Dr. Tyler Reid, co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Programs, discusses a brand new sort of worldwide navigation satellite tv for pc system (GNSS). Xona Area Programs plans to supply centimeter-level positioning accuracy and can serve the rising autonomous automobile neighborhood, the place exact navigation is vital. Reid discusses the benefits and technical challenges of a low Earth orbit (LEO) resolution.

Tyler Reid

Tyler Reid is co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Programs. Beforehand, Tyler labored as a Analysis Engineer on the Ford Motor Firm in localization and mapping for self-driving automobiles. He has additionally labored as an engineer at Google and as a lecturer at Stanford College, the place he co-taught the GPS course. Tyler acquired his PhD (2017) and MSc (2012) in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford and B.Eng. (’10) in Mechanical Engineering from McGill.

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transcript

lilly: Howdy and welcome to the Robohub podcast. Would you thoughts introducing your self?

Tyler: Howdy and thanks once more for having me on at the moment. So I’m Tyler Reid and I’m co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Programs.

lilly: And might you inform us somewhat bit about Xona Area Programs?

Tyler: Yeah, for positive. So Xona Area Programs is an organization targeted on, mainly constructing industrial GPS satellites.

So actually transferring away from the mannequin of, you already know, these type of authorities operated techniques like GPS which have a type of very particular, you already know, authorities oriented mission. Transferring in direction of a system that’s, you already know, commercially pushed round type of wants of economic customers and, you already know, going extra in that path to form of assist these customers going ahead.

lilly: And what do you suppose are form of the advantages of going industrial with a GPS sort know-how?

Tyler: Yeah, for positive. So to talk somewhat bit about my background and form of the place a few of that is coming from. So, so I form of got here from the world of, you already know, GPS and began actually in grad faculty on that facet of issues.

And transitioned after grad faculty to working in type of trade analysis. So I used to be working in autonomous autos, working with these techniques and type of seeing these techniques actually closely depend on, on GPS and type of what’s on the market at the moment. And actually the state-of-the-art of the know-how was, you already know, having third get together corporations mainly ship correction info for the GPS satellite tv for pc.

So the data coming from GPS straight was actually not fairly on the degree that it must be to assist these, you already know, techniques like self-driving which are actually making an attempt to get right down to the centimeter degree location to, to, you already know, drive themselves on the street. and so to get to that degree, you had type of these corporations whose complete type of position was to ship, you already know, higher orbit, higher clock info than what GPS provides you straight to essentially drive these errors right down to that type of that centimeter degree.

And due to the best way the system was architected, which actually wasn’t, you already know, meant for use this manner, it led to. you already know, the fragilities in that type of sign. So if you begin to drive beneath timber or in sure environments, you’ll usually lose that type of centimeter degree location. And it simply, it form of left some, I assume, holes to be stuffed by, by one thing else.

And what that’s one thing else was was, was a part of my job to determine, okay. You recognize, was it possibly terrestrial primarily based resolution? Is it laptop imaginative and prescient resolution is a type of all the above. And, you already know, with my background coming from, you already know, satellite tv for pc navigation and GPS and type of seeing how these techniques have supported, you already know, some security, crucial purposes like civil aviation, which is, you already know, a part of what my type of, the thesis work was in and type of eager about how that would evolve to assist, you already know, a few of these floor techniques like autonomous autos, but in addition uAVs and, and type of different form of,form of autonomous techniques going ahead, that form of actually led to this.

Okay, properly, how can we alter issues on the house facet relatively than simply making an attempt to make use of what we have now from these type of authorities techniques to, to form of, you already know, fill the gaps, I suppose. And so from a, from a industrial perspective, you already know, what are a number of the advantages that you simply get there? Nicely, actually you’re not tied to type of the, the system that, that the federal government supplies for you, which, you already know, is type of static. It’s there for a cause. And it, you already know, it’s actually a improbable system and it, it helps billions of customers. It has created type of all, you already know, all these use instances that we, you already know, I’ve, I’ve a horrible sense of path.

So, you already know, realizing type of the blue dot to search out my manner house has, has been, you already know, extremely helpful. However, you already know, as we take into consideration transferring away from, you already know, people who can. use that info to form of get near the place they should go after which type of end the job themselves and, and going in direction of autonomous techniques that basically depend on that blue dot being, you already know, precisely proper the place it’s to, to, to essentially get to that time form of on their very own, with none enter from, from any people.

There actually is form of that there’s form of a leap that should occur there by way of, you already know, The sorts of ranges of, reliability and likewise, you already know, precision that, that these techniques assist. And so eager about this from type of the industrial perspective, you already know, what are you able to present and, and turning into type of from an aerospace background, you already know, how will you, you already know, evolve this house section to essentially be targeted on the, on the industrial facet.

And so. Among the advantages. There may be you, you simply, you already know, you’ve got type of a clean slate in a way. And so you can begin with, you already know, what do we actually have to assist customers on the bottom? After which we are able to begin to architect the system, you already know, round a few of these, you already know, rising wants relatively than, you already know, supporting issues from in a long time, previously, I suppose.

lilly: And by way of like attending to that centimeter degree accuracy do you suppose that a lot of the technological developments are within the house facet or like, do you propose on doing does Xona house techniques plan on doing numerous that error correction, like related error correction sort stuff and like the total stack?

Tyler: Yeah, that’s an incredible query. And I’ll say in some sense, we’re not inventing, we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re form of, you already know, we’re utilizing numerous the strategies that’s been properly established by the form of excessive precision GNSS trade, which has supported traditionally [00:05:00] issues like surveying issues like mapping, precision agriculture, you already know, are large customers of, of this type of know-how.

And so actually type of constructing on the shoulders of giants in, in that respect. You recognize, how, how are people getting excessive precision at the moment and type of, you already know, evolving that to kinda the following, the following type of, you already know, what would possibly the following form of, house infrastructure seem like to, to make use of these strategies and type of make them even higher for folk.

And so, you already know, if you take a look at the type of errors that stack up in GPS, you’ve received. The environment is an enormous one, you already know, as these alerts refract by means of the completely different layers of the environment, notably the ionosphere and troposphere, you already know, that that’s a, an error that form of manifests itself on the person degree, but in addition simply the orbit and clock info coming from the satellite tv for pc, as a result of finally you’re triangulating your place from, you already know, just a few completely different factors in house.

You higher know very properly what these factors had been, cuz in any other case you’re not gonna know very properly. What, what your place is on the finish of the day. So it’s a must to determine a option to get, you already know, centimeter degree, you already know, orbital info of the GPS satellite tv for pc, so as to in flip form of get your place to the form of centimeter degree as properly.

And so how do you try this with form of, you already know, as we take into consideration this type of evolving from, you already know, the type of, the strategies which were used previously to, you already know, what is likely to be attainable, sooner or later? Nicely, it seems that one of many large type of inputs to that system, By way of how shortly you may get from type of meter degree place right down to type of the centimeter degree is how shortly the satellites transfer overhead.

And it seems that if you happen to make it such that the satellites transfer overhead in a short time, there’s simply much more info in that form of very fast cross than you’ve got from these additional satellites, which historically are type of medium earth orbit to assist that convergence get you from type of a tens of minutes type of place to a minute or much less type of place. And, and naturally there are strategies which are making that all the time higher on a regular basis from a medium earth orbit perspective. You recognize, if you’re utilizing type of the standard GSS satellites to, to get to that top precision, there are strategies evolving to, to get there quicker and quicker.

However in case you have that very quick form of movement throughout the sky, it simply makes these strategies even higher than that they might be in any other case. And in order that’s, that’s, that’s an instance of the type of factor you are able to do from a, you already know, industrial house section perspective to, to simply form of convey extra functionality to, to people on the bottom.

lilly: And so in case you have, if you happen to get higher efficiency from having transferring autos, and so that you’re having them at decrease orbits, you additionally want like three or so to get your place does having greater than that assist? And what number of, like what number of whole satellites do you suppose is gonna be the correct quantity?

Tyler: Yeah, that’s a very good query.

What it comes right down to is, you already know, the extra satellites, the higher , that’s type of the easy query, the easy reply there, however mm-hmm, actually we’re, you already know, actually leveraging the same approach that’s been used from, from GPS, which is called trilateration.. And what that’s, is there’s mainly 4 unknowns in that system and the 4 unknowns or your X, Y, Zed (or sorry, that’s Canadian – XYZ) and, and time, and, and the explanation time is form of an uncertainty there may be that the best way you calculate vary to the completely different satellites is that the satellite tv for pc sends a sign and the sign mainly says it was this time after I despatched it, the sign takes a while for it to journey to you. You obtain it a while later.

And so the distinction between the time it was despatched and the time you acquired it’s the, mainly the time of flight of the sign. And, and that point multiplied by the velocity of sunshine is, is the vary to the satellite tv for pc. So, if you happen to try this to a number of satellites, now you’ve calculated one thing that appears like a variety to you as a result of it’s, you already know, that, that point of flight to a handful of satellites, you’ll consider, you already know, in 3d house, you want, you’ve got three satellites, three unknown, you already know, XYZ place.

You recognize, what’s the, what’s that fourth unknown, you already know, why do you’ve got that additional unknown there? And that’s since you don’t know precisely what time it’s if you acquired it, you acquired it at some native time, which is, you already know, no matter time your telephone says, however you already know, how, how correct is that on the finish of the.

Tyler: And if you consider the sensitivity of the issue of how correct you really want to know your time to do to calculate these ranges? Nicely, it seems. One nanosecond of time, uncertainty is, is a foot or 30 centimeter. And so it stacks up very, in a short time if you’re speaking about type of nanosecond of, of time information, and it’s very laborious to, to take care of nanosecond form of timing in your telephone.

Your time, time in your telephone is extra on the type of microsecond degree. More often than not, that’s type of the place it must be to, to do its job, which is type of telecommunications and all these items. However if you happen to’re speaking about doing precision ranging. You really want that type of nanosecond type of functionality.

And so relatively than, you already know, having to convey an atomic clock with you on a regular basis to form of preserve your time at that form of, you already know, very excessive, exact degree, you simply remedy for it as a substitute. So that you add a fourth satellite tv for pc and now, you already know, you get the three dimensions and that point dimension to, to get your place form of right down to, you already know, our expertise at the moment is extra type of at that meter degree, however you already know, that form of handful of nanosecond type of uncertainty type of level. And so, you already know, going, in order that type of minimal quantity you should get some type of place info is, is 4. It does assume you don’t have any different [00:10:00] sensors or, or nothing else like that.

So if you happen to simply type of solely have your type of GPS receiver and nothing else 4 satellites is type of the naked quantity you should, to get that first place. so you already know, what number of extra do you should do the job? Nicely, properly, you need extra than simply 4 to type of be sturdy to that. And, and the reason being, is you begin form of transferring round on the earth.

You, you might not all the time have international view if you happen to type of have, you’re assuming you’ve got full view of the sky, all it takes is a constructing to dam one a part of the sky and also you solely have three. So you actually wanna design that system to, you already know, have greater than 4 in view always that you simply had been on earth.

So that you simply’re sturdy and issues like buildings being in the best way, timber being in the best way. you already know, additionally simply, usually it’s, you already know, you’re gonna have simply one thing, that’s gonna offer you greater precision in case you have much more satellites in view, trigger you’ve got extra measurements accessible to you and.

The the correct of quantity that the majority, I assume I’ll say GNSS techniques have come to at the moment is extra at that type of 10 or 12 variety of satellites in view. And that’s what GPS has at the moment. That’s what the European Galileo system has at the moment. And so type of in addition to the, the Russian, sorry, the Russian GLONASS, and Chinese language Beidou techniques are, are type of in that related variety of satellites.

And so. Tenish or so satellite tv for pc is about the place you need be type of at minimal and the extra satellites it’s a must to simply higher, it’s gonna work in additional locations, I assume.

lilly: Mm-hmm if it’s 10 or 12, like seen out of your system directly, I assume they don’t have protection of all over the place all of sudden for the total constructed out constellation.

Tyler: Yeah, that’s an incredible query. And so when, if you’re speaking about type of the GPS system, which is deployed in a medium Earth orbit, which is about 20,000 kilometer altitudeor so. That system has about 30 satellites to attain that objective. In order that’s about what number of satellites that if you deploy form of on the excessive orbit that you simply want. We’re focusing on a decrease orbit than that at the moment, which is extra type of within the thousand kilometer vary..

So, so being that 20 occasions nearer to earth, it seems that satellite tv for pc footprint simply shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. Trigger you’re simply a lot nearer to, to earth. And so that you want extra satellites to get the identical quantity of protection. So we’re focusing on a couple of 300 satellite tv for pc constellation or so.

lilly: OK. talking in regards to the time of flight measurements, is there any, like, would you contemplate and what are the benefits and downsides of, as a substitute of doing the a method time of flight and having to maintain monitor of all that synchronization with doing form of a two-way ranging, the place your system is the one pinging?

Tyler: Yeah, that’s an incredible query. And, and this was one of many unique trades that was carried out when people had been creating GPS. And so some folks smarter than me had, had put numerous thought into, you already know, why you would possibly. Do this type of system over say this type of two-way time switch system.

Yeah. And a number of the benefits there, the principle one is de facto that in case your system has to ping again to the satellite tv for pc, it does two issues and one in every of them is that it, it, it’s an even bigger energy draw in your system as a result of your system is having to type of ship a radio sign {that a} satellite tv for pc has to obtain.

And in order that that’s one piece. And the opposite piece of it’s that the satellites then additionally must, have the ability to obtain all these alerts from a number of customers. And so you find yourself placing a constraint on the capability of the satellite tv for pc within the sense that now that satellite tv for pc has to get pings again from all these people which are utilizing it, possibly just a few hundred or just a few thousand folks directly can use it, which is, it finally ends up being type of a limiter on the variety of people who can really use that system.

Whereas if you happen to use this type of a method time switch system, the place though you do want form of an additional satellite tv for pc in view to unravel the issue. You’ll be able to in idea form of, you already know, assist an infinite variety of customers. And so, which is the case of GPS at the moment, the place we see it supporting, you already know, billions of customers and you may, you already know, add as many gadgets as you need with out having that constraint.

In order that, that that’s the massive one.

lilly: Yeah, that is sensible. So if you’re at this decrease orbit and GPS satellites, The standard authorities funded ones nonetheless exist above you. Can you utilize them to raised monitor your satellites?

Tyler: Yeah. completely. And that turns into one of many inputs, to the system, for positive.

As a result of, and folk have carried out numerous stuff in, in low Earth orbit, supported by GPS as a result of a part of the service quantity of, of these GPS is to assist purposes in decrease orbit. So you possibly can consider earth imagery, the worldwide house station, all these varieties of parents are, are utilizing that. That being mentioned, we’re designing the system to be GPS impartial.

Simply because there’s numerous curiosity from that from people to have that functionality, you’re not essentially totally depending on, you already know, this different system that you simply’re augmenting having some means to form of function, with out enter from that system is, is advantageous in some methods, however it’s there and it’s a nice enter to the system that, that we’re placing collectively.

Tyler: And so it is sensible to, to incorporate these measurements a manner of simply making the system extra sturdy on the finish of the day.

For a person, like for the common particular person with a telephone, will the GPS receiver that I have already got on my telephone work together with your system instantly? Or are there adjustments that must be made?

Tyler: Yeah, that’s a very good query too. And it, there’ll seemingly must be adjustments to, to the system in your telephone at the moment, however we see that as a part of the form of pure evolution of how the GNSS chip units are evolving and. Considered one of our, I assume our basic strategy to this isn’t to compete with the GNSS receiver producers it’s to work with them, to include [00:15:00] our service into their gadgets.

And, and so actually working to, you already know, make it, make that form of adoption as just like what say including a number of the new constellations which have come on-line over time is like, so, you already know, initially there was solely GPS chips after which there was GPS plus BLONASS chips, after which there GPS plus Galileo plus BLONASS plus Beidou chips.

And so actually making an attempt to type. Proceed that evolution of together with a few of these, these new techniques into these chip units. And so working with the, the GNSS receiver producers for probably the following technology of gadgets, as a result of notably the type of ASIC gadgets that you simply discover in your telephone are, are so optimized for a particular software that becoming in new issues is, is an enormous problem. For a number of the extra, I’ll say, this, form of, excessive efficiency receivers which are on the market at the moment which are supporting a number of the excessive precision purposes on that facet of issues, that there’s some, risk of, having that be extra akin to a, a software program replace than,than form of a brand new system.

lilly: Attention-grabbing. I wished to pivot somewhat bit and discuss extra about, a few of your work with autonomous autos and at like, there’s clearly a transparent, like interface between these two issues, however what are a number of the similarities and variations by way of like the way you really are fixing technical issues or the autonomy on the autos and the autonomy on the satellites or any of that type of factor?

Tyler: Yeah, that’s an incredible query. So I’ll say half, possibly I’ll, I’ll take. Give somewhat little bit of historical past of form of the place a number of the, I assume, form of my time in autonomous automobile form of led to this curiosity in form of pursuing this type of satellite tv for pc navigation facet. so after I entered the type of autonomous automobile realm and I used to be working at Ford motor firm on the time, a part of my position at that at the moment was form of a mixture of know-how scouting and basic analysis .

In know-how scouting, it was actually working with the startups, notably in Silicon valley, but in addition different know-how corporations as properly, to essentially set up, you already know, what’s the state-of-the-art in, you already know, location and mapping applied sciences for. At first was, you already know, targeted on type of these degree 4 degree 5 totally autonomous autos, however it was additionally form of supporting a number of the degree two degree three type of, driver help techniques as properly.

And form of as soon as establishing that type of the place, what the state of they’re, the know-how was a part of that and form of, making an attempt to establish which of them had been a number of the market leaders was to determine, you already know, what are the necessities for these techniques finally, and which one is type of closest to the place the necessities finally must be.

So, you already know, what are the placement necessities for, for autonomy? And that turned out to be a, a a lot more durable query than I believe we initially thought, I believe people had been like, oh, you already know, 10 centimeters appears to be the correct quantity, however it was usually type of unjustified. It was form of a ten centimeter appears to be a quantity the place the system fails the least.

In order that looks as if a very good place to start out. However we wished to type of take a step again and say, okay, essentially, you already know, what do these autos actually need by way of, you already know, a bounding field, if you happen to wanna consider it that manner round a automobile to say, okay, that is the situational consciousness that I want to do that, this type of household of duties or this type of household of duties.

And actually what it turns into is there’s some purposes the place you should know what street you’re on. Some purposes you should know what lane you’re in. And a few purposes we actually have to know, you already know, to the centimeter, to have the ability to steer the automobile inside the lane and type of, you already know, get to the place you’re going.

And it turned out that, you already know, seeing type of the place, the place the necessities finally wanted to go and type of the place the state-of-the-art know-how was. There was a minimum of in my thoughts, very a lot a spot of, you already know, the place, the place issues, form of stood at the moment. And that led to the motivation, a minimum of from, from my facet to say, okay, properly, what’s one thing we are able to do from the infrastructure facet to assist fill that hole?

As a result of one of many developments that was occurring within the autonomous automobile trade, a minimum of within the time after I was, was there was. You recognize, the, the type of variety of sensors, the quantity of compute on the autos was making these autos in some sense, prohibitively costly. You recognize, you had a lot {hardware} on the autos, the autos had been type of these type of million greenback, very specialised type of autos.

It simply didn’t scale that properly, whereas if you happen to can offload a few of that to the infrastructure facet, to assist numerous autos, You recognize, that appeared to make extra sense to me a minimum of. And, and so this went again to, okay, properly, what, you already know, being type of somebody from an aerospace background, place, navigation background, pondering, okay, properly, what can we do from an area, infrastructure facet to assist this type of place navigation and, and time downside.

Tyler: And so I believe by way of, you already know, the place these two issues are, are form of coming collectively is, is de facto seeing this from a okay, how can the, this infrastructure assist the wants of these techniques? There are, in fact, some, some crossover between the 2 within the sense that there are applied sciences which are, I believe gonna be used on each within the sense that, you already know, you need these satellites if you’re deploying a big constellation to have, you already know, a excessive diploma of autonomy about themselves by way of fault monitoring by way of integrity monitoring.

As a result of finally you’re making an attempt to. You recognize, assist these, you already know, security, crucial techniques within the, within the case of automotive. And so having the, you already know, numerous that type of fault checking, form of carried out in an autonomous manner. In order that be caught in a short time, it turns into crucial, however there’s additionally simply basic issues like, you already know, essentially a automobile when it’s doing its navigation and positioning is operating [00:20:00] one thing like a Kalman filter or some one thing that’s combining these measurements.

These sorts of issues are gonna be operating on, on the satellites for orbit willpower. So it’s a distinct context of downside, however you already know, essentially the same instrument in, ultimately of the day. And there’s additionally some parts of, I believe, collaborative, you already know, infrastructure as properly. So if you consider, you already know, self-driving automobile driving by itself with an entire bunch of sensors on it, properly, that’s.

You’re type of simply making an attempt to interchange one human in a automobile. Perhaps that’s not one of the simplest ways to do it. Perhaps there’s some benefits to having autos work collectively in a collaborative manner the place, you already know, a automobile that’s maybe down the street from you possibly can share sensor info or situational consciousness info so as to set up that situational consciousness, you already know, on the metropolis degree the place you possibly can see round corners, see aroundyou know, different obstacles which you could’t see to type of get to the purpose the place you’re driving as safely, as you already know, all of the people mixed on the street, relatively than type of only one human can solely see one a part of the view of the world. And so I believe there’s a component of that that may discover its manner into the, the house type of the house and type of floor segments that assist these type of house techniques going ahead.

Y know, how can these techniques work collectively to search out faults in one another the place you already know, these, these sorts of concepts that I believe are, are fascinating as properly.

lilly: Yeah. that’s a very good level. And I’m somewhat in listening to extra about this concept of getting the satellites collaborate and form of what are probably the most technically difficult or technically promising parts of that.

Tyler: Yeah, that’s an incredible query as properly. There’s, I’ll say there’s rather a lot occurring in, within the house trade now, I believe even in comparison with, you already know, even 5 or 10 years in the past that they actually make numerous this attainable. And you already know, one of many large ones is simply the dimensions of the constellations being deployed today.

And I believe that that’s enabled by. A couple of issues just like the decrease price of entry to house, you already know, SpaceX is I believe one of many extra seen gamers there, however there are in fact others and the opposite is simply, you already know, completely different satellite tv for pc manufacturing strategies. So constructing satellites extra such as you would construct a automobile on an meeting line relatively than type of these bespoke type of one satellite tv for pc’s in a room the place you’ve got a bunch of individuals type of placing stuff on it.

It’s a fairly, it’s only a completely different mannequin of, of assembling this stuff. And. After we take a look at the sorts of applied sciences that I believe are, are form of coming into that form of satellite tv for pc realm which are possibly even borrowed from locations like automotive, the place, you already know, particularly if you’re speaking about meeting and, and testing, you already know, making one thing that’s, you already know, very sturdy in, in type of excessive volumes that.

Form of brings this stuff collectively. I believe that, that that’s a minimum of one instance of, you already know, I believe the place these two industries can study from one another, I suppose. Uh, okay. So I believe so far as, you already know, autonomy on the satellites and the flexibility to form of collaborate with one another, I believe one of many large, the, one of many large parts of that’s the means for the satellites to simply discuss to one another, to start with. And so the flexibility to form of cross info.

Between satellites is, is I believe a, an enormous milestone form of as a part of that. And I believe one of many enabling applied sciences there that we’re, that we’ve seen form of come to mild is the, this means of type of having inter satellite tv for pc communication hyperlinks between these satellites. And there’s been numerous, I believe development of in each optical and radio, type of,you already know, intersatellite hyperlinks between that to cross that info round.

And I believe that, that, I imply step one to collaboration as it’s an automotive as properly, it’s simply establishing I believe that that’s customary and likewise the form of means for this stuff to cross info between one another. I believe there’s actually been challenges in automotive on that facet with, with establishing requirements, with issues like vehicle-to-things, so V2 V to X, so automobile -to-stuff, or different automobile type of communication hyperlinks and establishing simply, you already know, what’s the spectrum that we shared? What’s the protocols for these type of communications? And I believe it’s, it’s one factor to do it in a type of. You recognize, if one say automotive OEM decides to do it a sure manner they usually can try this between all their autos.

It’s one other to do it form of throughout autos of all completely different producers, form of in a standardized manner. And so I believe that that’s that’s one of many challenges is simply form of establishing, establishing form of the know-how and the type of requirements for that communication throughout, throughout satellites.

And naturally, as we take into consideration deploying our system, we expect principally of form of communication between the satellites that we have now. But it surely’s fascinating to consider, you already know, potential, you already know, cross form of, communication between different platforms as properly.

lilly: Yeah. And do you propose on, do you anticipate having optical or RF cross hyperlinks or each in your system?

Tyler: Yeah, I believe that’s one thing that we’re exploring. So I believe it’s one thing that’s on the desk, however I believe that we’re nonetheless in, we’re on the part proper now the place we have now deployed our first demonstration satellite tv for pc. And so for the demonstration satellite tv for pc, it has, I’ll say one thing that’s akin to, you already know, inter satellite tv for pc hyperlink, which we’re exploring between this, our form of second launch that’s coming, subsequent yr.

And so. That’s one thing that we’re exploring as a part of the long run deployment of the system, however the form of earlier iterations could, it is probably not required. So it’s, it’s one thing that we’re exploring and it’s one thing we’re keeping track of, however, it it’s possibly not essentially one thing that’s essentially crucial to the system working.

lilly: Nicely, congratulations in your first launch and your upcoming second launch. I wished to pivot somewhat bit extra really, and listen to a bit about, a few of your [00:25:00] analysis again if you had been within the academia and like how that led into, each your autonomous automobile and your present jobs.

Tyler: Yeah, that’s a, yeah, that brings me again

So to return to, I assume my days as a grad pupil. So, the lab that I labored in was the GPS analysis lab at Stanford college. And it was a very nice surroundings for me. It was one which targeted, you already know, very a lot on that type of place navigation downside, but in addition one which targeted somewhat bit on, you already know, operational initiatives for the FAA, in addition to we had been working with the federal aviation administration.

You recognize, assist these type of security, crucial techniques, you already know, plane utilizing GPS to land plane utilizing GPS in flight. so, you already know, eager about issues about, you already know, what are security crucial use instances of place navigation and time particularly in transportation. And on this case, it was supporting civil aviation.

And in order that was a very, that was a very fascinating surroundings for me, since you may see the work that you simply’re doing straight impacting that trade. In some variety of years, it wasn’t that the grad college students had been engaged on issues, you already know, straight type of in operation, however that it wasn’t too distant from type of essentially seeing the lifetime of operation.

So I believe from a, you already know, how that led into type of the, the work that I used to be doing, type of within the autonomous automobile world. I believe that eager about the issue of, you already know, what are the type of ranges of situational consciousness that autos want by way of place navigation and time, you already know, what’s the degree of type of security and integrity that these techniques want?

Actually utilizing that type of framework in a structured option to develop, you already know, what would possibly that framework seem like in automotive, which was type of new to that concept of getting place and data as a part of that type of security, crucial enter to, you already know, steering the automobile and, you already know, type of holding the human partially within the loop or completely within the loop, that are type of issues that aviation had form of labored by means of as a result of there are occasions the place the plane will fly itself.

There are occasions the place the plane type of has the pilot within the. So it’s, you already know, eager about these sorts of issues in that framework. And I believe that that, that type of facet of issues straight led to the work that we did in form of establishing, you already know, what is likely to be the framework and necessities for these autos going ahead.

You recognize, eager about this in type of a civil aviation strategy, as a result of. And if you evaluate the numbers, you already know, civil aviation actually has one of the best monitor document which you could give you by way of security and, you already know, per miles traveled with people and type of all these by all metrics. It’s it’s manner safer to sit down at an airplane than it’s to sit down in a automobile that that was that’s usually the, the takeaway and a part of that’s the properly that people have rather a lot much less people in automobiles have rather a lot much less coaching than people in plane who’re working these issues.

And so it’s a. That that’s simply essentially a kind of variations. And, and, and a part of that’s, is that if one thing goes mistaken in an plane, such as you higher know what to do shortly, whereas one thing goes mistaken in a automobile, you possibly can pull off to the facet of the street. And so, and so simply essentially some, some variations there, however I believe that that’s, that’s one of many large ones I believe was, you already know, bringing a few of that framework from, you already know, aviation to automotive and eager about these, these issues in that manner.

And the opposite facet of that was the type of. You recognize, the type of industrial GPS and GNSS facet of that. So, you already know, transitioning from, you already know, You recognize, the federal government system that helps, you already know, all these billions of gadgets and created all this type of, you already know, financial improvement and type of all these developments, and eager about how that may evolve type of within the so-called type of new house age, which is the age if you consider issues like SpaceX and, you already know, these type of gamers which have actually challenged the form of so-called conventional aerospace, which is, extra the type of, you already know, if you consider that as type of these longer timelines, very danger hostile type of gamers. And, and, you already know, eager about how, how would possibly a few of these type of new strategies or new approaches in house, eager about these type of mega constellations which are being proposed by, on the time they had been being proposed, it didn’t but exist. So we’re speaking about type of Starlink and OneWeb and you already know, all these type of gamers, which appeared type of like science fiction on the time, this was type of within the 2015 type of period earlier than numerous these items launched something or had been deployed.

These had been all type of concepts on. you already know, a few of that work was form of the basic, okay, properly, what would possibly you have the ability to do with one thing like this? If, if these type of satellites really come to exist, if the launch prices really come down, you already know, what is likely to be some functionality that you may leverage from that type of house infrastructure?

So if you happen to may deploy one thing like that for place navigation and time, you already know, what would possibly that seem like? What would possibly the capabilities be? However I believe at that time it was type of a okay, properly that, that’s an fascinating downside, however, It was in some sense, missing motivation. It was form of a, okay, properly, who desires this?

You recognize, what do we want this for? GPS works very well. Each, I believe on the time it was like, properly, we’ve carried out it. You recognize, GPS is in everybody’s pocket. What else may you need? And, and it wasn’t till I, I labored in an trade the place GPS, because it stood, wasn’t fairly sufficient for, for what they wanted that I form of these dots related at a minimum of on my facet to, to see, okay, properly possibly this type of strategy may assist this different facet as properly.

So in some sense, you already know, there’s, I assume studying from each side and type of related this stuff collectively, I assume.

lilly: Yeah, that makes [00:30:00] sense. It’s very fascinating to listen to the way it all connects. we’re developing on time, however I do have one final query. which is, are there different industrial gamers making an attempt to get into the GNSS house?

Like, do you’ve got any actual opponents proper now?

Tyler: Oh, there, positive. There’s undoubtedly people on the market. So we’re not the one ones doing this. I believe that they’re, I gained’t title all of them by title. Trigger I, I can’t converse to everybody’s plans on the market, however I can converse to a, just a few basic developments that, that we’ve seen.

And one is that, you already know, the, the oldsters on the market who’re constructing these type of mega constellations for communication functions. So, you already know, the web from the sky type of people are undoubtedly serious about offering one thing. I believe that it, it appears very completely different from, from what we’re working in direction of, which is extra of a , you already know, particular excessive efficiency, you already know, GNSS, P and T type of service, which appears rather a lot like what you have already got in your telephone by way of chip set, by way of these sorts of, you already know, antenna, these varieties of things. If you take a look at a number of the, you already know, the communication, techniques, you already know, actually they’re a totally completely different frequency bands.

Their person terminals are often fairly massive as a result of we want a reasonably large antenna to form of, full the hyperlink finances to get the type of knowledge charges that they’re speaking about. It, it they’re, they’re actually eager about it, however I believe that, you already know, their main objective is de facto, you already know, communication, however it’s form of a, oh, we are able to, you already know, we have now this technique, we are able to most likely assist some type of navigation as properly.

A minimum of that’s what we’ve seen to date. So I believe that that’s, that’s one of many opponents on the market. By way of others, we’ve seen some fascinating stuff happening from really one of many main, automotive OEMs on the market, which is a Chinese language firm known as Geely. They’re really constructing and deploying their very own constellation, which is de facto to assist autonomous automotive actions. It’s, you already know, communication navigation type of multi function bundle. And in order that’s, you already know, seems to be, you already know, one of many large, one of many large gamers on the market. And so there there’s actually another corporations as properly. There are some established providers on the market at the moment, for instance, from Iridium, which is offering some P and T providers at the moment.

And there are different satellite tv for pc providers offering extra correction providers. So issues which are correcting, offering extra info to form of praise the GPS sign, however not an extra, you already know, form of ranging or GPS sign itself. In order that’s, I believe one of many, one of many main variations there.

Tyler: So, and we, we, and I believe since we’ve been doing this, we’ve seen some others, another corporations form of suggest some related issues as properly. So I believe we’re, it seems to be that, issues are heading on this path, I assume.

lilly: Nicely, yeah, it’s undoubtedly an thrilling house to be in an thrilling time.

And. A very fascinating concept. Thanks a lot for talking with me.

Tyler: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks once more for, for the invitation to talk right here at the moment. And, yeah, this was nice dialogue.

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tags: Enterprise, c-Area, cx-Area, PNT, podcast, Robotics know-how, house, startup