2023 Per Enge Early Achievement Award

Presented to: Dr. Tyler Gerald René Reid

Citation: For outstanding innovations in the development of low Earth orbiting satellites for providing an enhanced global positioning service

Dr. Tyler Gerald René Reid has an extensive history of investigating and enabling a wide variety of orbital classes to support positioning, navigation, and timing. While an undergraduate he investigated the effects of atmospheric drag on the formation-flying of satellites. During his graduate work at Stanford University, he developed efficient methods to describe a wide variety of orbit types for use by Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs). His message definitions have been adopted into the aeronautical standards and are currently being implemented in the next generation of SBAS. He also investigated the benefits of using satellites in LEO orbits to provide radio navigation signals including GNSS corrections and integrity data. He demonstrated improved coverage to urban areas and polar regions enabled by these more highly inclined orbits.

Dr. Reid’s most recent effort focuses on the founding of Xona Space Systems, a pioneering start-up that is working to build its own constellation of LEO satellites specifically to provide an independent positioning service that can operate independently of the existing GNSS core constellations. Xona’s service is designed from the outset to include cybersecurity and to meet stringent safety of life integrity requirements. As the CTO of Xona, Dr. Reid is heavily involved in Xona’s system architecture and continues to lead key pioneering programs within the company making LEO PNT a reality. He has been the primary contributor on two of Xona’s awarded patents and is the primary contributor on many more patents currently under review. Under his leadership, in 2022, Xona launched the first ever commercially funded LEO PNT payload and successfully demonstrated the patented core technology behind Xona’s LEO PNT service.

Dr. Tyler Gerald René Reid is an accomplished communicator and educator; he helped to update and co-teach the graduate GPS class at Stanford University. He received his MSc (2012) and PhD (2017) in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University.