Teledyne FLIR Wins $14M Defense Contract: Week in Brief: 05/27/22

Teledyne FLIR Defense, part of Teledyne Technologies Inc., secured a $14 million contract to deliver its Black Hornet 3 Personal Reconnaissance Systems to the U.S. Army. The advanced nano-UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are being used to augment squad and small unit-level surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities as part of the Army’s Soldier Borne Sensor (SBS) program. The Army began acquiring Black Hornet 3s to support the SBS effort in 2018. Since then, it has placed orders totaling nearly $115 million for the multifaceted nano-drone. Teledyne FLIR Defense has delivered more than 20,000 Black Hornet nano-UAVs to defense and security forces worldwide.

ESSLINGEN, Germany — Festo and Q.ANT, a wholly owned subsidiary of TRUMPF, entered a partnership to cultivate biomass on an industrial scale. The companies will use automation tech from Festo and sensors from Q.ANT to grow algae in bioreactors to create raw materials for pharmaceuticals, packaging, and cosmetics, with the materials being recyclable in ways that create a climate-neutral system.

A Festo engineer connects the microfluidic pumps that deliver the algae fluid to the Q.ANT sensor. Courtesy of TRUMPF.

SAN DIEGO — Qualcomm Technologies released its Wireless AR Smart Viewer Reference Design, which helps OEMs and ODMs more seamlessly and cost-efficiently prototype and bring to market lightweight AR glasses. The system is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Platform with the AR reference design hardware developed by Goertek. The dual micro-OLED binocular display enabling 1920 × 1080 per eye and frame rates up to 90 Hz and a no-motion blur feature.

VELDHOVEN, Netherlands — ASML, Philips, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), and research institute TNO comprise strategic investors and co-initiators of the DeepTechXL Fund I. The fund received a €9 million ($9.6 million) loan from the Dutch government institute RVO (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland), specifically allocated for early-stage seed investments. The fund has a minimum target of €100 million (~$107 million) and will provide seed funding for deep-tech startups in the Dutch province of Brabant. DeepTechXL Fund I expects to make approximately 20 early-stage seed investments and 15 follow-on investments to finance growth.

PARIS — Medical technology company Ikonisys SA and the Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering (DEIB) of Politecnico di Milano signed a research contract and initiated a project to identify specific cells in complex tissues. They will design, train, and deploy a deep learning model to complete this task. The approach will aim to recognize clinically relevant cells of specific types in darkfield images of lung tissue acquired from the Ikoniscope20, a fully automated microscope from Ikonisys that acquires fluorescence images of desired cells or tissue present on a slide and the diagnostic signals they contain.

BOSTON — ELIOS Vision completed a growth financing round to support its European commercialization. Outcome Capital served as the exclusive strategic and financial adviser to the company. ELIOS has developed an implant-free, minimally invasive excimer laser trabeculostomy glaucoma procedure.

YOKOHAMA, Japan — ams OSRAM introduced its ICARUS proof-of-concept, which provides a working demonstration of a 3D sensing system for driver monitoring. The system provides high-resolution depth maps using a structured light method and uses an ams OSRAM depth-extraction algorithm. The system is implemented with automotive VCSEL NIR flood and dot pattern projectors. Customers can deploy driver-monitoring software with the accurate depth map of the driver’s face to determine the 3D position of the driver’s eyes and head pose. The ICARUS system’s measurement of the position of the driver’s head in 3D also supports the implementation of software to detect micro-sleeps and other advanced signs of drowsiness that pose a risk to road safety. The system will support emerging features such as augmented reality head-up display, face authentication, and driver drowsiness detection.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Quantum computing company PsiQuantum established a subsidiary called Qlimate. The subsidiary is a quantum computing net zero initiative that builds partnerships to develop and scale decarbonization technology breakthroughs. Drawing on McKinsey & Co.’s latest research, Qlimate has short-listed the most promising and highest-impact decarbonization use cases that can run on first-generation utility-scale quantum computers. These use cases aim to enable solutions for agriculture, solar, electric batteries, and more.