Hi Bob,
Agreed. I guess the point I was making is that the auto industry can technically get by with just 1 or 2 high precision gyro per car, as Martin has eluded to. Autonomous aerial vehicles and robots will need a full fledged 3-axis IMU, and most likely an INS. As mass market adoption of autonomous features enters the auto world, the scale will drive down prices significantly. This will allow for cheaper autonomous aerial vehicles and the introduction of relatively inexpensive robots. Robots are going to rely on the same sensors as the auto industry. When autonomous autos drive down the cost of LIDAR, GPU based computers and high precision INS systems, robots will follow, at a scale much larger than cars, and at a rapid pace, IMO. I believe Waymo is about to trigger a wildfire in the autonomous world that will be equal in significance to the advent of the smartphone. High precision gyros will benefit greatly by all this change in scale, regardless of being sold as single units or in a packaged IMU/INS.
Can KVH offer a product that is superior to MEMs and meet the other CSWaP metrics demanded by the OEMs? So far, they seem to suggest they will meet and/or exceed these requirements. If they can deliver at scale, KVH will be a completely different company in the very near future.
Aw |
