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Engineering Consultant Needed -Guy Macon

I was contacted this morning (23 Feb. 2009) by what looks to be a legitimate customer who is looking for EE help. I am not able to do the job, and all of my usual contacts are busy as well, so I am throwing it into SED to see if anyone is interested.

I have created a temporary email address for this purpose: [ temp73658432 [at] guymacon.com ]. It will remain valid until the spammers find it. If you wish, you may call me at the phone number on my website, but I prefer email.

I will send contact info and a .PDF with their specs to anyone who is interested, but here is a quick overview: They are developing a helmet camera for use in extreme/action sports. They need help with mechanical and electrical engineering for the first phase and with PC software engineering for a later phase which I can not talk about without an NDA.

They are fine with working after hours/weekends to accommodate an engineer who has a day job and wants to moonlight. The fellow I talked to seem pretty sharp, but non-technical, and the business plan appears to have reasonable potential.

The rough electrical design specs (subject, of course, to the EE being able to meet the same needs with a different spec) involve interfacing a 5 mega-pixel image sensor (they have identified a few potential sources, some of which appear to have anti-shake already designed in) and a mono microphone to an embedded system that will record to a 16GB SD card (they are suggesting Quicktime/ MPEG-4/H.264 format at 1080p) and drive a USB port. They are hoping for 60fps but will accept 30fps. They want to get six hours out of a rechargeable battery (two hours recording and 4 hours standby) and to have a one button on/off user interface with everything else (exposure, etc.) done automatically. Fixed focus (1 meter to infinity desired) is OK and there is no need for zoom. And, of course, it has to be rugged enough for use in extreme sports. Quantity will be in the hundreds.

The mechanical design (which may be done by a different engineer) will involve mounting a lens (they have identified a few potential sources), adding a polarizing filter, making it rugged and water/ /dust/snow resistant, with straps/mounts designed so that it can attach to a helmet, limb, torso, handlebar, and possibly a suction cup or rope. They have done some prelim design on the mounts -- I don't know how much is already done or what quality it is.

I am *not* vouching for this customer; they seem legit to me but it is up to you to evaluate them. I will be telling them the same thing about you ("I haven't worked with this engineer, but his website/newsgroup posts show that he knows his stuff. It is up to you to evaluate him.")

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon
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Hopefully they are aware of what's already out there. Our guys used similar setups during formation jumps. Example, about 1/2 way down this page:

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6 hours is a stretch though without some kind of external battery. Plus you can't wear that extra battery on a helmet, it'll break your neck upon parachute opening. 
--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Reply to
Joerg

That's a pretty high-end camera you've described. In quantities of the hundreds, it's going to be quite pricey!

There's a lot of competition in the low-end of that market, e.g.,

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---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Indeed it will. I can't say too much about the business plan, but the target customer can afford a very expensive helmet camera.

Thanks! Interesting ideas for mounting hardware there.

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

Yikes!

I suppose the user could wear the battery on a belt or jacket or some such similar thing... connect via wire to the helmet-mounted camera.

Michael R. Darrett, P.E. (Chemical)

Reply to
mrdarrett

That was my impression as well. Of course one of the jobs an EE has to perform is to tell the customer how much the battery would weight to get the run time he wants, and to present trade-offs.

It appears that nobody here is interested, so I will be emailing them later today and saying that I didn't find anyone. Oh well...

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

This application brings up the question of how many simultaneous transmitters, resolution (HD?) and in what environment (multipath, etc ...) an OFDM (multi-carrier) system would be more robust, and scalable. I don't know if you can buy a WIMAX chip yet in low volume, but you could DIY with a low-power FPGA like Cyclone 3. Power management is going to be a challenge. Perhaps a DVBT transmitter ...

I noticed the wireless system as left un-specified. It reminds me of a time when I was asked to bid a radio direction finder: "We have the whole thing designed, with packaging ... all we need is the receiver and the antenna"

Reply to
Frank Raffaeli

Off-the-shelf flash drive camcorder + external battery? Plus appropriate mounting hardware?

Battery seems fairly straightforward. Give an overview of the various battery chemistries, A-h capacities, battery volumes and masses, and you're done. Probably have the wire parallel to the user's spinal column to minimize choking hazards when the chute opens.

I'm no EE. I've been working in contracts for so long, most of my mathematics / transient PDE knowledge has decayed. So I come here to keep Alzheimers at bay.

I'm surprised you don't want to do it yourself.

Cheers,

Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett

Well, I did design a CCD camera way back when and if they run into issues I could help. But my plate's too full right now for a full-blown new design.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Reply to
Joerg

Client has no money? ;-)

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Too much work to do already, plus there is a bunch of mechanical engineering to be done, which is something I am not terribly good at.

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

It sounds like a disaster project to me. What they want is a handy-cam with an external battery pack. However, developing a handy-cam will take several man years. I doubt they realize that. As a developer you have two options:

1) make a lumpy prototype and dissapoint your customer 2) offer an expensive solution and dissapoint your customer

Besides, I wonder how the guys from Fear Factor (a TV show I really hate) deal with their head mounted cameras. I guess thats all RF based. Perhaps an IP camera and a wifi router (with amplifier and proper antennas) will do the job as well.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
                     "If it doesn\'t fit, use a bigger hammer!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to
Nico Coesel

Nope. Should that really be the case (and I doubt it) then a good consultant will:

3) present what's already out there and suggest ways to make the most use out of those off-the-shelf parts.

If this is for parachuting, forget it. No way to establish a reliable WiFi connection from 14000 feet during a formation jump. Got to store locally first, then dump to a computer.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

What's wrong with all the ones the TeeVee producers of these shows are already using?

I can't imagine that you could develop one from scratch for less than the cost of one of them off-the-shelf.

Is the guy in Timbuktu or something? Check the LA yellow pages. ;-)

Thanks, Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

They probably looked at that stuff already and turned that idea down. Customer still dissapointed :-)

I actually did some testing with two 640x320 motion jpeg video + audio feeds using 5GHz wifi and good omnidirectional antennas. It did work quite well inside a building with several walls in between. The company that delivered the wifi equipment claimed they had established a reliable link between 2 sites seperated by a hill covered by a dense forest. They did use an amplifier that delivered several Watts. Perhaps not the best thing to use portable :-) Local buffering should be feasible though.

If think they should get this camera with an external battery pack:

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--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
                     "If it doesn\'t fit, use a bigger hammer!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to
Nico Coesel

Some customers (movie studios, for example) are not disapointed with an expensive solution that works.

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

Yes, but it helps if a customer is expecting an expensive solution so the solution is actually not expensive to them. One of the tricks of the trade is to 'judge' what kind of budget is customer is on and whether that budget is realistic. If there is a huge difference between what is realistic in the real world and what is realistic in the mind of the customer then it will be hard to satisfy the customer.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
                     "If it doesn\'t fit, use a bigger hammer!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to
Nico Coesel

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