The Technology Collaborative
Round 17 Awards
1. "High Throughput Test System for MEMS Inertial Sensors"
Acutronic / Virtus Advanced Sensors
Acutronic and Virtus submitted a joint proposal to develop the test equipment, test protocols, and ATE software and instrumentation required to test next generation single-chip 5- and 6-axis MEMS inertial sensors based on Virtus' proprietary technology. A successful project will lead to several new products and services for ACUTRONIC USA that will address a growing need in the MEMS inertial sensor industry for inertial testing capabilities, providing MEMS testing services and turnkey MEMS testing equipment to MEMS device manufacturers, second tier automotive suppliers, and aerospace companies. A successful project will also provide Virtus with the capability to test and acquire data for 5-and 6-axis MEMS devices and provide its customers with an immediate testing solution upon the launch of its 5, 6-axis sensor products in 2009/10.
ACUTRONIC USA is a recognized world leader in the design, manufacture, and service of inertial guidance test systems (IGTS) for the automotive, defense, space and aerospace markets. Virtus Advanced Sensors is a leading fabless sensor company commercializing next-generation inertial sensor technology developed using MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) and micro-machining methods.
2. "An Integrated System for Real Robot - Virtual World Interaction"
Bossa Nova Concepts
Bossa Nova is dedicated to the design, development and commercialization of robotic products for children ages 4 to 12. They research the behavior and product preferences among children in their target segment in order to design products consistent with their lifestyle. Virtual world use among children in their target segment is skyrocketing. To capitalize on this trend Bossa Nova is leveraging its core competencies to build robots that complement characters in a virtual world. The value proposition will introduce several novel and distinctive features. The robots will be designed in collaboration with boys and girls who are frequent users of virtual worlds.
The funding support from TTC will enable Bossa Nova to build the platforms, program movements, and build and test the prototypes to provide the user with a compelling play experience.
3. "Optimizing Server and Server Farm Performance in Power Constrained
Environments"
Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Department
Servers consume ten times more power than they did ten years ago. As a result, the EPA estimates that in 2006, the nation’s servers and data centers collectively consumed approximately 61 billion kilowatt-hours, or 1.5% of total US electricity consumption, at a total cost of approximately $4.5 billion. This level represents a doubling in the level of energy consumption by data centers in the five years since 2001; and the level is expected to double again by 2011 as more and more applications shift from the desktop to a server-based computing paradigm. There are large server farms comprising a million or more servers, and data centers are drawing enormous power from the grids and at times creating blackouts.
An even bigger problem is when the amount of available power in a facility is insufficient for companies to grow the number of servers required to meet demand. This server power management problem will increasingly impact companies’ ability to scale their business, satisfy their customers, and optimize their operational efficiencies. CMU’s initial development into this problem has focused on merging advanced queuing, control, and optimization theory to produce new, nonconventional solutions. This exercise has produced preliminary algorithms resulting in improved response times ranging from 2X to 5X over current methodsin early experiments run on IBM multi-core servers using the AME power-capping tool. Given these results there may be a significant opportunity to develop and commercialize a unique and compelling solution to this major (and growing) IT industry problem. The funding from TTC will be devoted to maximizing the performance of a server farm given a fixed power budget as measured by an improvement in mean response time.
4. "An Automated Wheelchair System for Assistive Mobility Applications"
Freedom Sciences|
Freedom Sciences is proposing a 12-month project to develop an automated wheelchair system (AWS) for assisted mobility applications. AWS will enable a new breed of rehabilitation and assistive-living applications. AWS transforms a standard powered wheelchair platform into a vehicle capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous operation. AWS is being positioned as an FDA-approved powered wheelchair accessory for which application developers will be able to interface to in order to rapidly build smart wheelchair systems for varying assistive technology problem domains. They will leverage the development of AWS to enhance the capabilities of our existing Automated Transport and Retrieval System (ATRS) application, to develop new applications for the home health care market, and to establish a new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) line-of-business where third parties will build their products on top of our technology. Freedom Sciences will be collaborating with Lehigh University’s Vision, Assistive Devices, and Experimental Robotics Laboratory on this project. Freedom Sciences designs, develops, and sells technologically advanced products intended to improve the quality of life for all persons with limited physical mobility.
5. "A Multimedia Timeline and High Resolution Image Viewer"
Gradient Labs
Gradient Labs is pioneering a new approach to interacting with information that they call Spatial Computing. In their innovative, high-performance tools information is organized in 2D and 3D spaces and given visual form driven by the principles of data visualization and information design. They are helping create the next generation of visual and multi-touch applications that are defining a new computing paradigm beyond windows and pages.
For their TTC project Gradient Labs is enhancing their core timeline and imaging software to support the creation of a suite of products. These products will be applied in a variety of industries, and are already garnering interest from healthcare, education, journalism, and digital collections. An early product offering from Gradient Labs, a Facebook application, will offer enhanced media management, viewing, and sharing capabilities to Facebook’s 200 million users.
6. "Distributed Testing of Highly Scalable Computer Vision Testing Systems"
HyperActive Technologies, Inc.
HyperActive provides restaurant automation solutions based on scalable computer vision technologies. Their solutions use 2D computer vision techniques to detect and track automobiles throughout the restaurant property as an input to automated decision-making systems that manage food production (i.e. determine how much food to cook and when to cook it) and drive-thru service (i.e. monitor drive-thru speed-of-service standards to alert managers of problems in real-time).
Building highly scalable computer vision systems for environments that vary significantly from one restaurant unit to another requires intense testing across many Terabytes of video data. While the initial testing of a product can be performed by capturing data from a few sites and bringing it to the lab, this becomes impractical when the number of sites climbs into the hundreds or thousands.
HyperActive is proposing to develop a Distributed Testing Platform that would allow computer vision systems to be tested on-site, in real-time. Only the video data corresponding to scenes that caused a potential failure need then be stored and shipped via network to the existing centralized testing platform. This method would substantially cut both the cost and the cycle time of testing computer vision software, making thousand-store installations feasible without upfront data collection. The grant from TTC will enable them to execute a development and testing project to create and validate the Distributed Testing Platform.
7. "Storybot: Content Creation and Sharing for Robotic Toys"
Interbots LLC
Interbots LLC is a three-year-old spin-off company out of Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center. They specialize in the design and construction of custom interactive characters (both physical and virtual), control software, and interactive multimedia content. Building upon their success in the high-end market, Interbots is expanding their customer base by adapting their proprietary technology to an exciting new line of inexpensive consumer products. By combining their proven character control technology with online connectivity, they envision a new way for children to interact and play with robotic toys. Their first product is an innovative, emotionally expressive robotic toy with an imagination-engaging play pattern completely unlike existing robotic toys on the market. The primary deliverable to TTC will be the software for the product.
8. "Autonomous Surveillance in Denied Areas"
MobileFusion Inc.
MobileFusion is applying robotics and machine learning to sift through the ever growing ocean of sensor data to find objects such as people, cars, chemical plumes, allowing users to focus on making real-time decisions. They have successfully demonstrated an early version of their patent-pending software platform called SmartFusion™ that detects humans from sets of different sensors and data sources. In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s Auton Lab, and Textron Systems, a defense contractor, MobileFusion will use TTC’s funding to 1) further develop the SmartFusion platform’s capabilities in detecting objects and events; 2) improve the user experience and interface to intuitively present actionable information to users along with the underlying sensor data; 3) improve the systems overall performance in terms of object identification speed, preventing false positives and overall platform robustness. This 6-month project will result in a beta-quality, commercial, standalone software product that will be licensable to TTC members for incorporation into their systems.
9. "High-Speed Speech Recognition in Silicon"
Silicon Vox Corporation
Silicon Vox Corporation is a startup based on technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University that is accelerating today’s best-quality speech recognition strategies by moving them directly into silicon. Speech recognitiontools translate human speech data into searchable text, and this is profoundly limiting for applications that require extreme recognition speed. Silicon Vox seeks to capitalize on the growing opportunity in the emerging area known as speech analytics, which mines audio content for business or government intelligence. A commercial solution requires a complete andintegrated solution, including: (1) a high-speed recognizer (from voice to text) with both acoustic frontend and Viterbi backend rendered in hardware; and (2) support for a standard software API. Silicon Vox will leverage the funding from TTC to develop an Alpha version of their hardware recognizer that can be used by commercial partners to generate the commercial references needed to complete an “A” funding round. The TTC funding will be used by Silicon Vox to complete the missing high-speed frontend and essential pieces of the software API in order to bring this promising technology to market.
10. "Single Phase AC Motor Control"
Sinewave Energy Technologies
SinewaveEnergy Technologies, an early-stage company located outside of Philadelphia, has developed and patented a novel AC to AC power conversion technology. With several key adaptations, this technology is capable of controlling single phase AC induction motors, a type of motor which is notoriously difficult to control. Sinewave-powered motor controls will reduce the energy consumption of these motors systems dramatically---by up to 50% in Sinewave's preliminary testing---and will enable a simple, cost effective solution for a previously unmet market need. The first application of the new technology will be in the agricultural irrigation pump segment. With the support of TTC, Sinewave will leverage its technology to create a "green" product with significant environmentally favorable implications that will revolutionize the motor control market.
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