Americas News BUSINESS
3D Robotics, Intel partner for more drone power
Qualcomm buys GPS chip-maker CSR
to develop innovative features that will enable its use in detecting forest disturbances. The results of this project could improve the Canadian Forest Service’s current practices for disturbance mapping, providing added value to their activities, such as maintaining a national-scale carbon budget.
3D Robotics has teamed up with Intel in developing a new microcomputer Edison, adding more power to drone operations. Edison is a new microcomputer that basically packs PC power in postage stamp size, at an almost universally affordable price. The integration of Edison into company’s next-generation autopilot will result in incredible leaps forward in on-board image processing, sense and avoid, new classes of sensors, and artificial intelligence. With the additional computing power from Edison, the company’s 3PV Follow Me technology can now track people and objects with vision instead of relying on a GPS signal.
Juniper, Effigis to offer sub-metre GPS accuracy
Autodesk appoints Scott Herren as new CFO & Sr. VP
Juniper Systems and Effigis have teamed up to offer inexpensive but powerful sub-metre GPS accuracy. Effigis’ OnPOZ Precision Positioning Software suite leverages the superior GNSS performance Juniper Systems’ Archer 2 rugged handheld to gather high-accuracy GPS data. Jim Benson, Utilities & Public Services Market Manager at Juniper Systems said, “The OnPOZ suite is powerful, yet comes at a price people are comfortable with, and it takes care of all the post-processing for you.The Archer 2 handheld really finishes off the whole package. The Archer 2 handheld really finishes off the whole package. Its GNSS receiver is outstanding, performing reliably even under trees, and the handheld is so well designed, you can count on it to work well in any environment.”
Autodesk has appointed R. Scott Herren as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective November 1, 2014. Herren, who is currently serving as Senior Vice President of finance at Citrix, will bring 30 years of financial, strategic and operational experience to Autodesk. Herren has spent the past 14 years at Citrix, a leader in mobile workspaces, virtualisation, networking and cloud services.
In a bid to strengthen its efforts in Internet of Things (IoT) and connected cars market, Qualcomm has agreed to buy chip company CSR. Cambridge-based CSR develops wireless communications, audio and GPS chips for the automotive and consumer products markets. It also makes chips for indoor location services. In order to become an important player in the two aforementioned fields, Qualcomm has offered CSR a value of £9.00 per share. The acquisition of the entire issued and to be Deal issued ordinary value share capital of CSR is valued at approximately £1.6 billion ($2.5 billion). The deal is expected to close by the end of the summer of 2015.
$2.5 bn
MDA grabs three CSA R&D contracts The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded three research and development contracts to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA). Under the first project, MDA will evaluate how radar and optical images can be combined to detect and track ships more rapidly. Under the second project, MDA aims to improve the solution to monitor geohazards in pipeline corridors. For the third project, MDA intends to demonstrate the added value of RADARSAT-2 in the monitoring of forest areas by providing information on forest clear or partial cut, and
8 / Geospatial World / November 2014
Polarimetric RADARSAT-2 for monitoring Canadian wetlands
PrecisionHawk raises $10 mn in financing PrecisionHawk, imagery and data service providing company that uses a small, lightweight UAV and cloudbased software to collect, process and analyse aerial data, has closed a Series B financing round of approximately $10 million. The funding will enable the company to further invest