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Impact

The expected socio-economic impact is defined in the following terms:

i) Industrial property protection. The members of the consortium are holders of various industrial property titles, including national and foreign patents. Some of these patents have been licensed, which demonstrates the team's willingness and capability to protect research results suitable for commercial exploitation.

ii) Market of artificial vision. It is expected that this market will multiply its volume by a factor 25 in the next 7 years. Giving these circumstances, the results achieved in this project will definitely attract interest not only from academia but also from industry. In particular, we will do our best to engage companies related to transportation as the Society Challenge primarily addressed by this project.

iii) Market of image sensors. Recent studies [A. Theuwissen, There’s More to the Picture Than Meets the Eye*, and in the future it will only become more so, ISSCC’2021] of the world-wide CMOS image sensor market show that over the course of 2020 6.3B image sensor units were fabricated with a market share of $18.2B. Roughly this means that globally 200 image sensors are being produced every second at an average price of $2.9. In 2024 the sector expects a record high of $26.1B and 11B units/year. Growth is fueled by the mobile phone industry and automotive markets. Other applications with high projected growth rates in the coming 5 years are: medical/scientific systems, security, industrial (including robots and IoT), and toys and games (including virtual and augmented reality). Key features like depth sensing and always-on operation will be critical to disrupt new niches. The incorporation of near-sensor intelligence is also gaining relevance for image sensor designers and manufacturers, with a focus on automotive applications. Therefore, we will try to engage companies in this field as well. In particular, we will promote the advantages of the proposed holistic approach through prototype smart image sensors designed to boost the performance of vision algorithms rather than to exclusively maximize the image quality and frame rate. 

 

Dissemination plan

We contemplate the following activities:

Transfer plan 

As described in WP6, one of the objectives of the dissemination of the project results is gaining traction, especially from possible investors and strategic industrial partners, in order to implement an efficient path to the exploitation of research outcomes. All teams involved in this coordinate project have experience in the protection of research results. Examples of recent achievements are the two patents on focal-plane sensing-processing circuitry (P201200474-PCT/ES2013/000109 and P201201011-PCT/ES2013/000225) filed by IMSE’s team and licensed to the company Fobos Solutions S.L., the patent of ToF measurement filtering (P201830870) licensed to Photonvis SL, the patent on a traffic monitoring system (P201631518/ES2608911) and the patent of a salivary stimulator (U202032605) filed by UPCT’s team. Patent filling needs to be complemented with a commercialization effort that most of the times requires the involvement of the researchers to complement the OTRIs. We will have the collaboration of Víctor García Flores, PhD on Economy and Business who is working at IMSE and is an expert in project management and business development. In order to connect with potential clients we will develop technology demonstrators, engage stakeholders in relevant application scenarios and evaluate business opportunities. Research results will be pitched to company representatives, and presented in industry-oriented forums in order to identify potential interest. From these contacts, we expect to derive collaboration projects like those led by USC’s team on intelligent transportation, with large companies like Indra or SMEs. Also the participation, together with these companies, in calls oriented prototyping and scaling of technology-based business. Recently the USC’s team submitted proposals to calls Plan España Digital 2025 and Civil UAV in Galicia, in this line. 

Apart from these collaboration efforts, one feasible path to the exploitation of research results is the creation of technology-based start-ups. This is a track that requires a deep involvement of the researchers, as they can master the evolution of the technology readiness level until reaching industrial relevance. An interesting guide has been developed by the CRUE and its network of transference offices, concerning the creation of start-ups from Universities and Research Centers. A strategy for the development of proper business models within the consortium will be implemented by the following three steps:

i. Identification of key project outputs from each partner and sketching of preliminary business plans.

ii. Discussion and analysis of the proposed individual strategies in order to explore synergies and collective exploitation efforts. This discussion could be developed in a series of monographic meetings. 

iii. Integration of a business roadmap. This roadmap will contain the conclusions of the above referred meetings.

In order to participate in the definition of the strategy, all partners will elaborate on their individual and collective business ideas, covering the following points: 

  • Proposed offering: product or service and target market sector; think what results of the project could be extended/advanced and what new offering it could create. 
  • Market sector review: in parallel with the definition of the offering. Characterization of market size, drivers, observed technology trends and barriers, etc. 
  • Review of the competition: main players of the market need to be analyzed, what is their market share, what is their distinctive advantage. 
  • Innovation: what our distinctive advantage is, how is the proposed offering innovative in the context of the competition and the sector's needs. 
  • Potential business model: how the business will be sustained, what we will sell and how these sales will support the development of the business. 
  • Risks to market entry: analysis of all possible constraints relevant to potential investors..

The partner teams in this project counts on first-hand experience of the creation of technology-based start-ups. In the context of an ONR-USA-based project, some of the coordinators co-founded Photonvis SL, a start-up dedicated to vision and imaging systems based in single-photon detection, established in July 2019. Agreements for patent licensing and exploitation were signed with CSIC and the University of Seville. This company got some initial funds from a venture investment firm specialized in seed capital. A patent development contract was signed and the first phases of the characterization of the operation of a down-scaled version of a prototype for long-range solid-state LiDAR were completed. This effort was recognized by HiPEAC, in its 2020 Tech Transfer Awards, and by FGCSIC in its COMTE-EBT initiative to promote the creation and development of technology-based start-ups. Currently, the integration of the components of a LiDAR receptor on a single-chip is projected and will be funded by a recent grant from the University of Seville and Junta de Andalucía. 

SEMIoTICs will produce a wide variety of scientific and technical results in the form of smart devices and advanced sensor chips, but also demonstrators in relevant application scenarios that are benefited by the development of the A-to-I sensor concept and the implementation of a fully-operative efficient vision-enabled IoT. These demonstrators will the basis for the design of a business plan for the deployment of IoT services based on the leverage introduced by our smart sensors. The previous experiences, together with the already explained strategy, will help us implement a sustainable business model that allows developing this technology hopefully beyond the project deadline.