Author: Techtime

SolarEdge Extends Lawsuit against Huawei

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SolarEdge Technologies, from Herzliya, Israel has extended its lawsuit pending in the Mannheim District Court, Germany, against the Chinese Huawei Technologies and WATTKRAFT Solar GmbH, a German distributor for Huawei, by asserting two additional patents related to its power optimizer technology. The original lawsuits filed in June covered SolarEdge’s DC optimized inverter technology.

The company seeks inter alia monetary damages, an injunction with regard to the German market, and recall of infringing Huawei optimizers and inverters from the German market. It asks the court to prevent Huawei from selling in Germany any optimizers and inverters that infringe upon the SolarEdge’s IP. “SolarEdge has strived to advance the PV industry by overcoming limitations of standard PV systems through the introduction of its innovative DC optimization technology, in our view making solar energy more attractive and accessible,” stated Guy Sella, CEO, Chairman, and Founder of SolarEdge.

“These advancements, resulting from dedication, engineering expertise, and significant investment in R&D, can only achieve their full potential when safeguarded by an industry that respects healthy and fair competition. What we view as illegal use of proprietary technology can stifle the solar industry during this critical period of global energy transformation. Our actions are meant to ensure the integrity of the entire PV industry, secure a level playing field, and protect SolarEdge’s intellectual property.”

SolarEdge is considered a global leader in smart energy technology with total 2017 annual revenues of $607.0 million, up 24% from the prior year. It holds 126 awarded patents, 169 additional patent applications worldwide, and other extensive intellectual property covering smart energy technology. SolarEdge has shipped 7.5GW of systems worldwide, among which includes 25.2 million power optimizers and 1.1 million inverters.

Aero Vodochody and IAI Introduced F/A-259 Striker Aircraft

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The Czech aircraft manufacturer, Aero Vodochody, and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), introduced a new fighter attack aircraft, F/A-259 Striker, during the Farnborough airshow in the United Kingdom. The F/A-259 Striker is a multirole aircraft for close air support, counter-insurgency operations and border patrolling with interception capabilities. It combines the robustness of its predecessor, the L-159 Alca, with modernized avionics and aircraft systems.

A major target market is the US Air Force. Benjamin Cohen, General Manager of Israel Aerospace Industries’ Lahav Division, said that Aero Vodochody and IAI, “offers the USAF proven performance with new innovative IAI systems to meet their OA-X requirements.”

The F/A-259 is able to operate from unpaved runways and has seven hard points for any combination of fuel, weapons, or mission equipment, allowing smart weapons integration and standoff weapon capabilities. As an optional upgrade, the F/A-259 can be equipped by EASA radar and helmet mounted display. Another optional upgrade is air-to-air refueling, increasing the aircraft’s range and endurance.

Proven heritage: L-159 (below) with its predecessor L-39
Proven heritage: L-159 (below) with its predecessor L-39

Giuseppe Giordo, the President and CEO of Aero, estimated that the current Worldwide market for multirole light attack aircrafts reaches about 350 units. “We believe we will be able to sell 200 units. National air forces are looking for a solution how to fulfill a great variety of missions in an affordable way, while keeping high survivability of the aircraft and its crew. F/A-259 Striker meets those needs. There are not so many aircraft on the market providing such capabilities, because it is a new requirement.”

The F/A-259 Striker has a fully digital cockpit and an open 4th generation avionics architecture concept, allowing future updates based on customer’s requirements and use of Real Time Data Link, supporting a high situational awareness capability. The advanced digital cockpit is equipped by two large multifunctional displays, electronic flight instrument system, and other features.

The main change in the structure involves the wings. The previous tip fuel tanks were replaces with a new “wet wing”, that store the fuel inside the wing. This  brings improvement in the aerodynamics and the installation of self-defence air-to-air missiles. The F/A-259 Striker has a 9.75 meters wingspan and is 12.8 meters long. It can reach Mach 0.82 and can carry loads of up to 2,722 kg.

Foresight Took over Rail Vision

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Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd. from Ness Ziona, Israe, has increased its ownership in Rail Vision Ltd. and is now the largest shareholder. Foresight exercised $2.24 million of warrants, raising their ownership stake to approximately 35% of issued and outstanding shares and 34% on a fully diluted basis.

Rail Vision develops unique solutions and vision-based systems for advanced safety, asset and fleet management in the rail industry. In December 2017, Rail Vision completed a successful trial of its vision-based system with a leading European railway company. The trial was conducted under harsh winter conditions with minimal light and demonstrated the system’s real-time capabilities to detect and classify obstacles at distances of several hundred meters.

Foresight, founded in 2015, develops quad-camera vision systems and V2X cellular-based solutions for the automotive industry for the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles. Haim Siboni, CEO of Foresight, said that, like in the automotive space, the next step is to provide trains with sensors and processing capabilities, to prevent accidents. “Rail Vision is a leader in cognitive vision systems and we strongly believe that its capabilities will become the standard in this market.”

3D sensor Developer Mantis Vision Raised $55 Million

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Mantis Vision from Petach Tikva, Israel, announced the closing of its Series D round of $55 million with a total investment of $83 million to date. The round investment was led by Luenmei Quantum and Samsung Catalyst Fund. Mantis Vision and Luenmei Quantum also announced the formation of a new joint venture, “MantisVision Technologies”, headquartered in Shanghai with offices in Beijing and Shenzhen, to drive its presence in the Greater China Market.

Founded and headquartered in Israel, Mantis Vision invented a 3D content capture technology based on its proprietary coded structured-light technology. The basic principle of Structured light is well known: By projecting a known pattern of light (grids or bars or othe structured) on to a surface. The vision system analyse the deformations in the structure, the deformed return structure of light gives scene. The way that these patterns are deformed when they striking surfaces, allows a vision system to calculate the depths and properties of the scanned object.

The company’s technology is compact enough to be integrated into smartphone, and sensitive enough to be used in Industrial Inspection Systems and Professional Studuos. In fact, last month Mantis Vision and smartphone maker Xiaomi’s latest partnership to implement Mantis Vision’s 3D camera technology in recently announced Xiaomi’s new premium flagship smartphone, the Mi8. This will be the first Android smartphone in the World with real 3D camera.

Mantis Vision is planning to double its global workforce with an additional 140 employees in Israel, U.S., China and Slovak Republic by the end of 2020. As part of the latest series funding, Mantis Vision will expand its pool of talent engineers for advanced R&D algorithmic research in computer vision and deep learning, advanced optics experts, mobile camera engineers, 3D apps developers and 3D Volumetric studio experts amongst other open positions in program management and business development.

Telit Sales its automotive division to the Chinese TUS International

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Telit Communications (AIM: TCM) signed an agreement to sell its automotive division to the Chinese TUS International for $105 million in cash. Although the automotive division saw significant growth in 2017, its sale will enable the Group to focus on its core business. Yosi Fait, CEO at Telit, said that this transaction will significantly reduce the company’s $25 million debt, “and provide us with the financial flexibility to focus our hardware and IoT services product lines, in order to strengthen our position in the IoT solutions space.”

The transaction requires a reorganisation of the automotive division within Telit. Prior to the completion of the deal, Telit will unite all its sub-groups in Belgium, France and Israel into a 110 emloyees independent company, including the relevant Intelectual Properties. This company will be transferred as a whole to TUS, to continue working under the Chinese ownership. In 2017 the automotive division generated approximately $63.2 million in revenue.

TUS provides camera-based advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) solutions and is one of the 12 founding members of the National Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Innovation Center
of China. TUS’s single largest shareholder is Tus-Holdings Co. Ltd, a company established by Tsinghua University, which holds over 800 listed and non-listed investments.

Telit provides M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) enablement solutions, including cellular communication modules in all technologies, GNSS, short-to-long range wireless modules, IoT connectivity plans and IoT platform services. At the end of 2017, the Group employed 1,040 people worldwide. Its sale in 2017 totalled $374.5 million.

Elbit Rolls-out Unmanned Aircraft Capable of Operating in Civilian Airspace

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Elbit Systems from Haifa, Israel, launched this week the new Hermes 900 StarLiner, a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that can be integrated into civilian airspace and fly in the same environment with manned aircraft. Concluding an extensive year-long flying schedule, the Hermes 900 StarLiner has been performing Civil Aviation Authority certified flights in Masada National Park, Israel.

A series of the Hermes 900 StarLiner (known as Hermes 900 HFE in the Swiss program) is currently being assembled for the Swiss Armed Forces and is scheduled to be delivered and integrated into Switzerland NAS during 2019. Drawing on the legacy of the widely operational Hermes 900 and Hermes 450 and their proven technologies, Elbit Systems has conducted an extensive multi-year R&D effort focusing on producing a mature UAS that complies with civilian airspace regulations and can be safely integrated into European NAS (National Airspace System).

Elbit sees  a growing demand for advanced yet mature UAS that can be safely integrated into civilian airspace and provide complex homeland and border security missions. Meeting the strict safety and certification requirements required all the components of Hermes 900 StarLiner to be designed in full compliance with STANAG 4671 standard. This is the NATO Standard designed to allow military Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to operate in other NATO members airspace.

The building of the new model involved the using of advanced aviation technologies not common in the Military. Amog them: cooperative and non-cooperative Detect & Avoid Systems, Train Avoidance Warning System, Automatic Take-off and Landing in near zero visibility, redundant broad bandwidth line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) data link and adverse weather capabilities such as de-icing and direct lightning strike sustainment.

These technological enhancements allow the aircraft to operate in both visual and instrument meteorological conditions, and its powerful heavy fuel engine provides improved climb rate, extended endurance and higher ceiling and maximum speed.

Orbit Integrated 3D Audio into Elbit’s Smart Helmet

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Orbit Communications Systems from Netnia, Israel, successfully integrated its 3D Audio system into Elbit Systems’ Helmet Mounted Display (HMD). Elbit’s HMD displays flight data, sensors and 3D location-based information, allows pilots to slave the aircraft’s sensors and missiles simply by looking at the target, and similarly, enable aircraft sensors and other relevant information to be spatially presented.

The integration of 3D Audio into the HMD provides directional audio cues to ground and air threats in full correlation to the visual cues on the visor. The combination of audio and visual cues allows pilots to pinpoint a threat more rapidly, in the space surrounding the aircraft, while radio separation improves situational awareness. Eitan Livneh, President & CEO of Orbit, said he believes that 3D Audio “will become a standard feature in cockpits of the future.”

This is a dramatic step for Orbit, since Elbit is considered a global leader in the HMDS field. This product has been a key growth engine for the company and is currently operational in over 11,000 fixed and rotary wing aircraft in approximately 30 countries.

From Orion to the HMD

The 3D Audio technology was developed as part of Orion, Orbit’s airborne audio management system. Powered by a patented Dual IP Ring, Orion provides 3D Audio, Adaptive Noise Reduction and Voice-Activated Detection as standard features. It was developed to answer the needs of Military an Civilian wide body aircrafts.

Orion, Orbit's airborne audio management systemDual IP Ring is a patented topology in which Communication Control Panels (CCPs) are cascaded in an Ethernet/AFDX Dual IP Ring. The CCP is comprised of an operator panel and a communications switch, eliminating the need for a central communications unit. Each CCP adds capabilities and dedicated processing power per crew member in an incremental manner. This allows for implementation of processor-intensive algorithms such as 3D Audio, Adaptive Noise Reduction and Voice-Activated Detection.

Orion’s multiple Ethernet ports can interface with avionics systems in many different ways, including: Software-Defined Radio (SDR),  Operation via touchscreen or third-party control panels using Ethernet API, Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), Triggering of voice messages and warning tones and Mission computers.