Commercial Drones Fm

Sky-Futures, founded in 2009, is one of the oldest drone service businesses that exist. The company specializes in providing drone-based inspection services to global industrial enterprises. James Harrison is Sky-Futures' CEO and has been with the company since the beginning. James and Ian speak about the demanding requirements of enterprise clients who request drone services, U.K. drone regulations, the drone hardware the company has used historically, and much more.

Intel is a global, multi-billion dollar public company and they have their hands in all areas of technology. As a legacy Silicon Valley juggernaut, they've found that innovation is key to survival. Anil Nanduri, GM of the Drone Group at Intel, joins Ian to explain Intel's strategy around drones. From acquiring a multirotor manufacturer (Ascending-Technologies), a fixed-wing manufacturer (Mavinci), a computer vision chip manufacturer (Movidius), making their own entertainment drones, and even creating impressive technology like RealSense, Intel knows more than anyone how important it is to diversify and create a thriving drone ecosystem.

Airbus is a global aerospace company who have a wide variety of divisions and assets. Besides their airliners, Airbus also has access to a huge cache of up-to-date, high-resolution satellite imagery—so it was only natural that they create one of their newest companies, Airbus Aerial. Airbus Aerial is a startup that, according to their website, leverages the most advanced aerospace technologies to collect and deliver only the data and services that matter most to your organization. Our guest, Jesse Kallman, is the President of Airbus Aerial, leading the team to enable a future of digital services via satellites, high altitude, and small low altitude UAVs.

Drone Industry Review is a special, quarterly podcast series brought to you by Commercial Drones FM. It briefs listeners on the most important and newsworthy happenings from the previous quarter in the drone industry. Covered topics include drone hardware, software, regulations, funding, M&A, delivery drones, and how drones affected various industries in that quarter. This is the third episode in this series where we conduct the Drone Industry Review of Q3 2017.

AeroMana is a startup that provides tethered drone solutions. A drone that is tethered means that it is attached by wire to the ground, presumably to an external power source, giving the drone potentially "unlimited" endurance. AeroMana's CEO, Jon Miller and CSO, Manuel Lombardini, join Ian to discuss how tethered drones provide unique flexibility for specific types of operations by enabling them to fly for hours, not minutes. Making all of that data useful is the next big challenge so AeroMana also provide proprietary analytics software for applications from sports to firefighting to surveillance. The trio also explore the regulations around tethered drones and give their opinion on whether they should (or shouldn't) be treated the same way as non-tethered, "traditional" drones.

This episode of Commercial Drones FM focuses on aerial cinematography and the business behind it. Brian Streem is CEO of Aerobo, a nationwide drone service provider who claim to have shot more live telecasts than any other drone company in the world. Aerobo operates drones internationally for their clients, working on the News, TV, Sports, Advertising, and Cinema segments of multimedia. They also provide inspection services. Brian explains the ins and outs of high-end, Hollywood blockbuster drone cinematography, detailing what it's like to be working on movie sets for the likes of Steven Spielberg—and how much pressure there is to "get the shot". And pressure should definitely be expected when Aerobo can charge their clients anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000 per day. Be sure to check out the podcast website to view two of Brian's coolest drone films, “At The End Of The Cul-de-Sac” and "CHROMATICITY".

Drones are incredibly useful in the construction industry. Giving construction companies the power to get high-resolution, aerial views of their job sites every single day and the ability to increase safety has undeniable ROI. Todd Wynne, a construction veteran, nerd, and co-founder of Project Atlas joins Ian to deconstruct how drones are revolutionizing the way construction projects are now being completed. Todd explains how even though technology has advanced rapidly in the past 20-years, so much of the way construction is conducted today is still stuck in the past. Project Atlas, the company, bills itself as a mapping engine for projects—essentially, Google Maps for the construction industry. Project Atlas is officially launching their service on October 9th, 2017. To donate to the GoFundMe for the team using drones to map Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, go to http://bit.ly/hurricane-drones

This is how a business with nearly $50 billion in revenue views drone technology. Cisco is a publicly-traded network equipment company, but its reach extends much farther beyond just servers and wireless access points. Biren Gandhi is a Distinguished Strategist in Cisco’s Corporate Strategy Office, focused on identifying key technology trends and accelerating their adoption through acquisitions, development, or partnering. And he's got his eye on drones.Biren and Ian discuss the future of connected drones and how these flying robots could essentially be boiled down to IoT devices which will soon be networked within a Biren and Ian discuss the future of connected drones and how these flying robots could, in the future, essentially be boiled down to IoT devices that are networked within a blockchain, becoming just some of the active cogs inside of a distributed fog computing machine. Yeah, pretty amazing. Biren Gandhi will be presenting at Drone World Expo on October 3-4, 2017 in San Jose, CA.

A skydiver, a Ph.D., and an incubator director walk into a drone podcast... This is the story of Genius NY, an unmanned systems startup incubator based in Syracuse, New York, and two startups that they've funded. Genius NY director, Jon Parry, brings Jimmy Halliday, Aviation Director at AutoModality, and Sasi Viswanathan, co-founder of Akrobotix—both Genius NY portfolio companies—to the Commercial Drones FM podcast. The group discuss how companies are winning millions of dollars by participating in the Genius NY startup competitions, what they're doing with their cash winnings, and how New York state is contributing to the proliferation of the commercial drone industry.

Cyberhawk, a Scotland-based drone inspection company, has logged over 18,000 flights and accomplished 25 world firsts with drones since their founding in 2008. The nine-year-old company has done the first drone oil rig inspection, wind turbine inspection, transmission tower inspection, and even the first internal chimney inspection. Cyberhawk CEO, Chris Fleming, joins Ian for an uncut interview where the two dive deep into how Cyberhawk accomplishes industrial drone inspections for massive, global companies. Chris explains how using drones for flare stack inspections can save oil and gas companies $1.5 million per day in recovered production costs, showcasing how much is really at stake when providing services to their multi-billion dollar clients. This is just one of the reasons that helps understand why, "if your hands aren't shaking, you aren't flying for Cyberhawk."

Drone Industry Review is a special, quarterly podcast series brought to you by Commercial Drones FM. It briefs listeners on the most important and newsworthy happenings from the previous quarter in the drone industry. Covered topics include drone hardware, software, regulations, funding, M&A, delivery drones, and how drones affected various industries in that quarter. This is the second episode in this series where we conduct the Drone Industry Review of Q2 2017.

Ian takes you to Europe where he investigates the inner workings of how a drone industry market report is created. To do that, he heads to Warsaw, Poland to speak with Adam Wiśniewski, Director of the Drone Powered Solutions team at PwC, who released a series of drone industry reports titled, "Clarity from above" that peg the total, global drone industry's addressable market at $127.3 billion. Ian also makes a quick detour to London where he links up with Adam Bailey, Director at XYZ Kingfisher APS, a high-end drone service provider. Adam and Ian discuss the PwC drone reports and how they relate to reality.

Karen Jackson is Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is the first female to hold that position. Ian asks Karen to explain why Virginia is trying to lead the way for unmanned innovations in drones and driverless cars. Plus, the two discuss the dichotomy between state vs. local vs. federal regulation of commercial drone operations. Ian and Karen come to discover that a patchwork of regulatory differences could be very confusing for businesses who are looking to leverage drone technology.

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is Washington's largest private utility. They provide electricity, natural gas, and generation to their territory. Among other assets, PSE manages over 2,000 miles of linear transmission network in the Pacific Northwest and the company has recently been conducting pilot tests with drones. Our guest, Mitch Droz, is a Commercial Development Manager in the Emerging Technologies group at Puget Sound Energy and is a certified Part 107 pilot. Mitch and Ian take a deep dive into the myriad of ways in which drones are being used in the energy and utilities sector today. Mitch explains the use cases and value drivers which drones help Puget Sound Energy discover while using drone technology on dams, transmission lines, monitoring vegetation, inspecting transmission towers, and more. This episode was brought to you by the Energy Drone Coalition Summit whose inaugural event is taking place in Houston, Texas on June 20th and 21st, 2017. Commercial Drones FM podcast listeners get 20% off tickets b

In April 2017, 3D Robotics raised a $53 million Series D round, bringing total funding to over $178 million. Daniel McKinnon is VP of Product at 3D Robotics and holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. He started at 3DR as a Product Manager and worked his way up the ladder. Dan is also an advisor at Agribotix, an analytics platform for farmers, which he co-founded. Dan and Ian discuss the aftermath of 3DR's Solo drone—the catalyst of the company's recent pivot from hardware to software—and get an inside look at why the company is now focusing on enterprise drone software for the construction industry with their newest product, Site Scan.

DroneSeed works with timber companies and non-profits to plant tree seeds, spray them with herbicides, and monitor their growth—all with drones. They're based in Seattle, Washington and are the first company approved by the FAA to deliver agricultural payloads by drone swarms. CEO Grant Canary and CTO Jeff Prouty join Ian to discuss how their drone company is built to help the planet maintain sustainable growth in the forestry industry and offset carbon emissions.

As evidenced by the mature corporate and general aviation industries, the drone industry has an opportunity to flourish with pilots who advocate proper standards. One prerequisite to getting a big contract for operating a drone for large organizations is understanding that these companies are risk-averse. They cannot risk hiring a contractor to operate drones for them if the operator cannot furnish proof of compliance to proper standards. One way drone operators can begin developing this culture of safety is by implementing an SMS program, establishing documentation practices, and creating a drone operations manual. Harrison Wolf is Technical Chair for the ASTM sUAS Operational Risk Assessment Standard, teaches safety management for drones at USC, and has his own drone consultancy called Wolf UAS. Harrison joins Ian to discuss how focusing on being a safe, compliant drone company can lead to huge rewards and has the benefit of setting yourself apart from the crowd of casual drone pilots.

Drone Industry Review is a special podcast series brought to you by Commercial Drones FM. It briefs listeners on the most important and newsworthy happenings from the previous quarter in the drone industry. Covered topics include drone hardware, software, regulations, funding, M&A, delivery drones, and how drones affected various industries in that quarter. The inaugural episode begins with  the Drone Industry Review of Q1 2017.

Iris Automation is a Y Combinator startup who recently raised $1.5 million in seed funding to bring sense and avoid technology to drones used for industry. Buzz words like computer vision, deep learning, and artificial intelligence only begin to scratch the surface in describing what the company is building. To sense issues and avoid them, powerful onboard drone hardware allows Iris Automation's software to track birds and other aircraft, predict their trajectories, reconstruct the scene in 3D at hundreds of meters of range, and then notify the drone operator of issues in real-time—or even take evasive action autonomously. Alex Harmsen is CEO and co-founder of Iris Automation and joins Ian to discuss why sense and avoid technology is a requirement for building trust in industrial drones—and ultimately, how it should make them boring.

This is the story behind GoPro's harrowing entry into the global drone market. Just 6 days after GoPro released Karma, their first flagship drone, units began to inexplicably fall out of the sky, triggering a global recall of the product. There were many events that led up to this point but were previously unknown to the public. Forbes Staff Writer Ryan Mac joins Ian and tells the tale of how GoPro's Karma drone came to be, how it was rushed for release, and the ensuing aftermath of the global recall once these drones came crashing down. This story is based on Ryan Mac's Forbes article titled, "The Sky Is Falling For GoPro."