Dr. Mario Paniccia, CEO of ANELLO Photonics – Interview Series

Dr. Mario Paniccia is a seasoned Silicon Valley–based CEO, co-founder and Chairman of Anello Photonics, where he leads the company’s mission to revolutionize navigation systems with advanced photonic technology. A pioneer in silicon photonics and inertial navigation, he previously spent over two decades at Intel, where he rose to Intel Fellow and led the company’s silicon photonics program, transforming it into a globally deployed commercial technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Solid-State Physics from Purdue University and is a Fellow of IEEE, SPIE, and OSA, as well as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Anello Photonics is redefining inertial navigation through its SiPhOG™ optical gyroscope, a compact, high-precision sensor built using silicon photonics. Unlike traditional fiber-optic gyros, Anello’s solution is fully integrated on a photonic chip, offering exceptional accuracy with reduced size, weight, power, and cost. Designed for GPS-denied environments, the technology supports autonomous navigation across sectors such as robotics, aerospace, defense, and industrial automation.

What drives your passion for innovation—especially at the intersection of silicon photonics and autonomy?

My drive stems from a lifelong fascination with how silicon photonics can solve critical real-world problems and disrupt industries. When we started silicon photonics at Intel it was a crazy idea to build optical devices out of silicon. We proved everyone wrong and developed not only silicon photonics technology but rather an entire industry and today this technology is in all the world’s data centers. At ANELLO we started again with the bold idea to bring integrated silicon photonics to disrupt the navigation market.

With the creation of the world’s first Silicon Photonics Optical Gyroscope – SiPhOG™ we have been able to develop entirely new products and solutions for markets that need high-precision navigation which previously was inaccessible due to the high cost of existing solutions.

We are redefining what’s possible with bringing high-performance precision, low drift, optical gyro sensors with radical improvement in Size, Weight and Power to the autonomous market. This opens up entirely new applications and use cases across all industries from – Construction, Farming, Trucking, Robotics, UAVs – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, USVs – Unmanned Surface Vehicles, Autonomous Vehicles, and of course across the Defense industry.

What inspired the founding vision behind ANELLO, and how did GPS-denied environments shape your roadmap?

ANELLO Photonics was founded to address a growing gap in the industry: Today’s fiber-optic gyroscopes (FOGs) are very accurate but are big, bulky and very expensive. Thus they are only used for the very high-end applications like Fighter jets, submarines, ICBM’s, etc. On the other end of the spectrum you have MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) based Gyros that are in all your consumer devices like phones, ear pods, watches, etc. These are very high-volume devices (billions of units are manufactured per year) but they suffer from drift due to temperature, vibration and EMI effects.

As such they cannot be used for high precision navigation. As the need for autonomy grew over the last few years, there was a growing gap in the middle. We saw this opportunity and said, “what if we could build a fiber optic gyroscope using silicon photonics?”- then you can bring high- performance capability in a small form factor to the mass market.

This led to the development of the ANELLO SiPhOG. We then started looking at navigation solutions that could be built with the SiPhOG and we realized that we could deliver cost effective products at high volume with exceptional performance that would enable navigation in GPS-denied environments. As GPS jamming and denial started to become more prevalent, ANELLO was there to capitalize on this and we created products and a roadmap focused on delivering GPS-denied navigation systems that bring FOG-level performance to the mass-market across both Industrial and Defense applications.

How does the ANELLO SiPhOG differ from traditional FOGs and MEMS systems?

The principal physics of operation of a FOG and the SiPhOG  are both similar, i.e. based on the Sagnac effect. However, for the SiPhOG we took all the discrete optical components that are found in FOGs today (splitters, couplers, phase modulators, detectors, polarization filters, fiber splices, etc.) and integrated them all onto a tiny photonic integrated silicon chip that is produced just like standard integrated electronic circuits. This photoinic chip replaces all the manual assembly and alignment, is more reliable and can be produced at scale. We in addition have created a novel extremely sensitive and low power electronics system that controls the photonic chip and measures the optical signals and sagnac phase and the rotation rate.

All of this is produced and assembled using the same high-volume “pick and place” assembly techniques that are used in the electronics industry today. When assembled, our SiPhOG delivers the same low drift gyro performance as a FOG but in a much smaller, compact, lower power and scalable solution that essentially fits in the palm of your hand. This is why we call It “fiber gyro on a chip”.  Unlike MEMS gyroscopes, which often drift within seconds and are susceptible to temperature and vibration, the ANELLO SiPhOG – since it is based on photons – is not susceptible to any of these effects. When combined in a system, this enables robust, long-term inertial navigation in GPS-denied or spoofed environments, making it an ideal solution for autonomy on land, air and sea applications.

What risks do rising GPS jamming and spoofing pose, and why is GPS‑dependence unsustainable?

GPS jamming and spoofing incidents have surged globally, posing major threats to autonomous platforms, military operations, and critical infrastructure. For example, in 2025 we have already seen a 500% increase in spoofing incidents globally. We have also seen about 700 jamming and spoofing events per day, and about 1,500 flights are being spoofed daily across the globe. Systems that depend solely on GPS are vulnerable to positioning errors to outright failure in contested or GPS signal-degraded environments -they just don’t work. Whether in urban canyons, underground tunnels, or warfare zones, reliance on GPS only is a high risk.

If you lose GPS, you do not know where you are and you then don’t know where your’re going. This poses major safety issues for navigation systems that depend on GPS. While FOG-based systems are certainly available, they are often too expensive and big to deploy to the mass market. However, now with high-performance inertial systems from ANELLO – based on SiPhOG – we can provide a robust layer of resilient navigation based  solutions for operation when GPS fails or is unavailable.

How does ANELLO’s system offer a “ground truth” alternative in GPS-challenged environments?

ANELLO’s inertial navigation systems use our unique SiPhOG™ optical gyroscope, combined with a CPU, AI-based sensor fusion algorithms, accelerometers and other sensors to deliver a real-time navigation positioning solution. Since our SiPhOG has such high precision, our products are not dependent on anything externally and this provides real “ground truth”.  What we are able to do then is deliver robust and uninterrupted, GPS-Denied navigation when and where GPS signal is unavailable. In addition, we monitor in real time our position, compare it to the GPS position and if our solution detects GPS spoofing or jamming it will seamlessly transition to ANELLO’s dead-reckoning navigation, ensuring continuous, reliable, and accurate position tracking.

In essence, the ANELLO optical gyro tech provides any moving system with a trusted ground truth solution seamlessly and reliably – whenever satellite signals are compromised. This is not just for autonomous vehicles, but this is also for manned vehicles that do not have GPS. Think about places in and or around war torn conflict areas that have GPS jamming and spoofing happening. How do medical responders navigate to rescue people when they don’t have  GPS or know where to go?

Which current use case pushes limits, and where is the opportunity for near‑term scale?

We’re seeing high demand in industrial use cases such as construction, precision agriculture, robotics and of course in defense applications across land, air and sea. In orchards, mines, and off-road environments where GPS is limited or intermittent – or fails entirely, ANELLO’s INS and IMU solutions keep autonomous systems operating with centimeter-level accuracy. In defense, platforms like USVs – Unmanned Surface Vehicles or drones that rely on GPS for navigation, benefit from ANELLO’s integration with prevalent autopilots or other relevant sensors, which allow for GPS-denied navigation for extended periods of time in challenging environments.

Looking ahead, more extreme cases like hypersonics are requesting even more precision due to the speeds at which they travel – yet still want low power and small size. As we look at autonomous drones for future applications like delivery drones or consumer drones, and/or wearables and man portable devices, the industry will want even smaller form factors and lower power. This is one advantage provided by integrated silicon photonics. We can continue to integrate, reduce size, reduce power yet deliver high performance. As autonomy use cases grow, being able to deliver SiPhOGs in volume and at scale will be crucial. This is a key benefit of what we have developed at ANELLO.

How do inertial systems like ANELLO’s support safety in contexts like Tesla’s robotaxi deployment?

As autonomous vehicles go mainstream, safety in GPS-denied regions becomes critical. ANELLO’s inertial navigation systems deliver fail safe operational performance, maintaining precise localization when satellite signals drop or are compromised. In the event of GPS failure and spoofing, our ANELLO SiPhOG-powered solutions ensure that the vehicle remains spatially aware and knows what is real and what is compromised. This enables safe maneuvering or controlled navigation which is key for regulatory approval and real-world deployment of robotaxis, autonomous trucks, and next-gen mobility systems. Our solutions were designed with ASIL (Automotive Safety Integrity Level) in mind so we can be ready to deploy as these markets grow and evolve. We believe ANELLO will be at the core of autonomy in the future.

How does ANELLO’s AI sensor-fusion engine improve resilience in long GPS-denied scenarios?

In all our products and solutions our propriety AI sensor-fusion engine processes and tracks in real time the inertial position and GPS position every ~10ms. Because of this, our solutions can dynamically identify anomalies like spoofing, jamming, or shock-induced drift differences. The system auto-corrects and switches between sensor modes without any human intervention – always determining what is correct and what is incorrect. The ANELLO AI sensor-fusion engine is being tested continuously and optimized by our team in various industrial and defense applications in the field and across land, air and sea. This enables faster implementation and real use case deployments for our customers. The result is not only unmatched reliability and performance for these challenging autonomous applications, but faster deployment for our customers to quickly solve their problems.

What does the next 5–10 years hold for silicon photonics in autonomy, AI, and robotics?

Over the next decade, integrated silicon photonics will become foundational to the future of autonomy, especially in GPS-denied or contested environments. As demand grows for resilient navigation systems across robotics, defense, aerospace, and industrial sectors, photonics sensors like the ANELLO SiPhOG will lead the shift from big, bulky, high-power and high-cost solutions to smaller, higher volume, compact and easily integrated solutions for the mass-market. Just like the electronics industry, we will continue to integrate more and more functions onto our silicon photonics chip, providing more functionality and lower cost.

Additionally, we will continue to integrate the electronics with more functions and smaller footprint and someday all of this will be on a tiny chip smaller than your fingernail. This fully integrated tiny chip will bring  the same level of performance to the consumer market. Think about this, ANELLO will not just be in every autonomous vehicle but will be in every smart watch, every smart phone – in everything and anything that moves or position is important. Whether you have GPS or not, no more worries about getting lost or not knowing where you are, because you know ANELLO is with you at all times.

What excites you most, and how can engineers or governments engage with ANELLO?

I’m thrilled by how quickly our technology is being adopted—from agriculture to robotics to defense. We have worked hard to ensure our systems are easy to install, user friendly and work flawlessly. Some of these systems can be retrofitted in a vehicle in less than 15 mins. Customer feedback on how quickly we are solving their problems really makes us feel that we are helping society. Our engineers work and talk directly with our customers. We are out with our customers, we are out on their boats, testing in real time with them, we are flying on their drone platforms and are side by side with them analyzing the data and tweaking our algorithms to ensure our solutions work on their platforms.

This allows us to see in real time how our solutions empower our customers and address their challenges. We are seeing more and more of our customers coming to us and saying “Hey, I was told we need ANELLO”. This in the end makes all the hard work and effort well worth it. And we are doing this across multiple industries. Engineers love this direct customer interaction which enables our teams to solve real world problems. We took on a bold challenge to create something that had never been done before. We have done this, but as an engineer at heart we are just at the beginning and lots of exciting developments lie ahead. We will continue to change the field of navigation and deliver solutions that provide GPS-denied navigation capabilities to the world. We invite our partners—engineers, system integrators, government agencies, etc.— to collaborate with us, get our evaluation kits, test our products, test on your platforms and let us help you.  Connect with us – Together, we can build the future of navigation together.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Anello Photonics.