San Diego Business Journal | January 17, 2011
One of the reasons that Z Microsystems Inc. has been successful is its substantial investment in developing new ideas, says Jack Wade, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.
The firm, which creates new technology, directs more than 20 percent of its budget into product development, he notes.
U.S. armed forces depend on unmanned aircraft systems to provide visual surveillance in combat systems. Z Microsystems works to meet the technological needs of such aircraft.
The business has technical expertise in hardware and software development. It powers ZViDEO, a video capture and editing toolset used for gathering intelligence. The goal is to accurately identify potential targets with clear, sharp images, the company said.
Z Microsystems’ products include Any-Image-Anywhere, or AIA, which recently received the 2010 TechAmerica High Tech Award in the category of computers and related products. The award recognized the company’s ability to enhance and route video images from unmanned aircraft in real time.
Sharper Images
AIA uses high performance parallel processing, high speed video switching, and image enhancement algorithms to filter out visual distractions. The device also adjusts contrast and color and can provide the user with access to multiple views from a single display station. It was designed to have the capability of routing video streams on demand.
The company’s image enhancement techniques help the military overcome such adverse visual conditions as low light, fog, haze, smoke, and bright sunlight. Without these enhancements, the quality of the video imagery can be weakened by narrow camera field-of-view, data link degradations, bandwidth limitations, or cluttered visual scenes, according to the company.
Kevin Carroll, executive director for TechAmerica San Diego, says the AIA product represents an important technological step forward.
“Z Microsystems is pretty symbolic of just a great San Diego tech company,” he said. “It is one of the legacy Sorrento Valley companies. … I think it is a good example of determination and a good work force. Their imaging looks to be a step up from some of the imaging products available to the military that are out there.”
Z Microsystems reports that it is shaping the field-ready computing category — a growing segment of the multibillion-dollar worldwide deployable computing market.
The business’s competitors include Kontron, Technology Advancement Group and Themis Computer.
John Jordan, chief aerospace and defense consultant for Pacific Synergistics Inc., says Z Microsystems’ high-definition images bring out features that cameras alone simply cannot capture. “They scrub the image and the information through a variety of means,” he said.
Medical Applications
A. Dale Wunderlich, a Denver-based security consultant, says having the technology to accurately identify images from unmanned aircraft will become increasingly important to the U.S. “A great deal of what is going on in the future will involve unmanned drones,” said Wunderlich, who works with the security forces of some Middle Eastern nations.
In addition to its military work, Z Microsystems is developing new markets for image enhancement in the medical and industrial fields, says Wade. He notes that enhanced imagery can have applications in robotic surgery.
“One of the things that is happening with AIA is we are seeing applicability in the medical world,” Wade said. “What we are doing is learning how to improve vision, particularly with video and real time.”
Before founding Z Microsystems, Wade helped develop Medicare software and worked on several projects for the SAIC engineering and technology applications company. His interest in using technology to solve problems surfaced early. While attending Indiana State University, Wade automated the university’s class registration, grade reporting and cost accounting systems.
The CEO says he is proud that his company builds products in addition to designing them.
“One of the things I think is unique about Z Microsystems is we have skill sets in several areas,” he said. “It’s very complicated. You don’t achieve that level of capability overnight.”
Emmet Pierce is a freelance writer for the San Diego Business Journal.
http://www.sdbj.com/news/2011/jan/17/z-microsystems-investment-developing-new-ideas-pay/