Vegas to Reno Desert Race
Paul Zaro/Dave Zicovich racing team pilots Goliath through the sand, silt, and rocks while talking and listening to satellites.
Daniel Life
November 3, 2021
Reporting from Bonnie Claire, NV
60 miles from Las Vegas
This story is for race fans, and is an excerpt from our full case study found here.
Off-road racer Goliath with Swarm-based Sierra Turbines SATCOM solution mounted on the roof.
August 13, 4:53 AM - Paul Zaro rolls the race vehicle out of a car trailer. It's wheels are water jet cut steel disks that look like barbell weights, and make loading and unloading possible. They glide in a special channel mounted to the the back of the combination door/ramp.
"I don't sleep well the night before a race. I have crazy dreams about the mechanical items. It's too exciting. I'm wound up and want to get started." The race day mechanical checklist from last night get's a second run through.
The race vehicle is Goliath, a 4-wheeled, 750 horsepower, custom creation by Paul. Running on 112 octane race fuel, it's not a car or a truck. It's an elegant monster, funded out of pocket by Paul. He's the team's primary mechanic.
Goliath Stats
5:31 AM - With his full attention on Goliath, Paul doesn't notice Dave Zicovich, walk over. "You too excited to sleep again, Paul?" Zicovich is a driver for the team. That's when he's not building custom homes for Silicon Valley executives.
Together they are Paul Zaro/Zicovich Racing. Driver/navigator Jack Zicovich, is a real estate investment analyst, and Dave's son. Driver/navigator and electric bike entrepreneur, Andrew Davidge rounds out the team. Paul’s day job provides the carbon offset for 112 octane racing fuel . He fabricates and installs data center cooling systems that use water (absorption chillers) instead of traditional refrigerants, which helps to reduce energy consumption in Data centers..
The full crew shows up and together they install the wide knobby racing tires. Bonnie Claire Nevada is this year's starting point for the 550 mile Vegas to Reno race through the desert.
The race is held primarily in areas under the control of the Bureau of Land Management. Yesterday was Tech Inspection, and Goliath checked out with flying colors.
Race Stats
10:30 AM - It's go time!
Two days of racing through the desert.
At 10:30 its already 93º, UV Index of 6, and only a 2 mph wind to blow the dust around. By 3:30 the humidity will drop to 14% and the temp will 106º. Waiting for the green light, the team sits in full racing suits, helmets, and full Nomex fireproof underwear. A fabric helmet skirt and head scarves are there to catch the sweat and keep some of the dust out. Pumps push fresh air into the helmets and a small water tube offers occasional sips between adrenaline peaks.
Racers are being started with an extra time gap as there isn't enough wind to clear the fine silt dust from the start area. Radio safety checks complete, Dave and Andrew get the signal. Dave hits the accelerator trying not to rock spray the start line officials.
Goliath jumps forward with traction at all 4 wheels.
Wait, that's a half-wave antenna on Goliath!
Half-wave antenna mounted on Goliath
David Zicovich recalls, "Roger Smith texted me one time while I was at a race. I sent him back a picture of Goliath and the desert. He called me and said he had an idea. He asked me if we would put a box and an antenna on Goliath and track it with satellites. Roger also said he wanted to put sensors on Goliath and send messages to and from the vehicle. I asked what it was for."
Roger replied, "It's part of our command and control system. It's better than commercial avionics systems because it's two-way communications vs. one."
Zicovich said, "if you're looking to test something, there's no harsher environment than off-road racing other than battle. He immediately thought that was a pretty darn good idea."
‘Flight deck’ inside Goliath. Analog gauges are preferred over digital.
Much of the technology in off-road racing is analog because it can take the abuse. Digital tech is starting to appear more at races, but the preference is for old-school gauges.
For 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. 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.
Read more about Swarm and the development of Sierra Turbines’ enterprise application here.
Image at Left shows quarter-wave antenna used for early testing. Right: half-wave antenna and Swarm Eval kit.
Below: What Goliath was transmitting to and receiving from while zipping across the desert.
Image Courtesy of Swarm: https://www.swarm.space
Testing the Prototype on Interstate 5
Quarter wave through the sun roof
Before going to the desert, the Sierra Turbines development team decided to do a Northern California to Southern California pilot. Roger was not ready to permanently mount an antenna to his SUV. Instead, they secured the 1' long antenna inside the vehicle and let it poke out through the open sunroof. Roger drove to Los Angeles while Russ tracked the vehicle.
Russ: "When Roger was driving down I-5, I was tracking and watching the data. In the process, we got a temperature warning. The message was that the modems' temp was over 30º Celsius (86º F). The modem was directly in the sun. We knew the modem would still work fine at that temperature, we simply inserted a number to ensure we received a warning message. As another test, we reported every time the temperature went up by five degrees Celsius. This would trigger a warning message. We only ever got one, so it never got above 35º Celsius (95º F). It all performed well."
Results
To date, Sierra Turbines has completed about 2000 kilometers of enterprise level testing. A combination of road tests on freeways, city streets, and remote areas have served as test locations. The team did a big push with testing in rural California and Nevada before going to the desert. A large portion of the testing included areas outside cellular coverage. Including Smith Valley, Nevada
Smith Valley, Nevada - 122.5 square miles. Population 1,627. Elevation 4,790 feet.
Roger:
"It's really a testament – this is an enterprise application. It's got to work where there's no cell coverage."
When cell coverage is available in the desert, it’s natural to get curious about what’s nearby.
Tracking mobile assets at 100 miles per hour
August 13th, 12:58 PM - Pit Stop 1 of the Vegas to Reno Race.
Andrew Davidge and Jack Zicovich have been racing for about 2 and a half hours. The sun is hot. The silt dust hangs in the air from the vehicles ahead. Boulders, smaller rocks, scrub brush, and 70+ year-old saguaro cactus test the duos' ability to go fast and avoid obstacles. Because they are in race mode, only the biggest of problems command their attention.
Jack Zicovich: "We made it to Pit 1, and found a few issues with the car. They were OK to drive on. After we left Pit 1, our Lowrance system froze. It wasn't tracking us. It's not a newer model. Andrew hit reset. I was trying to help him get back to the right screen, and driving without a map. We came up on a corner at 75 or 80 mph, but I had no idea it was a 90º turn.
We start to pivot into the turn and I prepare to counter steer. At precisely the wrong moment, all 4 wheels line up. They catch the dirt and the vehicle just flips over. You don't really spin around on a corner like a go kart or car on tarmac. We weren't going to finish the race."
After Jack and Andrew were picked up by the track safety team and back within cell coverage, David Zicovich phoned his wife. He led with, "Our son Jack is OK, but there was an accident."
Jack Zicovich: "Andrew made a good observation that we'd probably be more sore to have run the whole race. You're just getting your ass kicked out there because it's so brutal. The road is so rough. There were a few times where I was under-braking, and going into a corner, the steering wheel would get ripped out of my hands. It was 3 hours of hard work."
When Goliath tumbled over, the Swarm equipment on top took a beating. The antenna was mostly fine, and the development kit box had gotten loose. It was cracked, and parts had moved around inside. Data collection stopped, with the last message 6 minutes before the rollover. It included Jack and Andrew's GPS coordinates.
Russ Winsper:
"We were following Goliath and getting data back and forth throughout the race. When they stopped at Pit 1, we could tell. When the car stopped running, we knew right where it was. We just didn't have cell coverage to call and find out how they were."
Roger Smith:
"At that point, we didn't care about the testing. We had to find out if Jack and Andrew were OK. We had to wait, and the 40 minutes seemed like a very long time."
While the race was in progress, Goliath sent email messages to the remote team.
In talking to Roger and Russ about the results, it was clear they see testing as a regular part of the process. When asked if they’d do it off-road in the future, Roger smiled and quickly answered, “NORRA Mexican 1000. But first we have to get Goliath some additional sponsorship.”
Sierra Turbines Finds a Genuine Innovation Partner in Swarm.
Sierra Turbines puts Swarm’s satellite network to the test at high speeds in the Nevada desert.
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."
Splash Down! CRS-21 Returns
The flight splash down occurred at 8:21 pm EST in the dark, hence no photo of its arrival.
More than 30 payloads sponsored by the ISS U.S. National Laboratory were a part of this return mission.
Our payload was launched on the Northrop Grumman CRS-14 mission to demonstrate the manufacture of single-piece turbine blade/disk combinations (blisks) in microgravity for use in the aerospace industry. Made In Space sent its Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module to the ISS seeking to validate its latest new commercial facility on the space station. Producing blisks in space could result in parts with lower mass, less residual stress, and higher strength than those manufactured on Earth. The facility is being returned to Earth for further analysis following its successful in-orbit operations.