Stuart Kyle Neubarth Email and Phone Number

SK2x, Inc. is where innovation and invention happens. We invent electronic devices and technologies, and create working prototypes.We bring together top talent to solve the most challenging engineering problems and create awesome new inventions and products for our clients.We designed the hardware for Google's Machine-Learning based optical Daydream VR controller and investigated other sensing technologies with applications in VR for Google.For a startup, we created a large, flexible, wearable, dynamic e-ink billboard display controlled by a smartphone using Bluetooth. We created a dozen prototype units which were used at CES.We developed various sensors to train Machine Learning for pet-related products.We created the hardware for an AI-based optical pattern recognition system with IOT communications and solar power.

At Apple, my SK Communications team and I, along with added Apple employees, investigated numerous sensing and location technologies for the iPhone, creating prototypes and technology demonstrations for Jony Ive. Technologies included ultrawideband RF, chirp RF, WiFi, Bluetooth, optical IR, ultrasound, and magnetic. Our UWB technology investigation led to the AirTag product.I was also involved in capacitive touch, force touch, and the iPhone “M” chip motion processor MEMS sensors - barometer, accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyro. I developed the first robotic force calibration system for iPhone force touch feature and brought up the force touch factory calibration system in China.

SK Communications, Inc. was acquired by Apple, Inc. in 2011.SK Communications brought together engineers and entrepreneurs to create new inventions and turn them into products. Notable projects were:Palm inductive charging technologyWe acted as a "skunk works" for Palm in creating the first cell phone with wireless (inductive coupling) charging technology. The technology we developed was incorporated into all Palm cell phone and tablet products, and later became the design for the Texas Instruments's wireless charging reference design. SK Communications created demo versions, the first production version (discrete implementation), and the final custom integrated circuit version (architecture by SK Communications, IC design by Texas Instruments).Sportvision yellow first down lineSK Communications designed the telemetry hardware and embedded software.Coinstar coin-counting kiosksSK Communications developed the first production units as well as the electromagnetic coin sensing technology.Microfit fitness testing systemWe designed an automatic blood pressure meter, and automated exercise bicycle, and sensor for body fat, muscle strength, body weight, and flexibility. The sensors all connected to a PC for an overall body fitness test system used in health clubs, fire departments, and the military.

Advanced Techniques DepartmentI wrote proposals and delivered briefings to customers related to digital cell phone systems. Contributed to the system design and implementation of RF communications surveillance systems.

While a Stanford student and president of the Stanford Radio Club (W6YX), I became aware it would be possible to receive Soviet television signals at Stanford. I designed a prototype satellite tracking antenna and electronics to “hack” Soviet Molniya satellites and decode live Soviet television, for which there was considerable interest during the Cold War. Knowing the need for such a system, there was nothing I could do but to start my own business.With funding from Stanford Slavic Studies Department, the Hoover Institution, and philanthropist Henry Dakin, I went into business as SK Communications, Inc. - designing, manufacturing, and installing satellite tracking and Soviet TV decoding equipment.Live Soviet television proved extremely popular with Russian language professors and students, as well as those who made their living monitoring Soviet TV during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev and Perestroika. I designed, manufactured, and installed Soviet satellite tracking systems at at Stanford (Shared with UC Berkeley), the think-tank RAND Corporation (shared with UCLA) in Santa Monica, Brown University and Princeton. I also installed Soviet systems for the government of Bahrain, and various locations in Kuwait. The KGB paid me a visit, and later in Mikhail Gorbachev made a visit to Stanford. Henry Kissinger was a fan of the system I installed at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Stanford slavic studies student Michael McFaul later became US ambassador to Russia, credits the Soviet TV system as an important aid to his education. The director of the AAASS (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies) told me I "deserved a medal".With the collapse of the Soviet Union, interest in Russian TV waned, and I moved on to apply my engineering skills designing equipment to decode signals for the U.S. government. In 1992 I re-purposed SK Communications as an engineering design firm. SK Communications was acquired by Apple in 2011.

Linkabit was the consulting company founded by Andrew Viterbi and Irwin Jacobs. Digital Signal Processing was taking the communications industry by storm, and TI's TMS320 was the first processor dedicated to DSP. I wrote TMS320 DSP machine language code for an MSK modem for the Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). Also designed circuits for the world's first (AFAIK) digital cell phone system (Ultraphone).

Deutsche Forschungs- und Versuchsanstalt für Luft- und RaumfahrtInstitute of Communications and NavigationProjects I contributed to were to assist with getting Germany's first ARPANET (SATNET) connection up and running - a 64kbps satellite link at Raisting (not too far from Andechs). I fondly recall long hours tweaking signal levels and doing the over-the-air firmware updates for the BBN/Linkabit satellite modem. We had the longest ARPANET node name at the time (Oberpfaffenhofen).

Stanford Research Institute, Remote Sensing LabDr. O. G. "Mike" Villard, Jr. met me through the Stanford Radio Club when I was a freshman. One day he invited me to a fancy lunch at the faculty club. At lunch, he asked me to explain to him several electronics and physics related phenomenon. I guess I answered to his satisfaction because I soon found myself at a electronics lab bench in the Remote Sensing Lab helping design and test circuits. It was a privilege to work with and learn from the highly talented engineers at SRI. Later I discovered that I was one of a long line of "Villard kids", who he picked out every few years from the Stanford Radio Club.Some of the projects I was involved in were in the areas of radar cross section reduction (stealth), medical electronics (automated blood pressure measurement system for the Space Shuttle), RADAR-related circuit design and testing, and ionospheric sounding experiments.