Memento is the first initiative of the University of Malta’s Electronic Systems Engineering Department at commercialising home-grown electronics technology for the professional market.
The products will address the problem of high-precision synchronisation that arises between coupled cameras working at thousands, or even millions of frames per second. Such cameras capture fleeting events from multiple angles.
The name Memento is drawn from the words ‘multi-camera high-frame rate synchronisation’. The project all started with two master degree projects that led to several prototypes and intellectual property, allowing the University to secure funding for further development.
Memento secured close to €200,000 of funding covering a three-year period of intense development from the Malta Council for Science and Technology through Fusion, the research and innovation technology development programme 2015.
Such initiatives demonstrate how students can leverage their studies to build their own business, thereby ensuring that their studies pay off in more ways than one
Two successful rounds of research into high-performance imaging hardware, and detailed commercial feasibility studies, gave the green light for the development of a range of cameras that fill an existing gap in the high-end electronic vision market, laying the groundwork for a technology spin-off company.
“Such initiatives demonstrate how students can leverage their studies to build their own business, thereby ensuring that their studies pay off in more ways than one,” said Marc Anthony Azzopardi, one of the students and currently managing the project on behalf of University.
The commercialisation is being undertaken in collaboration with a local technology company, MST Audio Visual Ltd, which has established itself as a leading media-engineering consultancy. The other student, André Micallef, is now managing director of MST Audio Visual Ltd, and is the lead developer on the project.
The project grew to involve about 15 people, including a number of summer interns and recent engineering graduates collaboratively working to realise the product.
Applications of the technology include the scientific study of fracture propagation, ink jet droplet formation, combustion wave fronts or high-speed impacts, which are all ideally observed and analysed from different angles of view for maximum information capture.
The technology also has important applications in super-resolution imaging where the effective aperture of a group of cameras working together can be made wider than what is achievable with any single camera.
“Such electronic equipment needs to be easily adaptable for a wide variety of uses and this requires careful design using cutting-edge technology to stay ahead of an ever-evolving market. For this you need a dynamic team of engineers with complementary skills, a shared love of learning and a resolute vision for excellence,” said Mr Micallef.
www.mementosystems.com
www.mst.com.mt