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Introducing Albatross: Data Science in C++

Over the past couple years at Swift Navigation, we've been developing an open source project for statistical modeling in C++ called albatross [https://github.com/swift-nav/albatross]. We use albatross in several of the core models behind our Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) correction services; things such as real-time estimates

The Untapped, Qualified Applicants Employers Must Not Overlook

Mothers. Moms. First, call yours and thank her. Then, think about hiring someone else’s. I’d like to discuss the qualified professionals that many companies may be overlooking. I believe mothers are an untapped resource. In addition to the skills developed in their careers before children, they add to

Creating Flexible, Configuration-Driven Forms with React, React-Bootstrap and Redux-Form

This repository demonstrates tooling that we have developed at Swift Navigation for building internal data entry applications for our network team. These applications consist of a large number of forms whose formatting depends heavily on a data model that we maintain in the backend. Due to the relative newness and

Life at Swift: Hackathons

One of the most anticipated engineering traditions at Swift is our bi-yearly three-day hackathon event. In the weeks leading up to the hackathon, we open a hackathon Slack channel so we can start building excitement, sharing ideas and lobbying for team members. Everyone is welcome and Swifters can either be

Using NixOS to Manage Hardware Testing Environments

Summary Building and running hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing infrastructure is a large scale effort for Swift Navigation. The nature of GPS processing and the interaction of RTOS, embedded Linux, and FPGA components makes HITL testing especially important. Having to manage local custom hardware adds unique challenges that don’t easily fit

Relativistic Correction

by Simon Banville Relativistic effects play a significant role in GPS positioning since clocks onboard satellites travel at high speeds in space (roughly 4 km/sec) and are located at a lower gravitational potential than the Earth’s surface. In this blog post, I explain how one formulation for the

Top Ten Management Lessons

The opportunity to manage many engineering teams in Silicon Valley over the past three decades has given me many opportunities to retrospect. In this post, I have the pleasure of sharing with you the top ten management lessons I've learned along the way. Lesson 1: It’s Not About You

Learning About BeiDou3 Signals

Introduction A lot of things have to happen under the hood to bring support for a new constellation inside a GNSS receiver. Piksi® Multi isn't different in this respect and an ambitious roadmap has to have space for good old legwork, as well as a fair amount of research that

Type Safe, Functional GraphQL with Purescript - Part 2

Last time [/type-safe-functional-graphql] we left off with a very minimal GraphQL API with its resolver function written in Purescript. Now, let's look at more complex resolver functions that have asynchronous return values. Input and Context First, let's take a closer look at the GraphQL resolver function. Open up your index.

Type Safe, Functional GraphQL with Purescript - Part 1

GraphQL [http://graphql.org/] is a great way to model the underlying data structure of an API. It allows clients to request only the data they want and structures the API as a graph or relational data. However, at this time there is no convenient or complete GraphQL library for

Hello from Fergus, Tim and Colin

Welcome to Swift Navigation’s blog. We are glad you are here! At Swift our mission is to enable a future of autonomous vehicles to navigate and understand the world. With the same spirit of navigators that came before us, we are extremely excited to chart our course towards the