Keynote
Trends in Space Technologies for Expanding the Potential of Terrestrial Pervasive Computing
Speaker
Sumio Morioka
Senior Fellow & General Manager, Satellite R&D, Interstellar Technologies Inc.
Visiting Professor, The University of Osaka, Japan
Biography
Sumio Morioka received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Osaka, Japan, in 1997. He has held senior research and engineering positions at NTT, IBM, Sony, and NEC, where he worked on system-on-chip design, electronic design automation systems, and security systems. He was also a visiting researcher at Imperial College London. Since 2016, he has been engaged in rocket avionics development and has served as the principal investigator of formation-flying satellite research at Interstellar Technologies Inc., a Japanese private space company developing rockets and communication satellites, and the first private company in Japan to successfully reach space with a rocket. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Head of the Satellite Development Division there.
He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Osaka, Japan. His awards include the Sony MVP Award in 2004 for the security processor of the PlayStation Portable, and the METI Minister's Award at the Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award in 2023.
Abstract
Space development and utilization have changed significantly over the past decade, and this transformation is expected to continue. Whereas spacecraft were traditionally designed as expensive stand-alone systems operated in limited numbers, reductions in launch cost, such as those achieved by SpaceX Falcon 9 and Starship, together with the increasing use of commercial technologies, have enabled the rapid deployment of large-scale small satellite constellations, exemplified by Starlink. These trends are often referred to as NewSpace, yet their background and implications are not widely understood outside the space community.
This keynote first reviews how space systems are evolving from isolated platforms to systems that are continuously integrated with terrestrial information and communication technologies. Recent advances such as low Earth orbit satellite constellations, the use of commercial off-the-shelf technology in orbit, inter-satellite links, and Non-Terrestrial Networks that integrate satellite communications with terrestrial cellular networks are introduced in a manner accessible to audiences without prior expertise in space systems.
The talk then highlights how these advances expand the capabilities of terrestrial pervasive computing, in which computation, communication, and sensing operate seamlessly without user awareness, as required by applications such as autonomous driving, the Internet of Things, and Cyber-Physical Systems. Examples include services that become possible only when previously unconnected regions are integrated into information and communication technology systems, as well as the utilization of wide-area and high-frequency remote sensing data from space.
Finally, the keynote introduces the speaker's work on formation flying and satellite clustering as new spacecraft operation paradigms, in which multiple spacecraft operate cooperatively as an invisible extension of terrestrial information and communication technology infrastructure.