Author: Techtime

Israel to Launch Historic Moon Mission

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The first Israeli Moon lander will reach the Moon during February 2019, and will make Israel the fourth country after the U.S., China and Russia to reach the moon. Israel Aerospace Industries and the nonprofit SpaceIL announced Yesterday that the lunar mission will be launched this December from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket (as a secondary payload). Its journey to the moon will last about two months. 

The lunar landing will culminate eight years of intensive collaboration between SpaceIL and IAI. Approximately $88 million has been invested in the spacecraft’s development and construction, mostly from private donors, headed by SpaceIL President Morris Kahn, who donated about $27 million. The spacecraft’s design and development process began in 2013 and continued until last year, when its construction at the IAI MABAT Plant commenced.

Automatic Moon Landing

It weighs only about 600 kilograms. With 1.5 meters high and 2 meters in diameter it is considered the smallest to land on the moon. The fuel it will carry will comprise some 75 percent of its total weight. SpaceIL CEO Dr. Ido Anteby revealed that the spacecraft will disengage from the launch rocket at an altitude of 60,000 kilometers (37,282 miles), and will begin orbiting Earth in elliptical orbits.

Upon receipt of a command from the control room, the spacecraft will enter a higher altitude elliptical orbit around Earth, which will reach a point near the moon. At this point, it will ignite its engines and reduce its speed to allow the moon’s gravity to capture it. It will then begin orbiting the moon, until the appropriate time for the landing process, which will be executed autonomously by the spacecraft’s navigation control system.

The entire journey, from launch to landing, will last approximately two months in which the spacecraft will cover 9,000,000 kilometers and will reach maximum speed of 10 meters per second (3,600 kilometers per hour). Upon its landing on February 13, 2019, the spacecraft, carrying the Israeli flag, will begin taking photos and video of the landing site and will measure the moon’s magnetic field as part of a scientific experiment conducted in collaboration with Weizmann Institute. The data will be transmitted to the IAI control room during the two days following the landing.

Thanks to Google’s Lunar X Prize competition

SpaceIL is a nonprofit organization established in 2011 aiming to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon. Founded by three young engineers, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub, SpaceIL sought to answer the international challenge presented by Google’s $20 million Lunar X Prize: to build, launch and land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon. The competition ended officially with no winner on March 31, when Google announced that it would no longer sponsor it. But the Israeli team was determined to continue on its mission and to launch its spacecraft by the end of the year, regardless of the competition. Concurrently, SpaceIL continues to raise funds the complete mission.

Digi-Key Announced 1.0 Release of the KiCad Library

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The global electronic components distributor, Digi-Key Electronics, announced the availability of open source, Digi-Key KiCad symbol and footprint library with a 1.0 status on its GitHub Repository. The “version 1.0” is a major milestone for the library development, indicating that the library is “complete”, has all major features, and is considered reliable enough for general release to engineers, designers, and customers.

KiCad is an open source software suite for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). The programs handle Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and is licensed under GNU GPL v3. The first release date was in 1992 by its original author, Jean-Pierre Charras, but is now currently under development by the KiCad Developers Team.

Digi-Key collaborated with the KiCad user community to refine library management processes, the data included with the parts, and worked extensively to improve the quality of the symbols and footprints. Each part is infused with Digi-Key descriptions, part numbers, and more data that allows for easy Bill of Materials resolution and uploading to the Digi-Key cart or BOM tool.

“After more than 140 GitHub commits and reviews of each part in the library, we are ready to announce the 1.0 release,” said Randall Restle, VP, Applications Engineering. “This is not the end of development and we are working hard to add more parts to the library and provide KiCad users with a useful set of symbols and footprints for their rapid prototyping needs. We are especially concentrating on difficult to make connectors and IoT modules.”

Digi-Key Electronics, headquartered in Thief River Falls, Minn., USA, is an authorized global, full-service distributor of electronic components, offering more than 6.8 million products, with over 1.4 million in stock and available for immediate shipment, from over 750 quality name-brand manufacturers. Digi-Key also offers a wide variety of online resources such as EDA and design tools, datasheets, reference designs, instructional articles and videos, multimedia libraries, and much more.

For more information about KiCad as well as the company’s full portfolio of EDA and design tools, visit the Digi-Key website.

RADWIN and Microsoft to deliver TV White Space solutions

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RADWIN and Microsoft have entered into a strategic partnership aimed to address the rural broadband gap. RADWIN from Israel is an expert in sub-6GHz and mmWave fixed wireless access solutions. Following the agreement, it will develop and introduce access solutions for TV White Space spectrum, needed to deliver broadband internet to unserved communities. The partnership will expand the TV White Space ecosystem, making broadband more affordable and accessible for customers in the rural U.S. and around the world.

This partnership is part of Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, which aims to expand broadband coverage. “The TV White Space radio ecosystem is rapidly growing,” said Paul Garnett, senior director of the Microsoft Airband Initiative. “Our partnership with RADWIN will help address the rural broadband gap.” Sharon Sher, RADWIN’s president and CEO, said that the addition of TV White Space solutions to RADWIN’s portfolio, “Would enable our service provider customers and partners to extend their footprint by connecting more remote subscribers in challenging deployment use cases, penetrating through terrain obstructions and vegetation.”

The TV Hidden Spectrum

Broadband is a vital part of 21st century infrastructure. Yet, only about half of the world’s population is connected to the internet. New cloud services and other technologies make broadband connectivity a necessity to starting and growing small businesses and taking advantage of advances in agriculture, telemedicine and education. According to findings by the Boston Consulting Group, a connectivity model that uses a combination of technologies, including TV White Space, can reduce the cost of extending broadband coverage in rural communities. TV White Space is an important part of the solution, creating broadband connections in UHF bands and enabling communication in challenging rural terrains and highly vegetated areas, all while protecting broadcasters and other licensees from harmful interference.

US Broadband Access by Country. Source: MicrosoftTV White Spaces spectrum is unused spectrum in the UHF television bands, that was created in the past to avoid interrupts between different channels. Thanks to the better spectrum utilization of digital broadcasting, they are no more needed. In 2010 the FCC adopted rules enabling the use of TV white spaces in the United States, opened the door to develop the building blocks needed for the use of this spectrum in an affordable way.

Microsoft itself has considerable experience with this spectrum, having deployed 20 TV white spaces projects in 17 countries that have served 185,000 users. Its Airband Initiative is aimed to fill this digital gap in the US. According to Microsoft, today 34 million Americans still lack broadband internet access, which is defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a 25 Mbps connection. Of these, 23.4 million live in rural parts of the country.

In July 2017, said Brad Smith, President of Microsot, that Microsoft’s Rural Airband Initiative will invest in partnerships with telecommunications companies with the goal of bringing broadband connectivity to 2 million people in rural America by 2022. “People who live in these rural communities increasingly are unable to take advantage of the economic and educational opportunities enjoyed by their urban neighbors. As a country, we should not settle for an outcome that leaves behind more than 23 million of our rural neighbors. We can and should bring the benefits of broadband coverage to every corner of the nation.”

Smart Retail: Trax Closed $125 Million Investment Round

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Photo above: Robot with camera scans store shelves to build a digital version of the store

Computer Vision for retail becomes a lucrative market. Last example is Trax, an expert from Israel and Singapore, that announced today the completion of a US$125 million investment round led by Boyu Capital , one of the largest private equity investment firms in Greater China. DC Thomson, a leading media organization from the UK, also joined the investment round. Boyu Capital is a leading Greater China-focused private investment firm with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Founded in 2010, Trax plans to revolutionize the retail industry by delivering a single source of shelf truth for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies and retailers.

Trax turns images of retail shelves into actionable insights to enable manufacturers and retailers to measure in-store execution. Images of store shelves captured from Many source such as Mobile Apps, Fixed Cameras, Robots, Drones, smartphones, tablets and IoT devices. Then a Computer Vision algorithm and Deep Learning methods identify the objects on the shelves and fully recreates digital version of the shelves with every single SKU (e.g. Coca Cola 300ml) or object such as Price labels. The digitized shelf data is used to create automatic inventory checks and to analyze performance. Combined with survey responses, it can generate numeric measurements, scores and targets.

To date, the company has raised approximately US$235 million in total funding and operates in over 50 countries with more than 175 client engagements. In an alliance last year with Nielsen, Trax introduced Shelf Intelligence Suite, offering brands shelf insights to measure and improve their shelf strategy and execution. Joel Bar-El, Trax CEO and co-founder dasid that injection of funds from Boyu will allow the company “to drive continued innovation of our technologies at our computer vision center of excellence in Tel Aviv, Israel and to explore additional engineering center in China.”

Shiratech Plans to Shake the 96Board’s Market

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Almost unknown company broke lately into the American and the European market with a new LTE modem based on 96Board format, and sold tens of thousands units within a few weeks. The company, called Shiratech Solutions, is working hand in hands with Arrow Electronics to promote a clear vision aimed to shake the 96Board ecosystem and connect it to the growing community of Raspberry’s and Arduino’s developers.

“Once we have identified the need for an LTE module, we immediately entered a rapid development and production process based on Quectel communication chip, resulted in a mezzanine card for DragonBoard 410C modules produced by Arrow for Qualcomm, “said the CEO and CTO Ishay Kokavka (photo above). “To make it a full IoT solution, we also added a pack of sensors such as proximity sensors, accelerometers, optical detectors and thermometers along with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communication capabilities.”

Powered by Supply Chain Experts

Shiratech is not a new player in the SBC/SOM market. For years it was a small player in the SMARC (Smart Mobility ARChitecture) market. But earlier this year it was sold to AY Electronics, an Israeli supply chain management company, that was looking for an opportunity in manufacturing and engineering. Owned by Itay and Yaniv Rod, AY holds 25% stake in Partner Manufacturing, an Electronics Manufacturing Services provider from Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv.

In order to expand its services and going deeper into the engineering, AY recruited Yishai Kokavka (photo above) about a year ago to the position of VP for Technologies. Kokavka brougtht to the position many years of experience, including the management of hardware group in Motorola Israel, Radware, and hundreds of industrial projects performed by its own company, KTEC. About six months ago AY acquired the IP and the distribution agreements of Shiratech with Arrow Electronics and started its transformation.

Shiratech's LTE Modem in 96Board Format
Shiratech’s LTE Modem in 96Board Format

“In the SMARC format we are focused on specific products that are not available now in the market,”‘ Kokavka told Techtime. “The 96Board format is very important for us because it is an open standard that competes with Raspberry Pi and Arduino and is supported by strong players like Qualcomm and Arrow.”

Lately Shiratech has completed a new card which may bring peace between these three communities: A 96Board module with Intel’s MAX-10 FPGA chip. Beside the known benefits of programmable chips as an alternative to ASIC development, the new card brings the software and add on components of Raspberry Pi and Arduino into the world of 96Board. “Our goal is to sell approximately one million SOM and SBC cards a year,” said Kokavka. “For SMARC costumers we will be super competitive: If the market price of a standard card in $50 – we will sell it for $35.”

US Army Choose Rafael’s APS for its Main Battle Tanks

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Photo above: Rafael’s Trophy APS on US Abrams main Battle Tank

Leonardo DRS and Rafael received a contract worth USD 193 million by U.S. Army to provide active protection systems (APS) for U.S. Army main battle tanks. The TROPHY active protection systems will be installed in the Army’s new Abrams tanks. Developed by the Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, TROPHY system provides combat-proven protection against the full range of threats.

Trophy-HV is the only combat proven active protection system available today. The system is fully tested and qualified and forms an integral part of the IDF Merkava MK4 main battle tank and other platforms. Introduced operationally by the IDF in 2009, an increasing number of Trophy-HV battalions are deployed along Israel’s borders.

Trophy intercepts and destroys incoming missiles or rockets using a shotgun like blast. It employs a 360-degree field of view radar made by Elta of the Israel Aircraft Industries. When the incoming threat is detected, the systems’ computer calculates its approaching vector and the optimal time and angle to fire the neutralizer. The is effective against all types of ant tank amunitions, including rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and tank rounds. Following the event, the Trophy system send the location of the threat to other units via C4I system, to ensure its destruction.

Trophy system protecting IDF Merkava tank
Trophy system protecting IDF Merkava tank

According to the new report Active Protection System Market, the active protection system market is estimated to reach USD 4.15 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 6.50% from 2016 to 2022. This growth can be attributed to the increasing incidences of armed conflict, war, and terrorism, which are driving the demand for active protection systems globally. The U.S. and India are expected to lead the active protection system market in the coming years.

The U.S. is estimated to dominate the active protection system market during the forecast period. Major players include Rheinmetall AG (Germany), Saab AB (Sweden), Raytheon Company (U.S.), Israel Military Industries (Israel), and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (Israel).

Elbit to Acquire IMI Systems for $495 million

IMI Systems
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A major Israeli defense merger is getting one step closer: Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ESLT) has announced today that the agreements reached between Elbit Systems and the Israeli Government for the acquisition of IMI Systems were approved by the Committee for the Tender of the Sale of State Shares and by the Board of Directors of the Company. The purchase price will be approximately $495 million, with an additional payment of approximately $27 million upon IMI meeting certain performance goals.

Completion of the transaction is subject to the signing of the relevant documents and the receipt of the remaining applicable governmental approvals, including the approval of the Head of the Israeli Antitrust Authority. Elbit is engaged in a wide range of defense, homeland security and commercial programs throughout the world. IMI is specializing in the development and manufacturing of combat-proven solutions and technologies for the land, air, naval and cyber for the modern battlefield.

With approximately 2,000 employees and half a billion dollar annual sales, IMI will bring Elbit More than 8 decades of experience in the areas of precision munitions, Combat mobility, survivability and armor solutions. It also includes expertise in certain aspects of battle tanks design and production.

The agreement does not includes the classified unit Tomer. This unit is responsible for the development and production of unique rocket propulsion systems. Tomer’s activity will remain a state-owned independent company, and a suppliers to local defense companies like Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries.