#427 – An Interview with Maarten Engelen

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released January 27, 2019. Episode 427. An interview with Martin Engelund. Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Hi, and I'm Martin, the CTO of HYBR. Welcome, Martin. How are you? Good. I'm fine. Thank you. How are you? Good, good. So I had actually met Joris, who's one of your engineers now, and he works there, and he had introduced me to you. And I was very interested because you do interesting low-Earth orbit satellite type stuff and connectivity, and I didn't even know this was possible. So where did you guys come from? It seems like it came out of nowhere, but obviously I'm just getting into this field anyway. So how did we get to where we are today?

Dave Jones: Yeah, good question. I think... So let's go... That's two years ago. I was at the same point that you were at now. So I had no experience with satellite technology at all. I came into this basically through my co-founders in my previous company and a few other people that were working to invest in the space industry in the Netherlands. And from there, we kind of started to look at what the opportunities were and found out that there was kind of this gap in technology when it comes to IoT connectivity and how we could make it accessible worldwide. And well, then satellites are the obvious choice for that because they go around the Earth, so they see most of the Earth at least. And yeah, the decision was made to show, you know, let's do this. Let's just start the business. I mean, there's an opportunity there. So why not? And basically, I had to kind of, you know, get into learning how satellite technology by itself works. So how do, you know, orbital mechanics work? Just to start with. Stuff that makes... Just a small thing, you know, whatever gravitational equation. Yeah. Figure it out. Yeah. Well, yeah. It goes around and around. That's basically what it does. And there are a few, you know, a few mechanical bits and pieces there that make it a bit more complicated than just having, you know, a globe that has stuff going around it. But still, it's, you know, it's all technology in the end. So in the end, it's, you know, making the sums and making sure that they're correct. And so, yeah, basically, where we came from is, you know, seeing this opportunity and figuring out that there are small satellites that you can build that are going to low Earth orbit. So not like 36,000 kilometers away, which, you know, the broadcast satellites are, the ones that you use to receive TV signals on. Those are way out. These satellites are much closer to Earth, and they also go around the Earth much faster. So they will see the Earth, at least every part of the Earth, at least once a day. So basically, that meant that if we had one satellite, we could, you know, surface the whole Earth. And yeah, not the whole time, not real time, but at least a few times a day, which was more than, you know, we have now.

Chris Gammell: I'm curious about the idea, though. Like you said, okay, we want to do the IoT thing. And that makes sense. It's obviously a big, you know, I think a growing industry. I think we've actually reached the point of, you know, a significant maturity that we moved out of the, you know, the bluster about IoT. It's actually like a reality. But where the leap to like, oh, we should put a satellite up that that seems like a bit of a bit more of a stretch, because, you know, I've, you know, I've heard of cellular, I've actually been to Amsterdam, where you are, and went to a Laura conference there, you know, I've seen that there's tons of Wi Fi and Bluetooth stuff. And, you know, even other technologies out there. So what was the actual, where did that decision of like, oh, yeah, satellites, the main thing? Where did that actually come from?

Dave Jones: I think it's kind of born out of necessity, in a way. I mean, what we have is the satellite technology itself is, let's say, we saw it was accessible to us. So you basically have a system that allows you to build small satellites, launch them. We're kind of close to that, because of, you know, looking at what was happening in the space industry for a while. And the link between satellite technology and, in this case, IoT connectivity was, let's say, more easily made than you would think it's more of a, it was kind of a logical step from figuring out that there is, you know, demand for this IoT connectivity, and that the only way to effectively get it, and is to launch a satellite for it. So the other opportunity, option would be to, you know, start putting up poles around the earth with gateways. Right, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And then, yeah. So that's kind of... And that's like a Sigfox type of solution, right? That's what they're doing a lot of like, ISM band, they actually are doing where they own the, they own the towers, and then the usage is like a meter type thing, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's, and there you also see that the speed of it, they grow, and that's, and LTF, you know, and they will, they will, it's not very high, they're not covering the earth with like 10% every year. Right. And then, and then, and then the next, next step is, of course, of course, so what are you going to do with the oceans? And what are you going to do with the poles? Okay, so it's not very, you know, there's not a lot of people there, so the density of people is very low, but there are still devices that are there that want to measure things. And the same is all true for, you know, most of the, of the, the land, you know, the most of the land is not in habitat still, at least not in, or at least in very low densities when it comes to people. Right. So it doesn't really make sense to put a, you know, base stations there because it's just not, not, you know, it doesn't make sense. There's just not enough people there to make it worthwhile to put, you know, expensive communication lines or fiber connections there to have all these gateways connected. So it is a really, um, um, a massive logistical operation to do that. And with, you know, once let's say it takes you a few, it would take, you know, maybe hundreds of millions, probably even billions of euros to cover the earth with base stations in an effective way, where, uh,

Chris Gammell: And then most of them would go under, underused as well. The ones that are, you know, maybe it's some remote area you've put a, you put a base station out there and then now it's not actually going to get used.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. But you still need to, you know, if you want to claim, uh, worldwide coverage, you would still need to cover that area. So it's, it's, it kind of a, a catch 22, right? So as soon as you promise, um, connectivity everywhere, you kind of, you know, you need to start putting up gateways in places where you probably don't want them to be because you will never be used, um, or at least grossly underused. And with a satellite, we say, okay, well, you have one, we can, we only need one, um, to get global coverage for at least one, a once a day service. So we can offer a, a customer, uh, well, uh, a once per day messaging service. So they can have a device connected to our system that sends a packet of data once per day. Um, and we can do that from day one, from the first, very first satellite. Well, of course, you know, as soon as you start to go to a once per hour servers, one of your 15 minutes, you know, the amount of satellites you need to go, go up rapidly. Um, but it's, it's an easier step into the market than saying, yeah, we're going to raise a billion dollars and go to put pay stations around the world. So it's just, it's just a different mode of operation. And, um, uh, it's something that allows you to move quickly. And, um, um, I've, you know, I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, actually my whole life. And the one thing I always value in ideas that they are able to, um, get you into the market quickly. And cause then you start to learn the fastest, fastest. So you get feedback, you start to improve. And these are all things that are, um, at least valuable to me as an entrepreneur. I like, like, I like to be in, in, in, and, and have companies that work like that. Uh, and with this technology, it's, it's, yeah, you know, if looking back, it's a no brainer. I mean, I had to say that's just kind of overwhelming. The first time I started to work on that, it's like, it's okay. What did I say yes to? Um,

Chris Gammell: but yeah, it worked out. Yeah. Especially if you're learning all these things, but it, well, and that's the other thing I wanted to ask about is the, so you'd mentioned the, the space industry in Amsterdam. I, I didn't, I mean, I guess I think about, you know, NASA centers or ESA centers or, you know, more of the private space things, but what, what is the, what is the space industry in Amsterdam look like right now? Is it, is it based around CubeSat type things like this?

Dave Jones: Well, it's not specifically Amsterdam. I wouldn't say Amsterdam as a, as a city is, uh, is that, well, um, covered when it comes to satellite knowledge, but I would say the Netherlands is, and still the Netherlands is tiny. So let's say, you know, the, you can even call it the greater Amsterdam and then you look at, um, at the size of this country. But I think there is a few hotspots here that are, are, are, have a lot of knowledge in satellite technology, specifically CubeSats, uh, but also bigger satellites. So to start with, there's Delft, which is as a fairly big technical university. Um, yeah, you pretty well known just for its, you know, technical level. So there's a bunch of, there's an aerospace, uh, um, branch there that, that, that, uh, delivers quite a few, uh, students every year, uh, into the market. So that, that is already at quite a high level. And then there's the, as you say, the ESA. So the, the, the S-TEC, like the research center of the ESA is located in Nordwijk, which is, well, let's say somewhere between Delft and Amsterdam. Um, and they have basically all the testing facilities that you would need to build a satellite. So, uh, you know, we, we've put our, to give you an example, we put our, so our satellites aren't that big, you know, you would, you would, you, the size is somewhere, you know, it's 10 by 20 by like 35 centimeters. So it's not a huge satellite. Uh, we could talk about, you know, the, the specific later, but I think it's just to give you an idea of the size is that we've put that into a, um, we needed to, to measure the, the, into how the, how the antennas on the satellite are coupled. So let's say, um, uh, interconnected on RF level and how they influence each other. So we need a good anechoic chamber. And so we went to ESA and we, because we were already working with them and they had, you know, they have a huge anechoic chamber. It's, it's probably, it's the biggest I've ever seen. So we put a little tiny dinky satellite in there to, to test it, but it was all, you know, basically free of charge because we have, um, uh, access to all that, all that, uh, all these, all those facilities in the Netherlands. It's like 20, 30 minutes drive from Amsterdam, which is great. Right. So it's, yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. Um, so that was, that those are, you know, the things that we, you could find here and actually this satellite only has one, uh, non-Dutch component in it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, which, okay. Yeah. Well, I mean like you, so you're doing local manufacturing, you're saying of like circuit boards and everything else.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, everything, everything is from the Netherlands. I think, okay, maybe the solar cells are not from the Netherlands. I'm not quite sure. So, okay, maybe that one isn't, but let's say, uh, we'll give you a pass on all these things. Honestly,

Chris Gammell: I mean like these days I don't expect anything to be, you know, completely local. So if it is, it's, it's probably a specific, uh, you know, something you're trying for or whatever.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's kind of, I kind of realized that after the fact, basically it wasn't really something we sourced for specifically, but it was kind of, it was kind of a, uh, an interesting, it was interesting to see that the, that the, the, the, the space industry for small satellites is, is fairly mature that we don't, that you don't need to go outside of the country. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. To build and launch a satellite. And that's for a country with like 80 million inhabitants, which is, you know, it's tiny. So it's, uh, I thought it was, I thought it was fun. That was nice. And also it means that the, you can, you can develop quickly because all these companies are close to you. Um, you know, they, they, they, they, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It has, it has as well.

Chris Gammell: That's great. That's great. So you mentioned it's a 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters. Um, that I think that's another kind of, it kind of feels like a, like a timing thing as well, right. Of like, there's commercial launches that are going up, there are spaces that are available. Like I think about, I mean, if you were putting up a satellite, like the Iridium days, um, you know, you would have to put up something like you said, into deep, deep orbit and you probably would be, have a much larger satellite as well. So it seems like the timing is much better for, for something where you're, you're doing kind of this agile manufacturing and space type stuff.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I think there's part of it is the, is, yeah, it's somewhat of, it's, it's two things. So it's the, it's the approach. So a smaller satellite means small, less components, less testing, uh, lower costs. So it's, it, you know, it, it all scales down in the same way, basically. Um, you have to say the Iridium satellites, for example, are also low earth orbit satellites, but those are still, you know, fairly big. So yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. So they also go over the pool. So they basically have the similar, similar structure, or let's say this, the similar constellation plan that we have. Um, and that's, I mean, that's what

Chris Gammell: I always think about. Like, so when people talk about doing really remote installs, they, they're like, yeah, well, you know, we pay about a hundred dollars per gig or something like, it's like some very large number for data, data connectivity. It's mature. It's a very mature industry, but it's, it's also like, you know, if you would get a SIM card, you need one of those huge antennas on a satellite phone and it's like, okay, that's what I'm ready. I'm ready to transmit some data and it's, it better be efficient, but I guess that's going to, going to be kind of the same thing for you.

Dave Jones: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yes and no. I mean, yes, the broadband connectivity is extremely expensive through satellites and it'll probably will be for quite some time. So, you know, if you, if you do use it, just don't, don't run a, run a windows updates because it'll cost you like $50,000. So that's, that's still, that's still, you know, you got to, you got

Chris Gammell: to, you got to be a little more efficient. You hear that Slack developers? You can't have eight gigabytes for my Slack install on Ram, you know?

Dave Jones: No, no, no, no, please, no, please don't do this. No, no, just, you know, just, just run command line on Linux or something and don't run Vim or anything else that doesn't use anything and doesn't update itself because it will cost you dearly if you, if you forget that's kind of stuff. So I have, I've known, I know the stories. It's not even, it's not even an, like it's, it's not even made up. It's an actual story of a company that did this. They had a connection. They, it was a backup connection they needed through, I think it is in this case, Imarsat. And, and one of the researchers on the, on the facility left his laptop on for the night and it started to download the Windows update. And that was a $50,000 Windows update. Oh my God. Yeah. So that's it. And, and you'll have to pay, you know, there's no way around it. So it's, it's horrible in a sense, but it's still, it's, you know, it's, it's all broad barriers.

Chris Gammell: It's hilarious for us because it didn't happen to us. That's the main thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we can laugh about it now. I just, you know, it's luckily the guy that had this is not, you know, not even close. So, but he wasn't, he wasn't too happy about it. But I think there was a, there's a big, you know, the, the satellite connectivity will get cheaper. It's still, you know, compared to what you will pay for your, your broadband connection at home, it's still ridiculously expensive, but it's, it, you know, it offers connectivity in places where you have nothing now. So it does. And, and so it, and of course, because it's, you have one gateway in the sky that covers a huge amount of, of, of the earth. You know, the, the, the, the, the cost goes up, right. As I say, you know, if you, we just talked about, you know, having all these gateways that you need to put down, but you know, the, the, the, the added cost of an extra gateway is very low with like a gateway in the sky is just, you know, inhibitively expensive. So, so every bit that flows through it is much more expensive. So it is not really, you know, that, that's not weird in a sense, but it's still annoying. And so we've tried to build something that was, you know, you're still limited by the fact that you have a, you know, a smallish computer flying through the sky, you know, so you don't have a back, you don't have a back plane, like with like a Cisco router or something that can take 50 terabits and then, you know, push it through per second. So it doesn't work that way. You're still limited by the capacity of the, of what you can fly around the earth effectively for, for reasonable cost. But let's talk about the,

Chris Gammell: the actual flying of the earth too, because you mentioned low earth orbit. And what I always wonder about is like decaying orbits. So like, what is the plan for this to eventually kind of burn up? Is it like, is it kind of a limited lifetime? I remember planet labs talks about that, that like, they have like an 18 minute, 18 month window on their satellites. Is that kind of the idea is that these will eventually decay and, and get replaced?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. And well, the lifetime of these two satellites is limited just by physics, right? So they, when you have something that is in an orbit around the earth and you see it very, you know, very easily on, on low earth orbits is that the satellite is falling to the earth constantly because of the gravitational pull. Um, but because it has speed and it's in a, in a very, very low drag environment, um, it will kind of try to escape the earth gravitational field because of its velocity. And these two forces kind of, you know, um, uh, kind of, uh, uh, put it, the satellite in a kind of an equilibrium, uh, in a kind of a stable position, in stable orbit around the earth. But the, um, the atmosphere around the earth at these altitudes, so like a few hundred, like five, six, 700 kilometers is not, you know, it's not a vacuum. There are still particles there and quite a few too. So there is drag though. Very little drag. There is drag. So the satellite will slowly start to lose altitude and will burn up. And it's also not linear. So if you're like four, not 50 or two, 500 kilometers, you have about this one and a half years, you know, effective, like usable, um, time in orbit after which it will very quickly decay and just burn up in the atmosphere. Um, if you go up a hundred kilometers more, you know, then you're, you add like 20 or 30 years. So then it goes, yeah, and it goes up even faster. You know, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a, um, and you need to burn up the log function. Yeah. You need to, you need to burn up in 25 years. So that's kind of the rule. That's kind of the, the, the unwritten unwritten international guideline. So we wouldn't be able to get a license from the Dutch government to launch a satellite if we would not be able to burn up the satellite in 25 years after it is at the end of his mission.

Chris Gammell: So why, why not just do that though? Like, so why not, uh, so say why not launch at the a hundred kilometers further out, uh, orbit and then plan to have, you know, like a scuttling program or something like that?

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, there's, um, there are many reasons. So one, it depends on your instrument. For example, planet as, uh, as, uh, is doing earth observation. So they're using cameras. So they want to be as low as possible, right? Because, you know, that's just, it gives them, uh, less atmosphere atmosphere to, to, to look through. Um, and the closer to the earth, the better resolution they will be able to, they will be able to get. So that's what, so that's for the earth observation missions. We were telecommunication mission. So we're, our altitude is less sensitive. Uh, we can, at least our system is less sensitive to the altitude. Um, uh, but at some point you get so high that you need to start having propulsion on boards to, to be able to deorbit in time so that we can, again, add to the cost of your system. So it's, it's all a trade-off. So it's on a system level, you're constantly making trade-offs, um, where you say, okay, well, if we, if we go to low, we need propulsion to be, to, to stay up. If we go to high, we need propulsion to go down again. Um, so you have kind of this range when, which you can be without needing any propulsion. And then it kind of depends on, on your, on your constellation planning. So how many orbits do you need? How, uh, what's the, the, let's say the telecommunication terms, like the, the, the beam angle of your, of your, of your antennas. So what are the areas you can see with the, with, with the, with the, with the RF system? And then these kind of all play into each other to make, um, a worldwide system. Uh, if you start to launch multiple satellites at least, and yeah, that's kind of the, the trade-offs that you all need, that you need to make on a system level, which is kind of the, the harder parts of, of designing a system.

Chris Gammell: Right. You don't need to go back after you've, you've started, right? You're, you're already, you're already pretty locked in then.

Dave Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And then there's, you know, as soon as you, and on a, there are so many variables that you need to take into account. So as soon as you start to, you know, turn on one knob, you know, like three others start to, start to move too. And, um, yeah, there are so many ways to solve the same problem. Um, but as you know, you know, technology can be, can be used in so many ways and the same with satellite technology. It's just a lot of trade-offs you need to make between different, you know, aspects of your system, but yeah, you only get that make, get to make these trade-offs kind of once. So it's, um, it, but the advantage of these smaller satellites is that they have a, have a, uh, a fairly short orbit time. So we need, they need to be replaced or replenished and we can then launch a new system with, you know, new parameters, new ideas, new technology, and also again with new trade-offs. So it adds a lot of flexibility.

Chris Gammell: Sure. Sure. So what about the, so I'm curious also about the, the further out orbit. So like, I would imagine, so I'm kind of imagining my arc angle calculations from math back in the day. And it was like, you know, you have, so if you have an angle, if you're on the earth and you're looking out into space, you have like an arc angle from like one arc to, there's like one, one angle to another, and you have like this arc between them. That's kind of like, I imagine as you go further out, you get more coverage. Uh, and basically the satellite would be in, in view for a longer time if it was in a further orbit. Does that make, does that square with what

Dave Jones: you're saying? So why not do that then? Um, because the benefits you would get are only start to add up over huge distances. Um, if you would make the sums, you would basically find out that if you were at five or 600 kilometers, the swath area, so the, like the, like not real, but like the, the, the virtual projected area of your antenna doesn't really change enormously in, in diameter. So it, it has, it has an impact of course, but it's not, it's not huge.

Chris Gammell: It's not enough of a knob in that, in that trade-off equation that you're talking about pretty much.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. So it is, it is one, it just, it doesn't have a huge effect, but then, then again, um, what you very often see is that the effects are not, you know, always linear. So it's, for example, let's say altitude, as we start to change your altitude, let's say, oh, you know, we'll just go 100 kilometers higher than, you know, that maybe is only a 20% increase over 20 or 15% increase in altitude, but it does, uh, delay your, your, uh, natural decay for maybe like another 20 years, 20 years. And then you suddenly start adding, adding propulsion to your system and add a huge amount of cost and complexity to it, complexity to it. So it, it, it, it's not never really, um, like you can make a small change here and then have an exponential effect somewhere down the line. And these are, um, uh, these are very interesting to see. And, and also, you know, very, sometimes very hard, not always, they're not always intuitive. So that, that took a while to kind of get ahead my head around because it's, it's less linear in a way than we would expect it to be. Um, yeah, but you, you catch up with this stuff fairly quickly because, you know, as I say, a small change is going to have huge effects. So that's, I have a whole bunch of very smart people working in the company that do a lot of these simulations and, and estimations to make sure that we, you know, know, know what choices to make. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of the other choices

Chris Gammell: around like antenna design and stuff like that. So how directional is the antenna both on the satellite? And then let's start kind of migrating towards the device on the ground. Cause I imagine that the people listening here are like, okay, well this, this all sounds great, but how do I actually get this installed? So like, what's, what is the antenna on the satellite look like? Is it,

Dave Jones: is it super directional? It's somewhat directional. Um, it's, uh, let's say the, the, um, it's directional enough that we kind of, you know, it's, it adds about, you know, a few to be to, to, let's say the least a few to be of extra gain in the direction we need to. Um, it's, it's a helical antenna that is, it's a deployable helical antenna basically. So it, it kind of, um, uh, is, um, stowed during, like during and directly after launch and, um, it will, it will deploy. And because it's, and that makes it a fairly directional antenna. Um, it, you know, because of the size of the satellite and the frequency we had, you know, you're always also, again, there, you are limited by, um, physics in a way. Um, the, the, the, the big, you would like to have, we'd like to have a bigger antenna on it, but just, you know, the size of the satellite

Chris Gammell: kind of prevents us from having so much stuff into one area. Yeah. You can't really get away with it

Dave Jones: otherwise. Yeah. So the satellite antenna is fairly, fairly directional. Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned

Chris Gammell: deployment, but what about the directionality of the entire satellite? So does this have like, uh, Oh, momentum wheels. I forget what they're called. The rotational things that basically allow it to read like how much, how much does the satellite have the capability to, to reorient itself towards the earth? And is it necessary? Yeah. Yeah. So, so the word you were looking for

Dave Jones: is reaction wheels and, uh, it has, it has them on board. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, these, these are basically, uh, so there's what we call an ADCS on board, which is an attitude determination and control system. Um, which means that it's a system that can determine and control the positioning of the, of the satellite relative in basically in space. So it allows us to point the satellites. So it makes us, it, it, it, we need it to be able to actually use the directionality of your antenna, of course. So you need to point to nadir, to the ground, to, um, directly to, to the earth. Um, and by, and you need to have a system that can both, you know, detect that the satellite is not pointing down and then we can make adjustments. And that's what the reaction wheels are for, but we also have magnet walkers on board. So, and these are, um, is this typically a system that kind of, kind of, kind of grab the, uh, measure and grab the earth, the earth, earth, um, magnetic field and use that to position itself. So you can use the earth magnetic fields to kind of, you know, pull yourself into a certain direction and make sure that you stay pointed, uh, to the earth, which your main mission antenna. Um, if you want to make, make quick movements or quick corrections, then reaction wheels are, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing will work better. I mean, it's, um, it's very simple. You just spin them in one direction and the satellite will turn in the other direction in

Chris Gammell: the same axis. So it's, um, right, right. Physics, inertia. I love it. It's a crazy thing. I mean, yeah, when you're, when you don't have gravity to, when gravity is just like a thing trying to suck you down to the earth and to your death, I mean, you have a lot more freedom.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you do. You do. And you've, and you're flying with seven, at seven kilometers per second.

Chris Gammell: So it's, uh, it's quite, it's quite right. Living life on the edge, right? Yeah, absolutely. So what about the actual, uh, so the ADCS that, that is actually doing the calculations, but is there anything like, uh, so we, we've had, uh, someone on from planet before and they were talking about star cameras and things like that. How, how is the actual orienting happening? Is it only through the magnetic field detection or is it through a visual star map type thing?

Dave Jones: Yeah. So there, there are a few ways to do it. We have a few systems on board to, um, because we, you know, we had to also test with these first satellites what the, what the, um, performances of all these determination systems, these measuring system. Um, so we have, um, uh, well, so we have sensors on board that measure the magnetic field. That's one we have, uh, sun sensors. So these, you know, uh, in all directions. So we see where the sun is located. Okay. So that doesn't work when you're an eclipse. So when you're at, you know, the dark side of the earth. Um, so, and for this, because we need quite accurate pointing, um, we also added a star tracker and a star tracker is a device. It's basically a little, a little camera and it looks at the sky, at the, the, at the stars and it has a star maps on board and based on, you know, what, how you, what it sees in, in the, uh, in deep space and what it can determine where it is. So it knows, so I see, you know, um, uh, these and these stars and these, these, these locations. So then it knows not just where it is, uh, around the earth, but also how it is oriented. Because as soon as you make one change in any axis, you can understand that then the image that you will see with this camera will change. And this basically what it uses to, to, uh, determine its own attitude. And that is very, this is extremely accurate. That's goes like to, can go to close like 0.1 arc seconds or something like a very tiny, tiny fraction of, over degree, um, accuracy and measuring. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It seems like a lot of matrix math because like the, I think about like the, when I see the stars going through the sky, obviously I'm on an earth, but it's wrote on the earth. We're both, but actually I think we're all on the earth pretty much. If anyone's listening to ISS, I'd love to hear from you. They have a phone so they can call in, right? That's true. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they, they do a lot of, they do a lot of stuff with, you know, some of them they're on Twitter and stuff. Um, but you know, so we're on the earth, we're rotating and we see the stars rotating, but like, it's hard to like, it's always that frame of reference problem that, that always trips me out too. Cause it's like when you're floating, we are technically floating in space as well, but it feels like we're in one position. Yeah. And so it's like in your, in the case of the star maps, it's like, okay, well, you know, basically you're the, if the satellite is the zero, zero, zero of its own personal axis, then it's like, it just needs, it doesn't care where it is. It just needs to know whether it has to rotate and all that other stuff. Yeah. And that's really what the star maps allowed to have.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. And it gives you a, um, you know, and it's all, it all works because of the, the, the scale of it, right? Because you're looking at stuff that's so far away that regardless where you're, where your positions around the earth, it wouldn't really make a big difference for what you would see if you look at this in a specific direction. Um, uh, because, you know, if you would be much, let's say it wouldn't work to look at, you know, the, the, to, to, to use a star tracker like that, um, for, uh, planets or stars that would be very close by because then the relative position, let's say if you would be on the North or the South pole would make a difference for what you would see. Right. And, um, it, it, it doesn't really, in this case, uh, if you would look at exactly the same point in, in, in, in space, you will see basically the same exact, um, you know, map of the stars and that's why it works. Uh, it's a very, I think a very, very elegant solution to, um, uh, by itself of quite a complex problem. Um,

Chris Gammell: I think with all this stuff, it, it just always makes me feel like really, really small. Like that's, that's what it really comes down to for me where I'm like, oh, wow, the star is okay. Like I feel like I'm just a spec, you know, like, and it is true. We're all specs, but man, it really throws it into perspective.

Dave Jones: It does. It does. If you start to work with this, it's kind of, you know, it completely kind of changes value. You're kind of working, you're thinking about it constantly. I think that's the whole point. I've been thinking about this for two years. So you, you kind of put yourself into specific perspective, like, you know, oh, wow. You know, this is what's happening around the earth where you usually, you're not even, you know, to be worried about, you know, what, what's got groceries to get. So it's completely kind of different change.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. It's like, oh, I spilled coffee on my shirt today, but I'm also working on things that are rotating around the earth and giving connectivity. So it's not that

Dave Jones: bad. Yeah. So it's, yeah, basically that's it. And it's, I think there's a, it makes it, you know, and to say you feel very small. I mean, but yeah, I should say we all, we are very small, you know, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, yeah, impressive to, to, to understand how, how, uh, how big things are. And we are, you know, and because we're trying to launch satellites to like 600 kilometers and you look at, oh man, this is, it's so much planning and work. And it's, it's technically so challenging to make something that you, that you have so much, that you have enough confidence in confidence in that you, that you can launch it. And that's like only 600 kilometers high. Right. So you still have a lot of protection from the earth and its atmosphere and the earth magnetic field. And you're, you're not even doing any deep space exploration, you know, where you're, you're kind of in this, right. This, uh, environment where there's so much radiation as a human would not even survive, survive for a few days. Right. And, and the amount of, you go into extreme heat and extreme cold, like within, within seconds, as soon as you, as you not in line of sight with the sun anymore. Um, it's such a weird thing to realize when you, when you, when you, you kind of, you know, take away, uh, the earth's, uh, atmospheric protection, which is, you know, is, is, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's a beautiful, it's beautiful that it works

Chris Gammell: its way because it's, uh, it's, it's, yeah, I appreciate it. I definitely do. I appreciate it even more. I'm in a very cold place. I'm in, I think, I think in Chicago, it's going to be, you know, minus 10 C this week and it's like, well, but you know, space a lot

Dave Jones: colder. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, you go even going around the earth, uh, at 600 kilometers, you go to, uh, you know, plus a hundred minus 40 easily. Um, depending on where you, yeah, it's, uh, and that's, and that 16 times a day. So, you know, it,

Chris Gammell: yeah, so it's intense. Yeah. So some thermal cycling you're testing as well.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. And as you know, electronics are never too happy about that. It's, uh, um, uh, yeah, it's one of the challenging parts of it to make sure that everything stays somewhat stable in temperature, but, uh, yeah, it gets a lot of thermal, thermal cycling. Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: Well, uh, I mean, I'm sure we could talk about the satellite piece all day, but I'm actually really curious about the, the thing that's on the ground as well, because, uh, you know, just the size of it, the power of it. I think the power is probably the one that I think about the most, because when I think about a satellite transport, first off, I think about all the Bond movies where like the guy pulls out the satellite phone and the, you know, the antenna is like three feet long and like, it's just like, there's, there's, there's that perception of, or like the little satellite dish sets up the perception that getting stuff out into space is requires a really high gain antenna, really a lot of power. So how is this all possible now with a, with a module of the size you're, you're talking about?

Dave Jones: It's comes down to a few things. So, um, due to, so yeah, let's, let's see where, where to start. Um, first there's the, the frequency itself that we're running on. So we had about 400 megahertz UHF. Um, that has, you know, a few advantages. Uh, one of it is that the free space path loss of a frequency that low is not super high. So you, you get a decent signal with a fairly low amount of, with the low transmission power on the ground, um, uh, at the satellite. So that, that kind of helps to close the link budget.

Chris Gammell: And is this also because of the, you know, you're looking at a lower bandwidth transmission the first place, you're not sending a ton of data?

Dave Jones: No. So yeah, of course, you know, as soon as you start to lower your bit rate. So if you need to, you need to push a megabit per second through, uh, through basically any connection, you know, you will have, you need to have pretty good, you know, signal to noise ratio to be able to do that. And, um, that's something that is not necessary for the system we're building. And we're not even, we're not even carrying a, a, um, a human voice over the, over the ether. And it's just if, if, if like in this case, a packet of like 144 bytes, it's the size of a text message each, each time we send it. And the bit rate is not really, you know, it's not the customer doesn't even need to know the bit rate because the, as long as it doesn't take a day to send it, it's, it will, you know, it's busy. You get to send a packet of data once a day. And, you know, as soon as we received it, you mentioned

Chris Gammell: the once a day thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And maybe it becomes once an hour and we will go to once an hour, um, uh, in, in next year. And, um, even then, you know, it's the, the, the latencies are not the, the biggest, biggest problem. And if you're using a broadband or you're doing a voice, then of course, latencies are extremely important. And that of course, you know, puts on a lot more stress on your system requirements, um, which we don't really have. So it, it, it kind of makes things a bit easier, but then again, in a lower frequency, of course, the antennas become a bit bigger. So there are other trade-offs there. Um, so yeah, we were also looking to move to, to higher frequencies, uh, at some point in time. Um, but yeah, this is all, you know, the, the, all the frequencies are, you know, the, the hearts to get a hold off. So that was one of the things we got kind of.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. So, so is the 400 megahertz actually licensed or what it, what is, is an

Dave Jones: open ISM band or what, what is, what are the licensed bands? So, um, uh, these are, you know, what they call MSS bands. So mobile satellite services bands, uh, so you have an international level, you have the ITU international telecommunications union. That's a UN, UN organization, United Nations. And it's also, as far as I know, the, the first United Nations organization, kind of the, that, that was the first kind of division of it. Um, yeah, I think, you know, the people of course started to communicate with radio signals and also between countries. And then it made sense to coordinate which frequencies you're going to use for those, for those communications. Right. Um, so it's one is sending on, uh, uh, uh, uh, 10 megahertz, another 20, you're not going to receive each other. So it kind of makes sense to kind of have these, these, these nation states kind of agree on which frequencies to use for international communication. Um, and so that was the first coordination between countries in a way. Um, and that coordination process is actually still exactly the same as it was before. Um, um, we basically have, um, uh, frequencies that are assigned to specific uses. Um, and these allocations are then, you know, some of them are used for earth to space communication, other for space to earth communication. And you need to file for those. There's no, let's say ISM bands for space communication. Um, and actually using, using the ISM band to transmit to space is, you know, it's kind of a gray area. Even it's not in some, you know, most countries it's not even allowed. So, um, there are very specific things you can do with specific frequencies. So terrestrial frequencies can only be used for terrestrial communication. You cannot use that transmission and point it up and receive it as a satellite just because you would like to. So there, there's very specific, um, rules that govern what can be used for, uh, and also like the type of data that goes, goes on these frequencies. So, yeah, so there's, there's a very, it's, it's, it's a huge regulatory swamp. Basically it's, it's extremely complex. So let's not go in there because that direction, because it's really, it's just, it's, it's part of my work, but it's, let's say the, the, it's interesting

Chris Gammell: a way, which is a plow with you on your least favorite part of the work. Yeah. You don't

Dave Jones: have to, it's, uh, it's, it's not, yeah, it's not that fun, that much fun, but it's very

Chris Gammell: important. Well, I think about it from the, you know, like, so I've been doing some Laura stuff and, and that's just a couple of frequencies that are in, in those bands, you know, and they're different place to place. And then I had done cellular stuff as well. And I think the thing I always forget about is that all of these, each country kind of developed things independently. And I, and I, you know, I pound the table and I think, oh, well, why don't they just switch to one frequency? And it's like, well, they've already allocated. So 915 in the States is probably allocated for something else in Europe, which is where they use 868 for Laura stuff. And same thing for like the different bands and cellular, you know, like they're all allocated for something else. There's, there's only so much. And so of course they're going to get allocated for, you know, people want to use them for everything, for police, ISM, whatever it is, you know, like cellular. And so each time you, you know, what do we basically need would like be like one huge reset where everyone's like, okay, now we're on a new standard, you know? And it's like, everyone have to agree to it, but that's never going to happen because that would be talk about a quagmire. Like that would be the worst thing. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That would be the worst thing ever. I mean, just, yeah, just let's say, let's throw away all the RF front ends that ever have been developed and replace them with something new. Like even the device from 20 years ago, it's not ever going to happen. That's the point.

Chris Gammell: So, oh, that's a 2016 cell phone. Sorry. You don't get to use that anymore.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Those were end of life last year. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. That was it. I think there's a, there's actually the case and it's, it's super annoying because, you know, you will have, there is some international coordination where people are agreeing, which, which, especially for satellite communication, which bands are used for what, but there's, as you say, there's like even the ISM bands, there are like three different, four different ISM bands around the world. And, um, um, it makes no sense why it would be that way, but basically these bands were defined, you know, much later on. Um, so countries got a lot of time to do their own allocations and then they had to kind of sync up internationally and then figure to find out, oh, wait, you know, um, you're using it for that. Oh, that's, that's, we don't match. Oh, wait, that doesn't, that doesn't work. So yeah. That's, but luckily, um, satellite communication is, is, um, fairly, uh, consistent around the world. Um, besides a few, a few countries, we made a few mistakes here and there. So, um, Brazil, for example, didn't, you know, they, they didn't, they didn't take the ITU allocations over correctly. So then I have a kind of a bug in a legal system where there is an allocation that should be there, but it's not there. So you cannot use it for it. So it's, uh, you know, anyway,

Chris Gammell: so rainforest stuff is going to be kind of tough, huh?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, we get, you know, you can then work for special exceptions, blah, blah, blah. But it's, um, but it's, it's, it's an interesting part of the business, but it's super, super important to do it well. Um, but it's also, yeah, the least favorite of all the engineers because they do need to, you know, you know, calculate stuff and find out, you know, how does this, you know, what's the power flux density in these areas and whatnot. So it's, uh, it's, it's interesting, but, um, yeah, I think the, the, the, the, the, the, the whole frequency part, when you go down, um, we work on one frequency, uh, around the world. So we have, you know, consistency around, so you don't need to have three different kinds of devices depending on where you want to, um, deploy. So that, that's a very big advantage,

Chris Gammell: um, compared to, let's say, uh, so the, so module itself is going to stay. It's, it's the same size and the same, whatever for the gen one, at least. And you're saying that at future generations, you might have higher frequency, smaller parts, whatever like that. Yeah. Um, could you explain what the, can you kind of paint a picture of what the, the

Dave Jones: module itself looks like these days? Um, yeah, it's two and a half or two and a half centimeters. Um, that's basically the whole RF module, uh, contains everything you need to work with it. It's just has a simple serial, serial interface. You need to put some power on it. And, um, there's a super simple communication protocol that you can use to schedule a message and it will tell you when it will be sent. Um, I can tell you whether it has been sent. Um, and that kind of, you know, uh, covers the whole basic usage of, of our device. Um, and it has an antenna, which is, um, um, like eight centimeters in diameter, about five centimeters high. Um, that's kind of the, like the bigger version we're using right now, which is, um, you know, for most use cases is fine, uh, cause it's mainly outdoors and industrial anyway. And, um, then we have, um, a smaller version we're developing more like a patch antenna, um, which is about, you know, eight by eight, seven cent or eight by eight and one and a half centimeters high. So these are kind of the, the, to give you an idea of the, the form factor. And that's the kind of the equipment you need on the ground to be able to communicate with the satellite. And these are not, these are fairly omnidirectional antennas. So they do radiate up. Um, so as little, they really radiate down as little as possible, of course. Um,

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They look kind of like domes. I remember from the pictures that are like, uh, like half

Dave Jones: circles or half spheres. Yeah. Half spheres. Yeah. Spheres. Yeah. Um, and they radiate as much as they can upwards. Um, um, but they are not directional in the sense that, you know, it just, it's been a transmits. It does know there's a satellite overhead, um, because the modems kind of have this satellite propagator on board, um, which is a piece of software that, that, um, so when a satellite passes, it kind of has a broadcast signal and it transmits this second, this signal. And in the signal is the data, um, kind of an update stream of what the satellite networks look like, looks like.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. Okay. So there is downlink, but it's just, it's just for scheduling and things like that.

Dave Jones: For now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, um, it will have, um, the capability to, to you, to have customers send data down to their devices. It's just not something we built into the system yet because it also takes a bit of time to develop. And, um, the, the necessity for it was fairly low for, uh, up to now. So most customers were looking for a one way solution. Um, so yeah, again, it's, you know, in the, in the, uh, just to get a bit more speed, we decided to make the system a bit simpler, but the whole system is software can reconfigurable up to the device on the ground. So they're all software defined radios. So if you want to change the waveform or change how to, how the system integrates or how the congestion control is done or, um, how transmissions are planned, et cetera, these can all be reconfigured on the fly. And, and, uh, even for devices that are already in the field. So we have quite a, quite a bit of control over the whole system, even for deployed devices. Um, yeah, and it, it, it's, um, it kind of knows where the satellites are based on this broadcast signal. So it gets this data, it gets this packet of data and, um, it will know then there's a satellite in insight. It knows what time it is and where it, where it, where it is located. And based on that, it will kind of propagate the satellite network and to say, you know, well, the next satellite in 24 hours will be in exactly 23 hours and 45 minutes and 60 seconds. So then we'll set a timer for that time and then we'll go to sleep. And that's where the hibernation comes from basically. So it sleeps for like 99% of the time, uh, in a deep sleep mode until it turns on again. And when it turns on again, it knows that there's a satellite overhead because it's pre-calculated the, the, the, the, it really has a, an orbit propagator on board. So it kind of propagates the actual orbits of the satellites to understand, um, where, when the next satellite will be overhead.

Chris Gammell: And what about the sleep current versus the active current? Because you mentioned, so people didn't catch this as well. We were talking about it before the recording with hiber, hibernate. That's the, where the name comes from. So people don't get that. Uh, very clever. And the bear is the symbol also clever. Uh, um, but, uh, what, what is like the sleep current look like? I mean, is it a complete shutdown? Is it like nano amps, micro amps, milli amps? What are we talking about? And then same for the transmit.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So the, the, the deep sleep is, uh, you know, around a hundred nano amps and that is, uh, basically just a real time clock that's still working. Um, and it has all kinds of shutdown circuitry. So, uh, and also in a way so that it doesn't leak. Um, so we get, you know, to a very, very low, uh, low amount of deep sleep power. Um, the transmission goes up to like 1.5 Watts. Um, so you're using about three Watts in peak now, if you include the PA efficiency. So that, that's kind of the, the peak power it needs. Um, uh, yeah. So, you know, about, about, you know, about an amp and, you know, that's, uh, depending on the circuitry, we either put a different power circuit around it. So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't drain the batteries around it that much in peak power or a super cap or something to, uh, to, to make it a bit easier on the, on the power supply. So these are things that, that, that depend on the, on the use case and what kind of power, if it has external power or that there's just needs to run on batteries or, you know, these are, um, all things that are, you know, but it only transmits for a very, very short time. So the, the lifetime we get from one battery, uh, regular batteries is, is, is, you know, is years at least with that, with ease. And it was also the whole point of the system to have something that you, you know, have a device, you run some batteries, put it in the field and just leave it there for five years and not be able to need it to serve. You don't need to serve it again. Don't recharge it or change the batteries or replace it with a new device. Um, cause you know, for, at least for our customers, having someone go there is, you know, it can, you lose all the margin on that device completely by, you know, just going there once. And usually you lose the margin on 10 devices if you need to service one. So, uh, yeah, it's very expensive to have people go somewhere. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think even just the logistical, I mean, so like my friends that conservify, they're, they're going down rivers in the middle of Africa and like, they just like going back would have been like a two or three day journey, I think. And so they, they just can't, you know, it's just like, well, no, that's, that's staying there.

Dave Jones: It's like, it's there and we're not going to touch it anymore. So like, it's like, let's, let's go replace a water sensor in the middle of the jungle. Yeah. It's not going to happen. You know, you're, so these are the, these are the use cases that we get.

Chris Gammell: And yeah, well, that's actually great. I actually, I did want to ask about other use cases. So, so like really remote type stuff, but I imagine that's not the only thing I imagine that there's also like things that are moving around or, or, you know, fleet tracking, things like that. So, so what are some of the other things that you're targeting as a, as a use cases specifically, because I imagine that some of our listeners here are in some of those industries, they might be like, oh, this actually does a good fit for my, for my use. Yeah. I think, well, so to, to start

Dave Jones: with that is like, we were, we are getting use cases almost daily that we didn't even think about. So it's really is a, you know, IOT is such a broad term, or let's say even machine to machine communication that it's very hard to, it was very hard for us to predict what all the use cases would be. We did have some idea, you know, so, of course, logistics is an interesting one to tracking stuff, containers, rail cars. And then, you know, smart agriculture is, is, is huge. Um, you know, very diversified, I'd say. So, uh, in, in the sense that there are big, huge amounts, a lot of companies working on it and with, in all kinds of different directions, uh, soil moisture, uh, measuring measurements, um, yield management, you know, uh, it's a very, very big market. And of course, but, you know, uh, um, you know, if you need, we need to feed the world in 10 years or 20 years, uh, out, then yeah, agriculture does need to improve a lot. Um, and that's where you see a lot of, um, implementations, uh, for our first customers, but also a lot of innovation, of course, um, where connectivity like ours is very usable because, you know, I'm used to fairly small farms in the Netherlands, but you know, they're, they're, you know, uh, around the world, there are farms that are the size of a, of a province in the Netherlands. So it's, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I always reference, there's this great, uh, National Geographic article about the Netherlands. It's like this small country feeds the world, I believe is that article. I've heard about it. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite smart bag articles. It's so good. And the pictures, oh my God, the pictures are amazing. But I think that's a lot of that is greenhouses too. And it's like really condensed stuff versus like in the States, you know, like there's Kansas and Nebraska and it's just fields and fields and fields.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's completely different. It's really, every time I go to the United States and look at farms there, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, um, uh, amazing the scale with which that operates and that, you know, it kind of, again, like when you're looking at thinking about, oh, we're at the real earth and working with space, it's, you know, it's almost the same kind of culture, culture clash when I go from the Netherlands to the United States and, or any, basically any other bigger country where the farms are, are, um, uh, humongous. It's unbelievable. And then you completely understand where connectivity like hybrids can come in, because if you need to have someone go around the field to, to, to, to check on how their crops are doing, that's, you know, it's, it's not, it's, it just doesn't work.

Chris Gammell: Right. Just the gas to get out the petrol to get out, like to, to the, the sensor, it makes sense to pay some amount for a modem and connectivity and all that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. And in the end it's, you know, even the, the, the petrol, like the person itself, like a person costs a lot of money to go to, to save, you send them somewhere. It's like a very expensive part of our business. Right. So the, um, yeah, there's nothing like saving

Chris Gammell: people money to get people to buy, uh, to buy into a technology. I will say that that's, that's a pretty universal thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. So, so we're, we're aiming kind of a few at things that kind of, as you say, uh, save, um, money. So, you know, um, making, um, uh, yields go up or, um, maintenance cheaper or, uh, you know, knowing what's going on with your stuff and not losing it. Right. So that's one of the big use cases we see that.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. Like loss prevention.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's up to like containers, which are obvious because they're full of ships, but, uh, we've also talked to a customer that does mobile toilets. You know, and he loses like 10% of his supply every year because it's misplaced. And it's like, how does this even happen? How is this even a use case? Oh, wow. But you know, and they're, and they're not cheap really. They're not cheap, like a few thousand dollars each. Right. And you're like, okay, so that's, that's actually a use case. So it's, um, these are kind of come at us, uh, from all kinds of unexpected directions. And it's, uh, it's just, you know, in its ways, it's lovely to work with all these, all these people because they all have their own little different problems. And it all, uh, needs, you know, in many cases, just needs a little bit of cheap communication. And that's, uh, um, and, and, and that solves so many, many big problems for them.

Chris Gammell: So that's great to see. Um, yeah. And I think the, the, what is, what is the relative cost of, of these modems as well? So like modem and then connectivity as well, because coming from the cellular industry, I know the, oh my God, uh, the modem cost is really high. And then the connectivity can be pretty high too. Um, so, and, and, and, in this case, it seems like the, you're not sending as much data. So you're not going to have, you know, a ton of data overhead costs. So like, what, what, what is the cost of the service right now?

Dave Jones: Um, so the cost of the service, if you go to once per day is a dollar per month.

Chris Gammell: That's not bad.

Dave Jones: No. So that's kind of, or at least let's say, uh, uh, give or take. And I think we're, uh, right now we're even cheaper. I think we're going for six per year right now. Um, so it, it, it's, you know, in that, in that range and it depends a bit on, on, uh, because we're kind of moving around the, the, the service levels a bit. So, uh, we first went for, we're going from once per day to once per hour and we want to do some few intermediate steps. So that kind of, but still like in the, you know, let's say a dollar per month range, which is extremely low compared to other satellite connectivity. And, um, the one big thing you, you mentioned is of course, you know, the, the, the modem itself. So the device you need to buy to be able to connect to the system. We're now at about, um, 40 euros in total. Um, um, and that goes down fairly quickly, uh, in the coming months. So it's, um, one of the big things we're optimizing for to make sure that we get it, you know, get the, the, the, the price of the system down to, um, uh, a level that is, you know, that fits the type of devices you don't like to put it into. And so if you have, you know, a 50 euro or a hundred euro device and you need to put a, you know, a 200 euro modem in it, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And, um, that's, that's kind of the level with your, at your ad if you go to satellite communication right now.

Chris Gammell: I think it kind of speaks to the industry you're targeting as well. The B2B, kind of the industrial stuff versus, this isn't getting on a consumer product anytime soon, but at the same time, a consumer product probably isn't a good fit for this because it might be accessible to Wi-Fi or near civilization. Most consumers aren't hanging out in the middle of nowhere.

Dave Jones: No, exactly. And the ones that do, they're not that many. So it's not going to get us to big numbers. And as you say, most people hang out with other humans. So they are close to each other, high density, so there's connectivity. So yeah, it's probably not for consumer products, though. We are looking at how to service the B2C market too with a few products that we're probably going to test out in the coming year at least. So yeah, it's fairly broad. But if you start to think about what can you do with a little message a day or once every hour, and it's not your use packet size, but it gives you a status update of what is happening at that location where you get data from. That opens up a whole bunch of possibilities. And as you say, if it matches the... We kind of went in the way, in the direction of like, let's get the devices to connect to the network directly without a base station. Because it allows you to deploy much easier. You can just put something in the field and just walk away, and it is connected. Instead of, okay, I need to put up a base station and then see what the coverage is and then put devices in. Right. This is all...

Chris Gammell: Worry about the curvature of the earth, these kind of things. You know, like it's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these are all things you need to worry about. You know, putting up base stations is actually fairly complicated. So that means we're... You know, it's just something that is... We try to take the hard stuff out of IoT. And the direct-to-satellite communication is the start of that by saying, okay, you just get a device, a cheap way to communicate with it, and just, you know, then we'll tell us what your use cases could be. And, you know, very often companies come to us with an idea like, yeah, yeah, I have these rail cars I need to track, and, you know, it looks like you have a good solution for this. And then you start talking, and then they suddenly have three, four other use cases because they are on system integrator and do lots of stuff in IoT. And they suddenly realize, you know, what kind of other roads it opens up for them to deploy more devices. And it basically helps everyone. So, yeah, just to quickly do a recap on... So use cases, I would say there are many, but I think we are looking at, you know, saving money. Regulatory is a big one, so people need to measure stuff because, you know, for whatever laws that are in place now, so we see that more and more in mines, for example, or fisheries. Trucking has one, right?

Chris Gammell: I mean...

Dave Jones: Truck, yeah, absolutely. I think in the States, yeah. Yeah, so there's more and more regulation coming on top of these industries. And they need to, you know, show data on what kind of impact they have on the environment. And for fisheries, it's like, where did you get your fish? Did you go in a protected marine area? Because then you're not allowed to sell your fish, right? So these kind of super basic things that need to be tracked and where our system is apparently a good solution for. And then you have insurance. So, you know, if you're the underwriter of an insurance policy, then, you know, what is the... So I'd like to know where the thing is that I'm offering insurance for. And that's kind of a very big market that we're now going into, which is super interesting.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, because there's tons of loss prevention and willing to pay. You know, if you can save money on, you know, policy that might have to pay out $100,000 because the house burns down or whatever, or many more dollars, you know, then they're willing to pay that monthly cost, I think.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. Yeah. And it depends on how much it is. So we try to go to a point that it's a no-brainer. So just, you know, you just get the connectivity and it's because it's cheap enough to do. And yeah, and that gets us to scale when we need to scale to, of course, to make money from the platform.

Chris Gammell: You mentioned a couple of things where the GPS seems like it's pretty critical to it. Does the modem currently have GPS capabilities or does that have to be external to the modem?

Dave Jones: It does have GPS capabilities. We're going to make it external as a kind of coprocessor, but we're now also working to see how we can get the system to do kind of simpler triangulation based on the signals it gets from the satellites. So does it need to have its own GPS location?

Chris Gammell: Right, to knock down the cost of a secondary modem or whatever it might require, that kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, the GPS modules aren't that expensive, but it still adds a few euros at least to the bomb. And yeah, you know, if you can... It adds up, absolutely. As you say, you know, the whole goal is to get the cost down. And this is one of the things we can do to get there. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Cool, that's really great. That's really great. So, okay, so to summarize the module itself, it's a, you know, you said two by two centimeter module. About how high is it? Maybe like half a centimeter or less?

Dave Jones: No, it's like three millimeters. Yeah. Oh, geez, okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's like an SMD component.

Dave Jones: You can reflow it and put it on your... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Got it, okay. And then the antenna is included for the... Is it included for that 40 euro or is it extra?

Dave Jones: No, so the module and the... No, it's not for... The whole system is at 40 euros. So it's including the antenna. Which compared to, for example, GSM or anything else is still, you know, fairly okay. I mean, it's not like... It's also for different kind of use cases, right? So it's not like we're building IoT systems for wearables or smart shoes or whatever. Right, right, right. It's specifically for outer applications where the total cost of a device is already, you know, well above, you know, a few dozen euro. So it's just great. It's still, you know, it's acceptable. But still, we are pushing it down. Absolutely. We are scaling up production too. So then we can, you know, really start to get economies of scale. And that helps a lot with component pricing, as you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. What about the regulatory side of the device? So if I put this onto my board then, do I have to go get... Is it just the FCC? It's like pre-certified. So like FCC part 15B is all I have to do? Or what do I have to actually do for certification then? Because it is an antenna emitter type of device.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So the goal is that you don't need to certify anything. We're doing it for you. So we're currently running a certification program, which gives us FCC certification, European and Asian certifications all in one go. So you really just can buy the module and you're allowed to transmit with it. Then, of course, per country, there are lending rights. So there again, the regulatory framework around it is, you know, it's insane. You need to go through a whole bunch of paperwork to get... to be allowed to have the devices sent in everything in a single country. So we had to invest in quite a big legal team to do that. And they're going through all these different regulations for every single country to make sure that we are able to operate there. So we can have... We call this lending rights in every country. So we can go to the United States, of course, and Brazil, Europe. It's all the big countries and big regions where we have business. We're also getting those. So as a customer, you basically should be able to just buy the device and just, you know, put it in... You go buy the modem, put it in your device, and just turn it on. And you would be... You would not be arrested for it. That's the goal.

Chris Gammell: That's good. Yeah. We like to make sure people are... Our listeners don't get arrested for things that we talk about.

Speaker ?: Yes, yes.

Chris Gammell: I like my customers not to be arrested when they do stuff,

Dave Jones: especially when they're using our services. Now, it's... It's... Jokingly, but really it is, you know, in many countries, it's a felony to transmit on frequencies you're not allowed to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I always wondered about that if, like, you know, if there would be people hanging out with antennas that bust down your door, like FCC, you know, like, is there, like, a police force or something? I'm never going to get to that point. I really don't want to, but, you know, I'm just... I'm curious. Like, what does that interaction look like? I don't know, but... Maybe I'll find out by accident someday.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, you can just... You could just, you know, buy a big amplifier, turn it on, and see who comes at your doorstep. Right. I mean, I could transmit the amp hour on a pirate frequency, you know,

Chris Gammell: pirate radio. Here we go. Exactly.

Dave Jones: There you go. I would definitely try that. At least, I would be interested to see what happens in the United States. Gives me some reference to know what I can tell my customers, because I don't know exactly. Good, good. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: We'll do it as a science experiment. Yes. Yes, it sounds good. This episode was now being broadcast. If you're listening on your radio, and you don't know what you're listening to, you're listening to the amp hour, and we're sorry about that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but we'll need to do this for a while. It's a research project. Yeah, it's a... Yes, exactly. Yeah, but I think there's... So there's... Yeah, it is... It's not allowed. And there are... Let's say... I think it's FTC that does that too. They just... They drive around with cars and pick up signals, and they drive around with multiple cars, and then they triangulate where the signals come from, and they will buzz down your door when they find out that you are an unlicensed transmitter. So, yeah, it's...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and if you're at the power level where it actually is picking up, they're picking it up, then you're probably doing something nefarious in the first place, or stupid, one of the two.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, anyway, it's a good reason for them to come to your door and say, you know, you just need to stop this. Yeah. Yeah. And it's very often that, you know, the most of... Because the ether is so full, you know, anyone who transmits on any frequency they're not licensed to, you're bound to interfere with something. And, you know, in some ways it could be, you know, nefarious. And it's not, you know, that there will be no real, you know, in many cases it won't hurt people. But there are frequencies in which there are, you know, servers running that lives are dependent on it. So it's really just extremely stupid to just, you know, put on a big private radio and start transmitting frequencies you should not be allowed to.

Chris Gammell: I did find out on Twitter a couple weeks ago that kitchen appliances actually have dishwashers and ovens and other things actually have at least an FCC bypass and they don't have to actually be certified. And so I was thinking that, you know, if you just have a oven or a microwave, not a microwave, but an oven or a, you know, a dishwasher that also happens to, you know, send up satellite signals to your, you know, to the hybrid network, maybe you guys should start selling ovens, you know? Or we just call it an oven.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It's a very, it's an extremely bad oven, but it's a great, great satellite communication device. Yeah. So it's, yeah,

Chris Gammell: it might work. I think, I didn't even know that. It's 100 nano amps in sleep mode and it's, it's 1200 watts when you're cooking a bagel. So.

Dave Jones: I think, yeah, I think it might make sense. I think I will go, I pulled this on my product roadmap because I think it's a good idea. Okay. It saves a lot of, yeah, exactly. Because, you know, the FCC license. Saves on legal fees. Absolutely. Yeah. It's expensive to get stuff certified. I can tell you that. That's right. But I didn't even, I didn't even know that. That's a, that there is a special exemption for those devices. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I found out on Twitter. So.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Chris Gammell: So I need to get on Twitter.

Dave Jones: That's okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: There you go.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's probably a good way for us to wrap up as well. You know, Martin, thank you for, for talking about it. Where can people find you? I guess maybe not on Twitter, but where can people find you and find the company and find more info about you? Um,

Dave Jones: well, the website is called, is hybrid.global. Um, and that is kind of, you know, has everything you need. If, if someone is interested, um, just send a message through the website and, uh, someone from our, uh, sales team will get in contact with you to, you know, to talk through the use case and what, what, what we can do. Um, yeah. And we are, uh, fairly active on, on social media too. So on Facebook and Twitter. So if you look us up, you'll definitely find us. Um, and if you have any questions for me, I just, you know, send me an email martin at hybrid.global. Um, more than happy to, uh, to answer any questions.

Chris Gammell: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for talking about this stuff. I'm, I'm really excited. I mean, like the idea that you can have connectivity, um, you know, even if like when I first heard about like the, Oh, once per day, it was like, Oh, you know, I could do a lot with under 44 bytes once a day. You know, like that, that really is when you really think about embedded applications and you think about what the, I think a lot of people are going to use this for, you know, you can, you can do a lot.

Dave Jones: I think, you know, I have to say very often customers, then they, they, they say, well, you know, unafforded for bytes. It's not that much, you know, our packet is like a kilobyte. And the first question I usually ask is, so are you, are you just doing just like Jason encoding a string, um, or, and a few numbers? And I said, yeah, that's basically how we do it. Okay. So maybe if you do some, you know, by packing, it might, might fit better. Oh yeah. Okay. So we'll do that. Yeah. And then, you know, suddenly the whole, the whole problem from, from having a kind of limit for, you know, from the outside kind of for, uh, uh, limited, um, capacity usually goes away because it's, you can put quite a lot of data in there if you do it efficiently.

Chris Gammell: Right. You need to have some standards. You need to have, you know, you need to know what your bytes look like, but otherwise, yeah, you're going to be in good shape. I think. Absolutely.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Awesome. Well, Martin, thank you again for having, having, for coming on here and, uh, looking forward to hear more about hyper in the future. Yeah, Chris. Thanks for, thanks for having me. It was, um, it was fun. We'll talk to you soon.

Dave Jones: Cheers. All right.