Dipl.-Ing. Gunter Föttinger

Die VECTED GmbH entwickelt und produziert Wärmebildsysteme am Firmenstandort Fürth (Bayern) für den Bereich der zivilen Sicherheit und der militärischen Ausrüstung. Die Geräte sind hoch komplexe embedded Systeme basierend auf einer sehr kompakten und stromsparendende, aber leistungsfähigen Elektronik. Die VECTED besitzt dabei umfassende Kompetenz von der Optik über die Systemkonstruktion und das Systemdesign bis zum Design der Video Image Processing Pipeline.

The research of the Embedded AI group at Fraunhofer IIS is focussed on the development and application of neuromorphic hardware devices. Our expertise also covers the application of "standard" AI hardware like FPGAs or specialized CPUs using neural networks.

The Programmable Systems Technology Group consists of members well-skilled in both worlds of engineering: Programmable hardware (FPGA) and software programming. We are focusing on a generic integration of FPGA functionality into LINUX userland. Second field of research is the use of High-Level-Synthesis (HLS) for video processing applications. Our mission is being innovative, thinking in platforms and providing sustainable code quality.

During my role as "Technical Lead Embedded Image Processing" I built up a FPGA development group within ARRI and led two big camera architecture technology projects. The ARRI AMIRA, ALEXA MINI and ALEXA MINI LF camera products are based on the results of the first developed architecture. Based on the pre developed technologies of the second architecture ARRI is currently developing the next generation of camera products.

Based on the pre-developed new camera architecture I got responsible to lead the product development of the ARRI AMIRA camera. Development of the corresponding MVF1 viewfinder product was also part of my responsibility. After AMIRA FCS in May 2014 we put a lot of effort to develop ARRIs first 4K processing firmware by bringing the UHD feature into AMIRA. This challenge was followed by another one by bringing XDCAM HD as a second video codec beside Apple ProRes into AMIRAs processing firmware.

Working at Solectix GmbH was productive and efficient. In 2009 Solectrix got responsible for developing the complete image processing hardware for the ARRI ALEXA camera. My role was to define and structure the hardware, to choose the right FPGAs, to define the FPGA image processing chain, to lead a team of 6 FPGA and software developers to bring up the full processing core of the ALEXA camera. Main challenge was to finish this project in a very tough time schedule without the option of a plan B.

At Fraunhofer I got deeply trained in VHDL programming and verification, especially of image processing modules. Fraunhofer IIS got responsible to develop the complete digital electronics of ARRIs first digital camera D20/D21. My role was to implement and debug the full RGB processing firmware. Another responsibility was to create a controller for the CMOS image sensor to easily change the control signal pattern in order to optimize the image regarding artefacts.

Technische Elektronik