The Technology Collaborative
Round 13 Awards
1. "Hybrid Wireless Link for Operator/Robot Communications"
Accipiter Systems, Inc.
The Hybrid Wireless Link for Operator/Robot Communications project develops
an innovative wireless communications link product that appears as a single link to
the robot operator but offers seamless switchover between two technologies with
complementary capabilities. The hybrid link enhances the strengths of the two
technologies while minimizing the effects of their weaknesses. The hybrid link
product achieves performance and reliability not possible with a conventional single
link technology approach. Other applications for the product include Medical
Emergency Services, Public Safety Services, military communications and Homeland
Security.
2. "Program to Develop and Test Quality of Life Technologies, Products,
and Protocols"
BlueRoof Technologies
The main goal of this project is to further develop the infrastructure by working
with a number of TTC member companies to develop and/or incorporate other
advanced systems and products into the Smart Cottage. The proposed systems
to be integrated into the Blueroof Smart Cottage for this project include: Memory
reminder (AT-Sciences), Medical monitoring (Phillips), Quality of Life Sensors
(CMU, Pitt, Bodymedia and Bosch) and Advanced Technology System. With the
integration of these systems, the Blueroof Smart Cottage will become a premier
research lab and demonstration facility for a variety of technologies that will foster
the quality of life for seniors and individuals with physical and mental challenges.
The second goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive program that will
establish the Blueroof Smart Cottage as a world class test facility where TTC
member companies and partners can test their products and ideas in a “real-life”
environment with, when appropriate, real life “residents.”
3. "Optimizing Performance of PZT Thin Films"
Bridge Semiconductor
Bridge has designed a new pyroelectric sensor-based thermal imager from the
ground up for low manufacturing costs. Bridge’s approach utilizes mature high-
volume semiconductor manufacturing technologies for producing and integrating
a low cost lead zirconium titanate (PZT) sensing layer to very sensitive, DC-
coupled signal conditioning electronics through a combined thermal insulating/
electrical conduction layer. With this platform, Bridge will radically disrupt the
market and unlock latent high volume demand in emerging, price elastic thermal
imaging markets, making thermal imaging cameras widely available to a much
broader set of users and applications. The purpose of this project is to improve
the pyroelectric response and reduce the noise of the PZT sensor material. This
project will allow Bridge accelerate it’s product introduction for its second gene-
ration IR imager by leveraging the world leading materials expertise at Penn State
University’s Materials Research Laboratory to develop new pyroelectric sensing
materials.
4. "Rapid System-Level Analysis and Design of Digital System-on-a-Chip Devices
Using Only C Software"
Concurrent Design Automation
This grant will fund the development of design automation software tools that will
provide quantitative answers for the following questions: “What are the ’key tasks’
of my application? How much faster would these tasks be if they were accelerated
using an FPGA? Using an ASIC? What would be the resulting application
performance?”
We propose to create a set of three tools that will provide quantitative analysis and
rapid design of FPGAs and ASICs using only C software tasks. Specifically, the
System Profiler will quantify the performance of an entire software system and each
of its tasks. The SOC Designer is a graphical design environment for interconnecting
multiple C software tasks though pre-built hardware data structures, facilitating hard-
ware acceleration of software. The SOC Analyzer and Accelerator will enable
quantitative analysis of the tasks within the SOC Designer tool to accurate estimate
their performance in hardware and will automatically convert the tasks into synthe-
sizable hardware.
5. "Commercialization of ATRS Lite"
Freedom Sciences
The Automated Transport and Retrieval System (ATRS) is a revolutionary new
concept being introduced to the mobility market. ATRS is designed to provide
those with limited abilities an independent means of transportation without signifi-
cantly modifying a motor vehicle.
ATRS integrates machine vision and robotics technology with existing mobility
products into a cost-effective solution for true independent transportation mobility.
The system includes a platform lift and dock, an articulating automotive seat, and a
set of hardware and software for remote manual and computer assisted control of
a power wheelchair. ATRS makes it possible for a limited mobility individual to
safely transport their mobility aid into and out of a motor vehicle of their choice
without the assistance of a caregiver.
6. "ROBORETINA: Illumination-adaptive Camera for Security, Biometrics, and
Robotics Applications"
Intrigue Technologies, Inc.
Under this program we propose to implement the RoboRetina™ technology as a
processing system-on-a-chip – the RoboRetina™ processing module. We will
develop a visible color camera for surveillance and biometric applications, and
work with our partners (DRS and L3) to integrate our RoboRetina™ processing
module into their infrared (IR) cameras for military and government markets.
The image sensor chip market remains very attractive – $2.6B in 2004 to grow
to $4.1B by 2008. Eight million CCTV cameras were sold in 2004 and CCTV
systems are projected to grow at 12.9% to $2.9B by 2008. The global infrared
camera market was $1.3B in 2005, out of which the security and surveillance
segment alone is projected to grow at 20% annually to 1.1B by 2008.
These growth opportunities attract many competitors. However the vast majority
of players are competing in a commodity, technologically-undifferentiated and price-
sensitive arena. Our acute understanding of multidisciplinary issues in robotics and
computer vision enabled us to “think outside of the box” and create a series of
innovations that are necessary to make visual perception work for future machine
vision applications.
7. "Spectrum Sensor, A Chip Scale Optical Spectrometer"
NanoLambda
NanoLambda is developing Spectrum SensorTM chip, an ultra compact
Spectrometer-on-a-Chip. Each pixel of the Spectrum SensorTM chip
detects a pre-defined wavelength of light. In contrast to the conventional
bulky and expensive solutions, NanoLambda’s Spectrum SensorTM chip
can be as small as a few mm x mm, and the cost is also lower than one tenth
of conventional solutions cost. This not only enables non-invasive “mobile/
wearable” health monitoring devices, but also enables miniaturized optical
sensor devices for on-site, real time detection of multiple toxic gases and
hazardous materials.
8. "Compact Pipe Inspection Robot"
RedZone Robotics
RedZone Robotics, Inc. has a storied history of innovation in the industrial,
nuclear, and defense markets. RedZone is currently developing and employing
a suite of robotic inspection, cleaning, and rehabilitation systems within the water
and wastewater market segments. RedZone's flagship product line, Responder,
offers inspection and cleaning services in large diameter pipes.
With this award, RedZone will develop a new product line focused on supporting
the needs of small mobile robots. RedZone will feature this technology in its small
pipe inspection robots. The technology provides compact data acquisition,
archiving, and analysis capabilities at low cost for robotic inspection systems.
9. "Low Cost and Precise Localization for Turf Management"
Sensible Machines
Sensible Machines’ project is entitled "Low-Cost and Precise Localization
for Autonomous Outdoor Mobile Robots." A key deliverable of the project
is an inexpensive navigation system that operates robustly in large, outdoor
areas with centimeter level precision. This capability is fundamental in achieving
economically viable autonomous operation for many outdoor tasks that require
precise positioning, such as specialty farming and mowing. The project builds
on over 5 years of basic research performed by Dr. Sanjiv Singh and Stephan
Roth of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.
10. "GenChip - Embedded Hardware Customer Demographic Segmentation"
VideoMining Corporation
Multiple pilot and demo installations of our VideoMining product have established
the value of audience measurement and segmentation. We have identified initial
system cost and deployment difficulties due to form factor to be major barriers for
widespread acceptance. We propose a low-cost, small form factor hardware that
integrates an image sensor and an FPGA module as a solution to this critical
barrier. The benefits of the proposed implementation include, small form factor
deployment of the solution, significant reduction in cost, from $800 to
approximately $250, and significant reduction in power - making battery operation
feasible. Key technical issues in porting our software to the proposed hardware
include determining optimal number representation and format, data flow and
storage requirements, parallelization strategy, kernel function implementation,
and balancing tradeoff between system complexity and application accuracy.
11. "Characterization and Optimization Software Tool for Memory Circuits
and Technologies"
Xigmix, Inc.
Xigmix has developed a computer-aided design tool to speed-up and improve the
performance and manufacturability of critical analog, mixed-signal and radio-
frequency (RF) integrated circuit designs. Xigmix's proprietary technology allows a
customer to improve the performance of analog-based integrated circuits while
simultaneously ensuring a manufacturable design. This capability has been
achieved through the use of advanced, application-specific numerical modeling and
optimization methods.
Xigmix, Inc. was recently awarded this research contract from TTC for their project
“IC Memory, Characterization, Optimization and Compilation for SoC Design,” to
investigate extending its current circuit optimization capability to semiconductor
memories.
12. "Mobile Sensor Systems"
3eti/Pennsylvania State University
3eti and Pennsylvania State University’s project is called “Mobile Sensor Systems.”
The deployment of sensor networks with mobile nodes is becoming more practical
and desirable. Applications range from taking factory inventory to monitoring a
hazardous location. For example, a robot with an RFID reader may travel through
a warehouse taking inventory as it moves. A challenge with this type of application
is to decrease the time taken to complete inventory or to locate a specific item. In
previous research we have developed algorithms for both gathering data and re-
locating sensors to maximize coverage and minimize energy consumption. In this
project we propose to implement data gathering and sensor relocation algorithms
on a real mobile sensor platform. This work will have direct applicability to ongoing
work with DoD and the Navy as currently supported by 3eti.
