Eutecus proposes to design and develop the next generation of advanced sensor electronics to improve existing UAV based persistent surveillance and sense-and-avoid capabilities. The new device will consist of the following main components: (i) a specific sensor-processor front-end sensitive in VIS/NIR wavelength with minimum array size of 1024x1024 and frame rates above 1kHz; and (ii) a generic, scalable multi-core processor back-end with embedded algorithms supporting real-time image stabilization and multi-fovea feature/signature analysis for improved terrain/object recognition and sense-and-avoid type processing. The ROIC carrier of the advanced sensor component will be implemented in ASIC, while the multi-core processor solution in high-end FPGA. The integrated product will meet defense-grade requirements. Proof-of-concept hardware development is planned in Phase I combined with field tests in order to validate the technology and provide input for refining Phase II goals. Eutecus is working with multiple Prime contractors (including NGC, LMCO and BAE all provided support letters) to ensure that design objectives of this program will be optimized for relevant defense applications.
Benefit: The steadily growing market of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in the military domain calls for new ways and methods to improve future generation of sensors. A growing trend is that the improvement of sensing/acquisition methods is conducted in parallel with embedding more intelligence near or close to the sensor. The anticipated results of the current work will enable creating a product (an advanced ultra-high-speed analytics sensor) usable on UAV/UGV platforms. The benefits for the military customer will be reduced SWaP and improved on-board video analytics capability which is minimal today. On the other hand, the ultra-high-speed imaging capability combined with stabilization, and on-board recognition capabilities are expected to be broadly exploitable in automotive applications and commercial UGVs. The real-time feature/signature analysis, event recognition and sense-and-avoid functions are also key to the broader emergence of intelligent commercial UAV platforms for flood and fire defense, vegetation classification, large area security surveillance and traffic monitoring.
Keywords: Terrain recognition, Terrain recognition, Massively parallel algorithms. ,, Image Stabilization, Near/close sensor feature extraction, Sense and Avoid, Automatic Target Recognition, Multi-fovea processing, , Multi-core sensor-processor architecture
