Inside Skydio’s Vision for Scalable DFR Programs with Axon

0:09All right. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for, uh, joining us on a beautiful

0:13Wednesday morning here. And, uh, I have some two fantastic,

0:17uh, pioneers of drone as first responder, both from Axon and Skydio.

0:21Uh, my name is Phil Gonschak. I obviously am the Director of Strategic

0:24Initiatives

0:25for Skydio, and I'm happy to be here, uh, in these two pioneers' presence, and then

0:28of course all of you joining us live.

0:30Let me do some brief introductions, and then we'll just jump right in since

0:33we're,

0:34uh, driving down 59 minutes from now, so...

0:36It's my pleasure obviously, uh, Vern, nice to have you here.

0:39Vern Suly, a nationally recognized leader in public

0:42safety drone innovation,

0:43and currently the Axon Air Strategist at Axon.

0:46Vern brings over 25 years of distinguished law enforcement experience, which

0:50is pretty, uh, fantastic considering our Police Memorial

0:53Week this week.

0:54Having retired as both the Patrol Operations Division captain

0:57and the second in

0:57command at the Chula Vista Police Department.

1:00He founded and led the department's pioneering drone as first responder,

1:03or DFR

1:03program, which has become a national model for

1:06integrating unmanned aerial

1:07systems into emergency response and has supported thousands of public

1:10safety

1:11missions.

1:12As a subject matter expert, Vern has presented at major national

1:15and international

1:16conferences, advised on federal working groups,

1:18and co-testified before the

1:19President's Commission on Law Enforcement regarding police use of drones.

1:23He's a graduate and a fellow graduate of the FBI National Academy.

1:26I think 270, right Vern?

1:2770.

1:27Great. I'm 260, so all those folks out there listening in,

1:31that's kind of our

1:31bragging rights.

1:32[laughs]

1:32Nonetheless, California Post Command College, which

1:34is very impressive.

1:35And now at Axon, Vern helps agencies across the country

1:38develop world-class,

1:39uh, unmanned aerial system programs focusing

1:41on leveraging drone technology to

1:43enhance officer safety, improve community outcomes,

1:46and support transparency in

1:47policing. Please join me in welcoming Vern Suly.

1:50Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

1:51You bet. Next, uh, but certainly not least,

1:54I'm excited to introduce a fellow

1:55friend of mine, Cabe Tormes, a recognized unmanned aerial systems

1:58industry

1:59leader and a co-inventor of the drone as first responder model as well.

2:02With over 15 years of experience, uh, spanning both public safety, federal,

2:06and/or

2:06commercial sectors, Cabe has been at the forefront of driving

2:09innovations, shaping

2:10dra- drone regulations, and ensuring customer success.

2:14Cabe currently serves as Senior Director of Solutions Engineering at Skydio, where

2:18he leads an international team delivering mission-critical autonomous drone

2:21solutions to organizations across four continents.

2:25He was one of the Skydio's first enterprise-focused hires,

2:28pivotal in transitioning

2:29from consumer drones to advanced enterprise and government applications.

2:33Before joining Skydio, Cabe was instrumental in launching the nation's

2:36first DFR

2:37program along with Vern at the Chula Vista Police Department while Cabe was

2:41employed with CAPE, setting a precedent for public safety

2:44drone

2:44operations nationwide. Following CAPE's acquisition by Motorola

2:48Solutions, Cabe led the go-to-market strategy for the

2:50Motorola aerial suite.

2:52Please join me in welcoming Cabe Tormes. Cabe?

2:55Yeah.

2:56Nice to have you.

2:56Happy to be here.

2:57Yeah. Just a little bit of, like, a modest-

2:58[laughs]

2:59... intro to the two of you, so.

3:00Yeah.

3:01Yeah. Seriously, it's, it's, it's incredible to be amongst both of you

3:04all here as,

3:04as we work through drone as first responder and our conversation about

3:07what's

3:07really working in the DFR market, what's not working, and really most

3:11importantly about what's happening next.

3:14So with those introductions, we've kind of talked about this before the

3:16cameras

3:17went on. I think it's kind of important to

3:18understand about the beginnings, right?

3:20And how Axon and Skydio's vision for drones in public safety aren't about

3:24what's really happening forward, but really what we're doing live today.

3:27So maybe, uh, Cabe, you can talk about your beginning days at

3:30CAPE, and then kind

3:31of work us through what we're doing at Skydio and how, uh...

3:34a bit about what, what was then versus what is now,

3:37and then where we plan to go

3:38with, with Skydio today.

3:39Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so this was always hard for people 'cause my

3:42name's

3:42Cabe and I worked at CAPE. [laughs] And my colleague there, his name was Gabe.

3:46So it was really hard for... Every time we got on a call,

3:48it's difficult for

3:48everybody, but yeah. Uh, yeah. So when I was with, uh, with CAPE, we spent

3:52a good five years really trying to bridge the gap.

3:55I think bring, you know, uh, enterprise use cases to the drone space,

3:59and this goes

3:59way back to the Section 333 days, which those on the, on the

4:03webinar here will... probably a few of you will remember that.

4:05And it was a much different world then. Regulatory space was extremely

4:08complicated.

4:09I mean, even just to fly drones, you had to have, um, a commercial or, uh,

4:12manned

4:13aircraft license. Um, so, you know, started really from the

4:16origin story of this whole thing, um, and evolved, you know, the, the use

4:20cases and the... and how we were gonna actually deploy these things to

4:23the point

4:24where we developed, uh, I think the first consumer at least, uh,

4:28version of where you could remotely teleoperate drones through the internet.

4:32Um, which that, you know, we tried a few different plays with that,

4:34but where we

4:35really found some traction with it was, um, assisting first

4:38responders in their, uh, calls for service

4:40and expediting how quickly you could

4:42get eyes on scene. Um, so it was, it was really, you know, a nascent

4:46technology. I think the first instance of this

4:48was maybe 2016,

4:492017, when we deployed something similar in, uh,

4:52the Middle East, uh, helping

4:53security with the Arab League Summit, um, which then dovetailed

4:57into some more POCs for, uh, public safety use cases.

5:01Um, a big one was down in Ensenada, Mexico, where we, um, assisted with the

5:05police department there and their rapid response.

5:08Slightly different version of DFR, but that was really kind of the first

5:11inroads

5:12to getting public safety agencies interested in what would eventually turn

5:16into DFR 1.0 really. So Vern and, um, you

5:20know, the team from Chula Vista, uh, obviously took an interest in that being

5:23as close as it was. It's just south of the border from where

5:26they were at in the

5:27suburbs of San Diego. Um, and we got a chance to talk about it a

5:31little bit and, and really, uh, hats off I think to, to Vern, the

5:35Chula Vista Police Department. Um, Chief Roxana Kennedy was a huge

5:39driver in this thing.

5:40Some other colleagues, certainly Fritz was involved in this whole thing, uh,

5:43in the

5:43early days in shaping and scoping how we could bring

5:46that technology,

5:47um, domestically back home and start to do pre-positioned response

5:51locations. Um, and yeah, through the, the IPP program and getting to

5:55know Vern and the Chula Vista Department, we were able to really kind of forge that

5:59initial deployment and instance, and ended up leading to some really cool

6:02things.

6:02But, but Vern, I think you have some really good insights

6:04on this from, you know,

6:05the insider perspective, being within an agency

6:08and hearing what might have seemed

6:09like a little bit of a hair-brained idea to start with, but, you know, I- Yeah ...

6:12applaud you guys for, you know, seeing through the, the fluff

6:14and really getting

6:15the, the driving force behind this, 'cause it doesn't happen without the

6:18departments, obviously. Sure. Yeah.

6:20And, and I appreciate, you know, uh, you know,

6:22one of the reasons I wanted to do

6:23this webinar was kind of like bring part of the old team back together, and I just

6:27really want to emphasize the team aspect of it.

6:29None of this, DFR, Chula Vista PD, would have ever happened without

6:34really technology partners, a public s- a public-private

6:37partnership between CAPE and Chula Vista PD, a team of,

6:41of really, you know, highly, you know, um, skilled professionals,

6:45including the leadership of Chief Roxana Kennedy. Absolutely.

6:48You know, we have to acknowledge that none of this ever would have

6:50happened.

6:51She re- honestly took huge risks, let us run hog wild into this

6:55space of, like, that none of us really understood

6:57necessarily where it was gonna

6:58go. Uh, acknowledging the, you know, the role of Fritz. Like- Mm ...

7:02and really you and Fritz probably had a lot of brainstorming that I wasn't even

7:05aware of. You know, Fritz had retired, um, uh, slightly before the

7:09IPP actually started. Um, I'd founded the drone program,

7:13um, you know, back in two- 2015. He took it, uh, you know, asked to take

7:17it over when, when I, um, when he made captain.

7:20And, and really he was the drone hobbyist, and it totally made sense, and he,

7:24he had the idea, uh, you know, of DFR along with kind of working with

7:28you, like what this actually could, could look like.

7:31And I, I feel like the one that was kind of coming along trying to keep up

7:34with

7:35you guys in terms of where the, the art of the possible. So- Yeah ...

7:38really was important, but I, I thought, you know, what was interesting to me is

7:41like a quick look back at what we started seven years ago and

7:45where we are today, and really where it's going between the

7:48two companies that are

7:49really at the pinnacle of police technology- Mm ...

7:51being Axon in our whole en- entire ecosystem of, uh, police

7:55technology products, and then really Skydio,

7:58the leading American-made drone

7:59company, uh, especially with the Dock for X10, the X10,

8:03you know,

8:03where it's at today, we're really seeing that take traction.

8:06Uh- Absolutely ...

8:06and we're gonna cover some of that today as well. Yeah.

8:09Yeah, and I think, I think what's important

8:10is also kind of not just, and

8:12appreciate the background on both of this, but also where, um, the

8:16evolution then really began. So if you could, if we go for kind of Chula

8:19Vista's, uh, Drones First Responders program maybe,

8:22Vern, you could kind of walk

8:23the audience through, like, what are some of the most, like,

8:26significant lessons

8:27that you guys had at the very beginning, the very beginning that became, I

8:31would say, almost kind of the core part of what

8:33public safety operations truly are

8:34today? Tell them about maybe some of those urban

8:37challenges and rural challenges,

8:38both the territorial aspects of it. Maybe you could highlight some of that.

8:41Yeah, for sure. I mean, it, it was...

8:43You have to just remember, like, we were just absolutely cutting new trails,

8:46and

8:46the FAA didn't even understand what we were trying to do, right?

8:49And in fact, when we were at these FAA IPP meetings they're

8:52like, "Why are

8:53you adding another, like, person into the mix?

8:55Why don't you just have a pilot on the roof flying this mission?" We said, "No,

8:59this is not just about piloting a drone in that, that, that a-

9:03aspect of airspace. It's about total situational awareness

9:06and really

9:07getting these first responders' eyes out of a controller and getting up,

9:11up on screens where they actually have mult- multiple sources

9:15of data, decision-quality data that then they can use in live

9:19streaming this to, to get this infor- information out to decision

9:23makers and other first responders." And that's what we're really starting to

9:26see

9:26today at Axon. I mean, seven years ago live streaming

9:30was pretty hard.

9:31Uh, just- Yeah ... the simple act of live streaming a drone

9:33was hard, it was

9:34inconsistent. Um, much less, you know, streaming body-worn cameras and,

9:38and pulling CCTV cameras. Uh, but today we can see via, you

9:42know, FUSIS, uh, uh, with Axon and then Skydio drones, the

9:46ability to pull in, um, all these different sensors.

9:49So now today we can have body-worn cameras, fleet cameras, um,

9:53CCTV cameras, and drone footage on a single pane of

9:56glass.

9:56It just gives- Mm-hmm ... absolute total situational awareness, um,

10:00in re- in

10:00real time. And the ability to now have a reliable

10:04American-made drone that has a dock system, um, in, in

10:08fact, a hive system that can literally just give you 24 hours

10:13of, of, of- Of system overwatch ...

10:14system overwatch because you're able to, to relieve each drone and just keep

10:18it running and charging and things like that is just...

10:21That was our dream- Mm-hmm ... seven years ago,

10:23and to really see it get to this

10:25point is phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, some of the main pain points I know

10:28that we went

10:28through when we were first starting this, which a lot of that has now been relieved

10:31through technology that Axon and Skydio have put together.

10:34But, um, really just the, the person on the roof,

10:37having to staff that, make sure

10:38somebody was actually there maintaining line of sight, fulfilling all the FAA

10:41requirements. Um, the ability to stay connected to the

10:44drone, you know, you know,

10:45being able to fly at a altitude so high that, you know, a lot of times you didn't

10:49get all the best angles on things 'cause that was what was required at the time,

10:52which, you know, some progress has certainly been made

10:54there, which I know we'll

10:55talk about a bit more here. Um, but in general, just, like, community

10:59acceptance and, you know, putting together a transparent, uh,

11:02use case so

11:03that the community can understand this isn't, you know, police trying to spy on

11:06anybody. It isn't, you know, any kind of, like, Big Brother scenario.

11:09It really is, like, expediting when you call 911, how quickly you get a

11:13response and how quickly you can start to pass that information out to everybody.

11:16And that, that really I think, you know, as even once the program stood up

11:20and running, we didn't really see a ton of pushback

11:23from the community side because

11:24I think they immediately saw the value as well too.

11:27A- and that was really intentional, right?

11:28So I, when I started the drone program in 2015,

11:31the SWAT commander came to me and

11:32said, "Hey, you know, we want to start using drones." And, um,

11:35so having been

11:36to command college and it- which is a futures course for anybody who

11:39doesn't know,

11:40um, you know, I kind of learned to scan for threats and,

11:43like, where, where,

11:44where can technology be the good, the bad, and the ugly, right?

11:47And so, um, simple searches showed that agencies that

11:50were more on the cutting edge than we were had started drone programs

11:55and then literally had community pushback because, um, they thought it was,

11:58like, a surveillance program or s- like, what are the police even do- even doing?

12:02And so I realized, like, we're not telling our story.

12:05If we're not telling our story about what we're doing with drones, somebody else

12:08will tell it and it won't be to our benefit.

12:10And so really that opened up the, you know, what you see today, the

12:14transparency dashboard. We were the innovators of that.

12:17We created that email. You could email directly our

12:20UAS team, and more importantly, we would answer you.

12:23Uh, we would bring you in, let, let people see and touch the drone,

12:26show them the

12:27capabilities, and you demystify this technology.

12:30Tell them the technology that's there and have community meetings, give input

12:34into your policies, things like that to show, um, you know,

12:38at Chula Vista, we are very early on, especially with DFR, we made a policy that

12:42we're not randomly patrolling with these drones, right?

12:45Which I think is really, really important.

12:47So when I talk to the community, I was able to say, "If you see a Chula Vista

12:51PD drone, it is, it's taking off to an emergency, a

12:55call for service. It is helping a- officers to restore order.

12:59And as soon as order's restored and the scene is safe, the drone

13:03returns for the next call. It's not out to...

13:05they're loitering to see, like, if we can catch you doing something."

13:08When you tell

13:09that story and you put it in policy and you, more importantly, follow that

13:12policy and enforce it, then that shows that this is a tool for

13:16good. We value privacy. We're all Americans.

13:19We all have Fourth Amendment rights.

13:20We're not out s- looking in your backyard to see

13:22if you have two weed plants,

13:23right?

13:25I think what was one of the most impactful moments in using drones,

13:29uh, for, for, so in the SWAT space, right, is I think

13:33I had a really proactive city manager and city council, even a

13:37mayor, that that was really kind of a,

13:39uh, inventor in the space of understanding

13:42technology.

13:43And I think what was the coolest point, which I, I hoped we could talk about here

13:46for just a couple minutes, was the ability to have the remote in

13:50option, the ability to see action as it's

13:52happening live, whether it's a SWAT

13:54operation or any other kind of, uh, investigation that we're performing.

13:58So maybe, maybe Cave or, or either one of you could discuss kind of

14:01the

14:01evolution of Skydio's QR code-

14:04Mm. Yeah

14:05... a kind of like really just game-changing

14:08for every one of our

14:08demonstrations that we do, and how we can pass

14:11that on to command staff or,

14:13or city council members that are in the know or have the right to know

14:15or reason to

14:16know.

14:16Mm-hmm.

14:16As well as a city manager to be able to see live operations kind of occur

14:20as they unfold. Maybe you can-

14:22Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So this was one of the, I think, key

14:25innovations, honestly, that, that Skydio helped to drive.

14:28And one of the things we really struggled with in my previous role, whether it was

14:31at CAPER, eventually at Motorola, Motorola Solutions, um, was just how do

14:35you distribute that live stream? 'Cause everything you're saying

14:38is absolutely

14:38right. Like, a, a single drone by- flown by a single pilot is not

14:42that valuable. But a flying camera that can distribute a video feed about

14:46what's

14:46actually happening on the ground to anybody that needs to know is extremely

14:49valuable. Um, but that distribution of the live stream can

14:52be a real challenge, you

14:53know, and a lot of different companies have

14:54tried to tackle this.

14:56And I think what Skydio did in a really slick and, uh, you know, pretty

15:00advanced fashion was develop what we call the Ready Link, which allows just a

15:03simple QR code scanning, um, which send, sends you to a

15:07URL that if you have the correct permissions, you're able to view

15:09that live stream.

15:10That can be for the single flight or it can be for, uh,

15:13a longer duration any time

15:14that drone takes off. But the, the distribution of that live stream

15:18and getting

15:18it out to people without having to jump through a bunch of different, uh, two

15:22factors, assuming that they're within the right

15:24organization, that allows for

15:26rapid viewing of, of live stream. It allows the viewer on, you know, mobile

15:29phone or computer, whatever it may be, to have their own actual interaction

15:34with that stream, including the, the EO camera, a thermal camera.

15:37You can click on the map and it doesn't affect what the pilot

15:39is seeing or doing.

15:40But you can, you know, increase your own situational awareness as

15:44a viewer

15:44without disrupting the operation, which is super critical.

15:47Again, you know, there's like everybody has a different

15:49flavor of what they're

15:50looking for, um, when it comes to these operations,

15:53and I think the, the

15:53advancements that we've made there are, are super impactful and it's really just

15:57gonna get better from here.

15:59Yeah, they keep coming, right? And, and one of the things that we were talking

16:01about during, uh, last week when we first started talking about doing

16:04this webinar,

16:05we're discussing the actual webinar, was you mentioned the, the...

16:08We're quoting you 'cause Cave and I are stealers for the team.

16:12Yeah. Yeah.

16:13Why don't you explain what that means really quick?

16:14Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's really the game of angles is,

16:17you know, there,

16:18there's some in the industry that claim that, you know, flying up to

16:22400 feet is, you know, really the best way, the s- the gold

16:25standard of everything. And the reality is, it, it's

16:29fantastic to fly up there and the Skydio X10 can fly to 400 feet

16:32just like any

16:33other drone and the camera's fantastic.

16:35Um, you know, the sweeter zone for the X10

16:37is right there, you know, around 200

16:39feet is, is really, you know, many, many of our customers, which is,

16:43you know, where a lot of the shielded operations,

16:46um, you know,

16:47waivers are today, 200 feet and below.

16:49So this is the absolutely ideal drone for, for shielded operations.

16:53Um, but more importantly, the game of angles.

16:55Uh, the game of angles is the higher you are, uh, you have a

16:59challenge to look under things that are sheltered, to look under tree

17:03canopies, to look under pergolas, or to look into buildings that

17:07are down low.

17:08Yeah.

17:08And so not only can an X10 fly high, but the X10 is

17:12the only drone that has the most a- uh, advanced obstacle

17:16avoidance on it-

17:17Mm

17:17... that can fly extraordinary- extraordinarily low, low, meaning

17:21down to just a few feet off the ground.

17:23And, you know, we can consistently show demos of going

17:26from 400 feet

17:28all the way down in between complex tree canopies or complex structures,

17:32take the drone down to get footage under canopies and search for

17:36things that you otherwise could never do from your, your

17:40larger drone with a big 400X zoom camera on it

17:44from a high, a high, um, altitude. That game of angles

17:48is critical in DFR, and that's something

17:50that nobody else in the industry is able

17:52to do. They're not even thinking about it.

17:54They're talking about, you know, 2 to 400 feet.

17:57We can go, you know, uh, this far, whatever that might be.

18:01But we've, we've solved all those same challenges

18:03and more because we can get you

18:05down to where the action really is and get you the closest, not just

18:09the closest to the action, but the lowest altitudes to solve the

18:12angle problem

18:13that nobody else can solve.

18:15I mean, obstacle avoidance is hugely important with that.

18:17I think Skydio sets an industry obstacle avoidance when it comes to the, the

18:21system that we've built here really around that autonomy engine.

18:24Um, but it'd be remiss not to mention the

18:26Connect fusion 'cause that is not

18:28possible to go lower than, you know, 300 feet, 400 feet in a lot of

18:32cases and still maintain direct line of sight to the drone, which is a requirement

18:36for just about every drone on the market with the exception of the X10.

18:39Um, and by leveraging, you know, existing infrastructure, 4G, 5G

18:43connectivity that's, you know, pretty well nationwide at this point, um,

18:47by

18:47leveraging that as a connection, uh, cellular connection, uh, device

18:51for these drones, we can prioritize if the direct link is working well

18:55from the antenna where the drone took off, we'll use that.

18:58But as soon as you get behind a building or as soon as you drop low down to street

19:02level to get a better vantage point of whatever the situation is,

19:04like traditional

19:05drones on the market will 100% disconnect in that scenario.

19:09And leveraging the, the Connect fusion

19:10that we built into these systems, uh, the

19:13operator really

19:14visibly doesn't see much of a difference when it's going from a direct link or

19:17switching over to LTE, which is just so important.

19:20'Cause end of the day, we're not trying to make better

19:22and better pilots, we're

19:23trying to let police do their job by letting the system, uh, the autonomous

19:27Skydio systems take over a lot of the, like, hard parts of, like, staying

19:31connected, not running into things, and just treat it really like, you know,

19:35a node

19:35at the end of an IoT device that's just transferring information back to the

19:38people

19:38that need it. So that's really the, the tackling of the hard technical

19:42problems

19:42were the stuff we, we just struggled with on a daily basis

19:45back in the Chula

19:46Vista days. Um, and now it's starting to really, you know,

19:48resolve a lot of the big

19:50tech issues that we were going through.

19:52And, and so moving kind of to a, a different direction, uh, I'm gonna g-

19:56kind of nerd out into my post, uh, police world with finance accounting

20:00management

20:00and some of the things that I think drones really help with,

20:03or understanding not

20:04just what the public safety uses were, but things like avalanches and rock

20:08slides and mudslides and emergency management

20:11and things like that.

20:12And so Vern, I guess as the, as we move into drones at San Diego County

20:15and state

20:15infrastructure, maybe you could talk about our moonsh-

20:18our moonshot of having

20:19all of our American-manufactured drones serving our communities in other ways,

20:23not just public safety. So how do you envision drones as like a

20:26shared

20:27infrastructure for city departments or, or county departments, like state

20:30departments and not just public safety?

20:32Maybe both of you can dovetail on each other there.

20:34Yeah.

20:34Topic.

20:35Yeah, and I, I actually want to give tons of credit to

20:37Adam Bry, the CEO of

20:39s- of Skydio, really was the one that kind of like flipped

20:42that switch in my mind

20:43when he started talking about drones as infrastructure, right?

20:45And really is the next step beyond DFR 1.0 and DFR 2.0,

20:49is really these are infrastructure assets.

20:52Once you've actually saturated, uh, an area with

20:56hives of drones that are able to do your standard DFR

21:00tasks, yes, that's their highest level work,

21:02you will still have drones in

21:04between calls available to do other tasks, right?

21:07And, and this is an emerging, um, opportunity for agencies and

21:11as, as a county administrator, somebody that really looked globally at

21:15something.

21:16You know, while it's great that your sheriff's department

21:18or police department or

21:19whatever has this asset, you care about the, the global

21:23one budget, uh, to solve all these other problems.

21:26So if this same asset in a hive can perform the

21:29DFR tasks and improve public safety and in

21:33between DFR missions or with your second or third drone

21:37fly perhaps an ins- a pre-storm inspection mission to make

21:41sure, hey, all of my flood channels are clear, uh, the homeless people

21:45have been evacuated from there so that we don't have unnecessary deaths.

21:49Uh, post-storm inspection documentation for

21:51FEMA, perhaps

21:53even facilities inspections, things like that, that, that

21:57Skydio has its roots in as well as, you know, we, we don't talk

22:01about that enough 'cause we're all in the DFR space, and Cabe can s- probably speak

22:05to the infrastructure part, but Skydio is probably one of the most important

22:08infrastructure inspection platforms in the world, especially in

22:12Japan with bridges and power lines and things like that.

22:15So I think this drones as infrastructure is absolutely the next step.

22:19In that topic,

22:21uh, we're, we're now strategic partners with Axon.

22:24Maybe you can start really quickly and I'll come back to Cabe on that

22:27infrastructure part. Maybe you can talk about how it integrates

22:29with the body-worn

22:30camera-

22:31Yeah

22:31... and our beacon and stuff like that.

22:33Yeah, I mean, to... The reason I'm so excited about the Skydio

22:36and Axon

22:36relationship is really they're, these are the two foremost technology

22:40companies that really control the full stack of their technology,

22:44right? So, uh, Skydio is the only American-made drone company

22:47that's

22:48manufacturing to full scale, that controls the stack all the way from

22:52the

22:52code base to the hardware, software, um, to the, to the

22:56docks, and to, to, to everything like that.

22:59And Axon's the exact same way with regard to our ecosystem.

23:02And we have this really deep partnership that unlocks things that no

23:06other drone company, uh, or technology company can do with

23:09regard to integrating with our body-worn cameras, uploading to

23:13evidence.com very, very seamlessly.

23:16Um, also pull it into FUSIS for our customers

23:18that use FUSIS to have a

23:20single pane of glass, uh, that n- is now pulling in all of these

23:24different feeds. And, and as amazing drones, as drones are, you

23:28know, it's a sensor that's at a, a incredible, you know, perspective

23:32that you can't get anywhere else. But in the end, if, you know,

23:34you view it as,

23:35"Hey, it's just another sensor. I don't want to think about how my sensor

23:39got

23:39there. I just need the sensor to do a task,"

23:41right?

23:41And so, um, the ability of, of this Axon-Skydio

23:45relationship to use and leverage both of our technologies

23:49at a foundational level a- and then starting to bring in, you know,

23:53uh, Axon's becoming huge in the AI space

23:56and especially police

23:57technology AI space. Um, and to integrate those things into our

24:01body-worn cameras to allow officers to use drones in ways

24:05that are, we couldn't even imagine seven years ago,

24:08it's really incredible.

24:08That is really the point, right? Like when we first started doing this with

24:11this,

24:12uh, back 2017, 2018, you know, the, just trying to get the drones

24:16to respond to a call for service was a massive undertaking.

24:18Like, I think we both were, you know, fantasizing about a world where like you

24:22didn't have to have people on the roofs and the drone stayed connected.

24:25But really, I think what the two companies

24:27and combining our, our tech stacks

24:29allows for is even the next generation beyond that, where it's like it's a full

24:33integration of, you know, the, the tactical devices that police

24:36are using on

24:37a daily basis, including those body-worn cameras

24:39or their, their dash cams or

24:41any of that piece to really create like- a web of technology that's there to

24:45protect the community, it's there to protect the officers,

24:47and just, uh, add to the

24:48efficiencies, which I think are so critical as we're seeing police

24:52staffing

24:52shortages-

24:53Yeah

24:53... across the country and, like, you know,

24:54making technology help to fill that gap

24:56to, again, like, bridge, bridge a little bit of the hardship

24:59that our, you know,

25:00first responders deal with on a daily basis.

25:02That's, that's what gets me excited-

25:03Yeah

25:03... about all this.

25:04And I was just gonna dovetail into that.

25:05Like, when I was the captain, and you'll know that I probably told you

25:09this as

25:09well, 'cause I was the, the technology captain for Chula Vista PD

25:12for a long time.

25:14And I told my technology-

25:16Yeah

25:16... whoever came to us as a vendor, said, "I, I don't want to be your customer.

25:19We are technology partners. This is too complex." Right?

25:22I, I need to have a tech- a, a person who's a partner for so

25:26when this goes down or if I have a problem that, that you're,

25:29the, that has

25:30continuity of operations because this partnership is so deep

25:34and so strong that I can rely on you to be here through the pain.

25:37I need one throat to choke. So the Axon-Skydio relationship-

25:41That throat for you. [laughs]

25:42[laughs] The Axon-Skydio relationship is, like, a single throat

25:46to choke, right? And, and, and really the reason I came to

25:50Axon, and I could have gone to a few different

25:52places, is this

25:54was m- my dream was to come to Axon because I

25:57really did believe that

25:58Axon could execute on the, the vision of

26:02DFR that we had, right, to take it to the next level.

26:05Um, when I retired, you know, I, I was the captain that ran

26:08DFR from, um, May of 2018 until I

26:12retired in, in October of 2020 and came over to Axon.

26:16And I came to Axon because I really viewed...

26:19We had about 2,000 missions under our belt, and I said, "Hey, I've, I've

26:22kind of," and the IPP was coming to an end, and I said,

26:25"I've kind of done

26:26everything that I can do at Chula Vista.

26:28Like, how do I bring this now, um, to the, to the m- you know, to the

26:32masses, to my other law enforcement colleagues

26:34throughout the nation and the

26:35world?" And I really v- viewed it as one company could do

26:39that at the time, and that was Axon.

26:41And, and it's, you know, it's not been a painless process, right?

26:44It's been slower and, like, you know, sometimes as captains and chiefs,

26:48you know,

26:48like, we get used to this, like, make it so, and, like,

26:50there's no make it so in

26:51tech. It's hard. These companies that are, are saying that

26:55they're going to design and build a drone in one year.

26:59Yeah.

26:59But maybe not even just a drone, but a software stack, a dock,

27:03and a drone, and all the an- ancillary services and things that go to

27:07make this successful,

27:10we can see today they're not delivering. We can see today.

27:13We've got customers that have been promised products, um,

27:15and these are good

27:16people, these are good companies, but tech is hard.

27:20Drones are even harder. They are aircraft.

27:23There's a lot of things that Adam could go into,

27:25deep into the weeds about what

27:27goes into making these drones, you know, hyper reliable and, and

27:30fantastic products. Um, but it's really, really, uh, been a, a

27:34hard road to hoe, not just for Axon to get to where we

27:37are today, but, but for

27:38Skydio.

27:38Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and it's, it's been 11 years that Skydio's been

27:41grinding on this thing. I've been with them for five and a half,

27:43and yeah,

27:44absolutely, there's, there's been hardships along the way

27:46and there's just a lot of

27:47lessons that you have to learn by releasing generation after generation of,

27:51of drones and of docks and of software pushes

27:53and cloud releases and,

27:55you know, hot fixes occasionally.

27:57Like, if, if you haven't gone through those cycles

27:59and you're trying to dive

28:00headfirst into this industry, like, frankly, it puts a lot of people's,

28:03you know,

28:04in dangerous positions when you're over-promising

28:06and under-delivering, which is

28:07something I never want to be a part of.

28:08And I think, you know, that's been a driving force for me being

28:11at Skydio is, like,

28:12when we say we're gonna do something, we actually deliver it.

28:14Do we get it right 100% of the time? Absolutely not, but I like to think that

28:17we're, we're very transparent and we tried, you know, our damnedest,

28:20and I think

28:20we're in pretty good position, especially with the partnership with Axon,

28:23to, to

28:24truly deliver what will be the future here.

28:26But just to quickly go back to the, the Hive and the, you know,

28:29smart city kind of

28:30infrastructure piece, I really think that is the direction this is going.

28:34Like, DFR public safety is so clear and obvious, I think everybody

28:38has kind of accepted that at this point.

28:39But frankly, that's scratching the surface of how

28:41valuable, uh, dock-based

28:43drones really can be when it comes to, like, the needs of a, of a

28:46municipality or of a, you know, larger government entity.

28:50Just because, like, you know, you think about all the things

28:52that you have to roll

28:53trucks on or send people up ladders or just anywhere

28:55that you have to put people in

28:57a dangerous position just to go and look at something, it's crazy.

29:00Yeah.

29:01I mean, this is happening all over the place every

29:02day when just a simple flying

29:04camera that can, you know, collect data for you, you know, it's,

29:07it's faster, it's

29:08more efficient, it keeps people out of harm's way and,

29:11you know, ultimately drives

29:12efficiency, which is just so important, so.

29:14And I, before you take us, I, I just wanna d- you know, like,

29:18piggyback on this other part, this whole infrastructure discussion

29:20that we didn't

29:21think about. Like, I wanna pull in the whole thing about

29:23Dedrone and Dedrone Beyond

29:25right now as well, right? So we're seeing not just

29:28friendly drones, right, uh, that, that we're using for good, but there's

29:32nefarious drones out there, um, that we've seen,

29:34especially internationally, that

29:36we've seen in Mexico, we see it in Ukraine, what,

29:38the damage they can do.

29:39It's only a matter of time that drones will be used here for,

29:42for nefarious means

29:44or for just careless means, like we saw in the Pacific Palisades fire,

29:47a

29:48drone take, you know, take out, uh, puncture a wing of a firefighting, uh,

29:52aircraft that took it out, took it out of the fight for a few days,

29:54right?

29:55And so just the airspace awareness aspect that we didn't think

29:59about so much seven years ago in terms of like, okay, here's a human on a roof that

30:02clearly can't see a drone at past a mile.

30:05Now today, we have not just docks for the...

30:09You know, I like to just say, like, care and feeding of a drone,

30:11'cause people can

30:12understand that, right? Like, right now there's a human on the roof

30:14that's doing

30:15the care and feeding of a drone. The dock now can do the care

30:18and feeding of the

30:18drone. The second role that these people that

30:21are on the roofs at some agencies

30:22still, uh, is airspace awareness, and honestly, humans are the worst at

30:26that, right? Like, I, I, I would go up on the roof as the captain

30:29and catch my,

30:30my RPIC, like, in their phone, uh, while the, the, the plane is,

30:34is, or, you know, the, the drone's off on a mission.

30:36Like, this is completely un-sad. But it, but it's also like- Um, really,

30:40really tough to watch airspace for, for 40 minutes, you know, uh, and, and

30:44really not, you know, as the drone's being remotely controlled

30:47and you're not doing

30:47anything, right? So, um, and it's also not possible to,

30:50to put people on the

30:51roof to do that 24/7 'cause it's expensive, but then you can't do it in

30:55Vegas in the summer and you can't do it in Detroit in the

30:57winter, right?

30:58You just can't subject humans to that.

31:00So this is a story about we're using technology, not just

31:04on the proactive end with the drones to, to put drones for good in our

31:07space, but also

31:093D awareness, right? Instead of cops have always thought of 2D,

31:12we're always on the

31:13street. Now we're to this whole 3D world

31:15that we have to get used to

31:17within, within in- infrastructure.

31:19So as long as we're talking about infrastructure,

31:21we've got the proactive drone

31:22infrastructure, but we unlock airspace awareness with

31:26D-Drone

31:26Beyond, but also, you know, the sensors of, uh,

31:30nefarious drones and tracking down, you know, where those drones are

31:34that don't

31:34belong in our airspace or that are, are a threat.

31:36So I just wanna touch base on that. That's also the future

31:39that people should be

31:39thinking about.

31:40Yeah. And, and I think before I, you know, hand to Skydio's cuss

31:44groupers, uh, and so kind of three things the two of you

31:47kind of discussed that I

31:48think it's important for our audience to hear is, um, uh, when we

31:52talk about Skydio's transparency, and kind of going back to

31:56that discussion, is really the reason I came here.

31:59Um, we, we have a number of different posts from

32:01our CEO, Adam Bry, who

32:03is on LinkedIn, and every time we have a failure

32:05or make a mistake or do something

32:06that, uh, we could have done better at a- another point in time, we come out and

32:10say it. Um, secondly, I think building those transparency models

32:14where we actually show telemetry and give the, the, the ideas in

32:18the space for people to see and be aware of what we're doing.

32:21And then lastly, kind of going back to, I'd really, Caden, if you don't mind, just

32:24kind of highlighting those areas besides public safety that we're in.

32:28So things like Department of Transportation and commercial space.

32:31Maybe you could just highlight some of those things that we're doing.

32:32Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, so Skydio really looks at three main

32:36verticals.

32:36We have obviously the public safety space. DFR is a lot of a play there.

32:40But then the, the utilities market, emerging industries kind of falls in that

32:43subset. And then, uh, defense, uh, government security is really the

32:47way we view that. So we really, you know, cut our teeth early, early

32:51on back in probably 2020, 2021, um, getting into the

32:55utility space. And one of the key advantages of the

32:57Skydio system is that we

32:59use, um, a, a non-dependent on GPS navigation.

33:03It's called visual inertial odometry, which allows the drones to be able to fly

33:07in, um, like, high electrified environments.

33:10So we routinely are flying through substations.

33:12We're doing, uh, critical inspections on, uh, high voltage

33:15distribution lines. Um, a lot of that is really essential and something

33:19that many other drones on the market just can't do because there's so much

33:22electromagnetic interference, and if you're relying on, you know,

33:25traditional

33:25navigation systems, on like what we use for like a visual

33:29navigation

33:29system, um, that can really hinder your operations,

33:32and frankly, pretty

33:33unsafe because if you lose control of that drone, it goes into a power line,

33:36that

33:36creates a big problem for everybody.

33:38Um, so you know, that's, that's one of the advantages

33:40that even in urban

33:41environments for DFR, just having that resiliency to

33:45electromagnetic interference or a non-dependency on GPS, 'cause we've

33:49seen this in many urban canyons where if you're flying around there and you're

33:52getting bad GPS data or a lack of GPS data,

33:55all of a sudden that drone

33:56switches into a much more manual kind of flying, which can result in bouncing off

34:00of a building pretty darn easily. Um, so again, this is, this has been

34:04a lot of building blocks that have led to this point.

34:07Like, I left, um, the, the Motorola

34:10Solutions about five years ago to join with Skydio.

34:13At that time was, you know, still pretty consumer-focused,

34:16and it's been

34:16five years of putting these building blocks in places.

34:19It's the, it's the obstacle avoidance, it's the connectivity story, it's the, the

34:23dock, and now we're on our third generation of a

34:25dock, which not a lot of people

34:26know, but there's a lot of lessons learned over

34:29the course of releasing a hardware

34:30product, um, doing it correctly and doing it at scale, which is also a,

34:34a whole subject that's worth discussion.

34:36Um, especially if you're gonna manufacture in

34:38the United States and be NDAA

34:40compliant in our current times with tariffs and blockades and everything else

34:43that's going on. Like, all of this makes for a very complex, um,

34:47deployment. So being able to address multiple

34:50different

34:50industries, um, be it, you know, public safety with the DFR

34:54docks or the DFR, uh, deployment model or, you know, subsequently

34:58having those same drones being able to be used for multi purposes,

35:02not only is that much more effective for everybody that's going down this road, um,

35:06it also is, is a way that you can unlock some additional

35:08funding to help pay for

35:09these things as well too.

35:11The of the state of Colorado, uh, and, and obviously

35:15understanding large open spaces and things of environment concern.

35:19Maybe, Vern, you can highlight how drones can help in

35:22some environmental

35:22concerns or even the Florida hurricane case that we checked out with in, in North

35:26Carolina as well before.

35:28Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so Axon, uh, has, um,

35:32uh, you know, a,

35:34a, a nonprofit wing, uh, called Axon Aid, and we actually

35:37use, uh, drones to, you know, s- we send for free to our

35:41customers. We'll, we'll send Axon Aid team members out to

35:45post-disaster, um, incidents and we'll help

35:49agencies in their time of need to map out, um, uh,

35:52the, the areas as well as, you know, giving free evi- uh, access to

35:56evidence.com and store all of that because it becomes really important

36:00for,

36:01uh, post-disaster, uh, funding f- via FEMA to show

36:05here's all the damage, uh, estimates and helps do that very, very quickly.

36:08And so having products like Skydio to be able to go in and do post,

36:12um, emergency inspection and easily put that into evidence.com,

36:17uh, is really, really critical. Also, um, is, you know, without tr-

36:21diving into all the specs, which, you know, I'm sure a lot of people,

36:23you know, but

36:24the, you know, the, um, the thermal camera on the X10 is, is

36:28one of the best in class. Uh, you know, the, the Boson+ camera,

36:32and then it's got a really fantastic zoom.

36:34I think it's a one twenty-eight total, uh, total, uh, you know, uh,

36:38total zoom on it as well. Um, and so really it's, it's a fans-

36:42-tastic drone for that and, and really highly portable in a lot of

36:46different ways, right? A single small Pelican case.

36:49It weighs less than p- than five pounds.

36:51And a lot of DFR drones today are, you know, big

36:55honking drones, right? Like, 22 pounds plus

36:59with the payload flying over your urban environment, right?

37:02And so even with the parachute, uh, in any aircraft,

37:06any aircraft, uh, y- you know, when you fly unlimited or,

37:10you know, infinity flights, you are going to have crashes, failures,

37:14things like that, right? It's, it's absolutely inevitable.

37:17So the parachutes are critical, and, and Cabe can talk about that aspect

37:21coming soon. Uh, but also just the inertial weight of a,

37:25of a

37:25drone at 22 pounds, even with a parachute, versus less than five

37:29pounds with a parachute coming down onto whatever happens to be in

37:33your urban environment when it fails.

37:35Uh, I think that's pretty important to say,

37:37look, the lighter the better, right?

37:39This is, this is purposefully tasked for the

37:41mission at hand with a great

37:43camera, both thermal and visual camera, but also not, like,

37:47oversized and too beefy, uh, to be less safe

37:51should there be a failure. Um, and also the dock is like, honestly,

37:56um, when I first saw it, when it was unveiled, it's, it's a master

37:59class of industrial design. It's the perfectly sized for

38:03this drone. Um, they put a lot of thought into, like,

38:06even just how it

38:07opens. Like w- like, you know, they kind of jokingly,

38:10customers call it the

38:11barbecue, uh, because it opens like this.

38:14And Adam was explaining, like, look, you know, leaves and things fall down

38:17onto drone docks. The snow, right?

38:20And so literally when it opens, it's designed like all

38:22that stuff sloughs off

38:24the back versus some open like this, and, like, sometimes that

38:28snow or whatever just gets plopped down onto the drone or leaves and things are

38:31into your dock.

38:32I think on that point too, one of the, the main things that I love about the

38:35design

38:35of the X10 dock is frankly just the portability of it.

38:38Like, that breaks in two pieces. It can fit through a standard doorway.

38:41It's a two-person lift, which means that we can deploy docks onto most

38:45every rooftop without having to do, you know, elaborate clain- craning

38:48efforts or, you know, set up super, uh, specific infrastructure

38:52to support them. We're not putting up 50-foot mast,

38:55you know, masses to put the

38:56radio antennas on top of. Like, the docks are really designed with

39:00some same kind of ideas the drones is.

39:02Like, let's make sure we're building for the job

39:04that we need and not

39:05over-engineering something because that's our first try trying to make these things

39:08work, you know?

39:09I, I had a, a chief that actually has, uh, an X10 dock and,

39:13uh, a competitor's dock, and I honestly, I want all the

39:17companies to succeed. There's plenty of business out there.

39:20I, I don't want,

39:21um, anybody to, you know, especially for sake of our customers,

39:24to fail.

39:24But I was like, "Hey, you know, Chief, how's, you know, you just got this dock.

39:28How is it?" And he's like, uh, his words out of his mouth,

39:31"I'm trying to figure

39:32out why I have a Volkswagen on my roof,"

39:35because it's so big. Versus, like, why the same size drone

39:39is this dock

39:41so huge and so heavy versus the same size drone where

39:45the, the kind of, uh, uh, Skydio barbecue size one is, is,

39:49is, is there.

39:51Yeah, the cringing. Hey, I'm a mast- I'm a master of marketing.

39:55So, um, so but, but really it comes down to

39:59really Adam and the design team at Skydio having

40:03a, a true background in aviation design

40:06and aeronautical

40:07engineering, understanding what needs to be, what,

40:10you know, what the

40:11drone really needs to do to accomplish the mission, but also then the dock.

40:15What does the dock need to have in terms of all the environmental factors, the,

40:19the, you know, HVAC systems to, you know, keep, keep the drone

40:23in a happy place so it can launch 24/7 anywhere in the world.

40:26So the, you know, it's very clear when you look at this

40:30system in totality in Ax- uh, uh, Skydio's full stack and

40:34then alongside Axon's full stack, like,

40:37there's just no total system that's out there anywhere in the

40:41world that is as powerful as these two companies working together in DFR.

40:45Yeah. These are all things that you need to consider, right?

40:48So, like, the whole purpose of this conversation

40:50is what are some of the lessons

40:51learned. And, like, we've gone through

40:53a bunch of iterations of this and, like, I think one of the major lessons we've

40:57learned is, like, this is already a complicated problem.

41:00You don't have to make it more complicated with the solution you're trying to

41:03provide. So portability, reliability,

41:06manufacturing at scale, having it be, you know, as American-made as humanly

41:10possible, certainly NDAA compliant.

41:12Like, that is all how you build a program that's

41:14gonna be sustainable for not just

41:16this year or next year, but for five to 10 years from now.

41:19And I appreciate you saying that because we have about three minutes

41:22left, and I

41:22kind of want to get to community engagement and scaling up and the looking

41:26ahead piece, right? And so, um, what are we at now

41:30specifically at Skydio? How many drones are we building a month

41:33and, and,

41:34and can you talk about that maybe for scalability purposes in

41:37comparison to other

41:37competitors, what we're doing now?

41:39Yeah. I mean, I, I can't speak to other competitors',

41:41you know, capabilities here,

41:42but Skydio is developing thousands of drones a year.

41:45We've been building now for, for many years where we've got a

41:49manufacturing facility that's, you know, tens of thousands of feet right across the

41:53bay in Hayward, California.

41:54Um, we are now on our, let's see, one, two, three, I think the fourth generation

41:58drone, third generation dock. Um, we've got a company that's

42:02approaching, what? Over 800 employees now.

42:05We have 700 public safety agencies that use Skydio on a daily basis.

42:09We have more than two million flights, um, underneath the, the Skydio

42:13platforms that have been flown. Those are just the ones that are from online

42:16systems. We have a whole subset of our company

42:18that are, uh, military

42:19users that are flying offline, of course.

42:21So we don't know how many flights they've done.

42:22But, [lip smack] you know, from a, from a maturity and manufacturing

42:26capability, um, you know, that I think is, uh, gonna be something that's critical.

42:30And, you know, certainly with you, Vern, I, I wish everybody the best, um, our

42:34competitors 'cause we're all trying to solve a very critical problem here.

42:37But that's gonna be a real hard reality for people is when you try to move into

42:41build- building flying robots that stay airborne, you know,

42:4499.9% of the time and that they can, uh, produce at a

42:48mass scale, is gonna be just a really hard problem for

42:51anybody, especially that's

42:52trying to manufacture here domestically.

42:55And one last question, uh, before we get to the community comments

42:58here really

42:59quickly. This one's for you, Vern.

43:00What's, uh, what's your and Axon's vision, uh, with Skydio over the

43:04next five years, and how do you envision drones reshaping

43:07how cities and,

43:08uh, counties and states operate with their

43:10residents and drones in, in that space?

43:12If you can just highlight real quickly.

43:13Sure, absolutely. So I, you know, I can first off say that Axon is fully

43:17committed to DFR all the way up, uh, to the C-suite.

43:20Um, in fact, um, our CEO, Rick Smith, was just at a, a,

43:25a agency last week where he personally

43:28demonstrated flying, uh, an X10, uh, from a dock,

43:32uh, for the chief of police, right?

43:34So that, that's the first thing, is, like, Axon's all in on DFR,

43:38and that's hence the partnership with Skydio. We're all in with Skydio.

43:42Um, and so I think the vision really comes

43:43down to, uh, uh,

43:46adding Skydio and enhancing our full ecosystem and suite of products

43:50that we have at Axon for real-time situational awareness.

43:54So our real-time awareness teams, the core of this is FUSIS and

43:58Evidence.com bringing drones into this seamless

44:01ecosystem of, um, of Axon onto that screen,

44:06pulling in D drone so that radar data is now also shared

44:10within Skydio DPR-Command so that we have automatic

44:14autonomy in terms of, like, deconflicting with other, uh, threats

44:17that may be in

44:18the airspace. All of these things are, are really happening at a rapid

44:21pace. And, you know, Axon's also starting to move, um,

44:25deeper into not just... You know, tr- traditionally, you know, we've had, like,

44:29police departments and sheriff's departments,

44:31like a public safety focus.

44:32But really, in the end, these things, like FUSIS, are going to

44:36become just citywide infrastructure-type assets.

44:39It'll be an, "Of course we have this to manage all of

44:42these

44:43different feeds into one place." And that's gonna help decision-makers

44:47and people that, you know, do budgets and need to plan resources,

44:51give them real-time data to then solve the problems of their city and

44:55just make them a lot more efficient.

44:56And AI tools, and, and I'm not an AI expert by any

45:00means, but Axon's taking a really, really deep dive.

45:03You know, Rick is just on the absolute forefront of,

45:06of, of

45:07AI thinking in this and pushing Axon to a

45:10huge extent to, to start to utilize AI in every aspect

45:14of what we do.

45:16I say that's the, gonna be the most important thing

45:18that you see between Axon and

45:20Skydio as well, and I don't think anybody's gonna execute

45:22as well as

45:24these two companies.

45:25Yeah. It's in the DNA.

45:27Perfect. And so we're gonna move now, transitioning into some of the questions

45:31from

45:31our audience here. Uh, the first one comes from, it's, uh,

45:33Casey Staverd.

45:34I th- hope I'm saying these names correctly.

45:36A compliance inspection supervisor at the New Mexico Environment Department.

45:40Uh, their question is, "I'm currently working to create our drone

45:43program here in

45:44New Mexico. What steps did you take with the public to

45:47ensure you could utilize

45:48drone over properties?" Maybe you could both talk about the Chula Vista base and

45:51how that worked.

45:53Yeah.

45:54Yeah.

45:54I think, yeah, by all means start with the,

45:55the community outreach.

45:56Yeah.

45:57So critical.

45:58For sure. It was the foundation at Chula Vista.

46:00Um, you know, the, like I said, um, when we started the drone program, the

46:04first thing that we realized was, like, we need to, to get community input.

46:08So we, we actually held forums. We, we looked at best practices

46:12and policy. We requested policy input from our

46:16community and, and from those that we knew would be concerned about it.

46:19So, like, we approached the ACLU and said, "Hey, do you have s- you know,

46:22concerns or suggestions?" Of course they did.

46:25Uh, we didn't have to take every concern

46:27and exception, right?

46:28Because clearly there were some that we thought went a little too far in

46:31terms of

46:32the privacy aspect. But there were areas where, like, data retention,

46:35we said,

46:36"That's, that's reasonable. We can change the data retention on some

46:39of this." So

46:40my advice is, you know, first, all politics is local.

46:43You know your, um, community best.

46:45Mm-hmm.

46:46Um, my email is vsallee@axon.com.

46:49V like Victor, S-A-L-L-E-E @axon.com.

46:53Um, to this person asking the question or anybody else with a question, please

46:56email me. I'm happy to help on public safety

46:59or even just,

47:00um, you know... My role at Axon is, is to really help agencies

47:04with anything on the drone program.

47:06But that's my first bit of advice, is transparency.

47:08Understand, um, and, and get the information out there.

47:11Like, look at Chula Vista PD's publicly-facing

47:13dashboard. We built that.

47:15You know, we were the first ones ever to build that,

47:17and we share all of the data,

47:18the maps, so that the public can really see this

47:21is what we're doing with

47:22drones. We're not doing anything nefarious with

47:24them.

47:24Yeah. And to that point, like, that is such a critical part of really how this

47:27tech

47:27stack should work. Like, with the, the Skydio D- DPR-Command, one

47:31of the just offerings that's included in that software suite is a transparency

47:35dashboard. So, like, agency, you know, decides how much they wanna publish.

47:39But you can put out every single flight that you've taken, the telemetry with it,

47:42the takeoff time, the landing time, the, even the, the camera look

47:46angles that the drone was flying around at.

47:48Um, that's something that we publish, and you can put it out just in a

47:51public-facing website just through the suite itself.

47:53So it, it is critical, and it's something

47:55that we encourage people to, to be open

47:57with, 'cause nothing about this is nefarious, you know?

47:59Right.

47:59We're trying to get a job done and help people.

48:02Uh, David, uh, Wohlgemuth from Livonia, Michigan Police

48:06Department. He's a patrol officer there.

48:07He asks, "How do you get around," uh, it's an interesting question.

48:10"How do you get around the FAA line of sight requirement?" I think his question

48:14really is how do you get to BVLOS or beyond visual line of sight?

48:17Can you maybe walk through-

48:18Sure, yeah. There's-

48:19... our partner with Jakie?

48:20Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good old, good old Jakie. Uh, [laughs] um, so yeah.

48:23W- within Skydio, we have a, a dedicated regulatory team that

48:27really, I mean, I, I consider them the best in the industry,

48:30um, really paving the

48:31path forward for this. So there's a couple different avenues for

48:34it.

48:34You can go under the Part 107- By like a commercial pilot, um, that does

48:38have limitations, especially for public safety.

48:41Um, so to, to really unlock and get to that beyond visual line of

48:45sight,

48:46uh, the recommended path is going down the certificate of

48:48authorization,

48:50uh, pathway. And now that once you have that in place, um,

48:53which our

48:53website actually has a lot of really good literature on this, on the exact process

48:56to get there, then you can start to operate under those

48:59COAs and get beyond

49:00visual line of sight waivers, again, within that shielded envelope, which

49:04is where

49:04the connectivity story and the obstacle avoidance

49:06that comes inherent in the Skydio

49:08X10 is so critical to get, you know, that shielded operations

49:12flying at low altitudes without having to go through a whole bunch of, uh,

49:16elaborate infrastructure, like putting giant radar towers throughout

49:19your entire

49:19city that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

49:22I, I was just gonna call out officially for

49:23our law, law enforcement, uh,

49:25colleagues that are viewers. A couple nonprofits that were critical

49:29to, to, to helping develop all of this as well is

49:32droneresponders.org. Uh, droneresponders.org, they're

49:36free to join. They have a resource guide that's there

49:39that's got, uh,

49:40examples and COAs, and they also have a couple conferences a

49:42year.

49:43Uh, also Law Enforcement Drone Association,

49:45leda.org, is another really,

49:47really great one-

49:48Mm-hmm

49:48... that's r- that's run by professional law enforcement

49:51leaders

49:52that run drone programs. So I would encourage you to, to look at

49:56those two different organizations.

49:57And there's probably a few more that are out there.

49:59Uh, but those are the ones I have

50:00relationships and have...

50:02And, and I know them and can speak to their professionalism

50:05and how important

50:06they are, um, to... And, and they run great conferences as well.

50:09So in- it's not only just investing in the

50:12hardware, the technology, the

50:13software, but it's investing in your people in terms

50:15of training and

50:16professionalism. One of the things that I always tell our customers is,

50:20"You know,

50:20look, you're not just buying drones from us.

50:22We're here to help you build a professional aviation program." Because in

50:26the end,

50:27you're putting an aircraft into the national airspace,

50:29and you better know what

50:30you're doing. So invest in that training.

50:33Build a culture of professional aviation, uh, within your

50:36agency. That instills confidence in the community.

50:40And I said, like I mentioned, uh, when you're flying, uh, an

50:44infinite number of flights, you're going to have an incident.

50:46And so therefore, when that's investigated,

50:48you need to be able to go back to the

50:50public, to the elected officials-

50:52Mm-hmm

50:52... to the FAA and show, "Yes, this was, this incident

50:56occurred. It was unfortunate. These were the protocols we had in place

51:00despite all these, you know, things.

51:02This, this bad thing happened, and here's how we're gonna avoid it in the

51:05future."

51:06Right? And so that, again, that culture of professional aviation

51:08is really, really

51:09critical. And, um, you know, I just would encourage you to invest in

51:12your

51:13people and, and invest in training. It's critical.

51:16Next question is, is actually a really good question because

51:19even when I first came

51:20to Skydio, I was like, "How do we determine this?" Uh,

51:22this one is from a police

51:24officer named John Domingo from Cherry Hill Police Department.

51:27He asks, uh, "If the goal is to have drones responding to

51:30emergencies

51:30autonomously without a person on the roof, how does the drone verify its

51:34airworthiness?" And what I think he's asking is basically instead of having a

51:38human

51:38physically look at it, how do we check airspace wor-

51:41airspace worthiness?

51:42And I don't know.

51:43I'm happy to take that one. Yeah. So this is obviously, like,

51:46a big transition

51:47point. Like, once you stop having a human standing

51:50directly over to the drone to do

51:51those pre-flight as- assessments, like, how can you ensure it's safe?

51:54And it's something we thought about long and hard as we were developing the, the

51:57X10 dock. So, uh, within the, the X10 dock, there actually is what's

52:01called inspection mode, which allows you to leverage, uh,

52:05a whole series

52:05of cameras inside of the, the dock itself as well as the opening and

52:09retracting, uh, roof, which allows you to do the visual

52:12inspection piece.

52:13And then internally and through the c- direct connection that we have to

52:16that drone

52:17via the cloud, there's a whole suite of internal software

52:20checks that

52:21happen before, uh, the drone takes off.

52:23So from a, both a software and a physical inspection side,

52:26we're able to address

52:27that and have met, then checked the box with the FAA, that's,

52:30that that is

52:31sufficient in order to, you know, approve airworthiness before taking off.

52:35Perfect. Any more on that, Vern?

52:37Uh, no. I just, I would say that inspection mode was,

52:40is really an incredible

52:41feature that nobody else has, right?

52:42Um, where it's actually you're able to, like, spin the props within the dock,

52:46uh, to show, like, hey, these props...

52:48And, and you can actually, you know, look for hairline cracks

52:50and things like that

52:51that you'd be doing, you know, visually.

52:53So that inspection mode is really, really important.

52:55But that being said, you know, as the cadences, uh, you know, are,

52:59are set

52:59up in terms of inspections, I'd say that, you know, uh, I don't know what be- best

53:03practices are, are out there from Skydio yet.

53:05But I'm sure, like, perhaps, you know, uh, once a day or once

53:09a week-

53:09Yeah. Daily check

53:09... you know, a daily check physically of the dock,

53:12you know, prior to, like,

53:13operations, just to make sure and, you know-

53:14Oh, and I, I'm... When I was saying daily check-

53:17Yeah

53:17... I think that's the remote connectivity

53:19check.

53:19Right.

53:19Or like in terms of, like, maintenance and when you need to go physically inspect

53:22the dock, we wanna keep that as limited as possible.

53:24Right.

53:25Probably gonna be dependent on use case environment more so than

53:28operational, uh, specs on it. But, like, you'll, you'll know if the dock has any

53:32kind of failures because of all the sensors in, inside of the thing.

53:35And you'll know if the drone's, you know, safe to fly based on that inspection

53:38mode.

53:39Yeah. Okay. Uh, this one is Nicholas Payne.

53:42He's a detective and the drone team lead at Elko County Sheriff's Office.

53:46The question is, "How does the DFR dock

53:48and remote connection operations,

53:50the ability to connect and its connectivity in rural areas?" How,

53:53can you talk

53:53about how that works in those rural areas and the connection?

53:56Sure. Yeah. So depending on how rural, um, [laughs] again, with the Skydio

54:00Connect Fusion, you really have two different pathways for

54:03maintaining connection

54:04to the drone. Um, and that is either through a traditional kind of

54:07radio

54:07link. So we have an external antenna that, that would come standard with the

54:11docks that will basically maintain that point to point.

54:14It's an omnidirectional antenna, so you can fly any direction out from the

54:17drone,

54:18um, and stay connected. You know, reasonable range out to it,

54:21I think right now,

54:22like, we'd seen optimization up to, uh, seven miles.

54:26I think that's probably, you know, in the cleanest of environments.

54:28But operational range is certainly with that direct link.

54:32Um, and then depending on what the LTE

54:34connection is in that

54:35environment, um, that really then moves it into where you

54:39don't have

54:39any limitation on, uh, range from where you took off from.

54:42It just becomes a question of, like, how much flight time do you have to go out

54:45and

54:46then still get back to the dock

54:47Um, so if it's a totally, like, LTE disconnected environment, like, you'd

54:51leverage the external radio and be able to go miles out.

54:55And if you're, uh, able to switch over onto LTE through any

54:58of the standard

54:58carriers out there, nothing special about this.

55:00It's the existing infrastructure that's already in the country.

55:03Uh, really, the range is no longer an issue.

55:05It's just a question of battery life.

55:07And I was also just gonna mention, um, at Axon Week, Skydio had this

55:11amazing trailer that, you know, this ruggedized trailer that

55:15actually had enough battery packs and solar to keep the

55:19Skydio Dock system running for days without shore power, and then

55:23Starlink connectivity.

55:24Mm.

55:24So just to answer, like, the rural aspect, um, you know, having

55:28a Dock, uh, the connectivity's always gonna be the

55:30biggest challenge in a, in a

55:31rural area. But having, you know, s- uh, Starlink to then

55:36enhance to make sure you're able to then-

55:38Yeah

55:38... connect to Skydio Cloud, live stream, all those types of things, having

55:42sufficient battery pow- you know, power or whatever, you know, clean power that's

55:46available to power the, the Dock is gonna be really, really critical.

55:49But again, um, you know, feel free to reach out, uh, to, to Cabe

55:53or I to

55:53discuss that further on specific use cases of, of what your

55:57jurisdiction is.

55:59All right, couple more questions for the next three

56:01minutes that we have here.

56:02Can you talk about... This is from Scott Porter,

56:04public safety practice lead at

56:06Seneca Holdings. Uh, can you talk about some of the key

56:09integrations

56:10specifically between Skydio and Axon, uh, for example, live-streaming

56:13video, downloading of video into evidence.com,

56:16and where do you see the key

56:17integrations going forward if there are any additional ones?

56:20Yeah, so I mean, you know, really today, you know, right now, the, it live-

56:24live streams seamlessly, not just through Skydio Cloud,

56:27but into Axon

56:28Fusos. Um, and Axon Respond is, is slowly being absorbed and

56:32transitioned over into Axon Fusos.

56:35So the live stream is there, and the, the QR codes as, as Cabe, uh, mentioned.

56:39Also, the integrations with body-worn cameras.

56:41Today, uh, within the DFR, uh, command piloting screen,

56:45you... there's a- actually features where you can see a

56:47body-worn camera that's

56:48represented as a pillar, as the, as where, this is where the

56:52officer is. This is where you're flying to exactly, so

56:56that you can start to orient your camera and start to get situational awareness,

57:00and that's only gonna improve over time.

57:01So, um-

57:02And, and allowing those officers that are wearing the body-worn cameras now to

57:05just

57:05press a simple button and say, "Send drone to me," you know.

57:08Like, I, I think what we're gonna see is, like, the drones become so

57:12intertwined with standard operations that it's gonna become as part of a

57:15standard

57:16kit for a police officer as a body-worn camera, as a pistol, as a radio, as drone

57:19support when you need it. So having that connection to where we have

57:23situational

57:23awareness of where the body-worn cameras are, where the vehicles are, and those

57:27officers then also being able to see that live stream come in, it really

57:30is just a

57:31series of, of APIs. And, you know, we're continuing to expand our library of

57:35APIs that are available, um, and that's gonna work with a m-

57:38a whole suite

57:39of different carriers as well too.

57:40The Axon story is extremely strong, and I think that's where, you know,

57:43a lot of

57:44this is gonna be differentiated. Um, but it, it also opens up to a bunch of

57:48different, you know, integrators out there as well too.

57:50And we use the term API amongst us three in, in, in the business quite a

57:54bit. Maybe for those who don't know what an API

57:56out there, maybe you could just hit

57:57on that real quick.

57:57Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it, uh, basically, the API allows us to, to push out, like,

58:01critical information, like the live stream from our side of the

58:04house or with Fus-

58:05uh, uh, Fusos. They're able to, like, provide an API for us

58:07that allows us to get

58:08access to the, uh, body-worn cameras', you know, critical information, like

58:12their live stream, their GPS position.

58:15Um, and it allows for, you know, a, a whole different suite of, like,

58:18connected

58:19devices and, uh, technology to work together.

58:21So Axon's our strongest partner for this, especially in the public safety space,

58:25but, you know, again, we have, uh, a whole host of these that

58:27are available for

58:28other agencies too.

58:29I was also just thinking back to the rural deputy question is

58:33we didn't even touch on the, uh, patrol-led DFR aspect, right?

58:37So I know we've talked a lot about Dock for X10, but, you know, the, the coolest

58:40part of all this is this drone is the same drone that's in the

58:44Dock as it is your patrol tactical drone.

58:47The only thing that's different in the Dock-based drone is the battery itself

58:50has,

58:51has a slightly different, uh, attachment for, for, uh, you know,

58:54connectivity, but it's the same drone, uh, across your fleet.

58:57So there's this standardization aspect that's incredible.

59:00And then look to Oklahoma City as the model for patrol-led

59:04and Dock-based DFR, this mix where you've got Dock-based

59:08DFR within urban environments, but also their officers can

59:12have a drone that's in a trunk, drive to a scene,

59:15put the drone on the ground, and

59:16have it remotely taken over so that, again, you get your first responder doing

59:20first responder stuff. It's great that cops wanna be, uh,

59:24drone pilots, and they're really, really excellent at that, but really,

59:27in the end,

59:28autonomy's taking the human out of that part of the loop and

59:32l- allowing them to then do their highest

59:34level work, which is solving the problem

59:36at hand, not being a drone pilot. And autonomy is key to that, and that's

59:40why the X10 and, and Axon are the best in the world at that, and

59:44will, will continue to evolve on that.

59:46And that's the power of having a connected drone that's able to just access the

59:49existing LTE infrastructure that's out there simply by turning the thing on

59:53that's

59:53built into it.

59:55We are at 61 minutes.

59:56Are we?

59:56So I think-

59:57Oh, man.

59:57I think that about wraps it up. I, I do wanna give one shout-out to,

1:00:00is it maybe

1:00:01Sean Fierro, a commander at the Auburn Police

1:00:03Department.

1:00:04He says, "I just wanna thank you, gentlemen, uh, for your experience

1:00:07and insight.

1:00:08This technology and further innovation by Skydio and Axon is creating

1:00:12safer communities for both law enforcement officers and its citizens." And then

1:00:15#PoliceWeek. On behalf of all of us, Varun Salih, Cabe

1:00:18Tormes here, Phil Gonczak at Skydio and Axon, we really appreciate you

1:00:22all tuning in today. And if there's any other questions,

1:00:24feel free to send us a

1:00:26message on LinkedIn or, or shoot us up via email.

1:00:29It's a pleasure to meet with all of you, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here

1:00:31today.

1:00:31Yeah, thank you, Phil, and thank you, everybody.

1:00:33Thanks, everyone, for being on.

1:00:34Yeah.

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