Technology transfer and consultant services
As far as the technology transfer is concerned, through the University of Pisa, Prof. Ing. Sergio Saponara has done consultant and professional activities for
SME (small medium enterprise) companies such as:
- Flyby, for the design and test of a hyperspectral video camera array to be mounted on UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Project Microeye.
- CEG Elettronica, for a distributed measurement system of thermal, electrical and vibration characteristics of power transformers and battery modules (Lead-acid, NiMh, Li-ion) for predictive diagnostic of power supply systems in Railway applications. Project IPPS.
- Celver Elettronica, for a wireless measurement system for marble machines. Project EMMA.
- Sitael, for the design of a 1GFLOPS DSP processor for space applications, compliant with mission requirements of the European Space Agency. Project DSPACE.
- RICO Italy, for embedded HW-SW electronics for real-time image processing in driver assistance systems (ADAS)
- Acta Energy, for the design of an electronic control unit for the control of hydrogen Fuel-cells in hybrid vehicles. Projects Nanocatgeo and SAVIA.
- Carbon Dream, for the design of the LED lighting system and the measurement and characterization of the electric propulsion with embedded Li-ion battery modules in ultra-light e-bikes with carbon frame. Project JUVE-B.
and big industries such as:
- Piaggio, for the design of an Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system for the testing of electronic control units in electric/hybrid vehicles (electric/combustion engine)
- General Electric, for the analysis and definition of a CAD environment for distributed electronic control systems in turbomachinery. Project Atene.
- IDS, for the design of an FPGA-based Radar image processor for surveillance Radar in railway applications. Project SIMPLE.
- INTECS, for the design of a software defined radio transceiver for satellite telemetry/ telecommands. Project STAR.
- Magna, for the design of an electronic latch actuator (e-Latch) with embedded energy back-up in automotive, and for the lifetime characterization and electro-thermal measurements of supercaps. Project AMDS.
- Renesas UK, for the failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) of analog and digital electronics components for vehicle applications.
- Thales Alenia, for the design of an assistance navigation system. Project Nadia.
- SelexGalileo, feasibility analysis of the lighting imager instrument for 3G METEOSAT and design of the cluster processor for on-board real-time image processing and classification. Project LI-Meteosat 3G.
- Selex ES, digital front end electronics for multi-sensor acquisition in the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer. Project Sentinel-3: Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR)
- STMicroelectronics, for the design of a battery monitoring and management system for hybrid/electric vehicles. Project Pollux.
- AustriaMicroSystems, for the design of innovative DC/DC converters and inductive load actuators, for hybrid/electric vehicles. Projects Athenis and Athenis 3D.
Prof. Saponara collaborated also from 2005 to 2011 with Consorzio Pisa Ricerche scarl, a mixed public-private institution for R&D and technology transfer activities, being Program Manager of the Division Applied Microelectronics. In this role he has done consultant activities for SensorDynamics, Sitael, SelexGalileo (now Selex ES), Renesas, CAEN Aerospace, STMicroelectronics.
He had also a research contract with CNIT for the design of multi-output DC-DC converters in telecom applications for Ericsson.
These activities generated several international patents.
Indeed, Prof. Saponara is co-author of 17 International Patents,
see complete list at http://people.unipi.it/sergio_saponara/publications/
Prod. Saponara held also professional courses for international companies:
- “Electronic Systems for Mechatronics” for Magna Closures in 2012
- “Electronic Systems for Energy and control” for ABB-PowerOne in 2010
Start-up
Prof. Saponara is the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of IngeniArs Srl, founded in May 2014, recognized as Spin-off of Pisa University and as an Innovative Start-up company according to Italian laws.
IngeniArs has been selected in the top 10 Tuscany start-up companies at the competition StartCup Toscana 2014.
The activities of Ingeniars are originated from technology transfer activities in the following 3 fields.
1-Instrumentation and Electronics for Space
The activity is focused on the design of HDL macrocells (Gigabit Serial Link Controller IP, SpaceWire Codec IP, SpaceWire Router IP) and networking devices (interfaces, gateway, routers, link analyzers with ASIC and FPGA technologies) for on-board satellite communication through the standards Spacewire, SpaceFibre and WizardLink.
http://www.ingeniars.com/english/products/space.html
In this field the project SIMPLE (Spacefibre IMPLementation & test Equipment), has been founded in H2020 SME instrument program, and received also a seal of excellence from the EU. http://www.ingeniars.com/english/projects/simple-project.html
IngeniArs has been also the winner of the TRP (Technology Research Project) of the European Space Agency ESA ITT AO 1-8537 “IP Core for Medium Data Rate PDT”http://people.unipi.it/sergio_saponara/wp-content/uploads/sites/305/2017/07/Seal-of-Excellence.pdf
2-Instrumentation and Electronics for remote assistance of people affected by a chronic disease
http://www.ingeniars.com/english/products/telemedicine/e-sycare-gateway.html
In this field Ingeniars has developed a new set of sensors and gateways to monitor people affected by chronic heart failures, diabetes, respiratory disease.
The devices have been tested in real clinical experiments and different healthcare models (E@sycare for home, E@sycare for nurse, E@sycare for pharmacy) have been defined
The implemented monitoring model is explained in the following Open Access publication
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/5/327
Further details can found in this lecture of Prof. Saponara at the 7th Ambiet Assisted Living summer school at Scuola Superiore S’Anna in June 2016
http://www.foritaal2016.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Foritaal2016_Saponara_finale.pdf
3-Consultancy and design services for vehicle electronics, and for processing systems based on FPGA, DSP or ASIC