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| Cambridge technology strikes a chord in a lucrative new global marketplace |
| Written by Ben Fountain | |
| Wednesday, 05 March 2008 | |
 On song: Ubisense hits the right note for operatic producers as well as a number of entertainment impresarios And the small Orwell outfit was surprised to learn that its dream partner was located just a few miles down the road in central Cambridge. Now the fruits of that collaboration with Ultra-Wideband real-time location system (RTLS) pioneer, Ubisense – just two months in the making once the paid did eventually get together – have been unveiled to the world at Raymond Gubbay’s production of Tosca at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The driver for the partnership was the need to develop a “sound reinforcement system” for operatic and other live musical performances that fools the audience into not noticing that amplification is being used. Opera afficianados particularly are resistant of any incursion from technology. The TiMax Talent Tracker system, as it is called, achieves this by tracking the position of individual actors (Ubisense’s side of the equation), processing the audio feed from their radio microphones in real time, then ‘steering’ the sound image (Out Board’s contribution) to give each audience member the impression of localised audio. Each actor wears a small Ubisense location tag which communicates with an array of six sensors mounted on a lighting bar running around the ‘in-the-round’ staging. The actors are all individually miked and the sound sent back to the TiMax DSP matrix audio processor. The TiMax system uses the Ubisense system to define on-stage spatial localisation zones which correspond to pre-programmed level/delay instructions. By applying clever audio algorithms to the sound, the system can place the actor’s audio image in the appropriate zone on stage. Out Board Director, Robin Whittaker, said: “We had wanted to develop such a solution for several years but could not find the right partner. This application demands absolute precision and reliability, something which only Ubisense is able to provide. So we were finally able to bring the concept to market.” “Because the Ubisense solution integrates so well with industry standard technology such as the Microsoft. NET environment, with well defined interfaces and APIs this enabled a rapid development and allowed us to meet the timescales for opening of the new Opera.” Whittaker added. Charles Sturman, VP Marketing at Ubisense commented “Although Ubisense has seen a great deal of traction in the manufacturing and logistics industries since the launch of our new product last year, we are keen to see how the technology can meet the needs of customers in other markets too. “We are really excited about the potential for TiMax Talent Tracker and our on-going partnership with Out Board in this space.” Out Board’s Dave Haydon told Business Weekly that his company was already in discussions with a view to applying the same technology to lighting systems, potentially automating the whole theatrical lighting process. He stressed though, that these talks were at a very early stage. Meanwhile Ubisense is seeing major traction in its core markets of manufacturing and logistics. The company said it aims to announce a number of key wins in the automotive sector later in the year. Sturman said the company was seeking to recruit heavily as part of an organic growth process, both in core development and technical support.
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