Smart Firefighting Podcast

Episode 273: Accelerating Technologies for Global Problems with Satellites with Preetham Akula

Published

Guests: Preetham Akula

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Data & CAD, Wildfire

Episode notes

How are intelligent satellites revolutionizing wildfire response?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

How Akula Tech ’s use of 3D printing makes satellites faster, lighter, and more affordable

How Akula Tech integrates AI processing and hyperspectral imaging for advanced data analysis

How Akula Tech’s satellites help firefighters make critical decisions

Hear from Preetham Akula - Founder and CEO of Akula Tech .

Preetham shares Akula Tech’s work on developing intelligent satellites that transform emergency management. Participating in XPRIZE, Akula Tech focuses on creating satellites that offer real-time awareness and analysis of wildfires, empowering firefighters to make informed decisions during critical moments.

Preetham explains how Akula Tech's full system-level approach covers everything from satellite development to software and operations. By leveraging 3D printing, they produce satellites that are faster, lighter, and more cost-effective. Equipped with a system on chip for AI processing and a hyperspectral camera, these satellites provide vital data to emergency operations centers.

Akula Tech also emphasizes the importance of collaborating with industry partners to enhance data sharing and impact.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share!

Episode Resources:

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Chapters

  1. 0:00 Intro from the IFE booth at AFAC 2024
  2. 0:59 Preetham Akula joins
  3. 1:16 Why Preetham is at AFAC
  4. 1:31 What XPRIZE is
  5. 2:00 What Akula Tech does
  6. 2:34 Building the entire system
  7. 3:23 New insights for first responders
  8. 4:34 Detecting fires from space
  9. 5:54 Getting the data to the people who need it
  10. 7:11 Next steps in XPRIZE
  11. 7:56 How do you build a satellite?
  12. 8:44 What goes inside
  13. 9:11 Getting to space with SpaceX
  14. 9:37 Why satellites don't run into each other
  15. 10:19 What about asteroids?
  16. 10:49 Getting to market
  17. 11:55 The next prime from Australia
  18. 12:41 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is XPRIZE and why is Preetham Akula participating?

Preetham Akula describes XPRIZE as a competition that accelerates technologies which can make a real impact on great problems like wildfires. For Akula Tech, it is an opportunity to share what they are doing with the world, gain validation of their technology, and benchmark themselves against what else is happening globally.

Hear it at 1:35

What makes Akula Tech's satellites different from traditional satellites?

Akula Tech develops satellites that are intelligent and capable of doing more than just clicking pictures from space. Their satellites can learn, evolve, and adopt from the data they are generating, which helps in time-sensitive areas like emergency management or disaster response.

Hear it at 2:09

How much area can Akula Tech satellites observe compared to current aerial monitoring?

Preetham Akula says current aerial-based systems can observe about five to ten kilometer stretches in a single go. With space-based systems, Akula Tech can observe almost 200 square kilometers in a single image and detect fires even when they are at 10 square kilometer spread within that area, allowing detection when fires are small enough to fight and control.

Hear it at 5:28

How are Akula Tech satellites manufactured?

Preetham Akula says they manufacture their satellites using 3D printing, including titanium 3D printing and composite 3D printing for some of the parts. This approach allows them to make satellites faster, lighter, and more cost-effective compared to conventional manufacturing processes.

Hear it at 8:20

How does Akula Tech plan to deliver satellite data to firefighters and emergency response teams?

The company delivers a customizable data packet based on the hardware capacity at the endpoint. For an emergency operations center, a full GIS map with fire characteristics like temperature, direction, coverage, and fuel can be provided. For a firefighter holding a radio, it can be boiled down to a 120 character message.

Hear it at 6:12

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 273 transcript

Accelerating Technologies for Global Problems with Satellites with Preetham Akula

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Preetham Akula

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to a mini Smart Firefighting podcast series, recorded live at the Institute of Fire Engineers booth during the 2024 AFAC Show Down Under in Sydney, Australia. Throughout these conversations, we dive into critical issues like fire safety, emerging technologies, diversity in the fire service, and innovative solutions for emergency response. fascinating insights from leaders around the world on how we can build a safer and more resilient future. Preetham Akula, the CEO of Akula Tech, discusses how their intelligent satellites are transforming wildfire response. He explains how the use of AI and 3D printing provides real-time situation awareness and emphasizes the importance of collaboration and supporting emergency operations. All right, we are rolling here on day one or two of AFAC. I've kind of lost count. Day two, I guess. Yeah, day two with Preetham Akula with Akula Tech. Preetham, how you doing?

[1:00] Preetham Akula: I'm good, how are you?

[1:01] Kevin Sofen: I'm doing well. So you are based in Melbourne, is that right?

[1:04] Preetham Akula: Correct, we are based out of Melbourne.

[1:05] Kevin Sofen: Okay, just a quick little two-hour flight to Sydney, right?

[1:08] Preetham Akula: Yeah.

[1:08] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I'm basically an expert in Australian geography now after being here for three days.

[1:13] Preetham Akula: Good, that's good, that's great.

[1:15] Kevin Sofen: So what brings you to AFAC, why are you here?

[1:17] Preetham Akula: So I'm here to talk about my participation, my company's participation in XPRIZE. So I'm also, I've also participated in the innovative Pitch First contest yesterday talking about our solution, talking about our system that we are building for XPRIZE for the Wildfire Challenge.

[1:31] Kevin Sofen: And a high-level perspective for people who have no idea what is XPRIZE. What is XPRIZE?

[1:35] Preetham Akula: XPRIZE is essentially a competition which accelerates technologies like ours which can make a real impact on great problems like wildfires and many other problems as well. For us XPRIZE is an opportunity to be able to share what we doing with the world and also to be able to gain some validation of our technology and how good, you know, how good we are and, you know, just benchmark ourselves against what else is happening in the world.

[2:00] Kevin Sofen: Love it. And then you've gone this far with all things XPRIZE and your company is at a certain point now. Akula Tech, tell me about what you do and how does it work?

[2:09] Preetham Akula: So Akula Tech, we are a specialized satellite developers. So we develop satellites that are intelligent, that are capable of doing a lot more things than just clicking pictures from space. So our satellites can actually learn, evolve, and adopt from the data that they're generating, which helps in many applications, defense, commercial, mining, et cetera. But the most important application is in these time sensitive areas, like, you know, emergency management or disaster response. So that's, that's what Akula Tech does in a, in a nutshell.

[2:37] Kevin Sofen: And so, I mean, I've got this, XPRIZE sticker here where it's a satellite looking over the world. And that, you know, for all I know, So that might be Australia on the sticker, I don't know. But this whole idea of satellites being in space and giving us insights, and then being able to use that to make decisions, like where does your company fit in the mix within all that?

[2:58] Preetham Akula: So we essentially are the entire system developers. So we develop the satellite, we develop the software that sits on top of the satellite, and we also conduct the operations where the satellites are operated, and the final intelligence on these sort of implications, like emergency, fire, et cetera, can be delivered to the end user. So we are essentially a full system level solution provider, almost like an end-to-end turnkey sort of a system is what we provide.

[3:23] Kevin Sofen: Okay, and then with the idea of creating new insights that weren't there before, I mean, initially you were talking about putting planes up in the sky or putting people in the field to go and see, again, is there a risk here? Should we do a prescribed burn here? Tell me about some of the received benefits that firefighters and first responders get on the ground from experiencing the benefits of your technology?

[3:49] Preetham Akula: I think the first and the foremost benefit is the awareness of what they're getting into. So space being in a strategic position where we can observe a large area in a very short time interval, and having that bird's eye view sort of, will give us the capacity to actually analyze a large amount of area very fast. So that gives a much more stronger awareness for the firefighters to know what they're getting into, to know which direction is the fire spreading, and also to know what sort of, you know, what fuel is burning that fire. So all of this awareness, which basically helps them, you know, tackle that sort of fires very efficiently. And, you know, they know how to tackle what kind of fires. All they need to know is what is that fire? Where is it coming from? Where is it spreading towards? And that's exactly what we provide.

[4:34] Kevin Sofen: And then the idea of, again, knowing what you're getting into. I'd love to hear from your perspective on, how is it done now? And then the idea of knowing what you're getting into is just talking about, hey, now you get a briefing of where the risks are, pictures, how does that work? What does that look like?

[4:54] Preetham Akula: So at the moment, most of the awareness or most of the recognition of fires happens through ground-based systems. So someone's actually sitting on a watchtower looking out for fires. And then once there's a smoke that is noticeable from few kilometers, that's when they're alerted that there's a fire. There are some aerial-based monitoring systems as well that are being used in some areas, but they also have limitations in terms of what area can they observe. Roughly about they can observe five to 10 kilometer stretch in a single go, which is not good enough for a...

[5:21] Kevin Sofen: I think Australia has a couple more kilometers than that.

[5:24] Preetham Akula: Oh yeah, maybe.

[5:24] Kevin Sofen: I'm big on Australian geography, it's pretty big.

[5:28] Preetham Akula: What we can do with space is actually we can detect, we can observe almost 200 square kilometers in a single stretch, in a single image, and then we can detect the fires even when they're at 10 square kilometer spread in that 200 square kilometers of the area that we are observing. So what it essentially means for the firefighters is we can observe and inform about the fires when they are small enough to fight, when they are small enough to be controlled. So that is exactly what we bring to the table.

[5:54] Kevin Sofen: Well, then I know with XPRIZE, there's kind of a, the left hand is, you know, ultimately detecting, and then the right hand is sort of focused on autonomous response. How does your focus, how does your insight help drive the efficient response, whether it's autonomous or a human response.

[6:12] Preetham Akula: Yep, so our final data packet, which we deliver to various endpoints, like the response agencies, the firefighters, is a customizable data packet. So the data packet can actually be customized based on what the hardware capacity is at the endpoint. So if the data is going to an emergency operation center, then a full GIS map overlaid with the image of the fire with all the characteristics, like its temperature, its direction of spread, its coverage, its fuel, all of it can be packed. and then, you know, sent to that emergency operation center, or it can also be boiled down to like a 120 characters message for a firefighter who's holding like a radio, for example. So that customizable information and customizable data packets is what we can offer, which, you know, for example, if there's a company building drones that can fight fires, we can actually pinpoint them, which direction they need to tackle the fire from. And, you know, we can actually tell them where is the community close by and where do they need to prioritize mobilizing their autonomous assets. So that sort of information is what we can provide.

[7:11] Kevin Sofen: I love it. And so it's September of 2024. Yeah. I know you've got some XPRIZE next steps coming up, but what's next for you and what are your biggest needs to help you continue to make the largest impact?

[7:22] Preetham Akula: Yep, I think for us in the XPRIZE, our next step is we'll be demonstrating our software expertise or software validation where our data processing and analytics is demonstrated using historical satellite imagery. But as a company, our next steps is we're launching our first set of satellites over the next year. So by the end of next year, we would have about four satellites up in the sky, primarily focusing on the APAC region, Australia Pacific region. But I guess from here, where we want to be going is we want to be launching more batches of these satellites, which can then cover more regions and reach to a global coverage, sort of a point of where we can provide, you know.

[7:56] Kevin Sofen: Are you building these satellites yourself?

[7:58] Preetham Akula: We are building the satellites ourselves.

[8:00] Kevin Sofen: How do you build a satellite?

[8:02] Preetham Akula: It's easy, you just take a box and put some electronics into it and make it fly.

[8:06] Kevin Sofen: Like, what kind of box? Like, does that have to be like a titanium alloyed box with like-

[8:11] Preetham Akula: Yeah, it's a bit of a fancy box. It's got a bit of titanium in it's got a bit of composites in it now. So that's one of our-

[8:18] Kevin Sofen: You can't just put that box up there. Like, it's gotta be like a-

[8:20] Preetham Akula: You're not. Yeah. Our satellites have got a bit of a unique element to that, where we manufacture our satellites using 3D printing, not just your conventional manufacturing process, which means we can make satellites faster. we can make satellites lighter, and also we can make satellites more cost-effective as well. So we use titanium 3D printing, and we use composite 3D printing as well for some of the parts, which makes the satellite itself much more efficient.

[8:44] Kevin Sofen: And then what kind of sensors and computer chips and stuff is going inside the satellite?

[8:49] Preetham Akula: Yep, so we've got a system-on-chip, which is essentially the brain of the satellite, which runs all the AI processing, the machine learning, model retraining, and the data inferencing and all of that. And along with that sits a hyperspectral camera. So hyperspectral camera is the one that observes and takes the images of different parts of the earth. And then that image is processed by this brain of the satellite, which is the chip.

[9:11] Kevin Sofen: And then how do you get the satellite into space?

[9:13] Preetham Akula: We launch it with rockets. So we fly with SpaceX. We also fly with the Indian space program and the PSLV rocket of the Indian space program. So we fly at the moment as a secondary payloads on those rockets. Eventually we'd be looking at flying.

[9:26] Kevin Sofen: So they just get up into space and then they just kind of press open and then kind of just,

[9:31] Preetham Akula: Yeah, it's almost like you just press a button and the satellite is released into the space and it starts to go around the Earth.

[9:37] Kevin Sofen: All right, I'm sort of just also curious as we're diving into satellites, how do these satellites not run into each other?

[9:43] Preetham Akula: Good question. That's a rising concern right now in the world. The low Earth orbit is getting more and more congested, where a lot of people are launching satellites. Elon Musk himself has thousands of satellites up there. But I guess the way we look at it is we conduct debris mitigation strategy. So we study the orbital parameters before we launch the satellite into that orbit and there's a catalog of all the space objects which basically keeps a record of where an object is and which orbit it is and at what velocities it's traveling so we also cross-check with that catalog and to ensure the orbit into which we are launching is clear or at least not going to interfere with it.

[10:19] Kevin Sofen: What about like asteroids, this is random like you know accepting that you know you might just get hit by an asteroid at some point?

[10:26] Preetham Akula: You know space is risky business, you gotta accept some risk, there is a chance of it happening but that's like one in a million and we are in low earth orbit so by the time an asteroid reaches that orbit it's most likely burnt out or it's most likely deflected out and if an asteroid is entering low earth orbit I think it's more of a global problem than just for our satellites.

[10:45] Kevin Sofen: Okay yeah we're talking like next ice age type thing.

[10:47] Preetham Akula: Exactly so we're all gonna fight it together.

[10:49] Kevin Sofen: Yeah we'll have a different conversation at that point. Man Melissa you truly are building the hardware, you've got some of the software, you're tied into some of that, taking that data that's being created and then ultimately do you see this as data that's being created and giving it directly to the fire department or do you see yourself working with other third party, I see a company right there, Fire Mapper, there's TAK, there's all these other kind of like maps, like where do you, how do you see it ultimately getting to market?

[11:19] Preetham Akula: I think our first sort of touch point would be the emergency operations office or emergency operation center, where the criticality of this data is much higher. And then after that, we also are able to work with all these other partners that you've just mentioned in order to equip them with our data, where they can perform their jobs much better. It's an ecosystem that we can be fostering by using our data and our capabilities, which then makes this whole emergency management, especially firefighting, a lot more reliable and a lot more safer. So that's sort of the direction in which we're heading.

[11:55] Kevin Sofen: Love it. Well, Preetham, to kind of finish this out here, I'd love to hear any sort of quote or words of wisdom that you live by, or Akula Tech mission statement type thing, like any sort of final statements or words of wisdom that you could leave us with here today.

[12:09] Preetham Akula: I think for Akula Tech, our vision statement is to be the next prime in the industry from Australia. I think Australia has a very strong opportunity to play a key role in the Southern Hemisphere, and we would like to spearhead that sort of direction country going in sort of direction and for me personally my motivation and doing all of this and my motivation of getting into all of this is there has to be a bigger cause for which we all live it's not just about making a lot making a living and you know doing our part in the world and leaving there has to be a bigger cause which we need to be contributing towards and this is my bigger cause

[12:42] Kevin Sofen: Preetham you're doing it man I'm proud of you keep up the good work and I look forward to continuing to see what happens next thank you thank you good stuff thank you Kevin thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode recorded alongside the Institute of Fire Engineers during the AFAC show. If you found value in the conversation or learn something new, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out, share your thoughts. Let's keep the discussion going on how we can shape the future of smart firefighting.