Imaging

Voyant Photonics launches affordable CARBON LiDAR

Voyant Photonics has announced availability of “CARBON” FMCW LiDAR sensor, featuring the world’s first truly effective and affordable LiDAR on a chip with solid state beam steering. The silicon photonic chip is fingernailsized and provides high-resolution, millimetre precision, object detection and static/dynamic segmentation up to. www.voyantphotonics.com

Funding from UK Space Agency to EnSilica

EnSilica, a chip maker of mixed-signal application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), has been awarded funding from the UK Space Agency under its Connectivity in Low-Earth Orbit (C-LEO) program. It has been awarded £10.38 million ($12.8 million) throughout the next three years for a development project pioneered by EnSilica.

EnSilica will develop a family of semiconductor chips to support future generations of mass market satellite broadband user terminals. The terminals will be capable of connecting with various satellite constellations and will leverage advanced semiconductor technology. In addition, the project will provide a resilient source of chips, which will be independent and not tied to specific satellite service operators. www.ensilica.com

LiDAR survey for ‘One Map Hyd’ project

The Telangana government is set to consolidate all key information about Hyderabad into a single platform. The ambitious light detection and ranging (LiDAR) survey will cover a range of crucial infrastructure details, including road network, water supply, electricity, sewage, and even fire and traffic police networks. The aim is to improve urban planning, enhance infrastructure, and manage disasters.

LiDAR survey of the entire GHMC area and regions up to the outer ring road, covering approximately 2,050 square kilometres will be carried out. LiDAR is a remote sensing technology that uses light pulses to measure distances and generate precise, three-dimensional data about the earth’s surface and objects. By capturing detailed topographical information, the technology provides accurate insights that can be used for infrastructure planning, disaster management, and urban development.

In the future, the govt plans to launch a mobile app that integrates all data from the ‘One Map Hyderabad’ project, making it accessible to citizens and agencies alike. This digital platform will be crucial for improving services, such as doorto-door garbage collection, emergency response, and disaster management.

Last year, the GHMC initiated a comprehensive drone-based aerial GIS survey and door-to-door mapping of all properties within its jurisdiction. This effort aims to streamline property assessments and create a unique identification system for each property, improving service delivery and urban planning.

UAE signs agreement to develop EMA Lander

The UAE Space Agency and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has signed an agreement to design and develop the EMA Lander which will be aboard the MBR Explorer, and will be deployed to study the seventh asteroid Justitia, as part of the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA).

Under this agreement, TII will lead the design, development and testing phases of the lander, as well as providing opportunities for startups’ participation in the development of the project, in line with the mission’s commitment of allocating 50% of the project to UAE based companies. satelliteprome.com

IIT Madras & ISRO develop semiconductor chip

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and ISRO have led the way in developing and successfully booting an Atmanirbhar aerospace quality SHAKTI-based Semiconductor Chip. The project is led by Prof. V. Kamakoti at Prathap Subrahmanyam Centre for Digital Intelligence and Secure Hardware Architecture (PSCDISHA) in Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras.

The SHAKTI class of systems are based on RISC-V, an open-source Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), for designing custom processors. It is backed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, under its ‘Digital India RISC-V’ initiative (DIRV).

The ‘IRIS’ (Indigenous RISCV Controller for Space Applications) Chip was developed from ‘SHAKTI’ processor baseline. This development was part of the effort to indigenize semiconductors used by ISRO for its applications, Command and Control Systems and other critical functions. The ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) in Thiruvananthapuram proposed the idea of a 64bit RISC-V-based Controller and collaborated with IIT Madras in defining the specifications and designing of the semiconductor chip. www.iitm.ac.in