The path to drone as first responder: Scaling drone programs for public safety
This webinar, featuring law enforcement experts, will focus on enhancing situational awareness by integrating the Skydio X10 drone into patrol divisions. It will cover scaling drone deployment, the Drone as First Responder (DFR) concept, and the Skydio-Axon partnership, emphasizing autonomous flight and operational efficiency in law enforcement settings.
- Hello everyone, and welcome to today's LexPol webinar,
- The Path to Drone
- as First Responder: Scaling Drone Programs for Public Safety
- Agencies. We're gonna be getting started in just a
- moment or so here.
- We'd like to thank our sponsor for today's event, Skydio and Axon.
- We've been working very closely with them for this webinar, so we appreciate them
- being here with us today.
- Okay, we've got a really great panel here
- joining us this morning for today's
- webinar. Vern Saly served with the Chula Vista
- Police Department for
- 25, for 25 years before retiring as the patrol
- operation
- captain. At CVPD, he led the establishment and expansion
- of the department's drone program, known for its groundbreaking Drone as
- First
- Responder or DFR program, with over 9,800
- flights in support of first responders.
- He has served an ex- as an expert for numerous UAS panels and
- presentations, including with the FAA and US
- DOJ, and within the UAS industry and public safety sectors.
- He now works for Axon as the lead strategist for Axon Air, the
- company's UAS division.
- Fritz Rieber is the head of public safety integration at Skydio.
- Before Skydio, Fritz was the UAS commander with the Chula Vista
- Police
- Department. He retired after 27 years as a patrol
- captain in
- 2018. While at CVPD, he developed and worked to implement
- the Drone as First Responder program and Live 911.
- He authored the agency's concept of operations for the IPP submission,
- and co-authored the safety case for the CVPD
- BVLOS waiver, as well as the recent tactical
- BVLOS waiver.
- Noreen Charlton is the senior manager of public safety strategy at
- Skydio. For more than a decade, she worked in the crime scene
- investigation
- section of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas,
- Nevada. Throughout her time in the field, she responded to nearly 4,000
- scenes, including the Route 91 Harvest Festival
- mass casualty
- shooting. For several years, she has focused on the instruction and
- implementation of 3D technologies for public safety applications, and has
- assisted with the documentation and forensic analysis of many
- high-profile cases. As a member of the crime scene
- investigations
- body of the American Academy of Forensic Science Standards Board,
- she actively contributes to the development and advancement of industry
- standards in crime scene investigations.
- And with that, I would like to turn the floor over here
- to our panel.
- Vern, Fritz, and Noreen, welcome.
- Thanks, Steve. I appreciate you kicking us off here.
- Thank you so much.
- And thanks to everyone else for hanging out with us for a bit.
- So as we move on to our first slide, we wanted to kick off this webinar
- with an illustration of the ultimate vision of Drone as First Responder.
- There are somewhere around 16 agencies in the US that have implemented a
- DFR program to some extent. But typically, this
- consists of personnel acting as docks on rooftops of
- a station or a police headquarters.
- And while this works with some agencies now, it is extremely restricted
- by environment and weather conditions, and it's really difficult to scale.
- The ultimate vision is for DFR to be
- dock-based and to have these docks pre-positioned throughout a
- jurisdiction.
- They might not necessarily cover the entire area, but they will cover the areas
- where the majority of your crime occurs.
- This will allow for the rapid response of drones to arrive
- before ground units, and the idea here is to automate as much as possible
- by integrating with third-party applications that you are already using.
- In this particular image, you can see that we have docks pre-positioned
- throughout
- this area and multiple drones responding to different
- areas prior to ground units for increased intelligence.
- Also, now is a good place to point to fire.
- Really wanna make sure that we're not limiting our DFR
- conversations to policing
- only.
- When I think of any call that requires a significant response,
- police
- and fire are typically responding to the same scenes.
- But often they're operating off of different call taking systems
- or CAD information. And when police and fire can operate off of the
- same drone streams, everyone's receiving the most up-to-date
- information
- prior to arrival without adding that game of telephone into the mix.
- Today, we're super fortunate to be joined by two
- people who have had a
- significant impact in developing the concept of Drone as First
- Responder. Fritz and Vern, I'll throw the next couple of slides off
- to you.
- Thanks, Noreen.
- I'm glad you mentioned fire too. We gotta, Vern, we gotta remember to talk more
- about that. We tend to be police-centric.
- Mm.
- And,
- um, is... Are you gonna go to the next slide or...
- We could talk here. I think...
- Um, and
- Vern and I have done a bunch of, uh,
- uh, webinars on the history of DFR.
- It's, it's important to go over it real quickly
- just to kind of set up the
- discussion. Um,
- and it was definitely a tag team effort between myself and Vern and, and other
- leadership, of course, Roxana Kennedy and, and others at the Chula Vista
- Police Department. And like, uh, Noreen said, it's,
- it's pretty well understood
- and starting to expand in dozens of agencies now.
- But it kind of started not really as a drone project.
- Um, uh, Vern started the drone program itself
- and then handed it
- over to me. And then, uh, we had an incident where we were trying
- to, uh, get unmarked units on scene and kind of get intelligence
- before going in. Without going into too much of
- that incident,
- uh, we realized that policing is just sort of responding call to call to
- call.
- There wasn't a lot of problem-solving, a lot of scouting beforehand.
- Um, and so we tried to do this with
- plainclothes
- unit. Uh, and then when we, you know, came up, w-
- came across a,
- a remote operations technology, um, Gabe Termors and I, he, he
- was a,
- um-
- A vendor for a company that enabled that, and we really said, "Hey, this,
- this will enable a drone to get there ahead of ground units." And that's kind of
- what started it. So it started as an idea. We drafted up a CONOPs.
- It got, uh, selected for the IPP. And then, uh, when I
- retired and I came back to work for Vern, and basically, um,
- we tag-teamed and developed DFR. And it is
- what most people understand today.
- It's basically pre-positioned drones ready for immediate deployment
- with the idea to get the drone there first on scene.
- And, um, the secret sauce is the DFR pilot to,
- uh, have that person,
- you know, arrive first on scene from a position of
- safety before ground
- units with the knowledge to be able to manage the incident, maybe call it off the
- incident. 25% of the incidents they, the police ground units
- aren't needed. They call it off. And so it's a really...
- Obviously, drones are an important component, and Vern
- and I work for companies
- that support drones, but it was also how drones are deployed.
- And I'm excited to have a conversation on, uh, methods of
- deployment because I really think that's the part that
- makes drones transformational and ubiquitous.
- Vern?
- Yeah. Absolutely.
- Yeah.
- And I, I would just, uh, you know, like to add, you know, for, for sure,
- you know,
- Fritz and his leadership, a-along with Chief Kennedy were,
- were really
- instrumental. But, you know, it is an evolving, um, you
- know, area of, of police, uh, police aviation, right?
- So, you know, we never pretend like, you know, what we developed at Chula Vista
- five years ago should be the end state, right?
- And I think today's webinar is gonna talk about that is, um, you know,
- Chula Vista
- was a, you know, a unique u-use case in many ways.
- You know, weather-wise, topography, um, you know, our community, um,
- you know, uh, suburban, things like that.
- Um, but I think, uh, some of today's discussion
- is gonna open that up to not just
- traditional DFR concepts but, uh, you know, field deployed
- DFR, um, which is, which is, you know, has tremendous promise,
- uh, as well.
- Go to the next slide.
- So I'll tee this up and hand it over to Vern because he really
- did...
- uh, uh,
- basically wrote the book on how to start a drone program.
- Um, I don't know if it was wittingly or unwittingly, but it was, it
- was the key to
- our success in terms of getting the community to accept something that was a
- very unique, uh, advanced use case, not done anywhere else on
- the planet freq-frequently. And that's one of the, um...
- frankly, and that's one of the questions we get is,
- "How did you get the community
- to accept this?" and, and, uh, you know, "What,
- what tools did you put in place? What,
- what outreach did you do to make this a possibility?" And,
- uh, and the
- five Cs in partnership with drone responders that, uh,
- really
- kind of came from watching what Vern and others did, and
- pulled out those elements and identified them as five different, um,
- components of building a sustainable and accepted,
- uh, drone program, one that the, the community accepts.
- One with buy-in. Vern?
- Yeah. And I mean, I... It, it, it actually was, uh, a, a really thought
- out process. And I, I do give a lot of credit to,
- um, California Command College, which Fritz and I had both, uh, attended,
- which is
- a futures-based course for senior leaders.
- And it, it basically helps you imagine what the
- future will be and then
- do a really careful analysis. And so in 2015, a SWAT
- commander came to me and said, "Hey, I wanna implement drones for SWAT."
- Um, and I was the police technology captain.
- Um, didn't know anything really about drones.
- I'm not a hobbyist.
- Um, but I, you know, I am a police technologist,
- and so I started really
- scanning the landscape. And first...
- The first things you started seeing in 2015 was police departments and sheriff's
- departments that had started drone programs w- that were pretty rapidly shut
- down by the community because they viewed them as, as intrusive.
- They viewed them as surveillance and spy drones, things like that.
- So I realized, you know, the, the most important thing is to engage with
- the community first. So we took the tack of forming, you know,
- a
- multidisciplinary, uh, drone program working group before
- we ever bought a drone. Did our research, uh, looked at best practices, looked at
- policies, looked at successes and failures.
- Um, and then started engaging with our
- communities, uh, you know, our elected
- officials. Um, we would bring in the media and,
- and show them
- or talk to them about drones and the, the potential for them.
- And so we, we really did take that careful step.
- Uh, we created a website that had all of our policies
- and procedures,
- uh, all of our drone, you know, flight maps, um, telling the story.
- And I guess, um, you know, two things that I always say is, you know, first is
- there's nothing about a police drone program that should be secret except for
- the
- evidence, right? Just like the body cams, you hold evidence, uh, very close
- to, to, uh, you know, uh, for the integrity of your case.
- Um, and then, uh, the other part of it is essentially
- making sure that you are telling your story forthrightly
- and as transparently as
- possible. You know, the... If you're not telling your story of what
- you're using
- your drones for, uh, somebody else who does not have your
- interest in mind is
- going to be telling a story that's detrimental to your program.
- So get out that story of drones for good because they really are amazing tools.
- Yeah. Uh, and this is the obvious first step in, in scaling
- up any kind of drone program is, is doing this early,
- doing it quickly, and it's a never ending process.
- Um, if you go to Chula Vista's website, other websites of DFR programs,
- there'll be
- transparency tools where they're, um, putting up yesterday's flights, letting
- people know what a drone flew to and why it flew,
- when it flew. Um, you know, obviously have, like, uh, Vern said,
- having a, a- A well-written established policy,
- posting that policy. Um, it's, uh, it's
- transparency and continued access and, and accountability.
- The community's gotta feel like they have a say in it.
- We'll go to the next slide.
- Yeah. I'll take the next couple here, and we'll just have a conversation as we
- go
- along. Um, so as we work toward this path of DFR,
- we'll just
- start with stage one, which we are calling specialized units.
- And at the most basic level, we're finding that agencies
- are incorporating
- specialized drone units. Um, these may be for search and rescue
- or specific to a team like SWAT or a major traffic collision,
- but they're typically personnel that are specially trained in some aspect of
- the
- job, and then they are trained to be a pilot to capture data
- for
- that one specific job. And most often, we are seeing that
- with crash and crime scene units.
- And in these instances, the drone pilots are being requested
- after a situation has occurred, and often these drones
- are kind of kept on the
- shelves in an office or a station.
- These units are arriving at a scene, and then they have an intention of only
- searching or documenting at that scene, and they're often doing that in
- conjunction with other traditional methods.
- Many agencies that are using drones for policing
- name the primary missions of their UAS program as search and
- rescue, crash reconstruction, and crime scene documentation.
- In the illustration on the next slide, you will see it as both
- a crash and crime scene. So what we're seeing here is that
- an officer or a member of that team will arrive on the scene,
- deploy the drone
- from their vehicle, and then operate it from the controller
- for documentation
- purposes.
- Many agencies today are incorporating drones into their
- current
- documentation workflow, and they're reporting on time savings
- compared
- to their traditional methods, whether that's hand measurements
- or total stations
- or laser scanners. And we're finding that on average, um,
- drones are seventy-five percent faster.
- And then next along the path to DFR, on the next slide, we have
- patrol-led deployment, which is a method that is most commonly
- associated with the Oklahoma City Police Department.
- Patrol-led deployments are moving the drones from the shelves in
- that
- station or that office to the patrol vehicle.
- And ideally, these drones are being kept in the vehicles of
- units that will be first to respond to a scene.
- So an officer is dispatched to a call, they get into the general
- area, they remove the drone from their vehicle.
- And once deployed, they remain with that controller and
- communicate all of that aerial intelligence to both units on
- the ground as
- well as through dispatch.
- And then any necessary stakeholders, such as command staff, can
- view the live stream from any browser in any location and
- provide additional communication or guidance.
- While this is a great method to begin to use drones, if you're not using it
- for a specialized unit or you're trying to move it into patrol,
- it's definitely limiting. Uh, with decreased staffing, you're now
- eliminating essentially another ground unit by ensuring that they are there
- controlling the drone.
- So this is a great place to start building out your CONOPs.
- Write your policies and procedures, engage in a partnership with the community
- for
- transparency, and help build trust in what you're doing
- with this technology.
- So showing some success stories with it along the way.
- And on the next slide, you'll see demonstrated in this graphic,
- um, this
- is patrol-led deployment.
- You have the officer controlling the drone near the patrol vehicle,
- and then they can broadcast that information via radios to dispatch as
- well
- as other officers on the ground.
- In this particular illustration, you're seeing that it has
- increased situational awareness because it allows the officer to be about a
- block away but have eyes on the subjects, um, at the
- corner of the building there, the right side of my image, who are
- beyond line of sight of the officers responding near the top
- left of the image.
- Any notes you guys wanna add about patrol-led deployments that have been
- kind of most commonly used up until now?
- Um, well, I think the big call-out from the
- beginning was, and the
- setup was DFR, right? How you deploy a drone is,
- is transformational. If you deploy it differently,
- you get a different result.
- And that's what DFR showed is, is a one unique way to get drones there
- ahead
- of ground units. And that was a value add that no one really thought
- of.
- And as we're talking about, um,
- uh, you know, specialized units versus patrol-led
- deployment, uh,
- I'm sure a lot of listeners are g- listeners are gonna say, "Well, you know,
- that's
- nothing new there." But the new part about it
- is calling it out and
- distinguishing that
- each other. Like, everyone used to refer to as drone in a
- trunk.
- But no one really kind of intentionally
- distinguished those and identified them so
- that they could be repeated.
- That's the value of the science, is identifying something i- and naming it
- and letting people intentionally do that, and that's what OKC did.
- Um, Captain Bussert said, "You know, I understand the value of
- having drones as specialized units.
- We do that, but I also want them to be first on scene.
- I want to be...
- want them up in the air in the first minutes. I want them streaming.
- Uh, so what does a deployment method look like
- to do that?
- And now I don't give them to the people who are interested in flying drones or
- people with specialized un- um, skill sets or ability to train." Which
- often a, a new drone... an agency that's, uh, starting up a new drone program
- will give them with the bomb unit or the tactical team because they have
- time to
- train on these specialized drones, which is true,
- but then you get the delayed
- response, like we learned with SWAT.
- And so you have to move these tools to the front line, which means you have to put
- the tools in the hands of your everyday officer.
- You know, obviously you want easy-to-fly drones, um-
- You know, the, the learning curve has to be short. The,
- the, the...
- And Vern can talk about Axon, how they made body-worn cameras simple
- to use and easy to use. And that's the, the idea is getting people to think,
- "Okay, I'm starting a drone program. I want drones in a trunk.
- How do I want that deployed? Do I want them based on where the officer
- and
- when the officer's working, and not necessarily who might be
- interested or skilled?
- Or do I want it in a specialized unit, which I'll get, you know, more advanced
- capabilities, more maybe indoor or drop kits or all these other
- kind of very specialized units, but a delayed response?" And
- obviously the ideal thing is to have both.
- Um, and so that's kind of the idea is just in discussing-
- Cool
- ... the deployment methods and understanding what you're talking
- about, using
- common terms, and getting people to make intentional
- decisions in standing
- up their programs to get these... Um, get the, get the results they want.
- Yeah. And I'll, I'll just add to that. You know, I, I...
- You know, having been, you know, on the front end of all this for,
- for year-
- you know, five years plus, especially with DFR, but even traditional,
- um, tactical drone launches, drones need to be on the leading edge.
- They need to be the tip of the spear.
- Um, there is a definitely a place for them in
- specialized units, but,
- you know, we've seen this, the internally the statistics of, of our
- customers that have, you know, drones on a shelf at a station
- that somebody has to
- go pick up or, you know, if you're responding to a crime scene at
- 1:00 in the
- morning, you know, is that drone, you know, ready?
- Are the batteries charged?
- Is the firmware updated? All that kind of stuff.
- You know, when it hasn't been touched in, say, a month or so, that, that becomes
- problematic and delays deployment.
- Whereas when you, um, actually assign it as a piece of
- equipment, you give the proper training, and you put it with, uh, you
- know, really proactive, uh, first responders that
- are not afraid of the
- technology, your use cases start to just skyrocket,
- right?
- You'll, you know, you'll... There's so many uses in the field where a
- drone
- can make a dramatic impact on officer safety or even just clearing a scene
- faster or safer. Um, and you lose
- those opportunities when the drones are not your edge use case.
- When, when they're back at the station, you know, it's just one additional thing
- that's taking up shelf space and is underutilized.
- Yeah.
- Excellent. Um, our next slide takes us to kind of our
- current
- position on the roadmap on the path to DFR, and that takes us to
- patrol-led drone as first responder.
- With the recent release of the Skydio X10, you now have the ability to
- move from that patrol-led deployment, which is the foundation,
- and take it one step further to a full DFR solution by
- patrol-led DFR.
- With the ability to commandeer and give control of the
- drone on scene to a pilot in another location,
- patrol-led DFR provides the ability to scale your program one step
- further. So as Fritz was mentioning, you know, it used to be
- that you want to look
- for the people that are willing to be pilots,
- that want to be expert
- pilots at what they do, to putting them in patrol cars,
- and now just saying, "You
- just need to get it to the scene, and someone else can take over from
- there."
- Once the officer arrives on scene, their, their only task is really just to power
- on the drone and put it in a location ready for launch.
- They certainly can, but they never have to actually touch the
- controller or spend any time with the drone, and this is all made
- possible with 5G connectivity.
- Again, patrol is still carrying drones in their
- vehicles ready to
- deploy in any given location, and it basically is making the patrol
- car a mobile dock.
- They can expect... inspect the drone and make it ready for launch.
- And then with the remote pilot in another location, and this could be as simple
- as a dispatch center or a command center, or it could be as big
- as a real-time crime center. But it's usually someone that has
- experience and a deep understanding of patrol response and operations.
- They can commandeer the drone, and the officer on the ground can get back
- to work
- with the other ground units.
- In the next image on the next slide, you will see that the officer
- places the drone on the scene. And in this instance, the operations have
- been taken over by a remote pilot, in this case at a dispatch center
- or an RTCC. And once it has been commandeered,
- now this
- officer is free to get back to work on the ground with the other units while the
- remote pilot is the one that provides the real-time aerial
- intelligence and updates from above.
- And given that this is kind of our new method of deployment,
- I know, Fritz, that,
- um, you've got a lot to say about this.
- But this kind of gets us one step further to a full DFR solution
- by giving the ability to pilot to somebody else in a different location.
- Yeah. Perfectly explained. Yeah.
- Um,
- and so let's be clear. Obviously, this isn't widespread.
- This may be technically possible, but there's a lot of hurdles, right?
- There's regulation relief. Um, there's operational integration,
- getting people to actually do this and see what it looks like in real life.
- And so that's kind of the purpose of this discussion, kind of the push.
- We're, we're kind of back when, when, uh, you know, thinking up DFR, writing
- up the safety case, um, and, you know,
- selling it to Vern and the chief and, and, uh, and saying, "This is something we
- can do." Uh, but none of the, the tools were in place, right?
- So that's where we're at now. Uh, this may be technologically possible.
- The new Skydio X10 with the 5G connectivity, the ability to fly in
- obstacle-rich environments, the ease of use.
- Um, those things, uh, really start to say, "Hey, we could,
- we could actually do this." Um, we've got a regulation team with a vision
- on
- how to make, um, the... You know, how, how to make
- this possible through, uh, FAA permissions and shielded
- operations and, you know, learning what we've learned through the,
- uh, building on
- what we learned through the tactical beyond visual line of sight waiver and the
- first responder BVLOS. I don't think this is that far off
- from being everyday operations. And so...
- And a lot of people will say, "Well, let's just jump right to dock-based
- solutions." Well, the dock, uh, s- is, is key, but
- the dock isn't everything, uh, to DFR.
- Um, there's a lot of work to be done.
- And I would say that the biggest, most important component of DFR
- Is agencies actually staffing and equipping that DFR pilot, that
- remote pilot who's sitting there ready to fly at a moment's notice.
- Um, that unlocks all kinds of, uh, stuff, i- including
- DFR. And patrol-led DFR enables that, uh,
- you know, i- immediately. Agencies that could never envision they'd be
- so big they could never cover their, their, uh, large agency with
- docks or maybe the docks aren't ready yet.
- Um, but they can have a lot of work for these
- remote pilots to be doing
- right away. You probably saw on the Ascend, um,
- uh, rollout, uh, a demo, uh, where, uh, you know,
- Deepu John drops a drone down, and it's remotely flown to, uh,
- a transient with a knife. And it just really showed a picture of how
- an, a-
- an officer who didn't have cover instantly can have cover and
- be in a position of advantage with tools, um, safely approach
- dangerous situations. Um, and, and just make,
- uh, make it that much more scalable.
- And then immediately be on the other side of the county helping another
- officer on some other call, like a traffic stop or a lost
- child. All these type of calls typically aren't
- the kind that you call out a
- drone team for. And the analogy I would use is
- the Uber/Lyft versus taxi. You know?
- Before anybody understood what Uber/Lyft was, say, "Hey, we got this new technology
- that's gonna change the world." "What is it?" "Oh, it's, uh, you know, you pay a
- guy to drive you around." And they're like, "Okay,
- that's not transformational."
- But when you see it in reality and how much easier it is
- and how ubiquitous it
- becomes and all the tools that are needed, um, then you
- realize how, how it changes the world.
- And, and when you use a taxi once a year
- and now you're Uber and Lyfting 20
- to 30 times a month, um, so you see how, how different
- things are with something that seems just like a slight change, but
- it's becomes transformational.
- Yeah. And, you know, I'll just add what I really like about
- the, the newer
- concept of, of, uh, patrol-led DFR is just the fact
- you keep your first responders, uh, doing first responder stuff
- versus being drone pilots, right?
- Like, it takes a lot to stay current, uh, you know, with your
- piloting skills, um, the, the, the operation of the
- drone. All of those things, um, you know,
- are, are important. But I think what's really,
- really critical is, um,
- you know, I think being a drone pilot, not to be, you know, uh, too harsh
- on it, is a, is a fairly mundane task, right?
- Like, a lot of people can do that, fly a drone, you know, fairly
- easily. Um, and almost all other first responder
- tasks are just much higher in the orders of magnitude, more important than piloting
- a drone. So the fact that you can actually, uh, get that
- drone out where you need it and then turn that over to a remote
- teleoperator
- and get your first responder back on the task at hand,
- which is focusing on the community and solving that problem with the
- ad- uh, aided intelligence of this, uh, um, aerial
- platform, it... that's massive, right?
- And so that's, uh, what I think is most exciting.
- And you're, you're spot on, Fritz.
- Think about, you know, certainly in urban environments,
- dock-based solutions
- might be, you know, uh, really, um, you know, built out, um,
- features in the future. But think about, you know, rural deputies, right, who don't
- have access to drones that are close by.
- Uh, their closest cover might be 30 miles
- away, uh, rolling
- code or 30 minutes away. And having the ability to send up
- a drone, have it be their eyes operated remotely to
- give
- them that at- uh, additional situational awareness,
- it's just gonna be
- transformational. Um, something a dock-based solution
- is not really ever
- gonna do.
- Yeah. If I could,
- uh,
- add to the existing, uh, analogy out there with Uber and Lyft.
- You know, a lot of people think the dock
- is the important element, right?
- We're not gonna do DFR until we have the docks perfected. Um, and that's...
- I- I'd say the dock is similar to a self-driving car.
- Certainly self-driving cars would massively scale Uber and Lyft,
- right? Make it more affordable, more accessible, more dri- more, you know,
- shorter wait times, et cetera. But you get all the benefit of Uber
- and Lyft
- right now, uh, you know, by doing with human drivers.
- And you get... You know, there's a lot to be done before the, the,
- the self-driving car comes on, right?
- The application, the changing people's behavior,
- the pay process, the mapping,
- all these tools. And really when the self-driving cars come in,
- they're just gonna layer them into an existing ecosystem.
- You won't even notice any difference.
- Sometimes there'll be a driver, sometimes there'll be no driver.
- And same with docks. You could do a patrol-led DFR.
- You've got your remote pilot staff.
- They're flying constantly in DFR-type missions.
- And then as docks come, uh, available, you just layer them
- in. And then the DFR pilot, you know, doesn't re- even realize,
- am I flying from a dock? Am I flying from a hand launch drone?
- It really doesn't matter.
- Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that last part,
- 'cause a lot of the questions I get
- are, "Well, if I buy a drone today, is that different than the drone that
- I need tomorrow for a dock?" And the answer is no,
- you can use the same drones,
- um, you know, that you have in patrol-led DFR.
- You can also have those in-dock systems throughout your jurisdiction.
- Fritz-
- Yeah.
- You mentioned our Ascend patrol-led live demo, and that's a good
- segue into our next slide, which is a video of that.
- So again, just to set the scene real quickly before
- we hit play, um,
- this is a live demonstration that we did at the Ascend, uh, keynote for
- the announcement of the Skydio X10 drone, and this was
- 100% live. Um, our officer Deepu was in a
- different location than Fritz, our remote pilot, and he was
- able to provide intel with Deepu just putting the drone on scene.
- So we'll go ahead and play that. Hopefully it, the stream is okay.
- Um, very excited to be here today. As Adam mentioned, uh,
- prior to Skydio, I was with the Chula Vista Police Department
- for 27 years.
- And it was during my time as UAS commander that Cabe Termes
- and I began working on a unique-
- use case for drones in everyday policing.
- We worked with a great team at Chula Vista PD to go from concept to
- reality, showing public safety everywhere how to
- routinely use drones to deescalate, increase
- situational awareness, and reduce response times.
- In fact, today is exactly five years to the day
- that
- we officially named this concept Drone as First Responder, or
- DFR. And now DFR is known worldwide as the
- ultimate public safety drone case, drone use case.
- So I'm e- very excited to demonstrate how the Skydio
- team can bring that life-saving capability to your
- community through patrol-led DFR.
- Let's, uh,
- begin the live demo now.
- [alarm sounding] Hi, Frank. I have a call
- pending in your area near 223 Halik.
- Caller states the female appears disoriented, talking to herself,
- and carrying
- a knife. Subject is a white female, thin build, blue shirt, gray pants,
- black boots. No threats or reports of injuries at this time.
- Be advised, I don't have any other available units
- right now.
- 5 Frank, I copy. Uh, I, I saw the call come over on the CAD
- system. I'm staged about a block south with the
- Skydio
- X10. Do we have any DFR pilots available?
- Uh, DFR1, I'm monitoring. I'm available to assist.
- 5 Frank to DFR1, you're clear to launch, and show me switching to Axon Body
- 4 for recording and comms.
- Uh, DFR1 copies. I have you loud and clear on Axon Respond, and
- I'm launching now.
- 5 Frank copy.
- And DFR1 got a good feed.
- And just a heads-up, uh, you may have a jogger heading to you right
- now.
- 5 Frank, I see her.
- DFR1, be advised we might have a possible
- underneath the bridge north of us.
- Copy that. I'll head that way. I'll, uh, I'll start th- search now.
- I'll go down low and look underneath there with the thermal.
- Copy. I'm gonna clear this parking lot and continue north.
- Copy that.
- And got the thermal on.
- So far no heat sources. Appears clear under the bridge.
- Still looking.
- 10-4.
- And DFR1, I actually might have a possible here.
- It's under the northeast corner of that, uh, building in the crawl space.
- Appears to match. It's a female.
- Uh, definitely, uh, talking to herself.
- She actually has a large fixed bladed knife in her right hand.
- 10-4.
- Just hang by... hang there.
- I think she's keyed in on my drone. Affirm, she sees my drone.
- She's coming out
- and still has the knife. Actually, she's putting the knife down now.
- She's got the knife down now. She's got her hands up, surrendering,
- surrendering to
- the drone.
- Uh, she might... you might be able to reach out to-
- 5-
- ... call to her now.
- 5 Frank, I see her. I'm gonna call her out to me now. Miss.
- Miss, police department.
- Come on over this way. You all right?
- You have any other weapons on you?
- And DF- DFR1-
- Put your, put your hands up and come towards me.
- DFR1, uh, as soon as you can clear code four,
- I'm gonna have to clear for a, uh,
- nearby missing child.
- All right. DFR1, you're clear to disengage.
- Uh, she's requesting to go to the hospital.
- We're gonna be code four here.
- Thank you for the backup.
- Copy that, DFR1. Good job. I'm out.
- [clapping and cheering]
- So as you can see, that was our live demo of how kind of we
- envision patrol
- and DFR working out in the field. Um, Fritz, anything you wanna
- add to that as the remote pilot in that demo?
- Uh, I think it was a really good
- demonstration.
- Um, you know, not only the value of, of Deepu having an instant
- cover unit, um, but also the value of all the tools
- that you
- need to, to be useful. Um, the, the thermal,
- um, the 5G connectivity, uh, the ability to avoid objects, to
- fly low in environments. And it really unlocks something that a
- traditional Chula Vista DFR doesn't really have, and that's the ability to
- fly, you know, below the tree line.
- And then you never would've seen her from high above hiding under
- that crawl space or under the bridge.
- And so there's kind of, um, you know, an opened a new dimension,
- uh,
- with this type of capability.
- Excellent. So I think this is our last slide,
- but I'll let you both kind of go
- through these steps to building a drone program.
- And then Vern, if you wanna add in how Axon kind of fits
- into this whole picture and the integration
- that we have built there.
- [beeping]
- Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, for, a- as we discussed, you know, the first step
- with any drone program is, you know, that community support.
- Um, and, um, put your policies and procedures out there
- and, and, and make them public. And in fact, work with activist
- groups. You know, find out what they're worried about about
- your drone program.
- And, you know, when reasonable, you know, put s- put those safeguards in, in
- your drone program. So for instance, one thing we said in ours
- is we, we will never do proactive patrol with
- drones. If, if, you know, we're able to say if you see a Chula Vista
- PD drone,
- um, it is responding to an emergency, it's responding to a, a 911
- call versus, um, you know, just out there snooping around to see what
- we can
- see, right? So, uh, that helps allay fears in the community
- quite a
- bit. Um, and then,
- you know, certainly identifying and equipping pilots and remote operations
- location. I think this covers, you know, both, um, the
- aspect of traditional drone in a box or DFR launch sites
- as well as, uh, the, the patrol-led DFR
- that we just saw Deepu do.
- Um, and Fritz, you wanna cover some of the other points
- here, uh, as well?
- Yeah. Obviously the giving of drones to, you know, the p- patrol-led
- deployment, so they're out in the field across the
- region, across the shifts
- pretty broadly so that there's one, uh, nearby within
- minutes of any incident. Um, and equipping the officers with not
- only drones that they can fly by themselves, but also
- that can be remotely flown
- and that ideally integrate with a dock system.
- Um, because there's a lot of ways that you can, you know, start with a dock
- deployment and replace-
- Mm-hmm
- ... the drone midair with a, a drone on site, battery changes,
- all those things.
- And so really getting good at not only dro- dock deployment, but, uh,
- field level, ground level operations and how those two work together.
- So you're gonna kinda end up at patrol-led, uh, DFR anyway.
- Um, it, it... and it just seems easier to stand it up
- and start there.
- Um, obviously the permissions, uh, you know, get the,
- the f- the FAA, uh,
- uh, permission from them to be able to do
- this.
- Um, like I said, I don't think it's that far away.
- We're getting a lot more advanced waivers.
- They're becoming less difficult to get, and they're quicker to get.
- Um, the FAA starting to see the value of, uh, drones
- and starting to take into consideration, uh, not only the error risk,
- which has proven, thankfully, knock on wood, to be minimal, uh, but they
- understand that there's also community risk.
- And so responsible public safety agencies, when they, you
- know, they're making a choice of, of the risk to flying a drone, uh, to
- the risk of not having a drone, uh, it's, it's easily outweighed by,
- by enabling drones. Um, and then, of course, train your
- officers. Uh,
- and this is all being done at the same time.
- And, uh, and I wouldn't give up on that smaller, uh, tactical
- team, the one that agencies typically start
- with.
- You're still gonna need specialized drone pilots, pilots that, you know, fly in
- very complex environments that do, uh, you know, have, uh, different
- payloads and sensors. Um, you're still gonna, just like agencies
- equip officers with, uh, rifles and, and active shooter training, doesn't
- mean they disband their SWAT team. So it's a complementary.
- So those are the, the kind of the big six steps to, to
- start. Um, and, you know, partnering with people who
- understand all the, all the,
- you know, a turnkey solution, w- I think would be helpful, right?
- People who make the drones, make the ecosystems,
- have the partnerships with,
- between, like, for example, Skydio and Axon to really, um,
- uh, make it, uh, more turnkey, right?
- The regulatory ch- team to unlock the waivers, um,
- the training
- team, um, and then this ongoing support.
- People who understand your operations, people who understand what you need in
- terms
- of, uh, being up and running twenty-four/seven,
- and having the commu- customer service team and, uh,
- basically the, the culture to help you.
- Yeah. And I, just speaking on behalf of Axon,
- that's one of the reasons we've
- partnered with Skydio. In, in terms of, you know, quality, especially,
- uh, now the X2 is, is amazing. The camera, camera's phenomenal.
- Um, you know, our customers, um, who are building UAS
- programs, uh, one of the things we emphasize is,
- is trying to be that
- turnkey solution. Have all the services already vetted for
- them
- so that, uh, if they come to me and say, "Hey, Vern, I wanna build a, a drone
- program from scratch," uh, we not only have Skydio as a great partner
- for equipment, but we have, uh, partnerships with, uh, training
- providers. We have the program management.
- We have, uh, partnerships to help you get your codes
- and waivers
- done. Uh, we can help you with our customer, uh,
- service
- managers continue, uh, your, your program and service it.
- So, um, we really do view ourselves being an
- end-to-end solution,
- and Skydio's a, a really terrific partner within that
- ecosystem. Um, you know, I always like to emphasize, you know, uh,
- um, you know, crewed aviation has been around for,
- in law enforcement,
- you know, for probably fifty plus years, and drones really have, have really
- started to become more u- ubiquitous in the last, you know,
- five years or so, and it's only gonna accelerate.
- Um, but make sure that, you know, we're building
- professional aviation programs, and that's what the partnership of Axon
- and
- Skydio helps you do, is build a professional aviation, uh,
- program so that you can safely fly in the national airspace.
- Um, if you have an incident at some point in
- the future, which, you know,
- uh, will occur when you're flying, you know, forever, um, that
- you can mitigate it and also just to have the
- safest program, uh, possible. And I really think
- that Skydio helps unlock
- that with their autonomy and obstacle avoidance.
- Yeah. Absolutely.
- I don't know, we d- we have another slide, or is that it?
- Yep, that's it. The last one was just to wrap up with kind of the steps
- that
- agencies need to go through. But we will open it up to Q&A now.
- Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for a great presentation here,
- panel.
- We really appreciate you being here and sharing this great information with us
- today. Everyone, it is time for the Q&A portion, so
- if you have questions here for
- our panel on what we've been talking about, now's the time to send them in.
- Please send them in using the chat option there that you can see, uh, illustrated
- on the screen there. And, uh, panel, let's get right to it here.
- The first question for you: How are you proposing to address the visual
- observer requirement to be able to see the radius around the drone?
- The patrol-based operate... The p- the patrol-based option does
- not seem to address the need for visual observer.
- Yeah. So,
- um, we're, we're gonna take a page from the tactical
- beyond visual line of sight
- waiver, uh, where there's no VO required based on, um,
- certain circumstances, based on how high the dr- drone flies.
- Um, basically us- using, um, uh, shielded,
- uh, operations as a detect and avoid, right? Staying below manned aircraft.
- Um, accepting ground risk, um, based on, uh, you know, that community
- risk. And if you're flying under a COA as a
- public aircraft operations,
- um,
- you know, the, the flight over people doesn't need to be
- directly mitigated, but
- there of course, uh, Skydio, uh, offers a parachute option
- as well. Um, so yeah, this... We're admitting
- that our, our thought process on this, uh, this use
- case is ahead of the regulations. Um, but I think you
- can see with the first responder beyond visual line of sight waiver
- where you, you are allowed to have a remote operator
- as long as you have a VO and a two, two-mile, uh, radius around the
- aircraft. Do you really need that?
- If it's during an emergency operation, you promise to fly,
- you know, say, no, no further than 200 feet above
- infrastructure.
- Um, you get that shielded, uh, operations kind
- of airspace, uh, which is, you know, typically not
- filled with manned aircraft. You have advanced knowledge of the
- airspace. You have immediate comms with the remote
- pilot.
- Um, you have other mitigations in place.
- Um, and so, you know,
- I think crafting a safety case that enables this, uh, early
- on, uh, isn't out of the question. And once
- people see that it can be done safely and the value it can add,
- um,
- I, I, I think that it'll, it'll go the way the tactical where it
- started with
- Chula Vista and now that's in 400 plus agencies.
- And I, I'll just piggyback on to what Fritz said.
- You know, you know, when we started five years ago with the
- FAA and, and DFR
- and the COAs that, that we, um, uh, that we
- received, you know, none of that existed.
- We, we helped the FAA understand the use
- cases, and we worked
- closely with them to build out the, the safety mitigation in, in those
- things. So, uh, again, is this today? You know, of course not.
- But do we see a path for that future? 100%.
- And, you know, that might be in the early stages using,
- uh, one of
- our partners like D-Drone for airspace awareness and integrating that into
- the system. So, so we have, uh, the remote pilot has better
- situational awareness as to crewed aircraft in the area.
- Uh, but it also could, you know, have a number of, um, other
- systems in the future, uh, all automated, which would give remote pilots
- much more complete airspace awareness, uh, as they pilot these drones.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Uh, next question here for you, panel.
- Um,
- will the... Uh, excuse me. Um, what measures are in place to ensure the
- safety and
- security of drones when used in potentially hazardous
- situations?
- So, I mean, obviously speaking for, uh, uh, Skydio, the
- onboard, um, AI and obstacle avoidance
- technology, the drone that can see the world around it, um,
- means that it can fly in obstacle-rich environments,
- and you kind of have to have a
- drone that can do that to be able to fly it remotely.
- Um, obviously the remote pilot, uh, you know, is probably in a room somewhere,
- no
- idea of what is around the, the drone.
- And to fly that comfortably, uh, you know, among the trees and,
- um, you know,
- underneath canopies and underneath bridges, uh,
- underneath wires, et cetera, um, you have to have that
- onboard capability. And that's really when we s- you know, the
- foundation that Skydio built really is gonna unlock this controlled FDR.
- Because when you're a, a police officer, you roll to the scene, maybe you're third
- or fourth on a, a unit or a third or fourth unit on the scene.
- You know that the watch commander's gonna want a drone overhead, but you're gonna
- take a position on a perimeter or something.
- You do have time to power up the drone, set it down, and, uh, have a
- remote pilot, uh, take control of that launch and fly it, add to the
- value of, uh, managing the incident.
- But you can't control that you're not under a tree
- or not under wires, so you
- have to have a drone that will do that for you.
- Um, so that's why I, I think the s- the, the
- Skydio and, and a lot of the,
- the capabilities it has is really starting to paint a picture
- where we're like,
- "Well, we could really do this."
- Yeah. And I'll, I'll just add to that.
- You know, other things are being done today to unlock the future,
- right?
- Like I al- already mentioned D-Drone.
- We're having real world tests in Oakland County, Michigan with
- docking solutions and D-Drone, um, uh, airspace, uh,
- sensing technology, um, to, you know, compare
- head-to-head against human VOs and pilots, uh, versus having,
- uh, the technology do that. And, um, there's going to be
- a formal, uh, s- uh, report on this done by Virginia Tech,
- which
- is the FAA's, one of the FAA's preferred, um, independent
- evaluators. And so again, um, you know, I think what
- Fritz and I and the, the purpose of today's webinar is, is,
- is this is both
- today and the future that, that, that we as, um,
- you know, former, you know, public safety officers,
- but also influencers within our
- companies, are trying to unlock new uses for our
- customers
- in the future. And, um, you know, having, you know,
- seen our experience with, you know, Chula Vista DFR and
- where the FAA moved with us on that, we're very confident that
- these new use cases, these new scenarios will also be unlocked
- in the
- future.
- Okay. Thank you very much. Um, Fritz, this next question sort of, uh, ties
- into what you were talking about a moment ago, and the question is: how do you work
- around issues in areas where cellular connectivity is
- unreliable or unavailable, particularly in areas that are remote or
- rural?
- Right. You know, so obviously controlled DFR
- is not gonna work unless...
- without connectivity. So connectivity is a huge component of it,
- and some communities will have, you know, better coverage than others.
- Some parts of the- The community will have s-
- better connection than others.
- I mean, connectivity has always been a challenge,
- um, for
- DFR, and so I, I assume it's gonna be for patrol at DFR.
- Uh, I think those problems will go away as 5G
- becomes more
- ubiquitous and more cell towers, et cetera.
- Just like the early days of cell phone, the connectivity wasn't all that great.
- Um, there... Obviously, you, uh, Skydio allows you to fly through,
- you know,
- the, uh, uh, 2.4 to 5.1 Wi-Fi
- with, uh, extended range up to 7.5 miles, um,
- in, in a good environment. Probably less though than that in a urban,
- uh,
- environment with RF, rich RF. But, um,
- certainly there's two ways to fly.
- Uh, and I'm sure that
- moving between those two, um, connections, uh, makes a lot of
- sense in having that enabled, uh, so that you, you s- don't
- lose connection from a, from a controller.
- Uh, if the cell goes out, you still have con- uh, connectivity.
- Um, but you'd have to have operational
- protocols in place that, uh,
- you know, what happens when you do lose connect- connection?
- Where does that drone go? Does it come back to the officer?
- Does it go, does it go to a nearby roof?
- Um, those are things that have to be figured out w-
- in operations.
- Um, so when people get this, you get those leading edge agencies,
- like Chula Vista and others, that, you know, will answer those questions with
- operational protocols with trial and error, and kinda lay the
- foundation. And like all cops, we learn.
- Uh, you know, we don't like to reinvent the wheel.
- We learn from others.
- And so I think those will, uh, crystallize over the next year
- or two as this
- becomes technologically and regulation-wise
- possible. And the next step is to get into operations and, um,
- draw the blueprint for everybody else.
- I'll, um, I'll just piggyback and add to that.
- You know, especially in the rural use cases is,
- you know, a lot of our customers,
- um, use Starlink, uh, um, services to do that.
- Um, obviously that's not something that, that would necessarily
- work for patrol in DFR. But what I would just ask the...
- our audience to think about is, you know, who would've thought of thousands of,
- of satellites six or eight years ago up there providing
- Starlink services that can be set up in, in, in less than five minutes
- in general, right? And so what that future might look like,
- especially now
- with Blue Origin starting their launch sequences for, for similar
- services. There could literally be like light bars
- in the future that
- have the, the satellite connectivity.
- And, and you're not going to even think twice
- about it and just be,
- uh, you know, interconnected anywhere that you might be where you can see the
- sky.
- So, um, you know, while it's important to think about what
- you can do
- today, it's also equally important to utilize the
- program that
- you have to build toward the future of what will be.
- 'Cause these things will be coming, and I think they're gonna come faster than
- most
- of us think about it.
- Okay, thank you.
- All right. Panel, next question here for you.
- For departments at the ground level just starting a drone pro- program,
- DFR is still a ways off. Where would you point us for resources
- in establishing a program, general training requirements
- and recommendations,
- policy and policy implementation, et cetera?
- Um, I think I kinda just said it. We don't like to reinvent the wheel,
- so just
- reach out. There's somebody nearby you
- that has a drone program.
- Um, obviously you can reach out to, to me or Vern.
- We d- that's probably mo- much of our day is,
- is talking to people who are in
- various stages of standing up drone programs.
- Um, you know, obviously we work for vendors,
- and we'll tell you all of our
- products, but we're here to help regardless.
- We just want to enable you.
- Um, and so there's a lot of resources out
- there.
- I would join, uh, Drone Responders, um, that, uh, it
- is a huge repository of agencies that share policies, share
- operational protocols, um, uh, share, you
- know, share safety cases. Uh, so again,
- don't... Cut and paste, right? Don't reinvent the wheel.
- Uh, reach out. Um, do a regional training program.
- Train with your, uh, agency partners.
- There's probably gonna be a lot of overlap anyway.
- Um, uh,
- it... You're probably doing it with other things
- that you do, uh, you know,
- with SWAT and,
- and other regionalized assets. So, uh, I would, I would just
- ask for help.
- Yeah. To piggyback what Fritz says, you know, what I, you know, sincerely tell
- every cop that I talk to or public safety person is, you know,
- I'm a cop
- first. Yes, I work for Axon, and I want you to use Axon products,
- but I'm always gonna tell you the nitty-gritty truth in terms of, you know,
- what you need to be, be successful.
- Because, you know, Fritz and I look at, you know, what we, you know, we're able to
- accomplish along with Chief Kennedy at Chula Vista, but we also realize there's a
- lot of agencies out there that really are struggling to keep their drone
- programs
- going. And the most important thing is, is having
- professional safe aviation programs out there.
- Um, and so we will always give the advice.
- My, uh, email's V, like Victor, Sallee,
- S-A-L-L-E-E @ A-X-O-N,
- A-A-X-O-N.com. So feel free to shoot me an email.
- Uh, I'll set up a one-on-one, no obligation, no salesy part.
- Axon also has, um, uh, a newer, um,
- document out on kind of how to start a...
- and maintain an expanded drone program, you know, soup to nuts.
- And so you just need to go to axonair.com, take a look there,
- and, uh, there's resources there.
- There's also resources put out if you want something independent.
- The COPS Office has some good, um, uh,
- uh, documents on how to build public safety
- drone programs.
- So there is a lot out there. And as Fritz mentioned,
- Drone Responders i-
- is a great resource. LEDA, Law Enforcement Drone Association,
- puts on some
- fantastic training. So there's plenty out there.
- We're happy to point you in the right direction, give you our advice.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Next question. Have there been a...
- Have there been any test cases in u- in municipalities with significant
- commercial air traffic? So for example, operations around close,
- closely spaced aerodromes
- So, I mean, I'm gonna say yes, but I'm, um, you know, hunting for
- specific examples. I was just in the DC area.
- Um,
- you know, there's my... There's, there's quite a few agencies in the DC
- area that are, uh, pretty experienced in being operational
- in,
- in very, uh, restricted and challenging airspace.
- Um,
- uh, Fairfax County I know is v- has a very advanced drone
- program. Um, so
- yeah. A- and it, and it's like a little bit of a kitchen
- remodel.
- It's, uh, different for everyone.
- We were kind of graced in, uh, Chula Vista with a lot of G airspace and
- Moises Vale. Um, so it made, made things a little bit,
- a lot easier initially. Um, but I don't think a
- difficult airspace, uh, is, is a deal breaker.
- I think you just basically, um, you know,
- coordinate with your local FAA, um, acknowledge it,
- um,
- understand it, and I think you can become operational
- within it
- with certain... I know a lot of agencies
- are reaching out and coordinating with
- their local air traffic control, uh, people.
- In, in, in Vegas, it's, uh, had a unique waiver where they got
- permission to fly in zero grid, um, down the strip.
- It was a, a unique partnership that they had developed.
- So, um, you're only limited by your imagination,
- and I have not heard
- of anyone that's been permanently grounded because of the airspace around them.
- Yeah. And I'll, I'll just add, uh, to that.
- You know, if you talk to Mike O'Shea, who's the FAA, um, um, law
- enforcement or public safety, uh, consultant or liaison, he'll tell
- you, um, you'll almost never just get a flat no,
- but it's a process,
- right? So you have to come up with the CONOPs
- and the safety use cases and the
- mitigations, um, and you can probably get
- to, um, those complex operations.
- And we do see those in places that are in pretty tough airspace.
- Beverly Hills, uh, Santa Monica, all, all of which have, you know,
- airports either in the city or in close proximity, and they're doing
- full-blown DFR in Southern California.
- So if you could do it there, you could do it just about anywhere.
- Okay. Thank you. Uh, I got time for one more quick one here
- before we wrap up, uh,
- panel. The question is, what kind of latency are ex-
- are you experiencing when
- you're operating a drone remotely over a 5G network?
- Yeah, that's... Latency obviously is a big problem historically with
- connectivity.
- And the le- you, you obviously want as little latency as
- possible.
- Super critical in emergency situations, um, because you gotta
- react on a dime. Um, and so
- that's one of the concerns. I'm having flown remotely through,
- uh,
- with the Skydio obviously through 5G, uh, I think the latency
- is very acceptable, less than a second.
- But that could vary depending on, on where you're flying.
- So, uh, one of the advantages of a drone that, uh,
- won't hit things
- is that latency's not gonna drive you into a wall or something because you, you
- don't have the time to react. Um, latency typically is important for
- navigating through complex environments, and so having a drone that won't
- hit things for you is helpful. Uh, but yeah, I mean, that's...
- I think latency, connectivity, um, those are all problems
- that are gonna be with us for a while, and solutions like Vern talked about,
- um, uh,
- will help a great deal, and we're kind of dependent on,
- on the rest of the world to help us out there.
- I'll just add to that. Um, the latency, you know, is very, you know,
- typically is all, all under, you know, sub one second latency on, on almost
- all aspects of things. But I sh- did wanna kind of just call out a,
- a pretty important Skydio success two weeks ago at the, the Chula Vista
- DFR, uh, um, conference put on by UAS Norway
- and Chula Vista PD.
- We, you know, most of the vendors were having some trouble in a very
- congested
- RF environment getting their live streaming going.
- It was a little bit hit and miss, um, at times.
- In fact, black screens a couple times.
- And the Skydio X10 with 5G connectivity had just
- beautiful live streaming. Had no issues whatsoever.
- Um, and I don't mean to give a pure Skydio
- pitch on this.
- It was an honest, like you guys won the day with 5G and, and
- it's, it is transformational. Great choice to have either tr-
- uh, traditional RC control or 5G, depending what your
- environment is.
- Okay. Well, unfortunately, we're just about out of time here today
- for today's
- webinar, but we wanna thank our sponsors, Skydio and Axon for being here with us.
- And I also wanna thank our fantastic panel for being here with us.
- Vern, Fritz, and Noreen, thank you so much for joining us today.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Steve.
- Thanks. Appreciate it.
Watch Time
59 Mins 42 Secs
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