FPGA Edge Perception Node for Autonomous Vessels and Confined-Space Fire Detection — Hardware Partner Seeking Consortium

Kuantek Elektronik A.Ş. is a Turkish deep-tech SME based at Bilişim Vadisi Technology Park (Gebze). We do not propose a project of our own; we bring the sensing and edge-processing layer to consortia forming around D5-16 and D5-06.

The technical position is the same in both cases. Perception under darkness, fog, glare or smoke depends on bands other than the visible one, and current systems fuse those bands late — each channel runs its own detection pipeline in software, and the results are merged afterwards. That costs latency and power, and it cannot recover a weak signal in one band using a strong one in another. We implement fusion early, at pixel and feature level on FPGA, which requires hardware-level sensor synchronisation, inter-band registration and deterministic timing.

Our contribution: LWIR and visible-band camera cores with lens–detector matching and range performance modelling; RTL image signal processing chains and quantised on-device inference; multi-sensor synchronisation with characterised sub-frame latency, measured through an FPGA-internal trigger methodology rather than asserted; and integration over Modbus, CAN and EtherCAT. We can lead a hardware work package, deliver demonstrator units for shipboard or terminal pilots, and support field validation.

We are looking for coordinators and consortia that need this layer, and for partners in perception algorithms, vessel and terminal operations, and test infrastructure.