Lens Research and Development, who joined the ESA Business Incubation Centre Noordwijk in 2012, have successfully finished the program and is now a proud alumnus. During incubation Lens R&D developed a cheaper and better sunsensor for among others concentrated solar applications.
When working on sunsensors for space applications at TNO, Johan Leijtens, was made aware of the need to have reliable but much more affordable sunsensors for the terrestrial market by several requests posed by potential customers. Therefore he started to work on this subject after starting his own company Lens R&D in 2012. Now, two years later Lens R&D is no longer a one man systems engineering company but a growing company with staff, partners, customers and an expanding network.
During the ESA BIC, it was the goal of Lens R&D to achieve more affordable sun sensors
with no compromises on the very high reliability from space sensors. Lens R&D achieved in this mission by making use of unattended machining and wafer scale production of the parts, automated pick and place assembly and a housing integrated connector. This techniques ensured a cost reduction of a factor of 70 already for the current generation of sensors but still exhibits the very high reliability as demonstrated for space sensors
ESA Business Incubation Centre Noordwijk not only provided financial support for Lens R&D allowing them to develop the required production tooling and produce the first prototype sensors, but also gave them access to ESA’s biggest facility ESA-ESTEC in Noordwijk.
According to Johan Leijtens, the ESA Business Incubation centre is an ideal breeding ground where start-up companies are helped with the various aspects of being entrepreneurial from basic financing to international exposure. In combination with the incentive scheme and technical support provided, the changes of successful start-up are drastically increased this way. Despite the fact that a regular job has its advantages, life is much more intense as an entrepreneur and although setbacks (which will occur) are extra bitter, successes (how small they may be) are extra sweet and addictive. Therefore it is very rare for the owner of a successful company to go back and work for another company.
Lens R&D is looking forward to the future, and is hoping to become a significant player in the world wide nice market of sunsensors.
From Space to earth and back – The developed high quality and low cost sunsensors for terrestrial applications have a nice side effect. As the quality, reliability and accuracy are high, the space sector is also interest in the use of sunsensors which are assembled in the same way as the terrestrial sensors because of the significantly improved quality to cost ratio. This way the ESA BIC program has led to the existence of two product lines in one program, one tailored for terrestrial applications, the other tailored for space.
During the ESA BIC, it was the goal of Lens R&D to achieve more affordable sun sensors
with no compromises on the very high reliability from space sensors. Lens R&D achieved in this mission by making use of unattended machining and wafer scale production of the parts, automated pick and place assembly and a housing integrated connector. This techniques ensured a cost reduction of a factor of 70 already for the current generation of sensors but still exhibits the very high reliability as demonstrated for space sensors
ESA Business Incubation Centre Noordwijk not only provided financial support for Lens R&D allowing them to develop the required production tooling and produce the first prototype sensors, but also gave them access to ESA’s biggest facility ESA-ESTEC in Noordwijk.
According to Johan Leijtens, the ESA Business Incubation centre is an ideal breeding ground where start-up companies are helped with the various aspects of being entrepreneurial from basic financing to international exposure. In combination with the incentive scheme and technical support provided, the changes of successful start-up are drastically increased this way. Despite the fact that a regular job has its advantages, life is much more intense as an entrepreneur and although setbacks (which will occur) are extra bitter, successes (how small they may be) are extra sweet and addictive. Therefore it is very rare for the owner of a successful company to go back and work for another company.
Lens R&D is looking forward to the future, and is hoping to become a significant player in the world wide nice market of sunsensors.
From Space to earth and back – The developed high quality and low cost sunsensors for terrestrial applications have a nice side effect. As the quality, reliability and accuracy are high, the space sector is also interest in the use of sunsensors which are assembled in the same way as the terrestrial sensors because of the significantly improved quality to cost ratio. This way the ESA BIC program has led to the existence of two product lines in one program, one tailored for terrestrial applications, the other tailored for space.
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
