 Good afternoon, Mike Elliott. I'm hosting for Ted Ralston today for Where the Drone Leads from Pioneer Plaza downtown Honolulu and Ted's off on another mission for the state to bring drone technology and jobs back home and he's been doing an incredible job working over at UH and hosting this show over the past couple years as we begin to continue to introduce drone technology and mainstream it for a lot of work that actually needs to be done and that's kind of what we're going to be talking about today with some of the products that are out there and available to the community more for the industrial and commercial use that has been very much in demand over the past few years and we've seen a lot of that in some of the trade shows that we've been to with the commercial UAV expo and that was that they have in Vegas every year also in a drone the international drone show that they have in Vegas and to see some of the technology that's out there whether it's for mapping purposes traditional photogrammetry lidar usage search and rescue there's there's just such a wide variety of usages that have been coming to the forefront over the years and so what you're starting to see now is a number of companies begin to manufacture drones that are purpose built for you know commercial industrial use taken into account the needs of the consumer to build the product that they need one of those that have right here in front of me now is from DJI it is their M210 it is one of their newest drones it's actually purpose built like said for commercial industrial use it is IP 43 rated which means basically it can handle the weather light rains stuff like that not a problem whereas traditional drones that most folks are used to for off the shelf for hobbyist a light rain you know they just they're sucking in so much air and the cooling and everything they're just not prepared or protected against that type of intrusion into the electronics for that their their systems but this one is this purpose built and actually meets those standards what you see mounted on here are two cameras and so yeah we have a system now that has two cameras this is not for film production or TV production or anything like that what you have on on this side on the left hand side of the drone is the Z30 camera which it's a 30 time optical zoom six time digital zoom so that you can stand off and when you're doing inspections on bridges structures cell towers etc and be able to zoom in for a very close and accurate view whether you're shooting photo or video and then off to the right on the other side what you see here is a FLIR camera thermal camera system it's their DJI XT and these both of these cameras are made by DJI they integrate you know with this drone system and they are integral into the app and how everything works together so what they've created is a simple system that if you've had flown some of the previous products you'd be very familiar with so it's not necessarily a huge leap in learning how to fly it but now you have something that is purpose built for doing aerial type of inspections whether for buildings bridges like says cell towers roadways you know if you're even search and rescue this is probably one of the top ones that we've seen purchased by a number of agencies for search and rescue fire departments some SWAT teams being able to stand off at a distance and actually be able to monitor situation when there's a SWAT response possibly so what I wanted to show you a couple things so what it's what's kind of interesting to is that the cameras actually work together so if you see I'm just moving the cameras up and down they're both working together while you're viewing the imagery and if you're recording imagery they're both recording at the same time looking in the same direction that you're actually shooting for the for what you're actually looking at so you don't have to necessarily go back and forth and then move one camera and then move the other these these cameras are going to work together and they're going to be able to focus on what it is that you're looking for and there are three axis stabilized cameras so they're going to have a perfectly smooth image while in flight and then even while you're zoomed in you have a pretty substantial image that you're able to or a stabilized image that you're able to see so that's one of the really interesting features and then like said too when you're actually recording on this particular platform and both cameras recorded this particular FLIR camera records at a 30 Hertz frame rate as does the C30 so 30 frames per second is what it's really as a 30 frame per second rate so these videos are both going to be at the same sequence or same frame rate and you can overlay these videos in some of the projects and output products that you're actually going to do for a customer if you're if you're interested so you can have the FLIR video is the main which we've done for some projects and then you can superimpose the video from the from the Z30 camera in the lower right or if you need to switch back and forth you can easily do that that's not a problem and some of the post-processing that you might want to do and one of the interesting features on this one too this is the first one that I know of on the market that has an ADSB receiver ADSB is a system of aircraft awareness and an avoidance spacer that is being instituted by the FA manned aircraft have systems that communicate both transmit and receive this system just receives only so it actually also is capable of receiving aircraft information knowing that there are other aircraft in the area and giving you the appropriate warning and I've seen some of those pop up as far as you know 30 35 kilometers away which is well outside the range of where we actually be operating but it's a very sensitive system and it does work and it's part of the future for this obstacle avoidance or aircraft avoidance integration into the national airspace and just generally how these systems are going to be working and employed in some of the workflow that you see with a number of architectural construction and engineering firms you know here in the state so a lot of times people say well you know why would I you know why would I buy this why would I what would I get out of this and really what you're looking at first some of the systems like this it's an issue of time where you're saving a lot of time being able to do a particular job if you have to scaffold the side of a building to be able to inspect it put personnel over the side removal of all that you know scaffolding and so you're talking potentially you know weeks where you could actually do an exterior building inspection in just a matter of minutes possibly in maybe an area that you were you had concern of if you're doing you know roofing inspection or you're looking at machinery possibly on top of the tall tall building and you can use the thermal camera and the FLIR and the regular cameras together and just check to see if those things are actually you know operating properly solar farms and solar panel inspection once again you can do that same thing you can record both at the same time you can see with the thermal camera the panels that are operating or probably aren't or maybe have some damaged cells and then with the regular camera you can also see well is that is it actually a damaged cell or is there dirt and debris possibly on that on that panel that maybe needs to be clean so you can quickly make some of these assessments for you and and then in the search and rescue realm you know just a few years ago there were really no zoom camera capable systems that were out there the only thing you could do was try to put a long focal length lens on a dlsr camera and then put that thing up into the air and then hope you could see what you're actually looking for and then you had limited to no control while you were actually flying so what DJI has done with the Z30 camera that they've made available is actually have like I said an optical zoom capability that allows you to stand off and actually if in a search and rescue type of scenario be able to zoom in at a greater distance without having to necessarily fly to a point oh that's nothing let me fly over here that's nothing and and wasting time and battery when you can actually just pop up to a particular point start looking around and use that in combination with the with the FLIR camera itself too so if you're looking for somebody the FLIR camera is extremely sensitive it's sensitivity on this particular one is less than 50 millikelvin so if you're science nerd like I am and stuff you know exactly what I'm talking about for that particular measurement of temperature and it allows you to detect very finite changes in temperature difference in temperature so we're basically talking with a FLIR camera we're talking heat energy and you know in even at range and it doesn't matter if it's day or night I had some folks asked me about that well how can you fly a FLIR camera during the day well heat's heat heat energy is heat energy there are certain situations where flying maybe just after sunset or at sunset might be a little more optimal for certain types of inspection work but yes you can fly it during the day and it's extremely extremely effective we were out doing one particular job and we could often the distance could see some cars traveling on H2 and could easily see the exhaust on these vehicles and they were probably two miles away or more so you know extremely sensitive camera but in a search and rescue situation you know it may mean the difference in life and death you know trying to find somebody one of the reasons when we first got started doing this as a business for our businesses drawing services why that search and rescue aspect I think was kind of near and dear to our hearts and there was an incident that occurred on stairway to heaven back I think it was in February 2015 or so January February 2015 and we were just getting started and the capability to actually do that level of search and rescue effort with drones just really wasn't there some people courageously volunteered to help and try to see what they could do to find this individual that had that had fallen but we just the industry did not have that level of technology I think if that incident were to occur today the likelihood of finding that individual would be much much higher so these types of systems actually are really growing into their own and being purpose built you know for this this type of industry so I wanted to show you just real quick so you have flip this over here and I'll get this on the camera correct let's say right about there so in this particular case right now you have both the images that are actually up on the on the display itself and I'm gonna go ahead and switch over we'll switch over to the thermal display and we'll just bring the cameras down and across you can see some of the camera systems that are here you know on the on the set itself we'll just kind of cruise around and the camera has to settle out a little bit as it comes across so right now you're looking in a heat view in this particular view is a called fusion and there's a number of different settings palette settings that you can utilize for the cameras themselves we're looking right back at the screen that you're seeing myself on and we'll come back around and I say we see some more equipment in the background and then like I said in the different palette views you can actually come in and change those and the way we equate this to people we just say well it's it's kind of like predator view you know you can actually go through just like in predator you know and you try to find what looks what's the right what's the right you know wavelength that you're actually looking for but it has a variety of palates available that are very helpful in sometimes trying to discern minute temperature detail and they actually have classes in thermography believe it or not that that is a thing thermographers are people that actually can interpret thermal data for a customer and able to better understand exactly what it is that they're seeing so you said you're looking at the back of that laptop there and some other stuff hanging off the power supply and everything as you see those we got some of the folks in the background so we'll come down a little so yeah it's a rather interesting piece of technology and obviously we're rather close to everything here but you can see that other camera the heat coming off of that off the front of that camera let's switch over to another palette view real quick we'll try something else here so in this one if you're looking at it you actually see a lot more gradient in the temperature detail that you're looking at in this particular case and you can like I said you can see that heat energy that's coming off that particular particular item so no different if it was you know if it was somebody so looking back towards the glass getting a little reflection off the glass looking all the way back towards the camera itself or the drone itself and so if you look in the lower portion there you see the the regular camera and it's moving right along across that same area so if you're recording you're recording both videos at the same time very handy very useful in inspection work but also like said in that search and rescue realm and you know with this capability to you have the ability to remotely or be able to transmit this data to remote sites and they even have a new feature new software called a flight hub that actually will live transmit back to a secure server for your particular entity and you can track all your stuff that's ongoing where it's at who's flying you know video feed from stuff and so if we have a company that maybe has multiple units out in the field you know they can kind of track and monitor everything that's actually actually going on so you know this is we're going to do a different configuration we come back after the break and if you have any online questions Twitter calls or anything you know please give us a shout and we'd be glad to answer them for you hello everyone I'm DeSoto Brown the co-host of human humane architecture which is seen on think tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. and with the show's host Martin Desbang we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii but internationally as well so join us for human humane architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on think tech Hawaii for every game day a sign a designated driver so it's Mike Elliott hey hosting here for Ted Ralston where the drone leads we were gone for about 30 seconds and what I was able to do for you in that 30 seconds was able to reconfigure this drone to be able to do a top mount for this zoom camera and be able to do if you're doing underside bridge inspections are needed to look up vertically once again a feature that just really didn't exist in a lot of platforms it was out there it took me 30 seconds the time that basically that commercial ran I was able to disconnect the camera reconnected on the top do the connection for the feed that comes from that device on the top and turn this drone back on and it'd be ready to go back up in the air in no time at all so you know another handy feature and capability once again you know folks listening to the industry what do you need what do you need and to be able to look vertically a lot of times and be able to do vertical inspections underneath bridges or look under structures you know is something that is in higher and higher demand and you know it's once again it's a time and money saver if you need to look and do a bridge inspection but you don't have time to scaffold the waterway or bring in a barge or something like that to be able to get under there with a with a man lift and and spend a few days out there doing that you can easily just fly and be able to do that level of inspection be able to zoom in you know on the areas of interest do photography or video that's necessary for that project and you know be able to bring it back land move on to the next job so once again being able to save time money and slow safety really one of the things that's key about a lot of these these products in their use in the commercial industrial type of services whether in like said architecture construction engineering firms is really a safety aspect a lot of these have introduced a new level of safety in not having to put people necessarily in harm's way and that's really what's been pretty spectacular we've even heard stories of solar companies who have incorporated drones into their business to do pre and post inspection of rooftop solar and because they're actually reducing the number of man hours of putting people on roofs and the number of people that they're putting on roofs they actually saw a reduction in their insurance rates and that's something that you know never really had thought directly about that you know the even the insurance industry would take note and how a business changed its business practices could actually lead to an additional savings by not just the timepiece by using drones but on the insurance side also so we've done a variety of projects here in the state of Hawaii we continue to expand what we what we offer to folks and we really enjoy working with our clients out there we've helped some companies establish some of their own drone programs and for others you know we are always on call to be able to service any of their needs we have this drone available as well as a number of others just depends on what it is that we actually need to do what what's the right tool for the job that we need to actually bring out there there are you know some other options or other things that are coming in the near future so one of the technologies that's talked about heavily is a bit of AI as artificial intelligence where these types of products get a little bit smarter that they become more aware of their environment as to how they navigate and how they maneuver and to where the the operator becomes more of a just mission programmer and then the drone is able to smartly navigate its environment to do what the operator has asked it to do and that once again this is going to be you know an incredible time savings when you can actually just put this thing in the air have it run and do its mission or if you're doing a recurrent type of mission on a regular basis and it's the same thing over and over and over again you can save that entire profile for that job and you go to the site you set everything up you fly that mission you download that data you process it you deliver it well it's internal for the company itself or to the client and it allows for a simplicity of operation so you'll start to see some of that coming in the near future with regard to rules with the FA things really haven't haven't changed much at all it's just been a general awareness so a lot of companies are starting to ask more and more questions and I said well hey there's all these rules well those rules were always there they just weren't necessarily always fully aware of what they were and how they could do this we are always available to be able to answer your questions if you have any type of questions on you know where the FA rules are where some of those resources are and then even how to do certain types of projects there've been a lot of times where we've had clients who have drone programs and they're they're not fully aware of how they can actually execute a particular type of mission so we help them in some of the mission planning that they do some of the equipment that they're operating and even training some of their personnel you know on site if necessary and that's one of the things that we've offered with this particular product as we've been selling it in Hawaii we because it is a little more expensive a little bit more complex and requires a little bit more time to figure out you know we do some we do you know free set up and we do a full day on-site training for anyone that's interested in buying this type of product for for their business or use is as part of their company and we just want to make sure that people are fully aware of all the capabilities things that can and cannot do and proper setup maintenance storage you know which is key anytime you have a product like this is making sure that it's properly stored and cared for battery maintenance is key this has some of the largest individual batteries I've seen from DJI these they're TB 55's which the TB 50's for like the Inspire 2 is about half this so all this is added section here is additional battery and with with these two cameras you can get close to 30 minutes in total flight time which is pretty good I mean you can actually spend some wider time you know when you're actually working out working on a project and you don't have to be too concerned about coming back right away they also have an RTK version so you'll have an RTK base station if you're not aware of what that is it's actually just it's going to be an increased precision and navigation and positioning for your drone so if you're doing precision type surveys we've used this particular drone and others and utilization of our arrow points that we have from a company called propeller arrow and these are actually ground control points that quickly they over a period of time record GPS data use the cores RTK or correction station networks here or on some of the other islands to apply the correction data and then able to process with the images to develop some some very detailed maps and we've actually worked with the surveyors too and some of the projects and stuff so if it does require survey level if it's a survey is required to sign off on a project or engineer that's required to sign off on a project we make sure we identify that individual with that particular company and we work closely with them to ensure that all those requirements are met that they verify the data that's received and that you know we're actually able to provide an aerial solution that augments the ground-based solution that they're already working on and occasionally too you know you have areas that are extremely difficult to for surveyors to access so they have called in and asked for aerial capability whether it's one of the DJI products there's some wing products that are out there that are really great and to be able to survey you know large areas so yeah this this particular product like said has a wide variety of uses the DJI M210 series starts off with a single camera gimbal system this is the 200 with the dual camera setup and then the like I said the RTK setup that it has for dual camera operations and if you have any interest in something like that you can contact us we'd be glad to assist you in your needs and we hope that in the near future we're we're starting to see and assist more companies in being able to integrate drones for their inspection purposes architectural design engineering management it could also you know volumetric analysis that you have to do for quarries and rock piles stock piles you know just a wide variety of uses here and it's it's going to be more common place and once they see the simplicity of the utilization of the product the software that's available to actually process this type of information and then also the the output data products that you can provide to the client and how quickly you can actually take some of these measurements that in in one particular project was able to take all the required measurements in 30 minutes which from the drone data that was provided where normally it would have taken by the time everything was compiled about a week or so so you know we expect to see more of these operating hopefully in the near future we want to see people operate safe and responsibly if you ever have any questions about safe responsible drone operation FAA rules which kind of can and cannot do please feel free to contact us either on facebook send us an email or give us a call at drone services white and i'm mike elliot i'm out for ted ralston this week he'll be back next week and in the near future we're going to have a nice surprise announcement for a new opportunity here in the state of hawai