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Dr. Tyler Reid, co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Methods, discusses a brand new sort of worldwide navigation satellite tv for pc system (GNSS). Xona Area Methods 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) answer.
Tyler Reid
Tyler Reid is co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Methods. Beforehand, Tyler labored as a Analysis Engineer on the Ford Motor Firm in localization and mapping for self-driving vehicles. 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 obtained 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: Whats up and welcome to the Robohub podcast. Would you thoughts introducing your self?
Tyler: Whats up and thanks once more for having me on in the present day. So I’m Tyler Reid and I’m co-founder and CTO of Xona Area Methods.
lilly: And may you inform us slightly bit about Xona Area Methods?
Tyler: Yeah, for positive. So Xona Area Methods is an organization targeted on, principally constructing business GPS satellites.
So actually transferring away from the mannequin of, you recognize, these sort of authorities operated methods like GPS which have a sort of very particular, you recognize, authorities oriented mission. Shifting in the direction of a system that’s, you recognize, commercially pushed round sort of wants of business customers and, you recognize, going extra in that course to kind of assist these customers going ahead.
lilly: And what do you suppose are kind of the advantages of going business with a GPS sort know-how?
Tyler: Yeah, for positive. So to talk slightly bit about my background and kind of the place a few of that is coming from. So, so I kind of got here from the world of, you recognize, GPS and began actually in grad college on that facet of issues.
And transitioned after grad college to working in sort of business analysis. So I used to be working in autonomous automobiles, working with these methods and sort of seeing these methods actually closely depend on, on GPS and sort of what’s on the market in the present day. And actually the state-of-the-art of the know-how was, you recognize, having third get together firms principally ship correction data for the GPS satellite tv for pc.
So the data coming from GPS immediately was actually not fairly on the stage that it must be to assist these, you recognize, methods like self-driving which are actually attempting to get right down to the centimeter stage location to, to, you recognize, drive themselves on the highway. and so to get to that stage, you had sort of these firms whose complete sort of position was to ship, you recognize, higher orbit, higher clock data than what GPS provides you immediately to essentially drive these errors right down to that sort of that centimeter stage.
And due to the way in which the system was architected, which actually wasn’t, you recognize, meant for use this fashion, it led to. you recognize, the fragilities in that sort of sign. So once you begin to drive below bushes or in sure environments, you’d typically lose that sort of centimeter stage location. And it simply, it kind of left some, I suppose, 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 based mostly answer? Is it laptop imaginative and prescient answer is a sort of the entire above. And, you recognize, with my background coming from, you recognize, satellite tv for pc navigation and GPS and sort of seeing how these methods have supported, you recognize, some security, essential purposes like civil aviation, which is, you recognize, a part of what my sort of, the thesis work was in and sort of interested by how that would evolve to assist, you recognize, a few of these floor methods like autonomous automobiles, but in addition uAVs and, and sort of different kind of,kind of autonomous methods going ahead, that kind of actually led to this.
Okay, nicely, how can we alter issues on the area facet relatively than simply attempting to make use of what we now have from these sort of authorities methods to, to kind of, you recognize, fill the gaps, I suppose. And so from a, from a business perspective, you recognize, what are a number of the advantages that you simply get there? Nicely, actually you’re not tied to sort of the, the system that, that the federal government supplies for you, which, you recognize, is sort of static. It’s there for a cause. And it, you recognize, it’s actually a implausible system and it, it helps billions of customers. It has created sort of all, you recognize, all these use circumstances that we, you recognize, I’ve, I’ve a horrible sense of course.
So, you recognize, figuring out sort of the blue dot to seek out my manner residence has, has been, you recognize, extremely helpful. However, you recognize, as we take into consideration transferring away from, you recognize, people who can. use that data to kind of get near the place they should go after which sort of end the job themselves and, and going in the direction of autonomous methods that basically depend on that blue dot being, you recognize, precisely proper the place it’s to, to, to essentially get to that time kind of on their very own, with none enter from, from any people.
There actually is kind of that there’s kind of a leap that should occur there when it comes to, you recognize, The sorts of ranges of, reliability and in addition, you recognize, precision that, that these methods assist. And so interested by this from sort of the business perspective, you recognize, what are you able to present and, and turning into sort of from an aerospace background, you recognize, how will you, you recognize, evolve this area phase to essentially be targeted on the, on the business facet.
And so. Among the advantages. There’s you, you simply, you recognize, you’ve sort of a clean slate in a way. And so you can begin with, you recognize, what do we actually have to assist customers on the bottom? After which we will begin to architect the system, you recognize, round a few of these, you recognize, rising wants relatively than, you recognize, supporting issues from in a long time, prior to now, I suppose.
lilly: And when it comes to like attending to that centimeter stage accuracy do you suppose that many of the technological developments are within the area facet or like, do you propose on doing does Xona area methods plan on doing a number of that error correction, like related error correction sort stuff and like the total stack?
Tyler: Yeah, that’s an important query. And I’ll say in some sense, we’re not inventing, we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re kind of, you recognize, we’re utilizing a number of the strategies that’s been nicely established by the kind of excessive precision GNSS business, which has supported traditionally [00:05:00] issues like surveying issues like mapping, precision agriculture, you recognize, are huge customers of, of this type of know-how.
And so actually sort of constructing on the shoulders of giants in, in that respect. You recognize, how, how are of us getting excessive precision in the present day and sort of, you recognize, evolving that to kinda the following, the following sort of, you recognize, what would possibly the following kind of, area infrastructure seem like to, to make use of these strategies and sort of make them even higher for people.
And so, you recognize, once you take a look at the sort of errors that stack up in GPS, you’ve obtained. The ambiance is an enormous one, you recognize, as these alerts refract by the completely different layers of the ambiance, notably the ionosphere and troposphere, you recognize, that that’s a, an error that kind of manifests itself on the consumer stage, but in addition simply the orbit and clock data coming from the satellite tv for pc, as a result of finally you’re triangulating your place from, you recognize, just a few completely different factors in area.
You higher know very nicely what these factors had been, cuz in any other case you’re not gonna know very nicely. What, what your place is on the finish of the day. So it’s important to work out a option to get, you recognize, centimeter stage, you recognize, orbital data of the GPS satellite tv for pc, so to in flip kind of get your place to the kind of centimeter stage as nicely.
And so how do you try this with kind of, you recognize, as we take into consideration this type of evolving from, you recognize, the sort of, the strategies which were used prior to now to, you recognize, what could be doable, sooner or later? Nicely, it seems that one of many huge sort of inputs to that system, When it comes to how rapidly you will get from sort of meter stage place right down to sort of the centimeter stage is how rapidly the satellites transfer overhead.
And it seems that when you make it such that the satellites transfer overhead in a short time, there’s simply much more data in that kind of very fast cross than you’ve from these additional satellites, which historically are sort of medium earth orbit to assist that convergence get you from sort of a tens of minutes sort of place to a minute or much less sort of place. And, and naturally there are strategies which are making that at all times higher on a regular basis from a medium earth orbit perspective. You recognize, once you’re utilizing sort of the standard GSS satellites to, to get to that prime precision, there are strategies evolving to, to get there quicker and quicker.
However when you have that very quick kind 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 sort of factor you are able to do from a, you recognize, business area phase perspective to, to only kind of convey extra functionality to, to of us on the bottom.
lilly: And so when you have, when you get higher efficiency from having transferring automobiles, 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 amount?
Tyler: Yeah, that’s a very good query.
What it comes right down to is, you recognize, the extra satellites, the higher , that’s sort of the easy query, the easy reply there, however mm-hmm, actually we’re, you recognize, actually leveraging an analogous method that’s been used from, from GPS, which is called trilateration.. And what that’s, is there’s principally 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 kind of an uncertainty there may be that the way in which you calculate vary to the completely different satellites is that the satellite tv for pc sends a sign and the sign principally says it was this time once 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 obtained it’s the, principally the time of flight of the sign. And, and that point multiplied by the pace of sunshine is, is the vary to the satellite tv for pc. So, when you 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 recognize, that, that point of flight to a handful of satellites, you’d consider, you recognize, in 3d area, you want, you’ve three satellites, three unknown, you recognize, XYZ place.
You recognize, what’s the, what’s that fourth unknown, you recognize, why do you’ve that additional unknown there? And that’s since you don’t know precisely what time it’s once you obtained it, you obtained it at some native time, which is, you recognize, no matter time your telephone says, however you recognize, how, how correct is that on the finish of the.
Tyler: And once 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 once you’re speaking about sort of nanosecond of, of time data, and it’s very laborious to, to take care of nanosecond kind of timing in your telephone.
Your time, time in your telephone is extra on the sort of microsecond stage. More often than not, that’s sort of the place it must be to, to do its job, which is sort of telecommunications and all these items. However when you’re speaking about doing precision ranging. You really want that sort of nanosecond sort of functionality.
And so relatively than, you recognize, having to convey an atomic clock with you on a regular basis to kind of preserve your time at that kind of, you recognize, very excessive, exact stage, you simply clear up for it as a substitute. So that you add a fourth satellite tv for pc and now, you recognize, you get the three dimensions and that point dimension to, to get your place kind of right down to, you recognize, our expertise in the present day is extra sort of at that meter stage, however you recognize, that kind of handful of nanosecond sort of uncertainty sort of level. And so, you recognize, going, in order that sort of minimal quantity that you must get some sort of place data is, is 4. It does assume you don’t have any different [00:10:00] sensors or, or nothing else like that.
So when you simply sort of solely have your sort of GPS receiver and nothing else 4 satellites is sort of the naked quantity that you must, to get that first place. so you recognize, what number of extra do that you must do the job? Nicely, nicely, you need extra than simply 4 to sort of be sturdy to that. And, and the reason being, is you begin kind of transferring round on the planet.
You, it’s possible you’ll not at all times have overseas view when you sort of have, you’re assuming you’ve 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 recognize, 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 way in which, bushes being in the way in which. you recognize, additionally simply, typically it’s, you recognize, you’re gonna have simply one thing, that’s gonna provide you with greater precision when you have much more satellites in view, trigger you’ve extra measurements out there to you and.
The the correct of quantity that the majority, I suppose I’ll say GNSS methods have come to in the present day is extra at that sort of 10 or 12 variety of satellites in view. And that’s what GPS has in the present day. That’s what the European Galileo system has in the present day. And so sort of in addition to the, the Russian, sorry, the Russian GLONASS, and Chinese language Beidou methods are, are sort of in that related variety of satellites.
And so. Tenish or so satellite tv for pc is about the place you need be sort of at minimal and the extra satellites it’s important to simply higher, it’s gonna work in additional locations, I suppose.
lilly: Mm-hmm if it’s 10 or 12, like seen out of your system directly, I assume they don’t have protection of in every single place suddenly for the total constructed out constellation.
Tyler: Yeah, that’s an important query. And so when, once you’re speaking about sort 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 realize that aim. In order that’s about what number of satellites that once you deploy kind of on the excessive orbit that you simply want. We’re concentrating on a decrease orbit than that in the present day, which is extra sort of within the thousand kilometer vary..
So, so being that 20 instances 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 concentrating 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 take into account 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 kind of a two-way ranging, the place your system is the one pinging?
Tyler: Yeah, that’s an important query. And, and this was one of many unique trades that was finished when of us had been growing GPS. And so some folks smarter than me had, had put a number of thought into, you recognize, 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 all them is that it, it, it’s a much bigger energy draw in your system as a result of your system is having to sort 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 need to, be capable 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 of us which are utilizing it, possibly only some hundred or just a few thousand folks directly can use it, which is, it finally ends up being sort of a limiter on the variety of of us who can truly use that system.
Whereas when you use this type of a method time switch system, the place though you do want kind of an additional satellite tv for pc in view to resolve the issue. You’ll be able to in principle kind of, you recognize, assist an infinite variety of customers. And so, which is the case of GPS in the present day, the place we see it supporting, you recognize, billions of customers and you may, you recognize, add as many units as you need with out having that constraint.
In order that, that that’s the massive one.
lilly: Yeah, that is smart. So in case you are at this decrease orbit and GPS satellites, The standard authorities funded ones nonetheless exist above you. Can you employ 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 people have finished a number of 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 may consider earth imagery, the worldwide area station, all these sorts of oldsters are, are utilizing that. That being mentioned, we’re designing the system to be GPS unbiased.
Simply because there’s a number of curiosity from that from of us to have that functionality, you’re not essentially totally depending on, you recognize, this different system that you simply’re augmenting having some potential to kind 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 smart to, to incorporate these measurements a manner of simply making the system extra sturdy on the finish of the day.
For a consumer, 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 modifications that need to be made?
Tyler: Yeah, that’s a very good query too. And it, there’ll possible need to be modifications to, to the system in your telephone in the present day, however we see that as a part of the kind of pure evolution of how the GNSS chip units are evolving and. One in all our, I suppose our common method 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 units.
And, and so actually working to, you recognize, make it, make that kind 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 recognize, 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 attempting to kind. Proceed that evolution of together with a few of these, these new methods into these chip units. And so working with the, the GNSS receiver producers for most certainly the following technology of units, as a result of notably the sort of ASIC units that you simply discover in your telephone are, are so optimized for a selected software that becoming in new issues is, is an enormous problem. For a number of the extra, I’ll say, this, kind of, excessive efficiency receivers which are on the market in the present day 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 kind of a brand new system.
lilly: Attention-grabbing. I needed to pivot slightly bit and speak extra about, a few of your work with autonomous automobiles and at like, there’s clearly a transparent, like interface between these two issues, however what are a number of the similarities and variations when it comes to like the way you truly are fixing technical issues or the autonomy on the automobiles and the autonomy on the satellites or any of that sort of factor?
Tyler: Yeah, that’s an important query. So I’ll say half, possibly I’ll, I’ll take. Give slightly little bit of historical past of kind of the place a number of the, I suppose, kind of my time in autonomous automobile kind of led to this curiosity in kind of pursuing this type of satellite tv for pc navigation facet. so once I entered the sort 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 kind of a mix 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 firms as nicely, to essentially set up, you recognize, what’s the state-of-the-art in, you recognize, location and mapping applied sciences for. At first was, you recognize, targeted on sort of these stage 4 stage 5 totally autonomous automobiles, nevertheless it was additionally kind of supporting a number of the stage two stage three sort of, driver help methods as nicely.
And kind of as soon as establishing that sort of the place, what the state of they’re, the know-how was a part of that and kind of, attempting to determine which of them had been a number of the market leaders was to determine, you recognize, what are the necessities for these methods finally, and which one is sort of closest to the place the necessities ultimately must be.
So, you recognize, what are the placement necessities for, for autonomy? And that turned out to be a, a a lot more durable query than I feel we initially thought, I feel of us had been like, oh, you recognize, 10 centimeters appears to be the appropriate quantity, nevertheless it was typically sort of unjustified. It was kind of a ten centimeter appears to be a quantity the place the system fails the least.
In order that looks like a very good place to start out. However we needed to sort of take a step again and say, okay, basically, you recognize, what do these automobiles really want when it comes to, you recognize, a bounding field, when you wanna consider it that manner round a automobile to say, okay, that is the situational consciousness that I would like 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 that you must know what highway you’re on. Some purposes that you must know what lane you’re in. And a few purposes we actually have to know, you recognize, to the centimeter, to have the ability to steer the automobile inside the lane and sort of, you recognize, get to the place you’re going.
And it turned out that, you recognize, seeing sort of the place, the place the necessities finally wanted to go and sort of the place the state-of-the-art know-how was. There was not less than in my thoughts, very a lot a spot of, you recognize, the place, the place issues, kind of stood in the present day. And that led to the motivation, not less than from, from my facet to say, okay, nicely, what’s one thing we will do from the infrastructure facet to assist fill that hole?
As a result of one of many developments that was taking place within the autonomous automobile business, not less than within the time once I was, was there was. You recognize, the, the sort of variety of sensors, the quantity of compute on the automobiles was making these automobiles in some sense, prohibitively costly. You recognize, you had a lot {hardware} on the automobiles, the automobiles had been sort of these sort of million greenback, very specialised sort of automobiles.
It simply didn’t scale that nicely, whereas when you can offload a few of that to the infrastructure facet, to assist a lot of automobiles, You recognize, that appeared to make extra sense to me not less than. And, and so this went again to, okay, nicely, what, you recognize, being sort of somebody from an aerospace background, place, navigation background, pondering, okay, nicely, what can we do from an area, infrastructure facet to assist this type of place navigation and, and time drawback.
Tyler: And so I feel when it comes to, you recognize, the place these two issues are, are kind of coming collectively is, is de facto seeing this from a okay, how can the, this infrastructure assist the wants of these methods? There are, after all, some, some crossover between the 2 within the sense that there are applied sciences which are, I feel gonna be used on each within the sense that, you recognize, you need these satellites once you’re deploying a big constellation to have, you recognize, a excessive diploma of autonomy about themselves when it comes to fault monitoring when it comes to integrity monitoring.
As a result of finally you’re attempting to. You recognize, assist these, you recognize, security, essential methods within the, within the case of automotive. And so having the, you recognize, a number of that sort of fault checking, kind of finished 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 recognize, basically 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 drawback, however you recognize, basically an analogous device in, ultimately of the day. And there’s additionally some components of, I feel, collaborative, you recognize, infrastructure as nicely. So once you consider, you recognize, self-driving automobile driving by itself with a complete bunch of sensors on it, nicely, that’s.
You’re sort of simply attempting to exchange one human in a automobile. Possibly that’s not one of the best ways to do it. Possibly there’s some benefits to having automobiles work collectively in a collaborative manner the place, you recognize, a automobile that’s maybe down the highway from you may share sensor data or situational consciousness data so to set up that situational consciousness, you recognize, on the metropolis stage the place you may see round corners, see aroundyou know, different obstacles you can’t see to sort of get to the purpose the place you’re driving as safely, as you recognize, all of the people mixed on the highway, relatively than sort of only one human can solely see one a part of the view of the world. And so I feel there’s a component of that that may discover its manner into the, the area sort of the area and sort of floor segments that assist these sort of area methods going ahead.
Y know, how can these methods work collectively to seek out faults in one another the place you recognize, these, these sorts of concepts that I feel are, are fascinating as nicely.
lilly: Yeah. that’s a very good level. And I’m slightly in listening to extra about this concept of getting the satellites collaborate and kind of what are probably the most technically difficult or technically promising components of that.
Tyler: Yeah, that’s an important query as nicely. There’s, I’ll say there’s quite a bit taking place in, within the area business now, I feel even in comparison with, you recognize, even 5 or 10 years in the past that they actually make a number of this doable. And you recognize, one of many huge ones is simply the size of the constellations being deployed lately.
And I feel that that’s enabled by. Just a few issues just like the decrease value of entry to area, you recognize, SpaceX is I feel one of many extra seen gamers there, however there are after all others and the opposite is simply, you recognize, 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 sort of these bespoke sort of one satellite tv for pc’s in a room the place you’ve a bunch of individuals sort of placing stuff on it.
It’s a reasonably, it’s only a completely different mannequin of, of assembling this stuff. And. Once we take a look at the sorts of applied sciences that I feel are, are kind of coming into that kind of satellite tv for pc realm which are possibly even borrowed from locations like automotive, the place, you recognize, particularly once you’re speaking about meeting and, and testing, you recognize, making one thing that’s, you recognize, very sturdy in, in sort of excessive volumes that.
Form of brings this stuff collectively. I feel that, that that’s not less than one instance of, you recognize, I feel the place these two industries can be taught from one another, I suppose. Uh, okay. So I feel so far as, you recognize, autonomy on the satellites and the flexibility to kind of collaborate with one another, I feel one of many huge, the, one of many huge elements of that’s the potential for the satellites to only speak to one another, to start with. And so the flexibility to kind of cross data.
Between satellites is, is I feel a, an enormous milestone kind of as a part of that. And I feel one of many enabling applied sciences there that we’re, that we’ve seen kind of come to mild is the, this potential of sort of having inter satellite tv for pc communication hyperlinks between these satellites. And there’s been a number of, I feel development of in each optical and radio, sort of,you recognize, intersatellite hyperlinks between that to cross that data round.
And I feel that, that, I imply step one to collaboration as it’s an automotive as nicely, it’s simply establishing I feel that that’s normal and in addition the kind of potential for this stuff to cross data between one another. I feel 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 sort of communication hyperlinks and establishing simply, you recognize, what’s the spectrum that we shared? What’s the protocols for these sort of communications? And I feel it’s, it’s one factor to do it in a sort of. You recognize, if one say automotive OEM decides to do it a sure manner and so they can try this between all their automobiles.
It’s one other to do it kind of throughout automobiles of all completely different producers, kind of in a standardized manner. And so I feel that that’s that’s one of many challenges is simply kind of establishing, establishing kind of the know-how and the sort of requirements for that communication throughout, throughout satellites.
And naturally, as we take into consideration deploying our system, we predict largely of kind of communication between the satellites that we now have. But it surely’s fascinating to consider, you recognize, potential, you recognize, cross kind of, communication between different platforms as nicely.
lilly: Yeah. And do you propose on, do you anticipate having optical or RF cross hyperlinks or each in your system?
Tyler: Yeah, I feel that’s one thing that we’re exploring. So I feel it’s one thing that’s on the desk, however I feel that we’re nonetheless in, we’re on the section proper now the place we now have 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 recognize, inter satellite tv for pc hyperlink, which we’re exploring between this, our kind 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 kind of earlier iterations could, it might not be required. So it’s, it’s one thing that we’re exploring and it’s one thing we’re maintaining a tally of, however, it it’s possibly not essentially one thing that’s basically essential to the system working.
lilly: Nicely, congratulations in your first launch and your upcoming second launch. I needed to pivot slightly bit extra truly, and listen to a bit about, a few of your [00:25:00] analysis again once 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 suppose 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 setting for me. It was one which targeted, you recognize, very a lot on that sort of place navigation drawback, but in addition one which targeted slightly bit on, you recognize, operational tasks for the FAA, in addition to we had been working with the federal aviation administration.
You recognize, assist these sort of security, essential methods, you recognize, plane utilizing GPS to land plane utilizing GPS in flight. so, you recognize, interested by issues about, you recognize, what are security essential use circumstances 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 setting for me, since you may see the work that you simply’re doing immediately impacting that business. In some variety of years, it wasn’t that the grad college students had been engaged on issues, you recognize, immediately sort of in operation, however that it wasn’t too distant from sort of essentially seeing the lifetime of operation.
So I feel from a, you recognize, how that led into sort of the, the work that I used to be doing, sort of within the autonomous automobile world. I feel that interested by the issue of, you recognize, what are the sort of ranges of situational consciousness that automobiles want when it comes to place navigation and time, you recognize, what’s the stage of sort of security and integrity that these methods want?
Actually utilizing that sort of framework in a structured option to develop, you recognize, what would possibly that framework seem like in automotive, which was sort of new to that concept of getting place and knowledge as a part of that sort of security, essential enter to, you recognize, steering the automobile and, you recognize, sort of protecting the human partially within the loop or completely within the loop, that are sort of issues that aviation had kind of labored by as a result of there are occasions the place the plane will fly itself.
There are occasions the place the plane sort of has the pilot within the. So it’s, you recognize, interested by these sorts of issues in that framework. And I feel that that, that sort of facet of issues immediately led to the work that we did in kind of establishing, you recognize, what could be the framework and necessities for these automobiles going ahead.
You recognize, interested by this in sort of a civil aviation method, as a result of. And once you examine the numbers, you recognize, civil aviation actually has the very best monitor file you can provide you with when it comes to security and, you recognize, per miles traveled with people and sort of all these by all metrics. It’s it’s manner safer to take a seat at an airplane than it’s to take a seat in a automobile that that was that’s typically the, the takeaway and a part of that’s the nicely that people have quite a bit much less people in vehicles have quite a bit much less coaching than people in plane who’re working these issues.
And so it’s a. That that’s simply basically a kind of variations. And, and, and a part of that’s, is that if one thing goes flawed in an plane, such as you higher know what to do rapidly, whereas one thing goes flawed in a automobile, you may pull off to the facet of the highway. And so, and so simply basically some, some variations there, however I feel that that’s, that’s one of many huge ones I feel was, you recognize, bringing a few of that framework from, you recognize, aviation to automotive and interested by these, these issues in that manner.
And the opposite facet of that was the sort of. You recognize, the sort of business GPS and GNSS facet of that. So, you recognize, transitioning from, you recognize, You recognize, the federal government system that helps, you recognize, all these billions of units and created all this type of, you recognize, financial growth and sort of all these developments, and interested by how that may evolve sort of within the so-called sort of new area age, which is the age once you consider issues like SpaceX and, you recognize, these sort of gamers which have actually challenged the kind of so-called conventional aerospace, which is, extra the sort of, you recognize, once you consider that as sort of these longer timelines, very danger opposed sort of gamers. And, and, you recognize, interested by how, how would possibly a few of these sort of new strategies or new approaches in area, interested by these sort 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 sort of Starlink and OneWeb and you recognize, all these sort of gamers, which appeared sort of like science fiction on the time, this was sort of within the 2015 sort of period earlier than a number of these items launched something or had been deployed.
These had been all sort of concepts on. you recognize, a few of that work was kind of the elemental, okay, nicely, what would possibly you be capable to do with one thing like this? If, if these sort of satellites truly come to exist, if the launch prices truly come down, you recognize, what could be some functionality that you may leverage from that sort of area infrastructure?
So when you may deploy one thing like that for place navigation and time, you recognize, what would possibly that seem like? What would possibly the capabilities be? However I feel at that time it was sort of a okay, nicely that, that’s an fascinating drawback, however, It was in some sense, missing motivation. It was kind of a, okay, nicely, who desires this?
You recognize, what do we’d like this for? GPS works very well. Each, I feel on the time it was like, nicely, we’ve finished 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 business the place GPS, because it stood, wasn’t fairly sufficient for, for what they wanted that I kind of these dots related at not less than on my facet to, to see, okay, nicely possibly this type of method may assist this different facet as nicely.
So in some sense, you recognize, there’s, I suppose studying from either side and sort of related this stuff collectively, I suppose.
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 business gamers attempting to get into the GNSS area?
Like, do you’ve any actual opponents proper now?
Tyler: Oh, there, positive. There’s undoubtedly of us on the market. So we’re not the one ones doing this. I feel that they’re, I received’t title all of them by title. Trigger I, I can’t communicate to everybody’s plans on the market, however I can communicate to a, just a few common developments that, that we’ve seen.
And one is that, you recognize, the, the oldsters on the market who’re constructing these sort of mega constellations for communication functions. So, you recognize, the web from the sky sort of of us are undoubtedly eager about offering one thing. I feel that it, it appears to be like very completely different from, from what we’re working in the direction of, which is extra of a , you recognize, particular excessive efficiency, you recognize, GNSS, P and T sort of service, which appears to be like quite a bit like what you have already got in your telephone when it comes to chip set, when it comes to these sorts of, you recognize, antenna, these sorts of things. While you take a look at a number of the, you recognize, the communication, methods, you recognize, actually they’re a very completely different frequency bands.
Their consumer terminals are often fairly giant as a result of we’d like a fairly large antenna to kind of, full the hyperlink funds to get the sort of information charges that they’re speaking about. It, it they’re, they’re actually interested by it, however I feel that, you recognize, their main aim is de facto, you recognize, communication, nevertheless it’s kind of a, oh, we will, you recognize, we now have this method, we will most likely assist some sort of navigation as nicely.
Not less than that’s what we’ve seen thus far. So I feel that that’s, that’s one of many opponents on the market. When it comes to others, we’ve seen some fascinating stuff occurring from truly one of many main, automotive OEMs on the market, which is a Chinese language firm referred to as Geely. They’re truly constructing and deploying their very own constellation, which is de facto to assist autonomous automotive actions. It’s, you recognize, communication navigation sort of multi function package deal. And in order that’s, you recognize, seems to be, you recognize, one of many huge, one of many huge gamers on the market. And so there there’s actually another firms as nicely. There are some established companies on the market in the present day, for instance, from Iridium, which is offering some P and T companies in the present day.
And there are different satellite tv for pc companies offering extra correction companies. So issues which are correcting, offering further data to kind of praise the GPS sign, however not a further, you recognize, kind of ranging or GPS sign itself. In order that’s, I feel one of many, one of many main variations there.
Tyler: So, and we, we, and I feel since we’ve been doing this, we’ve seen some others, another firms kind of suggest some related issues as nicely. So I feel we’re, it seems to be that, issues are heading on this course, I suppose.
lilly: Nicely, yeah, it’s undoubtedly an thrilling area to be in an thrilling time.
And. A very fascinating thought. Thanks a lot for talking with me.
Tyler: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks once more for, for the invitation to talk right here in the present day. And, yeah, this was nice dialogue.
transcripttags: Enterprise, c-Area, cx-Area, PNT, podcast, Robotics know-how, area, startup
Lilly Clark
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