Silicon Tundra? Tech startups eye testing autonomous vehicles in northern Minnesota
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Two tech companies that have recently set up shop in Duluth have an ambitious vision to make northern Minnesota a destination for research and testing of autonomous vehicles, from unmanned underwater submarines in Lake Superior to driverless underground machines in abandoned mines on the Iron Range.
The companies, Anno.Ai and Spear.Ai, aim to build out testing infrastructure in and around Lake Superior, across northern Minnesota and into North Dakota, to collect data that would enable companies to test and train the artificial intelligence models that autonomous vehicles rely on.
The firms believe such a drone testing zone would help address a pressing national security concern. U.S. military leaders have acknowledged the country has fallen behind in the need to rapidly develop and test new unmanned technologies that are rapidly redefining modern warfare.
Anno and Spear believe northern Minnesota is an ideal place to test some of these technologies, with Duluth at the center of its plans to create a testing area for marine applications such as small unmanned underwater vehicles — known as UUVs, or sea drones.
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The area would also cater to companies researching and developing commercial applications of unmanned technologies by offering access to a test space where developers can see their product in action, identify shortcomings and make improvements.
Spear and Anno have both won military contracts and raised millions of dollars in private capital. They’ve earned bipartisan support from Minnesota’s Congressional delegation and backing from local leaders. And they’re exploring partnerships with the University of Minnesota.
Steven Witt, CEO of Anno.Ai, believes the work could eventually spawn the creation of a broader regional industry.
“For us as a company, success would be a proliferation of other technology companies starting to have operations in Duluth, because they view the infrastructure that we've started to put in place here as an invaluable source of capabilities for them in terms of advancing their own autonomous technology,” said Witt.
AI and Lake Superior
At a workshop in a former auto glass repair shop in Duluth, John McGunnigle shows off a high-tech buoy that Spear.Ai, the company he co-founded, is building and deploying in Lake Superior.
The top looks like a typical swim buoy. But suspended below the buoy is an array of sensors and hydrophones to measure sound underwater in Lake Superior.
Spear has developed a tool to gather all that acoustic data and label and organize the sound waves to train AI systems, so that an unmanned sub, for example, would be able to recognize objects in the water around it.
At Anno.Ai’s offices in downtown Duluth, staffers in front of computers use that tool to “essentially draw a shape around different parts of the image and tell the system, ‘This is a fishing boat. This is a trawler. This is an ore carrier. This was a jet ski,’” explained Witt, a Macalester College graduate and former CIA intelligence officer.
“And when we do that enough times, the machine learning models will then be able to say, ‘I've heard this ship before. I know exactly what it is and how fast it's going.’ That's important for building up AI models to understand the soundscape of the world,” Witt added.
Eventually, for example, an unmanned sub could quickly determine whether an approaching object is a sailboat or a vessel that could be a threat.
“I really think we have an opportunity to help national security with what we do,” said McGunnigle, a retired Navy submarine commander.
Spear, which has offices on the East Coast and one that McGunnigle just opened last summer in Duluth, has already deployed four of the buoys in Lake Superior and plans to add several more this spring. McGunnigle believes there will be enough in place this summer to create a rudimentary test range.
The Navy already operates several underwater test ranges along the East and West Coasts and in the Caribbean. But McGunnigle said those are overbooked, difficult to access and are geared toward technologies that are closer to production-ready. He said there’s nowhere in the country to quickly test maritime technologies at earlier stages of development.
“So you've got an idea, you've kind of worked it out in the lab, but you need to go and iterate it somewhere. It's hard to do that at some of these bigger Navy ranges. So why not create a place where you can do that?” McGunnigle said.
Lake Superior is an ideal place for that kind of testing because it’s located in the center of the continent, far from the prying eyes of the nation’s adversaries, said McGunnigle. It also features an enormous range of geographic and climatic conditions.
"It's deep, it's cold, it has Arctic-like conditions, but you don't have to go to the Arctic. So there's a lot of potential to use Lake Superior as a place for testing and assessing novel technologies,” said Catherine O'Reilly, director of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Large Lakes Observatory.
But to create a test range at the scale McGunnigle and Witt envision would require several years to implement and a “ton of infrastructure,” McGunnigle said, including dock facilities on Lake Superior for large boats, warehouse space for companies to set up shop, fiber optic cabling and additional sensors placed throughout the lake.
That, in turn, has sparked apprehension from some employees at the Large Lakes Observatory, who’ve expressed concern about possible environmental impacts to the lake and partnering with companies with defense contracts.
Spear has used the institute’s 20-foot research vessel Kingfisher and its crew to deploy its buoys in the lake. O'Reilly is co-chairing a task force at the university to create a plan for a marine science, engineering, and technology initiative in Duluth. But she said talks with Anno and Spear are very preliminary.
"There's tremendous opportunities for students to engage in working with industry partners at the forefront of these novel technologies for workforce development and economic growth in the region associated,” said O’Reilly. ”There's also concerns about potential for environmental degradation, the need to have the permitting clearances in place."
John Downing, head of Minnesota Sea Grant, which is housed at UMD, is co-chairing the task force with O’Reilly. He said Spear.Ai has agreed to share space on their buoys for Sea Grant to install additional sensors to measure data like water temperature and wave height.
Sea Grant is also partnering with the companies to explore ways to help build a workforce in the region to support maritime industries.
“There's a lot of potential,” said Downing. “We do very little training in coastal engineering or coastal science. Kids who grow up on an ocean-size lake, well, we should give them opportunities to keep working in that technological area.”
Abandoned mine testing
While Lake Superior and Duluth are the focus of the effort to create an underwater testing range for maritime autonomous vehicles, Anno.Ai is also working in North Dakota to create a test range for aerial drones.
North Dakota has created a dedicated radar network for unmanned aerial systems. Witt said he hopes that radar coverage could be extended into northern Minnesota, “so that aerial drones could fly all the way from Lake Superior and do cargo deliveries to places like Bismarck.”
The company is also exploring using abandoned mines on the Iron Range.
"We need to test and understand things like, how does a warhead impact an unmanned surface vessel?” said Witt. “We don't and can't blow things up in Lake Superior for environmental reasons, but a flooded pit mine that's no longer being used could be a really good place to do that testing."
There’s also an opportunity to train autonomous systems how to work deep underground in abandoned mine shafts, in tight spaces with sharp corners that can test communications capabilities.
“It’s very exciting,” said Ryan Malich, executive director of business development for Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, a state economic development agency that’s been in discussions with Anno.Ai and helped identify possible testing sites. “Historic mining has created sort of a natural proving ground for drones and autonomous platforms.”
Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert is also bullish on the economic development potential for a new industry that wasn’t lured to Duluth with financial incentives but came because of its natural assets. “This fits well with us as a community. It fits well with our heritage,” Reinert said.
It may sound like science fiction to some, but autonomous technologies have already permeated society in ways many might not realize.
Walmart is now delivering purchases with drones in Dallas, Atlanta and other cities. Waymo is testing robotaxis in the Twin Cities and elsewhere. Autonomous vehicles are evacuating wounded soldiers from the battlefield in Ukraine.
And if this vision takes hold, northern Minnesota could play a key role in testing future autonomous technologies. “This could be something really special and really enduring, like a multi-generational type of investment,” said Witt.
