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APRIL 2026

We have joined the Thurston County APEX Business Accelerator!

This is a massive milestone for Hansen Photonics Incorporated, and it perfectly aligns with our strategic roadmap for the year. For a deep-tech hardware startup, navigating the transition from lab-validated prototypes to commercial deployment is the most critical hurdle. The APEX Accelerator program is going to serve as our strategic guide through that exact process.

With the core physics of the Axon's Intensity-Division Multiplexing officially proven, our immediate focus is scaling up our gigabit-speed testing environment.

This is where APEX becomes invaluable.

Our goal for Quarter Two is to leverage APEX’s guidance to unlock non-dilutive government contracting strategies—specifically, navigating the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (SAT). By working with their advisors, we are positioning ourselves to seamlessly transition our existing Letters of Intent into fully funded, real-world pilot deployments.

We are incredibly fortunate to be building this here in the Pacific Northwest. Between the massive support of our local ecosystem in Olympia—including our upcoming pilot partners at Everworks—and the incredible enthusiasm from regional institutions like Renton Technical College and the Environmental Science Center in Burien, our momentum is at an all time high. T

We are building this business the right way. The Axon's "plug-in capacity" is moving out of the simulation environment and onto the physical hardware.

Stay tuned folks! :D

MARCH 2026
Phase two of our testing is complete! We used an FPGA to auto-align two out-of-sync 1.25 gigabit-speed signals.
That was the biggest problem with our special brand of intensity division multiplying. Being able to take noisy optical data and "correct" it on the physical layer (PHY) is huge. That means we have the "nanosecond-sync" problem solved, and we can start interpreting data. We can't wait it geek out about it in greater detail soon!

Simulations utilizing the Vivado environment (above) confirmed that the FPGA circuitry successfully takes chaotic, misaligned light signals (represented by hex codes like a9696 and 52d2d) and finds, within two microseconds, the exact start of the transmission via a digital handshake (the a5a5a sequence). The hardware achieves a nanosecond synchronization "lock," outputting perfectly synchronized, usable payload data (99999 and 88888) flowing at 1.25 gigabits per second.

February 2026

Phase one of our testing is complete! We can overlap multiple megabit-speed signals of the same wavelength into a single fiber, and still tell them apart.

Phase two, gigabit speed signal synchronization! Stay tuned, folks.

December 2025

Local inventor JP Hansen, who tested experimental networking hardware at Seahurst Park Beach in 2022 now says his latest creation – a light powered computer processor – has cleared a key hurdle with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after a years-long fight.

In a written account shared with South King Media, the 29-year-old describes an optical device he calls “The Axon,” first tested in 2020 in Burien by sending network signals on beams of light “across rivers and forests.”

He says that work led to a more ambitious design, a computer processor that uses light instead of electricity and can be physically reconfigured on the fly to perform different kinds of calculations.

https://b-townblog.com/seahurst-park-beach-experiments-lead-local-inventor-to-new-optical-computing-patent/

July 2024

We are taking our communication lasers and making them work in a fiber optic cable! I think the market is going to probably be focused on fiber solutions for the foreseeable future. We have a patent pending on a multiplexing method/system that converts our polarized beams into intensity-coded signals that can survive long-haul transmissions.

Not sure how far I'll get this year because (on a personal note) I am getting married in October, and we have a lot of wedding planning to do :)

June 2023

We upgraded our laser transmitter to fire over an even longer distance. Between our two test deployments (Starting in May) we were able to transmit polarization-multiplexed, gigabit-speed data between a distance equal to that between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands. We could also transmit between Liberty and Ellis Island.

Check out the slideshow!

August 2022

Pictured from left to right: JP Hansen, Karl Hansen, H. Lynn Baker, and Katy Kachmarik

hpi Demonstrates eco-friendly gigabit laser communicator in forest.

27 August 2022
By JP Hansen

Working in conjunction with the Environmental Science Center at Ed Munroe Seahurst Park, HPI spearheads a startlingly simple new gigabit laser communications system focused on reducing environmental harm from infrastructure.

On Saturday, August 27 at Ed Munroe Seahurst Park, Hansen Photonics Incorporated met with the on-site Environmental Science Center's director of community engagement, Katy Kachmarik with a singular purpose: demonstrating a new and potentially revolutionary communications technology developed by local inventor, JP Hansen.

The group made a long evening hike in overcast weather with several heavy packs to the middle of Seahurst park's urban forest. There, HPI placed a compact, white lens assembly on one edge of a small stream valley, and carefully aimed it so it could be detected by a distant technician on the other side. The unassuming device in question may look like a small telescope to the casual observer, but is actually a gigabit-speed laser communications device designed to be safe, affordable and simple enough for anyone to use, with a communications range that could feasibly replace short-haul fiber infrastructure in the future.

The whole assembly came to life at the flip of a switch with a gentle humming, and the team dug in with intense concentration, making sure the invisible, infrared light beam could be detected as quickly as possible. After roughly seventeen tense minutes, the team detected a strong signal on the other side of the valley --a success! The transmitter transmitted its signal, causing no ecological damage and eliminating the need to lay a fiber cable.

Whereas similar technology may cost tens of thousands of dollars to purchase, and even more to install, this exciting innovation costs less than a new laptop, runs at competitive speeds, and represents an elegant alternative to the multimillion dollar infrastructural fiber-laying operations currently underway in multiple parts of the state.

Typically, large-scale operations cause environmental harm both by digging, and by polluting nearby ecosystems. But this new lens assembly fits on a tripod, and makes connecting a new client to a source of gigabit internet as easy and ecologically harmless as pointing a flashlight. HPI Hopes to eventually open-source the technology so that more people can connect to high-speed internet over beams of light, and get approval to deploy the technology in an urban setting. When the technology scales, it could significantly benefit disadvantaged communities by allowing them to get internet access to their homes without needing to petition to begin a months-long infrastructural project.

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