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Ultrasound is perhaps best known as the technology that enables noninvasive torso scan and underwater communicating and can facilitate us park our cars . A young startup calledSonairout of Norway require to engage it for something else : 3D reckoner visual modality used in self-reliant hardware applications .
Sonair ’s beginner and CEO Knut Sandven believe the caller ’s app of ultrasound engineering — a groundbreaking ceremony approach that reads sound waves to detect people and objects in 3D , with minimal Department of Energy and computational requirements — can be the fundament of more useful and considerably less expensive solutions than today ’s more stock approach using lidar .
Now , in news shared exclusively with TechCrunch , Sonair has now upgrade $ 6.8 million in financial backing from early - degree specialists Skyfall and RunwayFBU , along with early investors , and is rolling out former access to its technical school . Initially , it will be aimed at self-reliant mobile robot developers , but its visual sensation ( heh ) is to see it being used in other app .
“ Our go - to - marketplace plan is to start with robots , specifically autonomous mobile robots [ AMRs ] — act stuff and nonsense from A to B , ” Sandven said . “ We are starting indoors — a limit to give us focus , [ but ] we will , of row , dilate into the other robotic class and into automotive in the longsighted term . ”
The name Sonair is a child’s play on the 3D capabilities of urine - move echo sounder , but applied to sensors that read signals in the line — effectively what the startup has produced .
Sandven is an technologist and entrepreneur whose premature inauguration , GasSecure , build gas pedal detector based on MEMS engineering science — microelectromechanical systems combining mechanically skillful and electronic components to create miniature devices with impress parts . ( The petrochemical industry is a major part of Norway ’s national economy . )
After GasSecure was larn by a German industrial safe specialist , Sandven started thinking about other the States of MEMS technology , and looked into research fromSINTEF , a radical that works with Norway ’s primary scientific discipline and technical university to commercialize enquiry . wads of companies have spun out of the group ’s work over the years .
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SINTEF had create a new kind of MEMS - related ultrasonic sensor , he said , “ which was ready for commercialization . ” Sandven acquire the IP for the engineering ( specifically for acoustic ranging and detection ) , recruit the researchers who create it , and Sonair was born .
Although lidar has been a standard part of autonomous system development in late days , there is still infinite for completing or alternative approaches . Lidar is still considered expensive , it has issues with kitchen range , and still faces interference from clear sources , sure surfaces , and materials .
While companies like Mobileye are look more seriously at other alternative like radar , Sandven believes Sonair has a viable probability , since its technology will deoxidise the overall cost of sensor software package by between 50 % and 80 % .
“ Our mission is to replace lidar , ” he said .
The ultrasound detector and related software that Sonair has ramp up to “ read ” the data point from the sensors does not work in a vacuum . Like lidar , it works in concert with cameras to triangulate and provide more accurate pictures to the independent organization in question .
Sonair ’s echography tech is base on a “ beamforming ” method , which is also what is used in microwave radar . The company says the information it picks up is then processed and combined using AI — specifically object acknowledgment algorithms — to create spatial data from sound Wave . The hardware using the engineering ( in initial cases , mobile robots ) gets a 180 - degree theatre of operations of purview with a chain of mountains of 5 meters and can practice few sensors while address some of the defect of lidar .
There are some interesting ideas still to be explored here . The company ’s focus right now is on new techniques to meliorate how well independent system can understand the objects in front of them . The tech , however , is little and also has the potential to be applied in other mannikin factors . Could it be , for exercise , used in French telephone or wearables as a full complement or transposition for pressure - based haptic feedback ?
“ What ’s being done today by other companies is [ focused on ] tactual sensation sensors , ” Sandven enounce . “ After you touch something , the equipment will quantify the pressure or how difficult or subdued you ’re touching . Where we get in is the moment before you touch . So if you have a bridge player approaching something , you may reply already with our technology . you may move very tight towards the objects . But then you get preciseness aloofness mensuration , so you could be very lenient in the tactual sensation . It ’s not what we ’re doing flop now , but it ’s something we could do . ”
Sagar Chandna from RunwayFBU projects that 2024 will see 200,000 sovereign mobile robots produced , working out to a market of $ 1.4 billion . That pay Sonair an contiguous market opportunity as a less - expensive alternative for data processor visual sense components .
“ With slenderize costs in sensor engineering science and AI promotion in perception and decision - devising , industries from manufacturing to healthcare are poised to benefit , ” said Skyfall partner Preben Songe - Møller .
