The rover will land in Corso Marche, a suburb of Turin, at the beginning of February. Coming directly from Detroit where Red Cat Holdings is headquartered, the American company that Giuseppe Santangelo, a Sicilian with strong Turin roots, acquired by expanding his original company, Skyper sonic, imagined in Turin about ten years ago.
Ingegner Santangelo, why bring a Martian rover to the outskirts of Turin?
«I taught at the Polytechnic of Turin, contract professor, after graduating in artificial intelligence in Catania. Skyper sonic has begun to produce increasingly sophisticated drones in Detroit capable of working in pipelines, in situations of great difficulty. This is thanks to the neuronal networks, intelligences that are able to reproduce the “thought” of the human brain. At one time it seemed like science fiction but today, thanks to fast computers, it has become reality ».
Why go back to producing in Turin?
«Because the city has the tradition and the skills to work on artificial intelligence. Here there is an open mind to innovation and there are transport skills. Turin had state-of-the-art research centers. It is therefore a favorable environment. To which is added the competence of its engineers, the presence of high-level universities, the relatively low cost of labor for this kind of professionalism and the proximity to other attractive areas such as Milan. The low cost of labor compensates for the higher taxes that are paid in Italy compared to other countries ».
QWhat development prospects does your Italian settlement have?
“This year we plan to bring 8 to 16 engineers working on the rover. The goal is to get to 2030 to govern it in order to be able to remote control the NASA mission to Mars. We’re on the right path. We have already made a direct connection by piloting the drone from Turin while it was in our Detroit headquarters ».
A reshoring essentially dictated by economic reasons?
«With my American colleagues we have considered that it was convenient. Then they were the first to sing me the praises of the city and I confess that to me the possibility of doing something positive for my country seemed an excellent thing. In a certain sense it is also a return for what Turin has given me in my professional career ».