PORTFOLIO

Drones have changed the way many people work. From farmers monitoring their crops, to engineers inspecting bridges; from environmental groups monitoring pollution, to directors creating the next blockbuster – drones are a versatile tool. How long and how far a drone can fly depends on a number of factors but, most importantly, on how much additional weight and power is assigned to the equipment it has to carry (such as cameras).
The development of SPAD (Single-Photon Avalanche Diode) cameras has opened up many new possibilities for drones. The cameras can work in extremely low-light conditions, offering images with higher clarity (even when faced with fast-moving objects). SPAD cameras also operate at very high speed, allowing drones to capture and process images in real-time. However, all these benefits come with a cost – large amounts of output data, increased power consumption, and demands on hardware.
The team at NovoViz has designed a new camera which uses SPAD technology but is designed to only send out relevant information and essential data – an event or neuromorphic camera that can operate at extremely low light levels which reduces the power consumption tenfold. This means a drone with all the benefits of a SPAD camera, but one that’s energy efficient and lighter and that can benefit from newly emerging vision algorithms.
The resulting extension in range has implications in applications such as surveillance, agriculture and infrastructure inspection, particularly when monitoring expansive landscapes or infrastructure spread out over large distances. For scientific research, environmental monitoring or wildlife tracking, the ability to cover a broad range without frequent interruptions for recharging or changing batteries is crucial when collecting comprehensive and continuous data. Of significant importance are also search and rescue operations where a longer range translates into increased likelihood of saving human lives.

An event-based single photon camera was successfully built around the prototype SPAD sensors and is now available for commercialization as a NovoViz product. At the date of writing, it is the fastest SPAD camera on the market, operating at 100 million frames per second and it has the smallest size compared to any SPAD camera alternative, at a small 3cm x 3cm x 3cm footprint. The camera is now being used in academia and industrial R&D and has found applications beyond drones, extending to machine vision for quality assurance, infrastructure monitoring and life sciences. It is also the first SPAD camera to have ever flown into outer space, bringing single-photon imaging technology to state-of-the-art space applications. Data collected by operating the SPAD camera was used to successfully develop the new generation of SPAD systems that will be commercialized by NovoViz in 2026.