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Sherman Lo
Senior Research Engineer, Stanford GPS Laboratory
Friday, Mar. 7 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 114

Abstract: GPS and other global satellite navigation systems (GNSSs) has become integral to our society in both obvious and subtle ways. We knowingly rely on it every day for mapping or ride sharing. We unknowingly use it when we watch a video on our smartphone, we turn on the lights or make a stock purchase as it provides timing to important infrastructure. When we fly, GNSS is critical to many systems onboard our plane. It has profoundly changed our society. But it can do more and we are still developing ways to using it more effectively or for more applications. One place GNSS has not been used a lot is in the oceans - that is starting to change. We are developing technology using GNSS and satellite communications that will provide greater awareness of the oceans by tracking marine life and alerting us with their position should they be poached. We called this the Fin Alert Shark Tag (FAST).

Apex marine fish such as shark and tuna are key to the health of the ocean ecosystem.Ìý However, they are also highly prized and valuable. So they are common targets for poaching and illegal fishing. The initial goal of FAST is to develop a tag for these protected marine species which will alerts us immediately with their positions should they be caught. As such, it must operate practically anywhere on the surface of the earth, survive the challenges of being on marine life and provide location information quickly. These three challenges means that we must have a 24/7 communications link anywhere on earth (Iridium is used), it must be able to survive pressures of up to 200 times that of atmospheric pressure at sea level (2000 m depth) and must provide GNSS positions with only a few seconds of observations. Furthermore, these tags need to be small, low profile, low power and low costs - in other words, low SWaPC.

This talk will discuss the marine poaching problem and cover the key pain points to a marine anti-poaching tag that FAST is solving. It will discuss the testing and prototyping conducted on the tag. It shows field test results of the tag on elephant seals – which ended up being the most precise long-term tracking that has been done on this species. We will cover how the technology is not only useful for marine anti-poaching but for many other maritime applications such as retrieval of lost equipment (AUV, fishing nets, lobster pots, etc.). These assets are costly to lose both economically and because they can harm marine life. FAST is essentially an airtag for protecting the ocean.

Bio: Sherman Lo is a senior research engineer at the Stanford GPS Laboratory. He also is executive director of the Stanford Center for Position Navigation and Time (SCPNT) and a Stanford instructor. His research work focuses on navigation safety, security and robustness. At Stanford, he was Associate Investigator for the FAA evaluation of enhanced Loran and alternative position navigation and timing (APNT) systems for aviation. He currently leads work examining GNSS resiliency, interference and spoofing detection and mitigation. He has over 170 conference, 30 journal, 19 magazine publications and 10 issued US patents. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Navigation (ION) and just finished his term as its president.