Julian Gutierrez, Tico who works at NASA to improve GPS security.

Global Positioning System (GPS) is a concept that has become close to people. It is the technology used to navigate without getting lost, as with Google Maps and Waze, and it is also the technology that allows us to give a point of reference when ordering transportation or food.

In the future, NASA hopes to improve this technology and make it safer when more autonomous vehicles and ships are deployed. The intention is to provide the best way to avoid collisions or other accidents that could affect not only the device, but people as well.

Specifically, a Costa Rican engineer works on a NASA team seeking to improve GPS security. His name is Julian Gutierrez Monge, and he's an electrical engineer about to get his PhD in computer engineering.

Who is Julian and how did he get to NASA?

Julian Gutierrez never dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and his knowledge of GPS before arriving at NASA was that of the average user of the technology.

He studied electrical engineering at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). After graduating, he worked at Intel. He loved working there, but he wanted to see what life was like as a college professor. He resigned and taught at UCR. He felt that this was what he really loved, but to be able to devote himself to it he needed a doctorate, and he decided to do it in the United States.

There he faced reality. “Studying in the United States is very expensive,” he said, laughing.

He then received a scholarship from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Communications (Micitt) to study doctoral programmes. He also received a supplemental scholarship from the University of California.

“If it wasn't for that grant, I would never have made it, it was too much money,” he recalls.

He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 2015, and began his master's studies in electrical and computer engineering. It focused on high-performance computing, which aims to optimize the uses of a computer's central processing units so that algorithms run faster and functions are executed more quickly.

In 2018, he began his doctoral studies in computer engineering, where he also focused on high-performance computing. Research began into how cosmic radiation affects smaller devices and transistors.

The research took him to the Los Alamos Laboratory to use a particle accelerator to see the effect on algorithms. Their results were not statistically significant. This disappointed him, and only then did the epidemic spread.

However, this disappointment opened the doors of NASA for him, because he was honest with those who interviewed him. They asked him to narrate a business challenge that, although he would have liked to, had not achieved results. He had the perfect example.

Now his contract allows him to focus on his doctoral research while working.

That boy who graduated in electrical engineering and only knew GPS basically, is today part of a team with research to make this technology safer.

How does GPS work?

To understand Gutierrez's work, you need to be clear about how geographic location systems, such as GPS, work. The satellites orbiting the planet are the actors in this process.

Each satellite has atomic clocks, so they have the exact time at which they transmit each signal. This signal travels about 20,000 kilometers and reaches millions of sensors. Our smartphones or other devices have sensors that capture satellite information.

Based on this data, the time it took for the signal to leave the satellite and reach our devices is measured. This information is used to create GPS maps. If you already have the satellite location and the time it takes to reach the device, you will know the location of each sensor.

For the engineer, the accuracy of these systems depends on several factors.

• The number of satellites a particular location has in a direct path. The more there are, the better the location.
• Satellite engineering. If they are in the same location in the atmosphere or pointing in the same direction, this will not necessarily create a better GPS location.
• How true are the signs observed.

GPS accuracy is a very big problem in cities, especially in large cities and large buildings, Gutierrez noted.

Drivers have probably encountered this more than once, especially when they are heading to an unfamiliar place and rely on navigation systems like Waze or Google Maps to get to their destination. More than once, the map could tell them they were too far from the corner they should turn, and the software's voice would tell them to turn right at the designated point or when they passed.

For Gutierrez, the experience is worse in big cities with skyscrapers: “There are giant buildings that block your direct line from the satellites. Those signals bounce off the buildings, and you see an incorrect signal. That might say you're two or three blocks away from where you actually are.” »

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In his daily life, Julian works with other electrical and computer engineers, as well as mathematicians, physicists and chemical engineers. Many of them are working on improving GPS accuracy or using algorithms that help planes take off or land. Tico focuses on software security in a project called System-level integrity.

The main task of this team is to create a simulator they called NATQ to predict signal quality. The position of satellites in the sky is simulated and signals are projected onto the city. Through this, it is possible to predict the site characteristics that can be obtained at different locations.

This will allow us to compare the quality of GPS in different sectors, with fairly tall buildings. One of the first simulation attempts was an area of ​​eight square kilometers of the city of Boston. This simulation took a long time to run due to the size and type of area they focused on. Before Gutierrez joined the team, it took 45 seconds to model a one-second movement.

This is exactly where Julian came to work. Two years later he was able to do this modeling in 200 milliseconds.

“The importance of doing these models quickly is that we will be able to get the closest thing in real time and then transfer it to the car. So, I can immediately say: 'I need to avoid this road, let's change,'” the engineer said.

All of this is aimed at providing useful tools for computer-controlled vehicles, without the need for a pilot or driver.

However, there are still problems to be solved for self-driving ships, such as recognizing buildings, cars traveling in the opposite direction and those that could impact them, or changing routes if a more efficient route is detected.