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Monday, July 23, 2007
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
A 360-degree camera originally designed to give tank commanders a full view of the horizon, was recently used to catch card-counters at casino tables, and will now be aimed at thwarting even more nefarious characters: terrorists and pirates.
Next week, Westborough-based RemoteReality Corp. will announce a project in which its camera will be used by Lockheed Martin Corp. to detect small boats aimed at U.S. Navy ships, such as the suicide boat that killed 17 soldiers aboard the USS Cole in a Yemen harbor in 2000.
Since CEO James Ionson joined the company in December, RemoteReality has moved from R&D to commercialization. But unlike most tech startup CEOs, which may have focused the company's cameras on one target, Ionson has taken aim at several -- and so far has landed some major wins.
"Some companies focus on one market or one vertical. We think we have a technology that is applicable to multiple industries, and we intend to go after all of them," said Ionson, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, where he was credited with part of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, once known as "Star Wars" and now called the Missile Defense Agency.
The latest deal with Lockheed gives RemoteReality a foothold in the defense industry. It comes just four months after RemoteReality established a similar hold in the commercial-security space through a deal with New Jersey-based casino-security equipment vendor North American Video Inc., to provide 360-degree cameras to casinos.
RemoteReality was started in 2000 and subsisted on $7 million in federal small-business innovation research (SBIR) grants until last December, when it landed $7.3 million in private funding and added Ionson, who is also a former executive at Polaroid Corp.
To lead RemoteReality's product delivery and operations, Ionson hired William Conroy in May. Conroy is a former operations manager at Fibersense Technology Corp. in Canton, which had spun out from Northrop Grumman Corp. and was reacquired in 2003 to become Northrop's Electronic Systems Division.
Targeting pirates
Lockheed's Fast Inshore Attack Craft Defense System uses RemoteReality's 360-degree camera and radar, thermal imaging, weapons and decision-support technology to protect Navy ships. A Navy demonstration in August could mean more applications, such as protecting cruise ships or cargo ships from such threats as pirates or thieves. Lockheed originally used standard cameras for the visual aspect of the project, but decided to shift to RemoteReality's system this spring, citing the ability to cover a 360-degree view.
Neither Lockheed nor RemoteReality would provide financial or product projections related to Lockheed's latest project. But Ionson said the company expects the deal to open the door to "larger and even more lucrative critical infrastructure and commercial shipping marketplaces."
The Lockheed deal itself is a significant step forward, according to Alan Macdonald, executive director of the Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative. "Getting initiated into any of the prime contractors is a challenge for small companies, but once they get in, it opens things up considerably," he said.
Such implementations could include cargo and cruise ships looking to protect themselves from pirates or terrorists at sea, according to Tim Fouts, manager of business development for Lockheed, based in Maryland.
The system also incorporates a handful of other vendors, including FLIR Systems Inc., a thermal imaging company based in Oregon with an office in North Billerica, and networking company Cisco Systems Inc. in California.
Ionson is secretive regarding many of the company's future projects, but said the company is shipping product through its deal with North American Video and has sold a number of systems for pilot tests in critical infrastructure uses such as oil refineries, prisons and power plants.
With recent successes in the casino and defense markets, Ionson said the company is close to closing more deals in both defense and commercial areas, as well as moving forward on new applications. "This camera can be integrated wherever traditional cameras provide only a portion of the data," he said. "We are looking at additional military applications, but also at critical infrastructure, security, robotics and even videoconferencing."
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