DSP Valley’s Smart Health...

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2 newsletter April - Mei ‘17 | 18 de jaargang - nr. 2 | verschijnt tweemaandelijks | afgiftekantoor: 2800 Mechelen 1 | www.dspvalley.com | P2A6695 Verantw. Uitg.: Peter Simkens | DSP Valley vzw., Gaston Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium tel. +32 (0) 16 24 14 40 | fax +32 (0) 16 24 14 49 | www.dspvalley.com 2 4 6 8 designing smart products Preface 2 Technology Flash 1 u First public presentation of the Smart Systems project 1 u Medical devices out of control? 2 u New Deltacast products at NAB 3 u Satellite launch of 645 imec-enabled chips 4 u 720° perception for safe and autonomous systems 8 Upcoming events 5 u Deep learning promising for complex problem solving 5 u Save the date - Electroniad Quiz 2017 5 In the spotlights 6 u Altran launches World Class Center for Advanced Networks 6 u ICsense independent subsidiary of TDK 6 u Barco Silex extends security IP and attracts new prestigious customers 7 First public presentation of the Smart Systems project The annual event took place 9 March 2017 in Nijmegen and is organized by Health Valley, our partner network organ- ization in the Smart Systems project. This year the theme of the event was patient driven innovation. Besides a number of very interesting keynote presentations and parallel track sessions, about 30 com- panies and research institutes showed their latest innovations in the exposi- tion area. In the Living Lab area various e-Health applications, robotics and other aids for home care were demonstrated. At the DSP Valley stand in the Living Lab area, Jos Aarts from the University of Maastricht, our partner in the project, demonstrated a first prototype of an e-Health vest that contained a number With 1200 attendees, the Health Valley Event 2017 is by far the largest health- care event in The Netherlands. Indispensable for those involved in healthcare innovations and thus the perfect opportunity to present our Smart Systems project for the very first time to the public. continuation on page 3 of accelerator and force sensor devices connected wireless to an app on a mobile phone. With this vest, physiotherapists are able to remotely measure the improve- ments their patients are making. The dem- Johan Lecocq and Jos Aarts presenting the e-Health Vest at the annual Health Valley event.

Transcript of nr. 2 - DSP Valley DSP Valley apr-mei_2_ 2017_v5.pdfDSP Valley DSP Valley’s Smart Health...

2newsletterApril - Mei ‘17 | 18de jaargang - nr. 2 | verschijnt tweemaandelijks | afgiftekantoor: 2800 Mechelen 1 | www.dspvalley.com | P2A6695

Verantw. Uitg.: Peter Simkens | DSP Valley vzw., Gaston Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgiumtel. +32 (0) 16 24 14 40 | fax +32 (0) 16 24 14 49 | www.dspvalley.com

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designing smart products

Preface 2

Technology Flash 1u First public presentation of the Smart Systems project 1u Medical devices out of control? 2u New Deltacast products at NAB 3u Satellite launch of 645 imec-enabled chips 4u 720° perception for safe and autonomous systems 8

Upcoming events 5u Deep learning promising for complex problem solving 5u Save the date - Electroniad Quiz 2017 5

In the spotlights 6u Altran launches World Class Center for Advanced Networks 6u ICsense independent subsidiary of TDK 6u Barco Silex extends security IP and attracts new prestigious customers 7

First public presentation of the Smart Systems project

The annual event took place 9 March 2017 in Nijmegen and is organized by Health Valley, our partner network organ-ization in the Smart Systems project. This year the theme of the event was patient driven innovation. Besides a number of very interesting keynote presentations and parallel track sessions, about 30 com-panies and research institutes showed their latest innovations in the exposi-tion area. In the Living Lab area various e-Health applications, robotics and other aids for home care were demonstrated.

At the DSP Valley stand in the Living Lab area, Jos Aarts from the University of Maastricht, our partner in the project, demonstrated a first prototype of an e-Health vest that contained a number

With 1200 attendees, the Health Valley Event 2017 is by far the largest health-care event in The Netherlands. Indispensable for those involved in healthcare innovations and thus the perfect opportunity to present our Smart Systems project for the very first time to the public.

continuation on page 3

of accelerator and force sensor devices connected wireless to an app on a mobile phone. With this vest, physiotherapists are able to remotely measure the improve-ments their patients are making. The dem-

Johan Lecocq and Jos Aarts presenting the e-Health Vest at the annual Health Valley event.

value chain. Currently, a second round of platform sessions is taking place, further advancing in the stimulation of innova-tion, by having interactive discussions and brainstorms on project ideas.

Each of the platforms already inter-ests the industrial and research world. Nevertheless, we are always looking for additional interest and extra comple-mentary competencies, to further com-plete the whole value chain necessary to come to full system solutions. Also you are kindly invited to help us build these networking platforms and to actively participate in the innovation brainstorms and cooperative innovation projects.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Peter SimkensManaging Director DSP Valley

DSP Valley’s Smart Health Networking Platforms Since a few years, DSP Valley is inten-sively co-operating with the Flemish biotech and life sciences cluster FlandersBio, to create an inspirational environment where innovation for new health solutions can happen at the crossroads of the two enabling technol-ogies of micro/nano electronics and life sciences. This initiative was first baptized “Nano4Health”, and today continues as “XKET4HEALTH”, where XKET4HEALTH is to be read as Cross-KET for Health, and KET is Key Enabling Technology.

Based on inputs from our member base and based on available competencies in our region, we selected 3 focus areas: • Advanced medical imaging, including

microscope-on-chip or lens free imaging• Lab-on-chip and miniaturised in-vitro

diagnostics point-of-care devices• Smart implants, including all kinds

of body wearable and body implant-able devices, including classical neuro-stimulation devices but also in-body drug delivery devices

The choice of these 3 areas is not by coincidence: from micro/nano electronics point of view, the players in the region offer world class competencies in min-iaturisation, design for ultra-low power or volume production (according to best practices for semiconductor production).

Today, we are further developing the respective eco-systems for each of these 3 areas, by setting up networking plat-forms. The ambition of these 3 network-ing platforms is to bring together play-ers from both the electronics and the biotech world, from the application side of health solutions and medical devices and other relevant players, in order to initiate innovation projects.

During a first meeting of each of these 3 networking platforms, participants had a pitching opportunity to introduce them-selves and to position themselves in the

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Medical devices out of control?Today, it is difficult to find medical devices and implants, such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, insulin pumps or neurostimulators, that do not critically depend on wireless communication channels. These enable the doctors to remotely read out telemetry data and modify the device’s settings without needing to perform invasive surgery on the patient. However, although this wireless interface brings many benefits for patients, it also opens the door for adversaries to have full control of the device.

COSICResearch on the subject was carried out by researchers of the group KU Leuven – COSIC. The Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography group (COSIC) of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven was founded in 1978 and has more than 60 researchers working on security and privacy. The research work of COSIC covers a broad span that varies from mathematical foundations over algo-rithms and protocols towards efficient and secure implementations in hard-ware and software. COSIC adopts an integrated approach to problem solving, which has led to important successes,

Already in 2007, the former Vice-president of the

United States, Dick Cheney, asked his doctor to disable the wireless commu-nication capabilities of his pacemaker to thwart possible assassination attempts. Could you imagine an interviewer being able to infer whether you have been lying during a job interview? Indeed, in addi-tion to attacks whose goal is to endanger someone life, privacy attacks could also be launched. But the main question is, are these threats only theoretical or could these somehow affect us in our daily life? Nobody knows.

such as for instance the selection of the Rijndael algorithm as the US Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a worldwide standard today.

Security vulnerabilitiesIn this research, they analysed the secu-rity and privacy of several medical active implants, such as pacemakers, insulin

pumps and neurostimulators, and iden-tified serious security issues. Currently, most of these devices rely on proprietary

Because of wireless communication a doctor can modify your pacemaker without invasive surgery.

Next XKET4HEALTH platform meetings

• (Bio-)medical imaging, 2nd meeting - May 30th

• Smart Implants, 2nd meeting - June 27th2

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continuation from page 1

New Deltacast products at NAB

DELTACAST, the sister company of DELTATEC dedicated to developing and manufacturing state-of-the-art prod-ucts for the professional video market, exhibited at the 2017 NAB SHOW in Las Vegas. This event is the world’s largest convention encompassing the convergence of media, entertainment and technology.

DELTACAST continuously widens its portfolio of interface cards allowing ingest and playout of professional video signals in computer-based products and appliances.

At NAB 2017, DELTACAST introduced not less than 7 new products! Among them, the family of SDI hardware keyers got extended with 3 new models.

Thanks to DELTACAST hardware keyer cards, customers can offload this costly operation on to the FPGA and save CPU cycles while minimizing the end-to-end latency, which is an important requirement.

The latest products from DELTACAST host multiple hardware keyers to imple-

A keyer allows real-time compositing of computer graphics over a live video feed.

“Security should never interfere with

the safety or energy requirements.”

wireless communication protocols. Our research results have shown that one can fully reverse-engineer, and in a later stage also exploit, these wireless protocols only by observing the input-out behaviour. Furthermore, we demonstrated the prac-tical feasibility of these security attacks in a lab setup.

ment several video processing pipes on a single machine, as well as cards handling demanding formats up to 4K.Besides this, DELTACAST actively takes part in the broadcast industry transi-tion from legacy SDI technologies to IP-based workflows. As a member of AIMS and SMPTE, DELTACAST closely follows standards evolution and demon-strated its latest developments based on ST 2110 on its NAB booth. n

More info? [email protected] or www.deltacast.tv

As the expertise of the research group is cryptography, the research is not limited to the security evaluation of the devices. Also the design and implementation of cryptographic solutions that would miti-gate the security and privacy vulnerabili-ties is part of the study. This needs to be done while considering the stringent requirements of active medical implants.

Improving securityThese devices are battery-operated and have limited memory storage, processor

power and battery capacity. For example, pacemakers are expected to be implanted within the patient’s body for 7-10 years. Once the battery is drained, a surgical intervention is needed to replace the entire device. Since the primary goal of a medical device is to treat patients, requirements such as reliability, avail-ability, and safety are essential. Adding security mechanisms in medical devices is non-trivial because security should never interfere with none of the safety or energy requirements. It is essential to find the necessary balance between security, availability and (energy) cost. Furthermore, one also needs to consider emergency situations, where there should be a ‘break-the-glass’ principle in place that allows for immediate access to the medical device. Fortunately, the most recent advances on lightweight cryptog-raphy allows for the realization of strong security and privacy techniques while still preserving the low-energy demand of the device. n

onstration attracted a lot of attention. Many people came to our stand and allowed us to explain the Smart Systems project. In total we collected approxi-mately 30 names of contacts that require a follow-up. Amongst these names peo-ple from the industry, from start-up companies, universities and research institutes and people involved in home care of the elderly. Not a bad result con-sidering the very short preparation we had for participating in this event! n

The e-Health Vest contains sensor devices connected with an app on a mobile phone.

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Satellite launch of 645 imec-enabled chips

Launched on January 28, the HISPASAT 36W-1 communications satellite is highly innovative. Its electronics contain an impressive 645 chips to which imec has contributed. It is also the first flight mission of chips designed with imec’s DARE platform (Design Against Radiation Effects).

HISPASAT 36W-1 will provide relay cov-erage and multimedia services across Europe, the Canary Islands and South America. Both the satellite platform and its telecom system RedSAT were devel-oped together with the European Space Agency (ESA). With its on-board signal regeneration and its active antenna, the system makes a much more agile and efficient use of the on-board power and bandwidth than was previously possible.

Improving satellite signalsIn traditional telecom satellites, the incoming signals are simply amplified and echoed. Not so with RedSAT, which uses signal regeneration, adapting the signal power to the circumstances and correcting uplink errors before transmit-ting the downlink signal.

The satellite’s 23 transponders contain the mixed-signal Knut chip, a radiation-hardened mixed-signal ASIC. Knut has been designed, fabricated and qualified through imec.IC-link, the chip manufac-turing division of imec. Imec’s special-ists provided the digital cell libraries to harden the chip’s digital circuits against radiation (DARE for UMC .18um tech-nology). They also designed the ana-logue blocks, synthesized the chip and made its layout. Finally, they managed

and oversaw the chip manufacturing at UMC and the full flight model qualifica-tion.

Steering the antennaThe second major difference with comparable communication sys-tems is RedSAT’s active antenna ELSA (ELectronically Steerable Antenna). ELSA is an array of physical antennas that create a directed beam of radio waves.

These can be electronically steered to point in different directions without physical movement. ELSA is managed by a number of hybrid modules, each containing four analog and twenty digi-tal chips, totaling 622 chips.

The analog ASIC was implement-ed in a 0.35um technology of On Semiconductor (Oudenaarde). It is a high-voltage chip for which imec pro-vided the technology and hardening advice, did a design review and man-aged the manufacturing. The digital ASIC was fabricated in 0.18um UMC technology, again using imec’s DARE libraries.

Radiation-hardened electronicsChips used in spacecraft, airplanes and also e.g. in high-energy physics experi-

The RedSAT signal regeneration and the active antenna make the HISPASAT 36W-1 a highly efficient satellite.

On January 28, the first chips designed with imec’s DARE platform were launched.

ments are prone to failure because of the radiation in their environment. To be hardened against such failures, they have to be specifically designed.

With the support of ESA, imec devel-oped the Design Against Radiation Effects platform. DARE is a combina-tion of digital cell libraries, methodol-ogy support for analog design and the reuse of previously designed analog IP blocks. With DARE, it is now possible to design competitive, high-performance, low-power solutions for non-military applications that will operate in envi-ronments with harsh radiation.

All these innovations improve the ser-vice the HISPASAT 36W-1 provides to end users. They can do with smaller terminals and set up multi-user com-munication with a single satellite hop. RedSAT halves the conventional satel-lite signal delay, which greatly boosts real-time applications such as videocon-ferencing. And thanks to DARE the satellite also maintains its outstanding performance in harsh radiation condi-tions. n

Contact: Steven Redant, ASIC Design Services Manager at imec.IC-link

T E C H N O L O G Y F L A S H

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Satellite launch of 645 imec-enabled chips Deep learning promising for complex problem solving

Save the date - Electroniad Quiz 2017

Artificial neural networks are omnipresent in all fields of machine learning, and have been studied since the 60s as models of computation and learning process-es. Their transition from the labs to the industrial world, and the advent of deep learning, are the result of several milestone achievements and contributions.

HistoryWerbos, in 1975, discovered the back-propagation algorithm for efficient optimization of multi-layer networks. The use of a convolutional network by Lecun and others in 1989 in recogniz-ing handwritten ZIP codes on US postal mail, achieving an 1% error rate at 10 digits per second, pioneered industrial applications.

With increased computational processing power, the late 2000s saw a resurgence of neural networks. In 2012, Krizhevsky and others were able to train a very deep convolutional network for image recog-nition, introducing adapted regulariza-tion techniques such as data augmen-tation and drop-out, and significantly advanced the state of the art of visual processing on the ImageNet competition. Since then, deep learning has reached all branches of machine learning: image, text, speech processing, query systems, autonomous agent design…

ApplicationTraditionally difficult problems of machine learning, such as transfer learning and joint space embedding, have found natural solutions in deep learning. In particular, a network suited to one task can be specialized for a second task at minimal cost if the two tasks share similar traits. The avail-ability of pretrained networks with high performance on basis tasks has there-fore allowed for fast development of machine learning solutions in diverse domains.

LICT Workshop on “Deep Learning”

Date & TimeJune 8, 2017; 12:15 – 18:00

LocationThermotechnisch Instituut, Auditorium De Tweede HoofdwetKasteelpark Arenberg 41, Heverlee

More information & registrationhttp://set.kuleuven.be/LICT/Deep_Learning_Workshopor contact the LICT coordinator at LICTcoordinator@KU Leuven.be

On Thursday, 14 September 2017, the second edition of the Electroniad Quiz will take place in the city center of Leuven. Electroniad is an electronics quiz in which teams of four people compete. Easics organises this edition. Caeleste founded the Electroniad and organized the first edition in October 2016 at the Technopolis in Mechelen.

Hand-in-hand with ever-increasing indus-trial and financial interest in the exploita-tion of “big data”, the deep learning revolution is on its way to affect every aspect of our everyday life, through smartphone assistants, autonomous cars, banking systems and medical devices.

Deep Learning workshopInterested to learn more about the potential of Deep Learning and how it is used in practice? Please join us for the LICT workshop on Deep Learning, tak-ing place on June 8, 2017 in Heverlee. After a short (high-level) introduction to Deep Learning you will hear testimonies from both industrial speakers as well as LICT professors and their team mem-bers on how they apply Deep Learning in their activity domain. And of course there will be plenty of time for network-ing during the coffee breaks and closing reception. n

For more information on the article please contact Maxim Berman (KU Leuven, ESAT-PSI; [email protected])

For more information and to participate visit www.electroniad.org.

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Altran launches World Class Center for Advanced Networks

ICsense independent subsidiary of TDK ICsense, the leading European mixed-signal IC design company, and TDK’s wholly-owned subsidiary TDK-Micronas GmbH (“TDK-Micronas”), a leading supplier of Hall-effect sensors based in Freiburg, Germany, recently signed an agreement of acquisition of shares.

to control and improve the quality of network services. It focuses on three major streams: Network Modernization and Consolidation, Virtualization and Software Defined Networking (SDN/NFV), Transition to 5G.

At the Mobile World Congress 2017, Altran presented two jointly developed solutions with Daikin, the global innova-tion leader in the sectors of Heating,

The World Class Center has a dedicated team of 110 engineers that combine deep knowledge and experience of Tier 1 Operator and Vendor technol-ogy and ways of working, plus in-house developed network performance tools

To shape the eraTDK-Micronas GmbH is part of the TDK Group, a Japanese stock-quoted mul-tinational which is one of the largest electronic components manufacturers in the world. “With this acquisition we have taken another decisive step for-ward in our sensor business, strengthen-ing our position in the automotive and

Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refri- geration, and Biovotion, a leading wear-able physiology monitoring company.

➔ Daikin wanted to add IoT cloud-based services to its wide range of products to create tailored and effi-cient flexible solutions targeting shops, multi-sites and residential installations. Altran supported Daikin with Cloud application and platform develop-ment, leveraging customized IP blocks of the Altran VueForge® offer. The result is a fully responsive web applica-tion for Shop Owners, Installation & Service partners and the Daikin staff, to effectively manage their shop HVAC installations. Patrick Warnez, Daikin Electric & Control Department, Manager Innovation: “Altran successfully designed and delivered a modern, high quality and extremely usable cloud solution. It went live in September 2016 and is servicing a rapidly increasing amount of subscribed users, demonstrating steady performance and stability”.

➔ Biovotion combines a medical-grade sensing technology with consumer-centric design, convenience and usa-

Altran, global leader in Engineering and R&D services (ER&D), launched a World Class Center (WCC) for Advanced Networks to enable Telecom Operators and Vendors to design, integrate and successfully manage the introduction of new networking technologies.

industrial market and providing increased value and services for our customers,” says Matthias Bopp, General Manager of TDK’s Magnetic Sensors Business Group and CEO of TDK-Micronas. ”Our existing strength in magnetic sensor technology, combined with the expertise gained with this acquisition, puts us in the excellent position to shape the era of all kind

of applications for the automotive and industrial industry.”

Non-TDK customers stay focusThis transaction is a unique opportunity for ICsense. The company can further boost its ASIC development and supply offering with a stable and strong partner in i.a. back-end and supply. Furthermore, ICsense will not exclusively work for TDK. The majority of the design resources will work on developing innovative ASICs and providing IC design services for new and existing customers outside the TDK

bility. They support users to optimize health, improve treatment outcomes and reduce the cost burden of health-care provisions. With its multi-domain experience and expertise, Altran is sup-porting this early stage company by complementing its innovation appetite and dynamism with structured teams right out of the box, while letting them focus on what they do best.

“Altran provides the right expertise across multiple domains at the right time and enables us to focus on what matters most”, declared Andreas Caduff, CEO, Biovotion.

Pascal Brier, Executive Vice-President Strategy, Innovation and Solutions, Altran: “In a context of a rapidly evolv-ing environment as well as the emer-gence of a new industrial model, our World Class Center strategy integrates the rare skills and solutions that help our most innovative customers in accelerat-ing the development of their core busi-ness and build a competitive advantage. It allows our telecom customers to get a distinctive advantage in a fiercely com-petitive and demanding market.” n

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Barco Silex extends security IP and attracts new prestigious customers

the SHA-3 algorithms as an IP core, we want to assure that our customers can build products with a security that extends far into the future.”

Future-proof securityWith the first new core, the security experts from Louvain-La-Neuve added a crypto engine to their offering that provides customers with future-proof encryption between networked appli-cations. Nicknamed BA417, this IP core uses the Chacha20 stream cipher combined with the Poly1305 message-authentication code. These new algo-rithms have already been adopted by major companies such as Google and Apple (in e.g. the Apple HomeKit for IoT devices). They will be part of the upcom-ing TLS 1.3 specification, a more secure and efficient alternative for TLS 1.2.

The second new IP block - BA418 - imple-ments the SHA-3 hashing functions. Hashing is used to check the integrity of messages, transactions and data in, e.g., e-commerce, financial applications or data archiving. According to Barco Silex’ security guru Sébastien Rabou “SHA-3 hashing is based on a very different design than SHA-2. That makes it an excellent backup for SHA-2 if it should ever get compromised. So by offering

Just as all the Barco Silex cores, these new cores are available for ASIC and FPGA devices and come with conveni-ent software drivers to simplify ASIC or FPGA integration.

Global customersThanks to their new IPs, Barco Silex recently gained a number of new cus-tomers. A first is D’Crypt, Singapore’s premier design house for hardware cryptography solutions. Barco Silex will provide D’Crypt with its IP core for public key cryptography for inclusion in

Barco Silex is a reference in the world of hardware security for ASICs and FPGAs. Last year, it consolidated its acclaimed IP blocks in an eSecure module to function as a root-of-trust for IoT applications. Recently, it has extended this offering, covering new, future-proof security algorithms. And it also closed collaborations with a number of prestigious customers, including UK-based Imagination Technologies.

group. The core expertise of ICsense will remain in sensor and MEMS interfac-ing, high-voltage, power and battery management for automotive, industrial, medical and consumer markets.

“I am proud to say that ICsense now becomes part of one of the largest elec-tronic component providers in the world. This partnership will give us the unique opportunity to further expand our ASIC

supply business,” says Bram de Muer, CEO of ICsense, “The management, the organization and the legal form of ICsense will remain unchanged. Our cus-tomers will benefit from the strong back-end flow and worldwide presence. Being part of the TDK group will strengthen the reputation, stability and longevity of ICsense and it ensures our position as long-term ASIC supplier.” n

More information: http://www.icsense.com/icsense-becomes-part-of-tdk-group/

FPGA solutions that will enable, amongst others, automotive car-to-infrastructure communication. D’Crypt selected the IP because of its unrivaled size/performance ratio and ease of integration. A second recent customer for the public key solu-tion is Neowine. The Korean company will add asymmetric encryption to its DORCA product line of ASICs, which are designed to secure e.g. mobile com-munication and data exchanges in e.g. smartphones and IOT devices.

And finally, Barco Silex entered into collaboration with Imagination Technologies to develop IP for secure system-on-chip platforms based on Imagination’s MIPS family of proces-sors. Under the agreement, Imagination will integrate Barco Silex’ eSecure solu-tion for embedded security into a new Trusted Element (TE) IP product. Jim Nicholas, EVP of the MIPS business unit at Imagination, commented that his company “has selected a state-of-the-art solution to add a new level of hardware security to our 32/64-bit MIPS processor based subsystems. Today, our MIPS CPUs already power billions of products. By integrating this excep-tional security platform, we are further strengthening that position.” n

Matthias Bopp and Bram De Muer shake hands on the transaction

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This publication has been realized with the support of these organizations.

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720° perception for safe and autonomous systemsUnmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are about to be part of our everyday lives and civil use. These drones enable a manifold of exciting new services, with applications ranging all the way from 3D modeling and surveillance of large areas, aerial video recording, to search and rescue and fire fighter missions. On December 21, 2016, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) decided to support the Strategic Basic Research project “Omnidrone: 720° perception for safe and autonomous systems”. The Omnidrone project aims at boosting ease-of-use, safety and reliability of UAVs.

autonomously assist on mission and safety constraints.

OmniDrone FocusIn the past years, large progress has also been made regarding the mechanical hardware challenges of flying, as evi-dent from the wide availability of com-mercial systems. However, regarding

To enable ultra-reliable and easy-to-use UAVs, the OmniDrone project will spe-cifically invest in the innovative concept of enabling and exploiting on-board 3D omnidirectional camera systems (denoted as 720-degree vision). Such cameras offer the drone omnidirectional and depth vision context information about the environment, enabling it to

their practical deployment in large-scale commercial scenarios, there are impor-tant electronic challenges to overcome regarding the drone’s reliability and its ease-of-use. Current state-of-the-art UAVs for professional applications require a highly skilled operator per drone to operate safely, and are not reliable enough to be allowed to fly close to a crowd. This significantly lim-its application scenarios and leads to a high operational cost. To overcome this, innovation is needed on the drone’s payload to increase its intelligence and its awareness of its environment, such that it can assist the operator with vari-ous safety and reliability features similar to driver assistance in modern cars. This is exactly the OmniDrone focus. n

OmniDrone valorisation in 4 use cases with good market potential

01 Surveillance of large areas, such as e.g. industrial sites and railroad tracks, where a drone patrols autonomously over the designated area looking out for intruders. On-board algorithms detect persons in the omnidirectional video in real-time and localize them in 3D.

02 Seamless Virtual Reality Experiences: Automatic generation of individualized video streams for direct streaming or as a support for the production director, when making real-life and off-line productions for reporting and/or entertain-ment. Streams from multiple OmniDrone UAV’s can be merged into a single production, offered by a content provider to the public, or by means of personal-ized video sharing over 4G.

03 Inspection of mostly hard to reach or dangerous locations and constructs like chimneys or (off-shore) wind turbines, where the drone autonomously performs an inspection mission.

04 Complete Traffic Monitoring: Real-time extraction of omnidirectional depth maps in a traffic monitoring context. Both road monitoring as well as harbour & airport monitoring will be considered.

Interested to know more about the Omnidrone endeavor or you know addi-tional use cases for 720 degree UAV technology? Please contact the project coordinator Sofie Pollin ([email protected])

OmniDrone will enable real-time 720 degree camera technology for UAVs, which will be exploited towards reliable and auton-omous operation through 720 degree scene analysis, robust wireless communication and cognitive vision.

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