About

We are a dynamic technology startup established by renowned post-doc researchers/engineers. The company was founded to become a point of excellence in wireless communications research and innovation, and eventually bridge research with product development and service provision. In FERON TECHNOLOGIES we are: - Developing innovative telecom protocols, products, and services - Integrating solutions and applications for todays and tomorrow’s networks - Enabling ICT in various verticals, such as transportation, agriculture, industry, logistics - Consulting third party companies on all-things related to establishing and maintaining an ad-hoc network infrastructure - Boosting innovation through collaborative projects, such as Horizon 2020, Connected Europe Facility, Future Internet Research Experimentation, ESPA and Β2Β Partnerships Our primary focus is on Emergency Response Networks and Solutions, where we capitalize on all the know-how, technologies and prototypes we have worked on during the last 5 years.

Solution & Product

In the strike of an emergency event in a restricted area with a complex structure, such as when extinguishing fires in underground facilities/tunnels, or when evacuating buildings, specialized personnel and robotic equipment are usually deployed. Coordinating remote resources requires a reliable telecom backbone. Conventional technologies and public communication networks are not able to optimally support rich communications -including data and video feed- in such scenarios. In FERON TECHNOLOGIES we aim at disrupting the emergency communications landscape with “AMESON”, a new hardware and software solution for deploying, operating and managing an on-demand and fully-automated telecom network. This network will assist/support/control/interact with people (S&R personnel), robots (surface, underwater or aerial vehicles) and things (cameras, sensors, actuators). AMESON enhances situational awareness to first responders and emergency units offering new operational capabilities in search-and-rescue missions. The proposed solution (currently at TRL6-7) has been designed on the grounds of sound in-house and 3rd party technologies, extending the current state-of-the-art for communication networks and IoT, and taking into account critical business development factors. It relies on the concepts of embedded hardware, open-software, globally standardized connectivity technologies, avoiding vendor/hardware lock-in, instead being a highly modular, scalable and customizable solution.

Innovation & Scalability

Today’s mobile networks coverage in deep-indoor/subterranean environments is usually weak or completely lost, while the WiFi range is limited to a few tens of meters. Legacy mobile networks have repeatedly failed to deliver during a localized crisis event, since they can’t cope with the increased impulse demand. Therefore, relying on existing and/or publicly available telecommunication infrastructure is considered a no-go today for mission critical conditions where lives could be at stake. The AMESON solution uniquely integrates technologies for addressing the key challenges of emergency communications systems. In particular, it can maintain sufficient communication in a complex structure, transmit different type of data (sensor, video), enable remote control of assisting robots, support enhanced range, adapt to region-specific wireless transmission rules, work under extreme conditions (steam, high-temperature, water-jets), and provide zero-touch configuration, with a system cost of a few thousands of euro only. For the past decades critical communications have been defined by digital land mobile radio technologies (TETRA, P25, DMR) and in the last few years by 4G-5G (FirstNet). AMESON differs from these approaches as it relies on low-cost relay nodes using unlicensed wireless technologies that can be easily deployed on-demand and extend indoor coverage to complex structures. And most importantly it uses open technologies revolutionizing the traditional closed approach.

Traction & achievements

In 2015, FERON was established as legal entity and participated in THEA City of Athens Business Incubator. In 2016 FERON joined the Corallia mi-cluster, and was awarded the first EU-funded project (more than 10 projects and 700k funding has been acquired so far), which supported the development and release of its first products. In mid-2018 the company completed its first Software-Defined-Radio protocol stack for 3GPP D2D and V2X technologies, which was among the first of their kind implementations. In 2018 the company started working on the emergency communications sector, and by Q1-19 developed a solution for unmanned sea vehicles interconnectivity, which was demonstrated in the Hellenic Naval Base of Skaramagkas, in Greece. In 2020, the company joined the EU project ESMERA and gained seed funding for developing the first AMESON PoC, in close collaboration with the CEA-LETI Centre and BSPP (Paris Fire-Brigade). In 2021, FERON completed and demonstrated its first PoC in real-world conditions.

Team & Why Us

The founders team consisted of technology and business development experts, with collectively more than 60 years of experience. The core team brings together different and complementary backgrounds, synthesizing a set of diverse competences, skills and expertise, including: •Technology development, including DSP design, antenna systems and simulation and prototyping of radio technology standards in SDR platforms; •Research and development of novel physical and medium access technologies and algorithms for mobile networks; •Design and development of Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication solutions and Intelligent Transportation Systems; •Development and integration of radio and IT technologies applicable to emerging systems such as transportation, localization-positioning and first-responder systems; •Development of Mobile Applications; •Management and business counselling for large and complex IT projects.

Funding Needs

FERON TECHNOLOGIES leverages EU and national funding for enriching the AMESON PoC with new innovative features. We are also looking for partnerships and collaborations with robotic/drone manufacturers for integrating and license our technologies towards co-creating complete solutions for emergency and civilian applications.