Amir Husain is the CEO & founder of SkyGrid, provider of airspace management services for commercial drone operators, enterprises, and aviation authorities. Husain explains how building the HyperWerx campus will showcase what AI really can do for SkyGrid and its partners.
What is the vision for SkyGrid’s use of the HyperWerx facility?
HyperWerx is a one-of-a-kind autonomy facility where SkyGrid and our partners can test complex systems, build, design, deploy, and showcase how AI, drones, sensors and other exponential technologies come together to solve important social problems and create large-scale economic opportunities.
At HyperWerx, SkyGrid will bring next-generation autonomous aviation to life – end to end. This includes flying and testing drones, integrating them with AI algorithms, experiencing first-hand the limitations of commercial systems, the peculiarities of GPS receivers, image enhancement technology and the criticality of sensors and flight controllers. In a nutshell, exploring the art of the possible and expanding its boundaries.
How is HyperWerx different from other testing facilities?
The work at HyperWerx ranges from software to hardware, from fabrication to testing, and goes well beyond supporting just aerial robots. The capabilities available to us at HyperWerx are incredibly robust, and we will continue to add differentiated elements on the campus as time goes on.
HyperWerx represents a unique ecosystem and community. In addition to SparkCognition and SGS, our key strategic partners, including Boeing and Raytheon, are also involved. Broadly, HyperWerx allows for collaboration with academia, commercial, and defense partners at the facility, who are able to work on challenging projects together. HyperWerx will be a hub for one-of-a-kind collaborations with leading minds across industry.
What will HyperWerx allow you to do now that they have opened building one?
HyperWerx will allow us to carry out physical integration with a variety of sensors, test guidance and swarm algorithms, monitor drone safety and performance, develop requirements for next generation versions of the SkyGrid platform, aerial-terrestrial integrated autonomous systems, and much more.
Who are the HyperWerx partners?
We are joined in our efforts by SparkCognition and SparkCognition Government Systems (SGS) and are already in discussions with leading enterprises and research institutions who will join us on what promises to be an amazing journey. The work we are doing with Boeing and Raytheon will also be featured significantly at HyperWerx. Together, we will work to imagine, prototype and build revolutionary new systems that accelerate our collective transition into a magnificent future, one which I hope will exceed our wildest imagination.
Are all solutions developed at HyperWerx experimental, or are there products that are currently being sold to customers?
Various systems ranging from experimental to production systems are being built and tested at HyperWerx. Some of these include autonomous control systems, hybrid UAVs, advanced computer vision systems, autonomous control systems and SkyGrid’s unmanned traffic management platform.
Why did you choose this location?
SkyGrid is headquartered in Austin, and the 50 acres of land on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, provides ample resources and space for testing. Austin is culturally rich, demographically diverse and has one of the finest research universities in the world. UT Austin’s computer science department, for example, ranks #6 and its prowess in the field of AI is arguably ranked even higher. HyperWerx will only continue to push the city forward as one of the world’s leading tech communities in Austin’s growing tech ecosystem.
What are the future plans for HyperWerx? When will the development of the facilities and land be complete?
Building One of HyperWerx is just the first of many phases we envision in the development of the HyperWerx campus. The campus will continue to see the addition of facilities and robust capabilities, including new structures, test ranges and support for industry specific scenarios.
What excites you most about the HyperWerx facility?
What excites me about HyperWerx is not just that it represents the growth of the company, but mostly that it will provide our clients, partners, and team with a laboratory within which to roll up our sleeves and build the future. Personally, I have no intention of merely watching this process unfold from the sidelines. I intend to be right beside our partners and our team – those brave architects of the future – neck deep in the heady business of building, testing, deploying and perfecting products that will tangibly fulfill the promise of the AI revolution.
