Product diversification moves us into the space
We recently attended a webinar entitled "How Satellite Data Makes Mobility Smart," where our CEO Martin Jančo revealed how we are diversifying our existing products into the automotive and space industries.
Our story has begun with an effort to apply technologies where they are needed and we have focused on the domain of production and logistics from the very beginning. Our customers are not just in the automotive, but the significant part is the field of electrotechnical industry. Everyone wants to be fast, efficient and have similar problems, for which we have the solutions.
Later in 2018 we have added next, very interesting Healthcare sector. Here we have achieved perhaps the most significant success, as we are currently digitizing the processes of analysis of chemical compounds, which serve as the basis of new drugs for University of Oxford and we directly support the team developing the drugs for COVID-19.
We have started to discovering the space industry a year ago and we love it, because it gives us the best chance to move our own know-how and it is also very motivating for us to participate in discovering the world around us.
Diversification moves forward our existing know-how
We never start from the zero, every entrance to the new domain is analyzed in detail and the start itself must give us a significant advantage over others. We analyzed the space industry for almost a year and discovered several intrusions:
We have very strong know-how in the field of hardware development and embeded systems, which is on great demand in the Space industry and can be sold very quickly. We already have the first code in orbit thanks to GRBAlpha satellite and we are looking forward to the next project.
We have discovered the evolving domain of the network of ground stations for communication with satellites, which we can already solve, because we solve a similar problem of lack of resources in our key product Transport Logistics Systems. Here we received a grant from ESA, so this development doesn’t burden our budget.
We have products for efficient supply chain management, which can be used with integrators of large missions in the space industry. We can help them with the current problems and see what awaits them in the future, because the fundamental change that the space sector is going through is precisely the pressure for efficiency and repetitive production.
The automotive industry makes huge progress with the digitization
The state should play an important role in the development of smart mobility. State can be the task provider to help to be more efficient in using his own transport fleet. It can solve the problem of public transport in Slovakia so that it is more attractive to people, which would significantly contribute to the development of intelligent mobility and at the same time brings the cash for Slovak cities.
We have a wide base of suppliers for the automotive industry and we know that Germany and also other countries in Western Europe are actively involved in the automotive industry, need help mainly with the digitization and development of embedded systems for cars. Today's car already contains almost the same amount of computers as an aircraft, which was unimaginable for the manufacturers 10 years ago. Therefore, the focus in automotive is shifting to ICT. I believe that even in Slovakia this trend will create space for a few innovative companies and it will allow several standard suppliers to diversify into this area.
The space takes us further because we can diversify our products into this industry. But what the upcoming trends suggest?
At first, location services are very important for implementation of the various elements of autonomous vehicle management. At the moment, thanks to the European navigation system Galileo, we can determine the position with excellent accuracy up to a level of several cm. This is possible mainly due to the increasing number of satellites for location, as well as the possibility of using all available data regardless of the service owner. Current positioning devices work with all systems (GPS, Galileo, Beidu, Glonass), which is really the biggest benefit of the whole technology.
It should be noted that although the synthesis of all data is optimal, this is not always the case. Each location system has a function of reducing accuracy for ordinary users, if necessary. Most recently, during the conflict in Ukraine, the location systems began to deviate accidentally and the accuracy deteriorated by an order of magnitude. This is a common measure in case of war, when you do not want your enemy to use your cutting-edge technology against you. Today it is very important to have a system of its own, such as Galileo for Europe.
Another very important service that can be, and I believe it will be provided by satellites, is the precise determination of the local weather for the driver of the vehicle or autonomous management system. The ability to avoid storms, extreme temperatures or ice is at least comparable to the ability to avoid congestion in terms of added value for the user. I see great potential here in the upcoming years.
An important field with the great potential is the communication of the vehicle with its surroundings and other types of transport. We are currently focusing on 5G technology, which is slowly finding its place, especially in larger cities. Personally, I am convinced that the entire telecommunication network will be implemented from a lower orbit very soon. It will be surprisingly affected mainly by the lower costs of building and operating the network itself. This phenomenon will take part due to the fact that very high frequencies are absorbed by obstacles such as trees, houses and surface irregularities. Therefore, the best way to cover such a signal is from above - from Earth's orbit.