EETimes publishes an article on its visit of Chronocam. Few quotes:
"Chronocam’s sensor technology is designed to acquire data that’s simplified and tailored for machines to use. This dramatically reduced data load should allow cars to make almost real-time decisions.
Even the slightest hint of a market revolution is exciting to any inventor of a new technology. This isn’t a thrill, however, that stirs the incumbents who supply conventional image sensors.
With that resistance in place, it it’s tough to convincing others to consider a path they’ve never taken before. Talking them into embracing it, joining the revolution and building “an eco-system” is not a job for the fainthearted. Chronocam’s CEO Verre, however, is undeterred.
He cited three key advantages Chronocam’s event-driven sensor can provide. “We generate much less data, we enable faster reaction time, and we operate at a much wider dynamic range,” he explained.
Chronocam’s market positioning, however, has shifted significantly in one respect. Chronocam now believes, in entering the ADAS/autonomous car market, it doesn’t need to chart a collision course with an entire community of incumbent CMOS image sensor suppliers. Different from what we heard from the startup a year ago, Chronocam today is pitching its technology as one of the several different sensors to be added to ADAS/autonomous cars for safety."
Goodluck and all the best. I believe your technology has a lot of potential. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI think the Chronocams of this world have one problem : finding the right application. The solution is there, still to find the problem ...
ReplyDeletethis buzz with Chronocam, here again, is clearly overated: from reading with great attention this article on their updated market strategy, it is clear that they are still dying to find a potential application to drive real market adoption: Robotic guidance and AR/VR are certainly not going to materialize anytime soon for them into $$$. Automotive is interesting, but let's be realistic: it is really challenging, nearly impossible to bring a breakthrough vision technology into automotive and actually make real revenues from it in at least 5-10 years time frame. The part talking about their pixel technology and 3D staking efforts is frightening to me: I cannot imagine how many challenges this team will face to any good quality qualified image sensor technology into the hands of the big guys like Bosch, Valeo, Oculus, Microsoft, DJI and so on... Honestly: Chronocam should have followed a less agressive / more realistic path to make sure this technology is really adopted in rather more scientific, even defense security "high-end" system and applications which are more open and more forgiving in terms of product maturity level readiness. Time will tell (and we will know before next 3 years) if this unfocused market strategy will succeed... my personal opinion is not.
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental problem is that such simple and brutal data reduction in Chronocam architecture eliminates the further processing possibilities in vision chain. For example, if you place this sensor for smart surveillance and if the camera is shaked by wind, then you have no possibility to detect any intruders, you face intruders everywhere. But with a normal camera, you can compensate the ego-motion and extract the moving objects. In a car vision situation, it's not a wind but hurrican :)-
DeleteThe Application awaiting this Technology is Drone Collision Avoidance, at high speed. No worries about regulation or acceptance, people are already sold on the idea.
ReplyDeleteIntel's acquisitions have lead to slow collision avoidance, while useful it doesn't target those who want it most: FPV Racers, and park / backyard flyers.
MIT's CSAIL has a great Demo of fairly high speed collision avoidance: https://youtu.be/_qah8oIzCwk . It plots a safe course through tree branches, a Drone's worst nightmare.
Remember how important it is to fly through the forest at high speed without hitting anything, yes there's a Video for that: https://youtu.be/4wSG3m4VNlo .