Company Background

Kovilta Oy was founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs D.Sc. Jonne Poikonen, D.Sc. Mika Laiho and Prof., D.Sc. Ari Paasio. The three founders have strong research background from the University of Turku and Helsinki University of technology (Aalto University) in the fields of integrated circuit design, parallel visual analysis systems and image processing algorithms. Since then the team has grown to a group of 11 technology professionals, including 6 Ph.D. level experts.

The Kovilta team combines experience in the design, implementation and testing of full-custom ASICs, image analysis algorithms, embedded camera systems, FPGAs and software. Through this wide-ranging expertise and an open-minded, "can-do" attitude, we at Kovilta are able to efficiently recognise and utilise new enabling technologies to benefit customer needs and to offer our own proprietary high-performance parallel processing solutions.

Kovilta's technology development has been funded in part by the European Union, Business Finland (TEKES), the Foundation for Finnish Inventions (Keksintösäätiö), and the Runar Bäckström Foundation.

Participation in research networks

An essential part of Kovilta's corporate philosophy is a continous strong emphasis on new technological and application-level development. To this end Kovilta, takes part in relevant research and development projects in collaboration with other industrial or academic partners, in addition to Kovilta's in-house development.

Current research collaboration

Kovilta is a partner in the ongoing 4-year (1.1.2021-) EU-funded Horizon 2020 FET Open project MISEL (Multispectral Intelligent Vision System with Embedded Low-Power Neural Computing) project, coordinated by VTT, Finland. MISEL aims to develop a fast, reliable and energy-efficient machine vision system that could be used in devices such as drones, autonomous vehicles, industrial and service robots and surveillance systems, by applying neuromorphic parallel computing methods and hardware.

Kovilta is also a partner in the ongoing 3-year (1.1.2023-) EU/Business Finland funded KDT-JU consortium AGRARSENSE, which aims to develop microelectronics, photonics, electronic packaging for agricultural use and forestry. The project will also develop related ICT and data management to realise large scale field demonstrators for real industrial needs.

Previous research collaboration

Kovilta was part of the RaPtor photo and radiation detector development ecosystem project, lead by VTT and co-funded by Business Finland.

Kovilta took part in the STREAKDET project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and lead by the Finnish Geodetic institute. Kovilta's responsibility in the project was the development of image segmentation methods and algorithms for space debris detection from telescope data.

Kovilta has also been involved as an industrial partner in two Tekes-funded research projects lead by University of Turku: MARIN and AgiSpacES. The MARIN project focused on Augmented Reality (AR) technology, where Kovilta's single-chip, low-power processor platform could provide a more efficient tool for extracting visual correspondence points between real-life and simulated data. AgiSpacES ecxamined agile and iterative product development methods for development of embedded systems taking into account the special characteristics of space industry.

Ecosystem collaboration
Kovilta is a partner in the Chip Zero ecosystem, which promotes energy-efficient semiconductor manufacturing, as well as in the Finnish UAV ecosystem FUAVE , which supports the development of Finnish knowledge base and business related to unmanned aviation.

 

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Kovilta Oy
Joukahaisenkatu 1
FI-20520 Turku
Finland
Tel. +358 50 590 5490

VAT identification number 2382145-0

Kovilta Oy
Joukahaisenkatu 1
FI-20520 Turku
Finland