Commercial Drones FM

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 by using discount code "CDFM20". Visit the website at http://stonefortgroup.com/energy-drone-coalition-2017/

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."

Ian reunites with past drone industry colleague, Gretchen West, who is Senior Advisor for Innovation & Technology at Hogan Lovells and Co-Executive Director of the Commercial Drone Alliance. Gretchen has been in the drone industry for 13 years. She brings her refreshingly pragmatic views to the podcast to give a lesson on how power is balanced between President Trump's administration and the FAA. Gretchen also reveals that Section 333 "closed set" exemptions were quietly revoked by the FAA and reviews the challenges of their waiver process, which is available to commercial drone operators. Gretchen and Ian close with some realistic advice to those who are interested in starting a company in the drone industry and suggestions on where the greatest opportunities exist.

On February 26th, 2017, DJI announced the new Matrice 200 platform at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Matrice 200 comes in three variants; the M200, M210, and M210 RTK. This new drone platform marks DJI's serious and well-considered entry into industrial-grade drones for enterprise. With hugely useful features like ADS-B, dual and top-mounted gimbals, redundancy, and IP43 classification, this multirotor is poised as an incredible threat to senseFly's Albris, Intel's Falcon 8, and Aerialtronics' Altura Zenith (among others). An estimated 38 minutes of flight time and compatibility with the latest Zenmuse suite of cameras round out the DJI M200's impressive specs. The only thing DJI has left to do is deliver.

Airware is a commercial drone company which was founded in 2011, a couple of years before the drone industry truly began to explode in popularity. They're somewhat notorious for having raised more venture capital funding than nearly any other drone company—over $100 million. Airware recently acquired Redbird, a drone software business which specializes in providing solutions to the mining and quarry industry. Furthermore, shortly after this interview took place, Airware announced that they took on a strategic investment from Caterpillar, the global leader in construction machinery. Buddy Michini, Airware's CTO, has been with the company since the beginning. Buddy sits down with Ian to discuss Airware's history, their strategic enterprise focus towards the mining and utility industries, and reveal learnings from 9 years in commercial drones. The conversation also touches on Airware's work with State Farm Insurance and tips on what skills are useful to start a career in the drone industry.

AT&T has 65,000 cell sites around the U.S. which require constant maintenance. Some of these cell sites can be towers that are hundreds of feet high and others can be massive stadiums with hundreds of antennae. The site maintenance is accomplished by 15,000 tower technicians. Technicians perform their tasks by risking their lives, physically climbing up the cell towers, or burn lots of time walking around stadiums for entire weeks, testing signal strength. Art Pregler is the Director of Construction & Engineering Mobility Systems at AT&T. The company moved from a drone "exploratory phase" in 2015 to "fully operational" in September 2016, with an entirely outsourced model—hiring 3rd party drone service providers. AT&T employs these drone service providers to inspect their cell towers via aerial photos, videos, photogrammetry, and even machine learning. Ian coaxes Art to reveal how—among other things—using drones decreased AT&T's cell site maintenance times from one week, to just four hours, a 900% savings.

Thomas Haun is Executive Vice President of PrecisionHawk, a drone company in North Carolina with $29 million in total venture funding. Besides developing their own software, making a fixed-wing drone, and reselling DJI drones, PrecisionHawk works on beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) regulatory research with the FAA on the Pathfinder program. Additionally, the company develops LATAS, a technology for the future of airspace management. And to round it all out, PrecisionHawk even owns a satellite imagery company called TerraServer. Thomas and Ian discuss the dichotomy between commercial drones and regulations, the future of PrecisionHawk, and the fact that a drone can literally kill you—but also save your life.

Steve Hogan is an attorney in Florida whose firm specializes in drone law. He's also the host and creator of the Drone Law Today podcast. Ian and Steve sync up over the airwaves to grapple with some hotly debated (and controversial) drone legal issues. Who owns the airspace above my house? Is shooting a drone out of the sky a federal offense? What will Trump's administration do for—or against—commercial drones? And Do I need a Part 107 certificate to compete in drone FPV racing for money? Steve and Ian make a concentrated, joint effort to get to the bottom of these issues and settle them once and for all. Unsurprisingly, it gets pretty complicated.

Lily Robotics has spectacularly failed and is being sued by the City of San Francisco. CES 2017 is said to have had fewer drone companies than previous years. Parrot laid off a third of its drone division. GoPro's Karma drone literally fell out of the sky. The FAA has issued their largest fine, ever. Does this mean the drone industry is in a decline? April Glaser, who covers robots, drones, artificial intelligence and other smart machines for Recode, joins Ian to discuss these events and others. Tune in for analysis on the latest drone industry news as 2017 gets off to an exciting start.

Romeo Durscher is Director of Education at DJI, the world's largest, most successful drone manufacturer. His job is one of the most fascinating in the world. Romeo acts as global ambassador for safe and effective use of drone technology. His mission takes him all over the planet—from tackling safety challenges with the United Nations in the Maldives, exploring caves in Vietnam with ABC's Good Morning America, and pioneering drone use with mountain search and rescue teams on a glacier. Romeo and Ian speak about all of this—including DJI's plans for their DJI Enterprise division—for a truly epic episode of Commercial Drones FM.

With over 500 million acres of land under their management, the Department of the Interior (DOI) is the largest single landowner in the United States. The DOI maintains this land for U.S. citizens and in order to keep eyes on it, have 1,200+ aircraft in their fleet—drones included. Mark Bathrick, an ex-Navy TOPGUN fighter and test pilot, is the Director of Aviation (OAS) for the DOI and joins Ian to discuss how an organization of 70,000 employees make use of drones and how aviation plays such a critical role in their success. From fighting forest fires and monitoring wildlife, to maintaining the Statue of Liberty and giving us the 4 key competencies that drone companies need to master for success, Mark's experience provides a wealth of wisdom for anyone who uses drones commercially.

LiDAR is an impressive and interesting sensor technology which already powers parts of the driverless car industry. LiDAR sensors can somewhat be thought of as a clever mixture of photogrammetry and radar. It is extremely precise and can provide incredibly accurate datasets. Harris Wang, Strategic Markets Director at Velodyne LiDAR Inc., joins Ian to explore how LiDAR is being used on drones. Industries like utilities, surveying, forestry, and inspection can reap insane benefits by using LiDAR—but it has historically been quite heavy and very expensive. Harris explains how the technology is becoming cheaper and smaller, how LiDAR compares to photogrammetry, and how it is being used today and in the future.

Topographic data is some of the most sought after information that can be generated by drones. To ultimately derive this data, terrain contours, point clouds, and digital surface models are created using software like Pix4D and Autodesk Civil 3D. Mark Blacklin is Data Integration and CAD Supervisor at CGRS, a Colorado-based construction, engineering, and compliance service company that serves the petroleum industry. Mark and Ian discuss the complexities of high precision drone missions, drone hardware and software, GPS systems used (RTK, check points), tips for setting ground control points, and what types of deliverables high-end clients expect.

The United States' NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has many responsibilities but they can essentially be thought of as the federal government's "Environmental Intelligence Agency". Robbie Hood, a meteorologist by trade, is the Director of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program at NOAA. Ian and Robbie discuss the challenges and complexities of how NOAA uses drones for mapping of coastal erosion, studying sea level changes, populations of fisheries and marine mammals, and monitoring weather conditions across their territory of the entire United States—with a budget of $5 million per year.

DroneDeploy is a drone data company who recently raised $20 million to power the further development of their software. Tens of thousands of users from more than 135 countries have collectively processed more than 8 million acres of data using DroneDeploy—larger than the entire country of Belgium. Mike Winn, a serial entrepreneur and ex-Google employee, is CEO and co-founder of DroneDeploy. Mike and Ian discuss how the company has found success, DroneDeploy's release of the world's first App Market for drone data, the relationship between the enterprise and drone service providers, and what the next big thing will be for drones.

Bechtel is a massive, global company that tackles multi-billion dollar mega-projects. They plan on integrating drones into their operations for use in their infrastructure, mining, oil and gas, and government services projects. Today, their elaborate drone evaluation is nearly complete. Nate Fuller, Bechtel's Lead UAV Investigator, meets with Ian to reveal the steps it takes for a global enterprise to fully adopt drones—what they look for in hardware and software, how they manage global regulations, the use cases they will implement, and more. This is a fascinating look inside of a company that Fortune magazine says has "changed the face of the physical world more than any other."

With so much noise surrounding the drone industry, whose opinion are you supposed to trust? Colin Snow AKA "The Drone Analyst" joins Ian to explain why his team's thoughtful, pragmatic approach to analyzing the drone industry sets them apart. Colin and Ian dispel myths surrounding the most common misconceptions with drones, the biggest opportunities that exist for drone companies, and what he believes it the most exciting thing happening in the drone industry right now.

It can be difficult to buy a new drone when the technology is advancing so rapidly. DJI just made two huge product announcements within 6 weeks of each other, which prompted some to cancel one purchase in favor of another. Up Sonder is a startup that makes purchase decisions a no-brainer by allowing you to easily rent your drones to neighbors with free $1,000,000 insurance and $2,500 of full hardware replacement coverage. Derek Waleko, CEO of Up Sonder, joins Ian to explain how they use the Uber Rush API to enable this drone rental marketplace so you can safely monetize your drone.

There are many misconceptions on how to effectively use drones in agriculture. Norm Lamothe is a farmer, seasoned commercial drone operator, and co-founder at Deveron UAS—a publicly traded, Canadian drone service company. Norm joins Ian to set the story straight by discussing how farmers are really using drones and what they can accomplish by deploying them above their fields.

As a classically trained model aircraft pilot, Joshua Ziering didn't easily imagine a future beyond flying chalupa-shaped blimps inside NHL stadiums. So he did what came naturally and built the future himself. Joshua, along with Jon Hegranes, is cofounder of Kittyhawk.io, a software company which specializes in drone fleet management that helps with every aspect of your operation, from pre-flight to post-flight. Joshua and Ian discuss why Kittyhawk.io is useful, what sets it apart, and a bevy of other drone industry news.

There are many ways that drones benefit society—but unfortunately, with the rise of drones comes the rise of malicious activity. Dedrone is a company which offers an automatic, anti-drone solution for their clients. Prisons, large events, and even presidential debates require solutions that can repel drones with bad intentions. Sebastian Blum, VP of BD at Dedrone, joins Ian to reveal the fascinating technology that Dedrone uses to keeps their clients safe.

Think you're a serious drone operator? Then you better take compliance seriously too. Eric Kubicka is a founding partner of DroneLogbook, software for flight tracking, logging, and drone compliance. At their peak, DroneLogbook users track thousands of flights per week. Eric and Ian discuss why compliance is important, trends with enterprise companies entering the drone space, and best practices for operational compliance in general.

For Forbes, Ryan Mac has written some of the drone industry's seminal articles—covering DJI's Frank Wang, Parrot's Henri Seydoux, and now, Chris Anderson in "The Crash Of 3D Robotics, North America's Most Promising Drone Company". Ryan and Ian discuss the background of the 3DR saga, how the company burned through nearly $100 million, laid off 150 employees, and wound up where they are today. What really caused the crash of 3D Robotics?

Redbird, a French drone software company, was recently purchased by Airware, an American drone software company. A few weeks before the sale was made public, Ian and Emmanuel, Redbird's then-CEO (now VP of AEC at Airware), recorded this podcast episode. Emmanuel and Ian discuss how large mining and construction companies use drones and why they're important to them. Get a glimpse inside of Redbird as the negotiations for the sale of the company were likely well underway.

Ian is joined by Austin Smith, GM of Inside.com, a startup which focuses on tech newsletters. Inside.com produces the Inside Drones newsletter, a thoughtfully curated, twice-weekly digest of the most interesting drone news. Ian and Austin discuss how he started the company and chat about some of the latest drone news.

DJI has announced their Mavic Pro drone, the smallest and most powerful drone they've ever created. The new Mavic Pro drone platform has specs and pricing that best the popular Phantom 4 and newly announced GoPro Karma which make it a promising candidate for commercial drone operations. Ian dissects the announcement, features, and viability of using the Mavic Pro for drone inspection and mapping missions.

Publicly traded GoPro have officially revealed the hotly anticipated Karma drone. Incidentally, this first effort into the industry directly competes with the largely dominant DJI, a private company, who happen to have a similar drone of their own which will be announced the following week. Ian analyzes GoPro's new drone and how this battle will shape up. Which of these companies will reign supreme in the battle for drone supremacy—who is David and who is Goliath?

There's a favorable exchange rate when transitioning from bitcoin to drones, according to Dan Held, the co-founder of Hover—a mobile app for drone pilots that enhances situational awareness. Ian speaks with Dan about why he chose to make a drone app, the latest drone news, and gets his mind blown after igniting an exciting discussion on how a future, autonomous, bitcoin-based drone delivery fleet and service network could actually work.

Drone mapping can be a game changer for your business. Learn about why you should be making maps with drones and how to do it successfully. What kind of drone and software do I need? What does it cost? How do I make 3D models? Is it hard? These questions (and more) are answered in this initial episode about making maps with drones.

Co-founder Benjamin Benharrosh, lets us in on the evolution of Delair-Tech—the first company in the world to achieve BVLOS certification for their fixed-wing drones. Since starting in 2011, the French company has been involved with railroad and utility companies, SATCOM and 4G LTE radio links, and most recently, opened an office in the United States.

Drones are becoming popular among farmers for analyzing crop health. Cassidy Rankine, PhD and co-founder of Skymatics, proposes another scenario: using drones for crop insurance. Ian and Cassidy discuss this innovative method and even offer a way for you to become one of Skymatics' drone pilots.

Andrew Dennison, COO of LIFT Technologies, recounts his journey into the drone industry. Ian and Andrew cover topics from real-world construction and insurance case studies, the drone deliverables that enterprise clients expect, not flying drones during wildfires, and building out a national drone operator network.

Lucas Van Oostrum is co-founder of Delft Aerial Robotics as well as Aerialtronics. The Flying Dutchman joins Ian and tells entrepreneurial tales of starting up a high-end drone manufacturing company in Holland in 2011 and how we'll eventually move towards full drone automation in the near future.

Sally French (aka The Drone Girl) sits down with Ian to discuss important issues in the drone industry. From teaching how to use drones in schools, whale snot, drone industry projections, and the unfortunate lack of females in the industry, Sally sets the record straight—drones, like women, are here to stay.

For The Verge, Ben Popper has reviewed every one of the most important drones of the past few years. Ian and Ben dissect the latest news from the drone industry including 3DR's layoffs, DJI's dominance, the promise of Yuneec, Xiaomi's new drone, GoPro's moonshot, and the FAA's Part 107 rule.

Test prep and study guide for the FAA's Part 107 knowledge test for commercial drone pilots. Ian reviews the entire 35 questions—and answers—that he was administered during the online test (for Part 61 certificated pilots) for the upcoming commercial drone regulations that will be in place on August 26th, 2016. Be advised: the test for non-pilots will have 60 questions, this is not the full question bank for that test! Check the Commercial Drones FM website for more information and links.

Ian is joined by DroneDeploy's CTO, Nicholas Pilkington, who guides listeners down the rabbit hole of aerial ones and zeroes; revealing secrets from the extremely important—yet unfortunately mysterious—realm of drone software programming.

Ian chats with Devon Humphrey, CEO of Flightline Geographics out of Austin, at the 2016 Esri User Conference in San Diego to cover the announcement of the new AeroHawk solar powered drone and discuss GIS, Esri, and how it's all connected in the drone indu

Attention commercial drone pilots: learn from Ian how to get access to a little-known FAA program which essentially grants you a "Get Out of Jail Free" card that can be used to help you get out of trouble when operating your drone commercially. Please fly your drones safely.

Ian sits down with Kevin Spain of Emergence Capital where they chat about venture capital trends in the drone space, the future of the commercial drone industry, and tips on what venture capitalists really look for in future (drone) portfolio companies.

This is the first episode of CommercialDrones.FM - Learn about the host, Ian Smith, his experience with drones, helicopters, aviation, and the plans for the show moving forward. The Commercial Drones Podcast will interview industry experts and explore concepts from the commercial drone industry.