Adelaide based startup Myriota has become the third satellites-for-IoT operator in the past month to launch its first nanosatellites and is differentiating itself by claiming to be building the world’s first real-time, 24/7 direct-to-orbit IoT platform.
Myriota’s first satellite, named Brio and built by SpaceQuest in the US, was launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. According to Gunters Space Page, it is an experimental satellite built by Myriota to test and evaluate an advanced RF transceiver developed by Myriota, a spin-off company from the University of South Australia.
“Myriota desires to evaluate the ability of this advanced radio to function in a space environment,” Gunter’s says.
“The primary objective of the mission is to evaluate the Myriota communications waveforms and firmware on board the experimental payload. It is to investigate, identify and resolve potential technical and implementation issues with its advanced satellite SDR radio design.
“Another important objective is to demonstrate the ability to upload and run new firmware that can introduce new features to the SDR radio after it is on orbit. The results of this three-phase experiment will demonstrate and validate the ability to uplink large numbers of messages to a satellite using a single channel, demonstrate the ability to downlink messages to different ground devices on a single channel, and implement Myriota’s advanced signal processing algorithms on board a satellite to provide highly spectrally efficient bidirectional communications.”
More details of Brio and Myriota’s plans can be found on this filing from SpaceQuest with NASA/.
Dutch company Hiber and Fleet Space Technologies, also based in Adelaide, have both recently launched their first satellites, However both of these systems use an intermediary gateway between devices and satellite and the satellites store data until the come within range of a ground station.
Fleet Space, whose satellites were launched at the same time as Brio, also put into orbit two experimental satellites designed to test its software-defined radio.
Myriota already offering services
Myriota is already providing services using the low earth orbit satellites of ExactEarth of Canada. It was spun off from the University of South Australia in November 2015 with a $2m investment from ExactEarth, and claims to have received 250,000 data messages from a wide range of customers since May 2017 using these satellites.
IoTAustralia reported in 2016 that the company aims to provide two-way communication via satellites for IoT applications from a device the size of a matchbox that will be able to run for several years on a battery.
Myriota said the satellite would give it the capability to collect data from many millions of small IoT devices globally – such as sensors and asset trackers – and help it to scale rapidly from trial to commercial applications.
“The satellite [was] launched into a sun-synchronous orbit, providing regular and recurring communication opportunities multiple times per day, and place Myriota’s technology into the hands of industry heavyweights and developers to enable ultra low cost, and scalable IoT from anywhere on the planet,” the company said.
Goanna Ag keen on Myriota
Myriota flagged agtech company Goanna Ag as a potential early customer. Goanna Ag is providing IoT based services to Australian cotton growers but, as IoTAustralia reported yesterday, Goanna Ag is working with Australian LoRaWAN network operator NNNCo to jointly rollout LoRaWAN coverage for its service.
Myriota quoted Goanna Ag’s chief operations officer, Tom Dowling, saying that, as farmers became more reliant on data driven insights to support their day to day water management, “The issue has been connectivity in rural Australia, which has impeded our ability to provide a reliable and cost effective network to support field sensors.”
He added: “While we’ve been making our own significant investment in solving this challenge, our collaboration with Myriota over the past two years has shown us that enabling ubiquitous connectivity for a range of important on farm monitoring is integral to our clients.”