From software that makes robots smarter, to a reliable water supply, Carlsbad businesses are leading the way in innovation
Carlsbad companies are working on the technologies of the future. No, we don't have companies working on flying cars or jet packs (that we know of), but we have businesses that are working on technologies that could make "the future" a better place for us and our children. Here is a look at three companies whose work may change the way we do things.
5D Robotics
This Carlsbad-based company just celebrated its fifth anniversary last year, but their work on artificial intelligence and robotics (they create software that goes into robots) could have tremendous implications in commercial areas, from package delivery to transportation. The company's software can be used across many platforms and allows humans to interact with robots intuitively and accurately manage their movements.
As a military contractor, 5D Robotics developed a way to make land mine detectors to tag IEDs more accurately, using ultra wide-band positioning and robotic behaviors to provide reliable, safe and accurate navigation. Its software allows robotic vehicles, from small wagon-sized rovers to 6,000-ton tanks, to follow at high speed, accounting for shifts in direction and even sudden stops.
"One of the things we realized is that the biggest challenge to providing intelligent behavior to robots is position," said the company's CEO and Co-Founder David Bruemmer. He noted that while people might think GPS provides an accurate means for geolocation, it still leaves much to be desired, since it doesn't work indoors and is too inaccurate for tasks that require a higher level of exactitude, such as landmine detection.
The company uses ultra radio tags that create reference points, which can be used to digitally mark terrain by a difference of only 5 centimeters in areas where GPS will not work.
Outside of the military, Bruemmer said, the software could have a great impact on commercial applications.
"5D is about making intelligent and reliable positioning," Bruemmer said. "We can support a wide variety of novel applications."
For example, he said, the driver of a snowplow who can't see in a blizzard might be able to clear paths through the snow if tags are set up on the road, providing the information on the windshield with an augmented reality display.
"Ultimately, it means the whole automation of vehicles becomes easier," Bruemmer said.
The technology could also be used for safety and security in large facilities. For example, a petrochemical plant can give their employees tags that are connected to sensors that,, in the case of an emergency like, say, an ammonia leak, allows the company to keep track of its workers. It can also be used to make sure only those authorized to be in a secure area can access it. The technology could also be used to automate lawnmowers.
But ultimately, Bruemmer said, his company's biggest market might be providing a new form of transportation, he called it "shared intelligent mobility", which would be a network of pods that can come to you to pick you up and drop you off at your location. Pods would be able to communicate with each other and coordinate their positions. Bruemmer said these could be tested in environments where they make sense, such as airports or senior care facilities.
Poseidon Water
While turning to the sea to create drinking water is not a new or unproven concept, the technology has been credited with helping Israel get rid of its water worries by providing nearly half of its drinking water, Poseidon Water's Carlsbad Desalination Project feels like a step toward the future.
Peter MacLaggan, Senior Vice President of California, Project Development for Poseidon Water, said that by providing San Diego with its own drought-proof supply of drinking water (officials believe that the project, which is scheduled to open this fall, will provide up to 7 percent of the region's water supply) the local desalination project will be a step toward reversing our area's procurement of water.
"San Diego County is at the end of a lengthy system that goes from the Colorado River in Northern California," MacLaggan said. While the system has served well during the years, conditions like drought, population increase and competing water uses for agricultural, urban areas and fisheries has put strains on the system.
"RIght now, 90 percent of our water comes from somewhere else," said MacLaggan. "The Carlsbad Desalination Project reverses that trend and adds a new source of water supply that's reliable, the Pacific Ocean, that is not dependent on snow pack levels or rainfall and is also drought-proof."
MacLaggan said that the reverse osmosis technology that the plant operates on has been patented since the '60s (before that, desalination depended on distillation and capturing steam and condensation, which uses a lot of energy). The price of the technology is now more affordable, making it competitive with other forms of water creation.
Construction on the desal project and the pipeline is nearly complete, and MacLaggan said Poseidon Water plans to start formal testing of the plant in the summer. The project should be fully operational in the fall.
"I think the plant is going to change the way that people look at water in California," MacLaggan said. "We know there are a lot of people interested in looking at this and they're all watching to see how things go. A successful start-up and operation will lead to other places that will open not only in Southern California, but in the Bay Area as well."
ViaSat Inc.
Next summer, ViaSat will launch its second satellite, ViaSat-2, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will mark another milestone for the local communications company, which already transformed satellite-based Internet service with the launch of its first satellite in 2011.
According to the company, the second-generation satellite is expected to cover seven times the geographic area of the first and offer twice the bandwidth economics advantage of ViaSat-1, which is already the highest capacity satellite in the world. In addition to providing coverage in North America, Central America and the Caribbean basin, the satellite will provide a "bridge of coverage across the North Atlantic" allowing for high-speed Internet on flights from North America to Europe.
Richard A. Baldridge, ViaSat's president and COO, said the company is actually working on several satellites simultaneously, enough to provide consumers with the quality of services and the bandwidth they want for years to come.
"Our view is that people and applications are demanding substantial increases in bandwidths," he said. "We don't see anyone saying that they want less bandwidth, everyone is saying they want more."
Baldridge said ViaSat has positioned itself as the technology leader when it comes to providing satellite-based Internet service, and added that the company's goal is to deliver the type of service that people want, whether they're at home, in the air, in businesses and hotels. He cited a recent report from the FCC that shows that when it comes to providing speeds of more than 25 megabits per second (Mbps) to homes, 80 percent of consumers only have one or no choices.
"It's not a good environment for the consumer," Baldridge said. "We think we can change that."
ViaSat's next generation technology will allow it to increase its capacity tenfold, and can deliver high-speed connections and provide more than 100 Mbps, far exceeding the demand of consumers.
ViaSat's work will allow satellite Internet to compete with the best Internet connectivity, and will position the Carlsbad company to grow.
Baldridge said the company's work might also allow flights to be a little less awful in the future, by providing in-flight Internet to passengers that will be comparable to the high-speeds they get at home. More connected flights could lead to increased productivity, allowing business passengers to access their work computers and download large files to work on the go.
He cited a study which suggests that people would trade an airplane bathroom for good connectivity. He adds that the service could be offered without a cost to customers, since he can envision that companies would want to sponsor the service to advertise to them.
Carlsbad companies are working on the technologies of the future. No, we don't have companies working on flying cars or jet packs (that we know of), but we have businesses that are working on technologies that could make "the future" a better place for us and our children. Here is a look at three companies whose work may change the way we do things.
5D Robotics
This Carlsbad-based company just celebrated its fifth anniversary last year, but their work on artificial intelligence and robotics (they create software that goes into robots) could have tremendous implications in commercial areas, from package delivery to transportation. The company's software can be used across many platforms and allows humans to interact with robots intuitively and accurately manage their movements.
As a military contractor, 5D Robotics developed a way to make land mine detectors to tag IEDs more accurately, using ultra wide-band positioning and robotic behaviors to provide reliable, safe and accurate navigation. Its software allows robotic vehicles, from small wagon-sized rovers to 6,000-ton tanks, to follow at high speed, accounting for shifts in direction and even sudden stops.
"One of the things we realized is that the biggest challenge to providing intelligent behavior to robots is position," said the company's CEO and Co-Founder David Bruemmer. He noted that while people might think GPS provides an accurate means for geolocation, it still leaves much to be desired, since it doesn't work indoors and is too inaccurate for tasks that require a higher level of exactitude, such as landmine detection.
The company uses ultra radio tags that create reference points, which can be used to digitally mark terrain by a difference of only 5 centimeters in areas where GPS will not work.
Outside of the military, Bruemmer said, the software could have a great impact on commercial applications.
"5D is about making intelligent and reliable positioning," Bruemmer said. "We can support a wide variety of novel applications."
For example, he said, the driver of a snowplow who can't see in a blizzard might be able to clear paths through the snow if tags are set up on the road, providing the information on the windshield with an augmented reality display.
"Ultimately, it means the whole automation of vehicles becomes easier," Bruemmer said.
The technology could also be used for safety and security in large facilities. For example, a petrochemical plant can give their employees tags that are connected to sensors that,, in the case of an emergency like, say, an ammonia leak, allows the company to keep track of its workers. It can also be used to make sure only those authorized to be in a secure area can access it. The technology could also be used to automate lawnmowers.
But ultimately, Bruemmer said, his company's biggest market might be providing a new form of transportation, he called it "shared intelligent mobility", which would be a network of pods that can come to you to pick you up and drop you off at your location. Pods would be able to communicate with each other and coordinate their positions. Bruemmer said these could be tested in environments where they make sense, such as airports or senior care facilities.
Poseidon Water
While turning to the sea to create drinking water is not a new or unproven concept, the technology has been credited with helping Israel get rid of its water worries by providing nearly half of its drinking water, Poseidon Water's Carlsbad Desalination Project feels like a step toward the future.
Peter MacLaggan, Senior Vice President of California, Project Development for Poseidon Water, said that by providing San Diego with its own drought-proof supply of drinking water (officials believe that the project, which is scheduled to open this fall, will provide up to 7 percent of the region's water supply) the local desalination project will be a step toward reversing our area's procurement of water.
"San Diego County is at the end of a lengthy system that goes from the Colorado River in Northern California," MacLaggan said. While the system has served well during the years, conditions like drought, population increase and competing water uses for agricultural, urban areas and fisheries has put strains on the system.
"RIght now, 90 percent of our water comes from somewhere else," said MacLaggan. "The Carlsbad Desalination Project reverses that trend and adds a new source of water supply that's reliable, the Pacific Ocean, that is not dependent on snow pack levels or rainfall and is also drought-proof."
MacLaggan said that the reverse osmosis technology that the plant operates on has been patented since the '60s (before that, desalination depended on distillation and capturing steam and condensation, which uses a lot of energy). The price of the technology is now more affordable, making it competitive with other forms of water creation.
Construction on the desal project and the pipeline is nearly complete, and MacLaggan said Poseidon Water plans to start formal testing of the plant in the summer. The project should be fully operational in the fall.
"I think the plant is going to change the way that people look at water in California," MacLaggan said. "We know there are a lot of people interested in looking at this and they're all watching to see how things go. A successful start-up and operation will lead to other places that will open not only in Southern California, but in the Bay Area as well."
ViaSat Inc.
Next summer, ViaSat will launch its second satellite, ViaSat-2, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will mark another milestone for the local communications company, which already transformed satellite-based Internet service with the launch of its first satellite in 2011.
According to the company, the second-generation satellite is expected to cover seven times the geographic area of the first and offer twice the bandwidth economics advantage of ViaSat-1, which is already the highest capacity satellite in the world. In addition to providing coverage in North America, Central America and the Caribbean basin, the satellite will provide a "bridge of coverage across the North Atlantic" allowing for high-speed Internet on flights from North America to Europe.
Richard A. Baldridge, ViaSat's president and COO, said the company is actually working on several satellites simultaneously, enough to provide consumers with the quality of services and the bandwidth they want for years to come.
"Our view is that people and applications are demanding substantial increases in bandwidths," he said. "We don't see anyone saying that they want less bandwidth, everyone is saying they want more."
Baldridge said ViaSat has positioned itself as the technology leader when it comes to providing satellite-based Internet service, and added that the company's goal is to deliver the type of service that people want, whether they're at home, in the air, in businesses and hotels. He cited a recent report from the FCC that shows that when it comes to providing speeds of more than 25 megabits per second (Mbps) to homes, 80 percent of consumers only have one or no choices.
"It's not a good environment for the consumer," Baldridge said. "We think we can change that."
ViaSat's next generation technology will allow it to increase its capacity tenfold, and can deliver high-speed connections and provide more than 100 Mbps, far exceeding the demand of consumers.
ViaSat's work will allow satellite Internet to compete with the best Internet connectivity, and will position the Carlsbad company to grow.
Baldridge said the company's work might also allow flights to be a little less awful in the future, by providing in-flight Internet to passengers that will be comparable to the high-speeds they get at home. More connected flights could lead to increased productivity, allowing business passengers to access their work computers and download large files to work on the go.
He cited a study which suggests that people would trade an airplane bathroom for good connectivity. He adds that the service could be offered without a cost to customers, since he can envision that companies would want to sponsor the service to advertise to them.