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PMD Technologies
German company using photonic mixer devices

PMD Technologies (stylised as pmdtechnologies) is a developer of CMOS semiconductor 3D time-of-flight (ToF) components and a provider of engineering support in the field of digital 3D imaging. The company is named after the Photonic Mixer Device (PMD) technology used in its products to detect 3D data in real time. The corporate headquarters of the company is located in Siegen, Germany.

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History

PMD Technologies was founded in 2002 by Rudolf Schwarte and the Audi Electronics Venture GmbH2 as a spin-off of the Center for Sensor Systems (ZESS) at the University of Siegen, Germany. It was the result of over 10 years of scientific research on 3D ToF imaging.3 Another ZESS spin-off, S-Tec Sensor GmbH, founded in 1996, began developing PMD products in 1997. This company was acquired by PMD Technologies in 2002.

Basic patents for TOF-chips with new Photomischelemente (i.e. Photonic Mixer Elements resp. Devices) were filed in 1996 onwards by Prof. Rudolf Schwarte.4 A 3D Depth Camera with Time of Flight PMD sensors was available in the year 2000.5

In 2002, together with three other nominees, the developing team of PMD Technologies, represented by Rudolf Schwarte, Bernd Buxbaum, and Torsten Gollewski was nominated for the German Future Prize, which is issued by the President of Germany, at that time Johannes Rau.67

At the Hanover Fair in 2005 PMD Technologies was awarded with the innovation prize called Hermes Award for its Efector PMD.8

In 2009, PMD Technologies received the 2009 European Real-Time 3D Imaging Enabling Technology Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan.9

PMD Technologies took part in Google's Project Tango in 2015.10 Resulting in the first Lenovo device being released in 2016 with PMD's 3D technology.11

In 2019, new offices were opened in Seoul, Korea and Shanghai, China.12

Products

After initially focusing on industrial applications,1314 PMD Technologies began to spread their application areas into other fields, including the automotive sector,1516 consumer electronics, gaming,17 security & surveillance, medical technology18 and live sciences.

In 2013 PMD Technologies cooperated with Infineon Technologies to produce 3-D image sensor chips for touchless gesture recognition.19

PMD sensors are used in the exteroceptive sensor suite of NASA's robot Valkyrie.20

The autonomous humanoid robot Justin by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is equipped with PMD-sensors.21

A collaboration between PMD and Infineon Technologies resulted in a 3D iToF technology which was used in the Magic Leap 2.2223

In 2023 PMD and Infineon Technologies launched the IRS2976C, a ToF VGA sensor, which was the first sensor to be located under the display and to pass Googles Class 3 Face ID certification.2425

Further reading

  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. L. Overmeyer, S. Kleinert, "Stapeln leicht gemacht – 3D Kameratechnik unterstützt die Ladungshandhabung und hilft Unfälle zu vermeiden", "Industrial Vision" Archived 2010-10-26 at the Wayback Machine, Vereinigte Fachverlage GmbH, Mainz, 2011

References

  1. "Small and Inexpensive 3D Image Sensor". frost.com. https://www.growthconsulting.frost.com/web/images.nsf/0/8A509A197C4531ED6525766C00295A29/$File/TI_Alert.htm ↩

  2. Audi Technologiemagazin Dialoge 1/2011 (in German) Die sehende Diode, Johannes Köbler. https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/de/publikationen/magazine/dialoge-das-audi-technologiemagazin-01-2011-125/download ↩

  3. VDI Nachrichten (in German) (http://www.vdi-nachrichten.com/vdi-nachrichten/startzeit/article.asp?id=61[permanent dead link‍]) /wiki/Verein_Deutscher_Ingenieure ↩

  4. Verfahren und Vorrichtung zur Bestimmung der Phasen- und/oder Amplitudeninformation einer elektromagnetischen Welle, Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/DE19704496A1 ↩

  5. Ling Shao, Jungong Han, Pushmeet Kohli, Zhengyou Zhang (editors) (2014). Computer Vision and Machine Learning with RGB-D Sensors. Springer Science+Business Media. p. 15. ISBN 978-3319086507. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ISBN 9783319086507 978-3319086507 ↩

  6. Team 3 | Deutscher Zukunftspreis, Kamerapixel mit Tiefgang: Durchbruch zum schnellen 3D-Sehen Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine, Official Site of the German Future Prize http://www.deutscher-zukunftspreis.de/de/node/291 ↩

  7. 3D-Kamera erfasst ihr räumliches Umfeld in Echtzeit, Dr. Norbert Lossau, Die Welt, 12/03/2002 https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article282990/3D-Kamera-erfasst-ihr-raeumliches-Umfeld-in-Echtzeit.html ↩

  8. "Einfachheit ist so wichtig wie Zuverlässigkeit", VDI News No. 47 (Association of German Engineers), Heike Freimann, 11/22/2013 http://www.vdi-nachrichten.com/Technik-Wirtschaft/Einfachheit-so-wichtig-Zuverlaessigkeit ↩

  9. Frost & Sullivan Bestows European Enabling Technology Award in Real-Time 3D Imaging on PMDTechnologies GmbH, Frost & Sullivan https://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/press-release.pag?docid=185324374 ↩

  10. Google I/O 2015 - Project Tango - Mobile 3D tracking and perception, 29 May 2015, retrieved 2023-11-08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP9m9a2KEN4 ↩

  11. "Sensing the world the way we do - the world's first Project Tango Smartphone". www.pressebox.com. 2016-06-09. Retrieved 2023-11-08. https://www.pressebox.com/pressrelease/pmdtechnologies-gmbh/Sensing-the-world-the-way-we-do-the-worlds-first-Project-Tango-Smartphone/boxid/800705 ↩

  12. "pmdtechnologies ag Opens Offices in Seoul and Shanghai". FinanzNachrichten.de. Retrieved 2023-11-08. https://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2019-01/45642229-pmdtechnologies-ag-opens-offices-in-seoul-and-shanghai-004.htm ↩

  13. pmdtechnologies timeline up to 2009 (http://www.ifm.com/ifmus/web/pmd_prd_timeline.htm) http://www.ifm.com/ifmus/web/pmd_prd_timeline.htm ↩

  14. Example for a PMD based Automation Product 3D Image Sensor Evaluates Size, Shape and Level Archived 2009-12-22 at the Portuguese Web Archive http://www.ifm.com/ifmus/news/news_sen_7TDK88.htm ↩

  15. First PMDvision Day – Automotive (in German) http://www.pressebox.de/pressemeldungen/pmdt-echnologies-gmbh/boxid-88612.html ↩

  16. Free space determination for parking slots using a 3D PMD sensor – Scheunert, U. Fardi, B. Mattern, N. Wanielik, G. Keppeler, N. – Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2007 IEEE[dead link‍], Istanbul, 13–15 June 2007 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentCon.jsp?punumber=4290054 ↩

  17. Minority Report – Futuristic Interface Technologies by 3D Vision Inspect Online, July 2009 http://www.inspect-online.com/en/topstories/vision/minority-report?page=1 ↩

  18. Time-of-Flight sensor for patient positioning Medical Imaging 2009: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling; Schaller, Adelt, Penne, Hornegger; Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7261 (2009) http://www5.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/Forschung/Publikationen/2009/Schaller09-TOF.pdf ↩

  19. Clarke, Peter (May 29, 2013). "Infineon launches 3-D sensor for gesture recognition". EE Times. Retrieved August 13, 2015. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1280896 ↩

  20. Radford, Strawser, Hambuchen, Mehling, Verdeyen, Donnan, Holley, Sanchez, Nguyen, Bridgwater, Berka, Ambrose, McQuin, Yamokoski, Hart, Guo, Parsons, Wightman, Dinh, Ames, Blakely, Edmonson, Sommers, Rea, Tobler, Bibby, Howard, Nui, Lee, Conover, Truong, Chesney, Platt Jr., Johnson, Fok, Paine, Sentis, Cousineau, Sinnet, Lack, Powell, Morris, Ames. "Valkyrie: NASA's First Bipedal Humanoid Robot" (PDF). Prof. Aaron D. Ames, Texas A&M University. Retrieved August 13, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[permanent dead link‍] http://ames.tamu.edu/Val-NASA-JFR-Final.pdf ↩

  21. Mobiler humanoider Oberkörper "JUSTIN", Official Site of the DLR Institut für Robotik und Mechatronik http://www.dlr.de/rm/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4789/7945_read-12712/ ↩

  22. "Infineon, Pmdtechnologies Bring 3D iToF Depth Sensing to Magic Leap 2". eetimes.eu. 2022-07-08. Retrieved 2024-01-03. https://www.eetimes.eu/infineon-pmdtechnologies-bring-3d-itof-depth-sensing-to-magic-leap-2/ ↩

  23. "Infineon and pmdtechnologies develop 3D depth-sensing technology for Magic Leap 2 – enabling advanced cutting-edge industrial and medical applications". infineon.com. 2022-05-30. Retrieved 2024-01-03. https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/about-infineon/press/press-releases/2022/INFPSS202205-086.html ↩

  24. "Infineon Introduces New i-ToF VGA Sensor for Long-Range, Low-Power 3D Camera Systems". embeddedcomputing.com. 2023-03-06. Retrieved 2024-01-03. https://embeddedcomputing.com/application/industrial/machine-vision/infineon-introduces-new-i-tof-vga-sensor-for-long-range-low-power-3d-camera-systems ↩

  25. "ToF VGA sensor enables tiny 3D cameras". electronicproducts.com. 2023-02-28. Retrieved 2024-01-03. https://www.electronicproducts.com/tof-vga-sensor-enables-tiny-3d-cameras/ ↩