American multinational Ambarella has acquired Italian computer vision company VisLab for $30 million in cash.
Ambarella develops video compression and image processing solutions for areas including security IP, sports, flying and wearable cameras, and automotive imaging.
VisLab, the vision and intelligent systems laboratory at the University of Parma, is involved in perception systems and autonomous vehicle research, and was founded by Professor Alberto Broggi.
VisLab develops computer vision and intelligent control systems for automotive and other commercial applications, including advanced driver assistance systems and several generations of autonomous vehicle driving systems. These include Porter, an autonomous vehicle that made a 13,000 km autonomous trip from Italy to China in 2010.
As part of the acquisition, VisLab’s 27 researchers will join Ambarella’s advanced computer vision development team. This will enable extensive and robust computer vision support in future Ambarella solutions targeting Ambarella’s core markets including automotive, IP security, wearable, and flying cameras.
‘Computer vision is an area of significant focus for Ambarella, and will be critical to our current video markets, as well as future markets such as automotive OEM cameras,’ said Fermi Wang, CEO of Ambarella. ‘We are delighted to welcome Dr Broggi and the VisLab team to Ambarella to jointly define, develop and deploy future generations of computer vision solutions.’
‘The unique combination of VisLab’s computer vision expertise and Ambarella’s high performance, power-efficient video processing technology will enable extremely powerful systems,’ said Professor Broggi. ‘We are very pleased to join Ambarella and to realise the full potential of our research and algorithms across a wide range of customers’ products.’
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