Sierra Turbines Finds a Genuine Innovation Partner in Swarm.
Daniel Life
November 3, 2021
San Jose, California
Update: Link to an article by Swarm
Goliath is a 4-wheeled, 750 horsepower, custom creation. Running on 112 octane race fuel, it's not a car or a truck. It's an elegant monster. Goliath was an entrant in the 550 mile Vegas to Reno race through the Nevada desert.
It also was a test subject for Sierra Turbines’ enterprise software application and Swarm’s satellite network.
Off-road racer Goliath with Swarm-based Sierra Turbines SATCOM solution mounted on the roof.
Half-wave antenna mounted on vehicle roof
Wait, that's a half-wave antenna on Goliath!
In order to test Sierra Turbines’ command and control system, the team decided an off-road race might be a fun challenge. Their goal: achieve solid two-way communications at high-speeds in a harsh desert setting.
Russ Winsper, Software Architect
"We've been working on proving out avionics capabilities related to our version of a FADEC {Full Authority Digital Engine Control}. We'd like each of our turbine engines to be able to communicate with us.
Two-way (communication) is very important as our application is command and control. In our case, we don't really transfer a lot of data. We do pass a lot of messages back and forth. The information we want is actually generated on the device, so we send relatively small messages across the network.
"The big deal about that is the efficiency, but also the security. If we don't need to transmit certain data, it can't be intercepted.
We figured the Vegas to Reno race would be a great opportunity to get field data. We had a little over 5 months to build and harden our application in time for the race. It was a good challenge."
Idea to enterprise application in 6 months
To get ready for the test in the desert, Russ and Roger led the application development and worked with the Swarm team.
Roger: "The timeline was epic! From March to August, it was constant development, integration, flashing, and testing with different antennas. The moment they had sample hardware for developers, we had them. That started us digging into their documentation and banging on their network. The tile modem connected to the satellite, no problem. Now it was on us to figure out how to send and receive messages."
Russ: "I was impressed with how easy was to actually get it set up and talk to the satellite. When both Roger and I got the development kits it took, five minutes and all of a sudden we were we talking to the satellite. Basically it was, 'Wow, this is really easy and it's kind of neat.' We just happened to have a synergy with Swarm. It helped that we had relationships with some of the engineers who had also worked at Apple. We knew each others' capabilities, so there was a great deal of trust both directions."
Finding excellence in your own Silicon Valley.
Roger and Russ aren’t shy about putting a plug in for worthy Bay Area players:
"We were pleased to find another Silicon Valley local company with seasoned engineers doing incredible work. Our team suffered through lengthy sales conversations, endless meetings, and high initial product quotas from US and non-US companies. Not convinced. These huge companies assigned us project managers, and wasted our time asking us to explain what we wanted to do.
When we found Swarm, we were like, 'Wow! Here's someone in our own backyard whose way of working truly supports innovation.'"
We worked directly with their engineering team. In 3 months we achieved a prototype, and iterated to an enterprise application in 6 months. The incumbent solution providers could not do this."
Talking AND listening to satellites
The big deal behind two-way SATCOMs
Image Courtesy of Swarm: https://www.swarm.space
From a technology perspective, Sierra Turbines picked Swarm because of their two-way satellite communications network. A second reason is the dual channel that includes GPS built in. The Sierra FADEC transmits a GPS signal of its location (plus other data) at a minimum of every 15 minutes. It can do on-demand intervals closer to 5 minutes.
Swarms’ seamless 2-way connectivity represents game changing capability for UAVs.
Add the GPS positioning data to the mix, and it almost becomes a separate product for Sierra Turbines. In talking with Russ and Roger, they are platform focused, for now.
Why not cellular
Sierra Turbines spoke with cellular carriers before choosing Swarm. Meshing a startup with an enterprise turned out to be a challenge. The team received lots of inbound requests to meet and offers of support.
"Companies were all over us. We told them we knew what we were doing, please send us some modems and accounts to get things going. That has never happened," recounts Roger.
There were other challenges with cellular. For example, coverage for data is less than voice, and even voice is not global.
Russ Winsper:
"If you're in the middle of the desert, you don't have a cellular connection for the most part. We tried it. With international applications, the issue becomes frequency bands."
Benefits of two-way communication
One-way communications resembles smoke signals. A message is transmitted up into the air. Another location sees it and records it. In this scenario, being connected is enough. In the world of satellites, a message is transmitted up to the satellite, and the satellite sends the message to a ground station. It is then delivered to the end client by the internet.
Sierra Turbine's use of the Swarm satellite network is two-way. They report status every 15 minutes like one-way users. But they also can query the network outside of that cycle, on demand. In fact they do not need to broadcast on a regular schedule, which also does not tie up network resources. Sierra has found a way to cut the message delivery and turnaround time with their own enterprise software application.
Part of that was applying their knowledge of GNSS or or Global Navigation Satellite Systems. GNSS falls in the category of Position, Navigation, and Timing Systems. The US GPS is a specific example of a GNSS. There are others.
Image: Sierra Turbines
A little background
The Swarm tile modem has two data links. One reads the GNSS location, which is a one-way signal. The other link provides two-way connectivity. The built-in GNSS helps identify the location of the modem and the surrounding device or solution connected to it. Swarms' GNSS provides concurrent reception of up to 3 GNSS: GPS (US), Galileo (Europe), GLONASS (Russia), and BeiDou (China). The benefit of multi-constellation positioning is much higher accuracy. For high-speed flying objects, being off by 10 feet can be disastrous.
Roger: "The DOD only uses the US GPS system as there are special military channels on the GPS satellites. However, they can and have been hacked, and the Military is always on the lookout for alternatives. GPS can have some value in certain situations. Remember, this is not a buoy out in the ocean. Our test was high-speed, 100 miles an hour, enterprise-grade tracking."
Because the Swarm constellation is in Low Earth Orbit (LEO about 500km above Earth), their satellites take about 90 minutes to circle the earth.
Image Courtesy of Swarm: https://www.swarm.space
To understand when a satellite overpass window is available to send and receive, Swarm provides an application called the Swarm Satellite Pass Predictor. The Sierra team found this helpful in the development and testing of their software.
Working with super heroes.
Russ Winsper: "We know the caliber of the team. It’s great. I had a chance to speak with one of their RF engineers recently. I noticed an article he'd written. He is one of the best RF people I've ever spoken to. They've got incredible talent."
What would you say is their superhero talent?
Russ:
"Fast, and nimble like Spiderman. Their web is the satellite network.”
Roger:
"DC or Marvel?”
[Your choice.]
“I would say Iron Man. He can fly in space and communicate technopathically with satellites. As Iron Man, Swarm's super talent is vertical integration."
What do you admire about Swarm overall?
Russ:
"I absolutely admire what they've done. 90+ satellites, soon 150 up in space in their preassigned orbit. It's amazing to me."
Roger:
"They get enterprise developers."
What was it like working with Swarm?
Russ:
"The ability to get answers and information very quickly was great. When there was a new firmware release or updated tile, they would explain, 'this is what's new and how we're going to use it.' "
Roger:
"Whenever I asked about the date for a feature release, they'd say, 'Working on that. You want one now?' "
Testing and Results
For testing during the race, the Sierra team opted for a half-wave antenna. It is approximately 1 meter long vs. the sub-1 foot quarter-wave antenna which was secured on top of the roof.
Image at Left shows quarter-wave antenna used for early testing. Right: half-wave antenna and Swarm Eval kit.
A Swarm Eval kit 01 including the Swarm Tile satellite data modem was also on the roof. A Swarm data plan and a custom application developed by team Sierra provided a two-way, always-on connection.
While the race was in progress, Goliath sent email messages to the remote team.
The test data collected verified what Russ was able to see on his screen as he tracked Goliath during the race: the Swarm solution and his team’s software were solid. Data was collected from the Swarm network, within the Sierra Turbines application, and server logs.
Proof points: What was validated through the data
Swarm + SpaceX
Both Roger and Russ were positive about the recent acquisition of Swarm by SpaceX.
"We look forward to seeing how SpaceX's infrastructure will accelerate Swarms' build out,"
explained Roger.
Russ: "I see a lot of great synergy between the two companies. We’re excited for what the future may hold."