GoPhotonics interviewed Johannes Peeters, the CEO of VoxelSensors. Johannes Peeters is a highly experienced business executive, innovator, and strategist. He defined and delivered new categories of products in the consumer electronics, automotive, and industrial robotics segments. He has over 15 years of experience at Iristick, 7Sensing Software, BYTON, Sony, Softkinetic, and Collibra. Johannes holds an MSc Civil Engineering degree in Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Q. Can you give us a brief history of VoxelSensors? When was the company formed and what were the objectives?

Johannes Peeters: The VoxelSensors founding team comprises industry veterans Johannes Peeters, Andre Miodezky, Ward van der Tempel, later joined by Christian Mourad, Frederic de Laminne, and Boris Greenberg. In an earlier venture, SoftKinetic, the founding team members delivered new 3D sensing product categories in the consumer electronics, automotive and industrial segments. The activities culminated in the acquisition of SoftKinetic by the leader in imaging and sensing - Sony.

A few years after the successful exit of SoftKinetic, the VoxelSensors founding team got back together to discuss the state of the 3D sensing industry and realized there were still multiple unmet needs: the energy usage and slowness of all incumbent technology was preventing mass deployment of 3D sensing solutions. Given their passion for 3D perception, sensing and computer vision, the team embarked on a new mission to revolutionize the spatial and empathic computing industry by solving the low-power, low-latency challenges enabling real-time, context-aware experiences and (AI) agents.

Q. What is Single Photon Active Event Sensor (SPAES) Technology? Can you tell us more about this technology and its use cases?

Johannes Peeters: XR devices immerse the user in an augmented world, with digital elements which must be seamlessly blended with the physical world. To achieve this functionality, a perception technology is required. This technology must offer robust operation independently of the environment, must operate within a very tight power budget, and must have very low latency. Existing technologies have been unable to meet all of these demands.

Our proprietary Single Photon Active Event Sensor (SPAES) technology and system architecture are designed to fulfil the demands of end-product manufacturers seeking power-efficient, low-latency spatial awareness, gaze tracking, and intuitive interaction solutions. By transcending the experience barrier, our technology propels the growth of the Mobile and XR markets while satisfying the rising demand for Spatial and Empathic applications across various industries.

The foundational SPAES technology enables a revolutionary sequential system based on Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) that are single-photon sensitive and uniquely deliver low-power, low-latency data paths, and highly precise information. This game-changing innovation unlocks the full potential of immersive and autonomous experiences, transforming consumer electronics, smartphones, wearables, human-level AI and industrial applications.

Q. What is 3D perception?

Johannes Peeters: 3D perception (also Depth perception) refers to perception and spatial understanding of the world, the objects and environments in it in three dimensions. 3D perception is a key feature for powerful user experiences in XR (AR/VR/MR), mobile devices, robotics, drones, industrial etc.

Q. Can you tell us about your product portfolio? What is Andromeda and Andromeda 2? What are their features?

Johannes Peeters: At this stage, VoxelSensors developed 2 Evaluation Kits based on SPAES (Single Photon Active Event Sensor) technology.

Andromeda 1 – VoxelSensors’ first Evaluation Kit for XR 3D Perception. It’s a dual-camera system based on SPAES technology. It includes 2x Andromeda (gen-1) cameras, a laser-based Lissajous illuminator, and a VoxelSensors SDK suite.

Andromeda 2 - VoxelSensors’ first SPAES depth camera system. It’s a depth camera with built-in 2x SPAES sensors that provide dynamic triangulation system and continuous event-based depth data stream.

Q. Who uses your products and what are their applications?

Johannes Peeters: In the consumer market, our target customers are the big tech companies (i.e. Apple, Meta, Google, HTC, Samsung…) and large manufacturing companies (i.e. Quanta, Foxconn, Pegatron). In the professional market, we target a broad customer base (i.e. Magic Leap, Microsoft, Lynx, Virtuix, Realwear). The mass market customers will mostly be located in California, the USA, and Asia (Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore). Generally, our customers will be Tier-1 well-known brands and Tier-1 manufacturing companies.

Q. What market segments do you cater to? Which segment is the largest for you?

Johannes Peeters: We are focusing on XR and Mobile markets, however, our technology finds many applications in the fields like robotics, drones, industrial etc.

Q. Who are your customers? Where are they located? How do you support customers who are located in different geographies?

Johannes Peeters: Our customers are located in the USA, Europe, and Asia. We are establishing local sales and engineering operations to build proximity and intimacy with customers. The engagements themselves are very sensitive by nature and covered with NDAs.

Q. What is your product roadmap for the next three years?

Johannes Peeters: The coming three years will be very exciting for VoxelSensors. We’ll be manufacturing our unique SPAES sensors, release our Spatial Sensing and Eye-Tracking solutions and enable the next-generation of real-time, context-aware applications and human AI agents that are actually helpful in our daily lives.

About VoxelSensors