About Keppytronics

Keppytronics LLC

Keppytronics LLC is a one-man engineering consulting company registered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded by Alexander C. Utter in 2026.

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Alexander C. Utter

Alex Utter received the B.S. degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2007.

From 2005 to 2025, he worked at The Aerospace Corporation, leading development of FPGA-based avionics used on more than a dozen cubesat missions. During that time, his major projects included the SatCat5 open-source Ethernet switch, the Slingshot-1 cubesat, the AeroCube camera, and modems for free-space optical communication. Alex is the listed inventor for seven US patents, including the VERDACT circuit for precision timestamps.

Alex is the founder and sole member of Keppytronics LLC.

Alex’s latest resume can be found here.

Kepler

Kepler is the cutest cat to ever exist! She puts the “Kep” in Keppytronics.

Publications

A selection of Alex Utter’s scientific publications:

• Alexander Utter and Joseph Zales. “Precision Time Protocol at Picosecond Scale Over Asynchronous Ethernet.” 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference..
• Alexander Utter. “Beyond DDMTD – Sub-Picosecond Timestamps for Asynchronous Clocks.” IEEE Access 2023. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3345833.
• Hannah Weiher, Dan Mabry, and Alexander Utter. “Slingshot: In-Space Modularity Test Platform.” AIAAA SciTech 2022 Forum.
• Alexander Utter, Mark Zakrzewski, Andrew Keene, Samuel Dietrich, Sammy Lin, Eric McDonald, Nathan Whitehair, and Jason Zheng. “SatCat5: A low-power, mixed-media Ethernet network for smallsats.” AIAA/USU Smallsat Conference 2020.
• Darren Rowen, Alexander Utter, et al. “On-orbit Results from an Ultra-low SWaP Black Silicon Star Tracker.” AIAA/USU Smallsat Conference 2020.
• Eugene Grayver, Alexander Utter. “Extreme Software Defined Radio—GHz in Real Time.” IEEE Aerospace Conference 2020.
• David Allen, Alberto Arredondo, John Betz, Alessandro Cerruti, Benjamin Davidson, Karl Kovach, and Alexander Utter. “Effect of GPS III weighted voting on P(Y) receiver processing performance.” Journal of the Institute of Navigation 2020.
• Richard Welle, Alexander Utter, Todd Rose, Jerry Fuller, Kristin Gates, Benjamin Oakes, and Siegfried Janson. “A CubeSat-Based Optical Communication Network for Low Earth Orbit.” AIAA/USU Smallsat Conference 2017.
• Darren Rowen, Alexander Utter, Richard Dolphus, and Eddson Alcid. “A Miniature, Low-Power Star Tracker for Precision Pointing Nanosatellites.” AAS Guidance and Control Conference 2015.
• Alexander Utter, C. E. Edgar, T. D. Powell, and P. A. Dafesh. “Cyclostationary Analysis of SVN-49 Signal Distortion.” ION Technical Meeting 2011.
• Alexander Utter, Henry Chen, Shane Ouchi, David Money Harris, Amanda Rainer, Keane Kaneakua, Chris Prounh, and Samuel S. Osofsky. “Adaptive two-channel automatic gain control system.” IEEE Aerospace Conference 2006.

Patents

A selection of patents where Alex Utter is the listed inventor.

• Patent US12107589B2 “Vernier phase locked loop”
• Patent US12063068B2 “Tracking system”
• Patent US11055254B2 “Mixed media Ethernet switch”
• Patent US10996340B1 “Tracking system”
• Patent US10340962B2 “Amplitude domain circuits…for reducing an interference signal”
• Patent US9092371B2 “Signal parameter estimator”

This Website

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