# Drone-in-a-Box Delight: Inspections & Security Ops with a Robotic Twist | Kevin Toderal

- Event: Xpress ’23
- Published: September 18, 2023
- Length: 14:06
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/9jZsVhLLG4s/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## About this session

Step into the future with 'Drone-in-a-Box Delight,' a deep dive into the transformative potential of drone technology. Kevin Toderal sheds light on how these autonomous flying drones are reshaping the landscape of inspections and security operations.

With the integration of docking stations, drones are no longer just tools but intelligent partners that enhance precision, efficiency, and safety.

## Transcript

**[0:04]** ladies and gentlemen boys and girls we are here at Booth 423 we're doing NestGen Express welcome to the next installment of NestGen Express super excited sponsored by FlytBase my name is Jason San Souci I'm going to be the host of today's show and I am really excited to be here with Kevin todorall of rmus Canada um I think I should probably throw in a boot in there somewhere uh but you know I'm just really excited to have you on the show Kevin welcome great to be here thank you very much for inviting me oh absolutely and we'll thank bashali for the very kind invitation um so we're gonna start things off with more of a we'll call it an extremely serious question like this is very important this is very very important very serious question so how would you describe your we're gonna talk about drone in a box obviously right we got a big drone in a box here we're talking about drones in a box how would you describe your Journal box solution if it were a contestant on a dating

**[1:05]** show wow so uh be you shout out to Davey Joe um so I think I would describe the well we've read this DJI dock right here so I I would describe that as you know well-dressed call it oh professional looking a little bit of attitude saying you know I'm I'm I'm the best I know it I'm not arrogant about it but I'm confident so this is something unique for us now there are others though oh there we go the hex phonics oh boy we both know a lot they had shark spots is more utilitarian I'm thinking like a Masa shirt uh it's mysterious it's bigger in straw for but still confident all right but someone is here I I love that I think that's fantastic so I you know what I think we're obviously here to talk about where I was here to talk about drums in a box and we're just going to keep discussion going in the next question so how are drone in a box

**[2:05]** Solutions revolutionizing traditional methods of inspection and security so it's a great question I think I'll differentiate between absolutely so um inspection is limited by certain aspects of boy you can do when you can do it how you do it and so I think the drawing the Box technology is really rather these guys at because a few things remember one the amount of data you collect so just because you're able to fly more frequently you're able to fly as much as you want basically and not just trained by pilots now you've got all this other thing and they didn't deal with right and so for AI models or being able to lawyer things autonomously it's changed it in that way but secondary which kind of comes down seem a little bit of the same is you can get more frequent data so in additional more you know maybe I have an inspection cycle for example that was once a month once order once a year but 32 years and now all of a sudden I can do that inspection every day I can do it every

**[3:10]** hour by morning so so now as really rethinking the way I've done things uh to take advantage of the fact that I can do it right now sometimes I don't want to do it work but that's the job so that's that's that's on the inspection side right security is pretty obvious I I know I don't know how much they are down here uh in Canada the average cost of the security guard fully loaded is about 120 000. so it's a lot more than growing the box that you know many years of software and so for a lot of these things it's been dramatically reduce the cost but again they don't sleep they don't lose they don't need their boats they don't get bored um I'm sounding like a Terminator thing yeah that's that good way right it's like it's it's Terminator two of course it is yeah right um so that's really relation the way the rainbow to the body and what did they see I think that's really really important you've already sort of answered this question but let's maybe reframe it so we have sort of some of the you've mentioned the key advantages like are there

**[4:12]** this isn't on here I'm really throwing this in there it's very left field what are what are some of the maybe lesser thought of potentially drawbacks or cons because there's a lot of Pros you mentioned a lot of Pros what are some of the cons of a drone unbox solution that people may not be thinking of and how is the industry working to overcome mode so I think it's a great question because with any new technology you have font right so the first thing is you're you know you're something that was about because technology is you know you need to you need to get support right up and down the line right so you've got to deal with people that maybe you haven't had to deal with with true you know when you're flying you're consoling it you're looking individually and these ones ultimately the use case is just going to go by itself right so I know our regulator they hate the word autonomous right you could do his arm and slight you just can't oh don't call it that yeah um so so really one of the bitfalls is trying to go immediately to autonomous Speedy loss alterations right so

**[5:12]** you get ugandi and so you you need to manage extra vacations in turkey and think about it where okay well how can I start the small visual line of sight maybe I'm going to have digital Observer so I can break that down yeah um so that's that's one drawback the other one is um you know just trying to uh go back to what I said about data which is do I really need all this data right so you need to be very selective about your use cases because if somebody's going to say well I don't need it 10 times I just give me 10 Kai was more rather um and then and then the last thing is the you know the supporting is not perfect right so again we're looking at the DJI doc which is one of the best if not the best it's pretty reliables but if you're used to the reliability of an M Bernie T draw a little pilot it's not going to mean the same right I I think that's really important to differentiate uh because some of this technology obviously this this entire industry is not technology limited like I don't think

**[6:17]** that's ever going to be the problem that's never been the problem it'll never be the problem it's not the technology limited we're talking about sort of the the use cases the regulations the safety case all of the things that were sort of over time proving to not just sort of get industry approval but also public approval and Regulatory approval so those are all really important so but I want to like sort of dive deeper into a specific use case so can we talk about a specific use case where drone in a box technology has sort of significantly improved the efficiency of safety yeah so this is uh I'll take a quick step back so what we do at armas Canada for the latest technology is we rather than try and get people to buy it and just do their own thing we selected it's used for companies or beta progress and so we you know we bring it on site for a couple weeks we run on certain use cases things like that um and so one of the great examples we had an opportunity with the original doc uh

**[7:18]** which is like back last year so this was a pre-production model uh it was a little rough I'm not doing a lot um but we took that out uh randomly for a couple of days to a whit farm that we we work with a neurodrome partner uh of ours and so we just said hey we're gonna we're gonna bring you know they were interested in a couple of use cases we stayed there for a couple of days and we did a lot of things and the biggest takeaway from that was wind farms are actually an awesome place for a door of the Lots okay it's just because there's so many things that they could do that they are doing now so there's obvious applications that you would think of you've been in some kind of inspection of course it's just security look wind farms a lot of the ones at least this particular one they're in a remote area um so they're worried about Wildlife they're worried away people posting that what uh so you know people's shooting it while yeah well that so that was a great example of they're able to to use that for permanent security to have an idea of you know when you were coming in so they're like the accidents now specific to we can't automate uh wind turbine inspection just yet

**[8:24]** right um is it could be coming but but for the safety aspect is you know as up in Canada gets cold and remember um and so you can get allegedly ice developing on the nacelle or the bread so obviously until we're nearby blade is spinning at 200 kilometers an hour so that's what like 120 miles an hour it saves a lot it's fast very fast and if I started flying off of that thing you can cause a lot of Doubt so one of the things for you down you can do work work up and down is there ice on the blades is there ice on them to sell okay and so where that's according is if they're going to send an inspection team to be able to go up and see is it iced because typically if they see it's iced they're coming right back down but they're still a danger to them well it's there so they know that ahead of time they can mitigate they cannot go out they can't do that so so that's a great example of safety the other thing is cool what happens with wind fertilize is lightning strikes and bright right right so the obvious stuff and so what what what they do is they don't always have a an immediate

**[9:27]** idea of any damage right and so normally they're either going to shut that down or sometimes they might not shut it down but they'll call it proven and obviously you know there was a case in this say Wind Farm where a blade broke off let's see like half a lot so you had picking the size of winter like half a mile now if they've been able to opt in strike immediately get a drone up or autonomous so he had a drone up whenever this had an activity they'd be able to have a diesel uh understanding hey is there is there damage do we need to shut this down can we not shut this down right away so there's obviously there's a huge cost totally like as long so so that's a great example of just within the inspection line on how that ruined matters here say so and I'm realizing now as I'm reading through the questions and I've sort of already asked this question so I might mix it up just a little bit so I'm curious this is obviously very new technology but also not like the the application of drone technology has been around for quite some time I'm curious how do how does the

**[10:31]** industry as a whole I wanted to see your Kevin's perspective on this how does the industry as a whole how do we how do we sort of overcome some of the larger objections out there especially knowing that we are pushing further towards autonomy so remember in Canada regular deals ah yes just don't say the word don't say the word got it that's it what are you saying instead what are you saying you see um things acting on their own uh yeah we immediately need a little work with the mark maybe yeah maybe yeah so to answer your question so uh so I think that what you're doing we talked about it a little bit before is is you really have to position that this is this still made a product this is early stages so you know you want people to understand or look for innovators and we we want you to think like an innovator which is look there's going to be some Basics it's not going to be perfect we're gonna learn we're gonna iterate

**[11:34]** we're gonna get better so first of all is just to explain and make sure you have buy-in from you know from or whoever your partner is and I found this you when you position it that way that it's on and finish Park already you get a lot more latitude internally and and weirdly enough and get a lot more and get a lot more interest um and so so that's that's one way um certainly the other way is maybe again when we talked about the Ford Bill don't start with autonomous Theory laws right you you you can do different different things so you know we've done stuff in Canada where we went um our first you know be the laws so dividends were for at least for a dance for work right so it was there's it's a rural area there's a very low risk and so really worked on the regulator and get a regulars or this to happen the industry wants us to have yes so they're saying you know maybe you don't have to climb Everest on your first try you know maybe you can go to a local steam deal and night buff right yeah so those are those are the main things in terms of how you've been

**[12:34]** and the and the other one frankly is marker with the right with the right angle right and so you know within the industry on the hardware side well I'll say there's there's you know there's a lot of people that are are coming into it from a consumer Market not an Enterprise one right so they're going to think very difficulty one other and well they are and so they're potentially going to be able to to sell these things to customers as well but it's a process that you need somebody to look around when you're in black and so you you need to pick the right part of this computer and do that and that they have been internal with the people like FlytBase embedded the back edible right we we know you know again I'm not going to be perfect but we know that this is you know it's not going to fly away and cracks on me right right so YouTube YouTube absolutely thank you I appreciate letting me throw in a slight a slide area there um well so that's kind of all the questions we have today but Kevin this has been

**[13:35]** enlightening like I love talking about this technology I love hearing your perspective on this technology and what we're going to be doing with it to you know in the past today and in the future I think the the their your perspective is is a is fresh but it's also rooted in just a lot of experience and Enterprise experience I think that's really important so that's a a wrap on episode two of NestGen Express here at the FlytBase Booth booth423 um catch us on the next episode we're having a blast folks bye now