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Critical Link in space

With so much recent media focus on consumer technology – think iPhone 6 – and wearable technology – think Apple Watch – I sometimes have to bring my mind back down to earth to think about the types of “industrial strength” applications that Critical Link technology finds its way into. Over the years, our work has been embedded in scientific instruments, medical products, defense systems, manufacturing systems, transportation, energy, communications equipment…

And now it looks like our MityCAM is going to be something of Critical Link’s first astronaut.

Without giving away too many of the details, we have a new customer that develops technology used in the aerospace and military industries. The project we’re undertaking leverages our sCMOS camera platform to develop a custom camera that images the stars and does custom image processing in space. We will be developing a custom I/O board and a sensor head board (based on a scientific sCMOS sensor from Fairchild Imaging/BAE Systems) for our existing platform, and porting their algorithms to the Cortex-A9’s in the Altera SoC.

And before we know it, a Critical Link MityCAM will be heading into space!

For those who aren’t familiar with our cameras, the MityCCD® and MityCAM families are highly configurable cameras that can be used in a wide array of scientific imaging and vision applications. These cameras deliver robust on-board processing capability with Critical Link’s MityDSP and MitySOM modules, making them ideal for advanced processing and high-throughput applications. (Here’s a link to the info for the MityCCD and MityCAM products.)

Anyway, I tend to find all of the applications that Critical Link gets involved with to be very interesting and exciting. But I have to admit that there’s something especially exciting at the prospect of standing out in my driveway on a clear night, looking off into space, and knowing that some of our work is out there.