Commercialising cameras that only see what’s useful

In the first profile as part of our Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers campaign, we look at a business that is borrowing from nature to build event-based vision sensors. Brent Balinski speaks to Optera Solutions founder/CEO Jonathon Wolfe. 

As anybody who has tried to do it will tell you, taking research breakthroughs and turning them into businesses is much harder than it sounds. Among other things, it takes patience, an understanding of which is the most meaningful problem to solve out of a seemingly-infinite set of possibilities, and the ability to distill and articulate a vision clear enough to win investors and customers.

This is before we even consider that the special something that all the above relies on mightn’t be anywhere near the top few Technology Readiness Levels. 

It’s not for the faint-hearted, but Jonathon Wolfe (pictured on right) seems to enjoy it. He has been through six different university spinout adventures. His seventh involves biologically-inspired sensors developed by Western Sydney University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS), and which have been used for research purposes such as tracking atmospheric events, for earth observation, and for space situational awareness.

Optera Solutions is a fabless semiconductor company hoping to exploit discoveries in “event-based vision sensors”. They make use of pixel arrays where – like the photoreceptors in a human eye – each pixel is activated by changes in light, only capturing information when something happens rather than capturing vast streams of nothing.

“Develop the system and the sensor and an algorithm that only delivers the relevant information that allows you to make the fast decision, [don’t] give me a whole range of information where I have to do a hell of a lot of post-processing on to extract information from,” is how Wolfe explains the principle of neuromorphic engineering.

Do you think you belong on @AuManufacturing’s list of Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers? Apply to be recognised in this exclusive group here. It’s completely free to enter, and we’ll be celebrating the announcement of the 50 Most Innovative list and the award winners at a special breakfast event on May 7 at Crown Melbourne, during Australian Manufacturing Week.

The smaller output of data from neuromorphic cameras and their speed benefits mean there is interest from the military for tracking very fast objects such as hypersonic missiles.

Other potential applications include regular, earth-bound traffic monitoring and tracking jobs in a workshop. The initial commercial focus is in space.  

“In this example you can have a system looking at a drill or a CNC laser machine or tracking a satellite [in] orbit and it’s only capturing the data that’s changing,” he adds. 

“So if you imagine in traditional satellite tracking a frame-based camera will be looking at stars and there’s a hell of a lot of black space up there that’s also generating a hell of a lot of data, because you’re taking photos of that at ten frames or 30 frames per second. Whereas a neuromorphic silicon retina is just looking at the stars and it’s only activating those pixels. So you’re orders of magnitude less data.”

The ICNS team has applied its sensors and algorithms to cameras on the International Space Station in a collaboration with the United States Air Force Academy. Among other things, they have been used to record elusive sprites, or space lightning.

Asked about what makes a company innovative, Wolfe refers to his work at Launch Pad, WSU’s tech business incubator, where he is Entrepreneur in Residence.

The companies it looks for are “solving real-world problems that have been validated by customer interaction” rather than ones that are in service of a hypothesis and/or a founder’s ego.

The founders and by extension their teams will be resilient and flexible. 

“They recognise the problem and  they will solve it in [whatever] way is the most efficient and effective way to drive a solution. So if the problem exists, innovation is getting to the core of that problem and solving that need in a demonstrable, effective, and efficient and repeatable and scalable way,” Wolfe tells us. 

“That’s what drives innovation for me and what gives the behaviours we look for in our startups and the behaviours we look for in innovative companies are ones that are absolutely driven to solve the problem. Through technology, through people, through relationships, through stakeholders, the ecosystem they accrete around them will solve the problem. If they do it well, they will be successful, they will derive a good margin, and they will deliver a growth in jobs and opportunity for the region.”  

This episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations is part of our annual Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers campaign. In it, we are joined by Wolfe and by Don Wright, Executive Director, Enterprise at Western Sydney University. Wolfe tells us about the benefits of neuromorphic engineering and where they might be commercially useful, why the way dragonflies catch mosquitoes is so impressive, and why it’s his duty to wash bottles as a founder/CEO.

Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers is an annual campaign by @AuManufacturing. The current version has been made possible through the generous support of Australia Wide Engineering Recruitment, TXM Lean Solutions, the Industry Capability Network, Bonfiglioli Australia, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre and the SmartCrete CRC. You can nominate here (there is no administration fee) until March 15. 

Episode guide
1:12 – An introduction to Wolfe and his company, Optera, which was spun out of Western Sydney University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems.
3:25 – introduction to Wright and his work as WSU’s Executive Director, Enterprise.
5:48 – A career migrating technology from university to the commercial world. “I’m on my seventh spinout from five different universities.”
6:48 – Spatial hearing for hearing aids, Wolfe’s first spinout. Then efforts including cow pregnancy detection and fault-finding in solar panel production.
10:20 – What Optera does and the issues it is addressing: increasingly congested and contested environments in space, a growing and high-value market.
12:02 – The upcoming Factory of the Future at WSU’s Bankstown campus – opening in February – and its focus.
15:22 – Manufacturing businesses in Bankstown. “It’s a really broad range.”
16:42 – Neuromorphic sensors operate much more like an eye than a camera. Here’s how, and how they could be applied in a showcase at the FotF.
19:43 – Further explanation on how a neuromorphic retina works.
24:00 – The “scary amount” of power being consumed by data centres for processing and storage and why this is relevant for neuromorphic-style computing.
24:50 – At SMEs, historically in a lot of companies innovation is driven by one leader. This needs to change, and it is beginning to.
27:30 – Founders should display both resilience and curiosity.
28:47 – “Don’t tell me why it’s so good. Tell me five reasons why it won’t work.”
30:00 – Flexibility also needs to come with tenacity for startup founders and their teams.
31:30 – Why a startup founder also needs to be a bottlewasher if it’s needed.
32:15 – Why it can get difficult for established SMEs in adapting with the times, for example to incorporate digital twinning and/or evolve their business model.
34:55 – The semiconductor value chain in Australia and the lack of understanding and linkages when it comes to this.
35:55 – The difficulties attached to relying on using overseas chip fabrication and packaging if you’re an Australian startup.
37:20 – The recent cancellation of the JP9102 contract and the sovereign risk implications.