# Supercharging Industrial Sites with Drone Docks: The DSP Viewpoint

- Event: NestGen ’22
- Published: March 4, 2022
- Length: 46:04
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/Aoxv072Y9B4/

> 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

DSPs serve as the interface between drone-in-a-box engineers & enterprise UAS users. Find out what they learnt scaling & deploying the tech.

## Transcript

**[0:13]** hello hello everyone I hope you're having a great time at nesting the first panel discussion of the day is about to begin and so grab the cup of coffee and notebook and prepare to be glued to your seats I'm vaishali your host and moderator for the session and I have with me some of the most talented and visionary entrepreneurs joining me in this discussion today as nitin mentioned earlier FlytBase's mission has been to create ecosystem where professionals in complementary fields join forces to build and deploy a better more dependable affordable system that can be deployed at scale in short deliver drone in a box systems to the masses the ground warriors were achieving this and advancing this technology and deploying it in many industries that would greatly benefit from the usage of such systems our drone solution providers are popularly known as dsps

**[1:15]** in addition to making people's lives easier through the use of drones dsps are one of the first to accept and experiment with new technologies before they become widely available to the general public and we are today here to learn about the journey of the d space their obstacles that they have faced and the roads that they have followed to get to where they are now so without further ado let me go to uh and get to the introduction of our panel members I would first like to welcome tariq tariq is the founder and chief aviator at fred nassero joining us all the way from saudi arabia welcome to the stage tariq would you like to introduce yourself yes uh hello everyone thank you for joining us today we have a fascinating show for you all my name is tariq nasraddin I'm the founder and chief executive of theatre

**[2:17]** for furnace aero we are a drone service provider located in saudi arabia we provide services to mostly government and businesses all right uh let's watch a quick video of tariq I grew up around a lot of art and books my mother being an artist built my love for creativity but my greatest interest was in objects that fly which is why I traveled to the us to become a pilot a few years after I began working at the airport in the operations department where I was inspecting roads and runways I thought to myself why not do this type of inspection using a drone I believed in the potential of the idea but didn't know how to proceed then I decided to apply to the haddam starter accelerating and this is where the

**[3:19]** breakthrough happened today at fernandez aero we use drones to do our inspections our drone technology allows us to scan the location accurately and analyze the data carefully to ensure that there are no anomalies on site we have many plans for the future that mostly revolve around making our solutions autonomous today we are based in the cows technology park we are still in touch with our mentors from takadam and they continue to guide us every step of the way [Music]

**[4:23]** that was an excellent video tariq I'm sure this is going to inspire a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs in the audience today I'm gonna quickly move on uh to our next speaker or panel member yuji yuji is an uav expert and has been front-ending the drone operations at after fit japan welcome to the stage yoji could you please share a brief introduction of you yes sure thank you for having me here I'm really excited to be here representing after japan and I'm best in japan and actually it's time to go to bed usually but I'll do my best after fitting his japanese renewable energy company and having full life cycle expertise and capabilities in solar assets from construction to operation and maintenance so we are making and selling green energy to the company

**[5:23]** and the consumers and uh our mission is accelerate the energy shift by stabilizing renewable energy and we utilize the cutting-edge technology like drone and the ais we are relatively new company founded in 2017 but growing quickly and we have more than 25 branches all over japan and we have more than 50 certified drone pilot so in that sense we are not just a renewable energy company but also one of the biggest drone service providers in japan and we use drones for many purposes and I'll share the detail later but as for our main usage of this drone in a box solutions it's our operation and maintenance business in solar power plants and I do have a little video to show it's in japanese but we have uh english subtitle so please go ahead

**[6:26]** yes yes I'm gonna play the video right away yes [Music] small foreign my

**[8:04]** that is such a beautiful video yuji and I'm so sorry for keeping you up this late at night but then again I had to coordinate with multiple time zones so I apologize but then I'm sure we are going to have a great session ahead and the audience is going to love it moving on to our very next panel uh mohammed the mohammed is the founder and ceo of geodrone the aerial services and he is joining us all the way from dubai muhammad is also quite an influencer at linkedin welcome to the stage mohammed it is all yours hello hi welcome everybody this is muhammad chauki I'm the founder and ceo of geodrones geodrones has been here in dubai and the uae market for the past two years will specialize in providing drones services and solutions for multiple sectors and industries that such as construction oil and gas telecommunications

**[9:07]** renewable energy and much more so would you like and start the video vistali yes yes so let me quickly play the video so

**[10:16]** down [Music] there is such a killer video of mohammed and uh I'm sure we are going to have a lot of questions from the audience let's uh introduce our final and fourth panel member joining us all the way from italy is elia just a moment hi yes uh elia has been heading all the major drone projects at dronebase srl along with fabio welcome to nes chanellia please let the audience know about you thank you thank you bye sally I would like to start by welcoming again everyone participating to nasgen I would also like to thank you by sally and the whole flight based team for hosting hosting this amazing event allowing professionals you know around the world to meet and share their thoughts in on this very very hot topic nowadays about the future of drone automation

**[11:18]** so allow me to quickly introduce to everyone drum base we've been in this field since 2008 so 14 years of missions in delivering highly specialized unmanned aerial system for a variety of users from a city called rimini an italian town on the adriatic sea two worldwide destinations so our team is composed from various engineers specialized in the development integration and deployment of custom hardwares and softwares we have 3d designers designers and modelers for handling out all the design aspects of our solutions well who made actually very quickly for me at last this amazing background behind me so we have also a network of certified uav pilots for carrying out testing training providing services to our partners and clients and the team of consultants for all the aspects related

**[12:19]** to enact assa regulation certification authorizations uh just to to name one thing one of our pilots is actually the second italian pilot with an official authorization document to carry BVLOS operations in italy so uh let's just uh if you can just drop the video just yes yes we can come right up

**[13:34]** uh really good just

**[14:51]** this amazing just a quick a quick word on uh this video by sally this video was the presentation of the integration between the base on the docking station and the mavic 2 enterprise advanced you can see even in the video it was still when you look at the url it's still in beta so it was a very very fresh development that was made first fresh integrated correct yes I I mean we've all gone through the beta phase and thank you all for your support we are what today what we are today is all because of you uh so I think it's time to kick start the session we have seen some amazing gorgeous videos thank you again for sharing those with me let's kick start the session with the most sought

**[15:54]** after question which industries or application would see a rapid adoption of drone in a box systems uh muhammad would you like to share your thoughts yes from my previous experience here in the uae I can see the inspection and surveillance applications will attract most of the applications related to the drone in the box for an instruction when I speak about the remote sites offshore rigs or power plants or solar panel or solar farms I have even received some some real inquiries from clients they became very much aware about the solution they are asking about the technology what's available what kind of drones can be used uh we are here in the gcc uh it's it's famous for its uh rigid weather uh heat so the boxes need to be uh

**[16:56]** water and sand resistant plus it should have an internal heating system that allows the box to work remotely in this tough tough areas so oil and inspection is what we've heard from he thinks that's the best as area where we can see a rapid adoption of drone in a box systems especially in dubai so I'm going to move on to elia you've also been conducting frequent drone in a box demos with some of the largest government and private organizations in italy how has the experience been or how's the perception been out there yeah uh so by sally basically as you have seen in the video that video was actually made and the whole integration was made to do this important presentation in during last september in a very important place very historical historically important place it's a military nato military airport

**[17:59]** in the city of brutality it is the testing ground for dta ids leonardo which are italian companies in the field of manned and unmanned systems in that place a lot of aircrafts and systems get tested and approved just there so this is actually the between the the you know like how to showcase something new a new technology and a new concept so we had there the head of police department head of army head of firefights fighters navy and many important decision makers in the italian regulation and uh so during the main this event the goal was to promote drone automation and reach out to all these decision people uh you know to stimulate them in finalizing the regulations because here in italy it's still in an early stage there are no clear guidelines uh and all the authorization are handled you know uh with uh let's say on the spot

**[19:04]** so it's a specific use case specific scenario so uh we did an important demonstration with the first run of the integration between the docking station and DJI mavic 2 enterprise advanced with obviously the support of all your team I it was really amazing the intense work that we've gone through so the demo was very successful and I can tell you that the outcome the the goal of it is what you know the experience was very was awesome both for the audience and for us because we gathered a lot of attention we fought for our goal in investing in the future of drone automation because this is what we are doing because since we cannot really officially deploy stuff we are just investing in the future and setting up what will be the future of bb loss operation and automation that's that's amazing to hear elia and we we know though the kind of you know

**[20:09]** pressure you went through before the demos and you know the kind of um what to say the justice that you had to do to it so I think it was all worth and we should see rapid adoption of drone in a box system soon especially in the military that that's going to be a huge use case a follow-up to that again back to you earlier which industry is according to you based on your demos do you think the demand of drone in a box systems are from and what are the key aspects that your prospects have been looking for in uh these autonomous systems okay I'll answer the first question the second question first because it's quite yes it's linked to the first one you know the answer is quite simple these people these groups are looking for technologically advanced and innovative solution to automate tasks that are currently being executed partially or totally uh by people so

**[21:10]** for example search and rescue missions fire prevention fire responders etc so by raising the awareness on these topics uh they through this event they get stimulated those top-ranked people to start pushing in settling the regulations so they can start adopting it on a let's say national uh level so uh so yeah the technology is mostly what they are interested in and the the fact that you can reduce safety hazards to people uh by automating tasks through drones and uav generally speaking uh concerning uh the future of uh what would be d or any uh automation I see it debates as automating large-scale deployment of delivery or inspection or security or surveillance

**[22:11]** so I think the future will be in the integration of utms for a complete flight awareness when I say integrating with utms I see I mean everything related to navigation flight planning etc so that we can have some some let's say areas that are fully handled by automatic systems and can control the pathways of systems and approve flight plans and approve the navigation of uavs then obviously apart from the utms another point is that advanced ai automation so we need to have these capabilities uh where human there's no human mistake there so everything gets automated in a way that the drone just need to know where to go and then everything happens automatically

**[23:12]** right that's that's great to hear again elia I think we've been talking about various industries there was oil and gas there's public safety fire fighting so speaking of such various industries yuji has been working in a in a very uh special sector so my question next is for yuji after fit has been actively working in the renewables industry with a mission to accelerate the energy shift to greener energy so you've been spearheading the adoption of drones and out of it so what are the different areas that you've been draw using drones and especially the drone in a box systems for okay so we've been exploring the potential of drone usage and renewable energy industry for more than four years now and it's not something brand new to the people in the drone industry but we've been using mainly for three offices first one is one serving in the construction phases of the poplars we use photogrammetries and lighter

**[24:13]** for serving because there's not much flat land in japan so most of the solar power plants are built in mountains area so it is crucial to you know doing a proper surfing and design solar farming 3d and minimize the influence of the shuttle and so that we can build a beautiful and efficient problems and the second usage is the construction progress monitoring again we use a photogrammetry using a photogrammetry and creating a ortho mosaic and [Music] point in the cloud development phases we measure the volume of the soil and also the construction phases we visualize the pile and beams and modules how many percentage we've completed

**[25:18]** for the installations and lastly after the builds the power plants we use it in operation and maintenance purposes using infrared camera doing an inspection to find anomalies so it used to take two people half day to inspect one megawatt site but it can be done in 10 minutes one flight and we use ai to generate uh report and find anomalies so it's almost like automatic and so all of these use cases can be used but we we still have to you know travel to the site but this with this drone in a box solution we don't even have to travel and it's really helpful especially you know these days

**[26:19]** uh let's say after the heavy rain which which really happens frequently these days and we don't have to go to the site and we can fly after the rain from the office that's really beneficial thanks yuji you've shared some great points uh right from automating missions and you know carrying out mundane operations flying over the solar panels at a daily level do you know for oem purposes o m purposes uh or carrying out security operations everything can now be automated with drone in a box technology and you've been uh showing and leaving by example uh I I'll move on to tariq you've also spoken about ai and most drone in a box solutions that are available today mostly uh you know automate the complete workflow that is the drone takes off from the box goes captures data flies a mission comes back lands itself but then there is more to it

**[27:21]** and um my question for tariq would be uh that may not always solve the end user problem and might need deeper level insights how is finance aero bridging this gap okay um thank you for your question so uh for us early on we realized that uh the end product that the client consumes is actually the data and not just draw data we can't hand the client 10 000 images and expect them to do something meaningful so a lot of analytics is is required mainly object recognition or pattern recognition or discovering some type of anomalies when you're doing different types of inspection like what my colleagues have mentioned either in oil and gas or in solar and that is actionable data that creates value for the client so we start from the end always and ask ourselves the question what is the uh how does the data

**[28:25]** need to look like in order for the client to to gain value from from that data and then we we walk backwards and we we design the ai models or the automation based based on that requirement so so for us it's and I remember one of our clients who is like one of the big clients here in the government he said I don't care if the drone flies by itself or somebody flies it or it's in a box or whatever you do what I'm more interested in is the accuracy and the speed of the data so it has to be almost instantaneous and at the same time very accurate so they can make decisions based on that yeah that's great to your again to give the kind of accuracy and the speed especially drone in a box systems are going to be a great use case uh again uh moving back to you tariq speaking of security as one of the verticals because that's

**[29:26]** where I think since the initial uh even days even before drone in a box uh solutions were gaining momentum it was one of the key applications for commercial drones were security ops you've done a lot of work in the security domain how does based on your experience how is autonomous tech aiding the conventional security processes okay um so so security we in the beginning we try to target like large campuses or areas that have usually they do security with like a patrolling vehicle and with the with the with the with the weather here in the gcc like similar to dubai it's a very harsh environment very hot environment for most of the year so that was a very unreliable solution so having a drone station positioned in specific locations that can do this patrolling in an autonomous way throughout the day and night and then you would add some layers

**[30:26]** of artificial intelligence or object recognition whether it's like a car parked in a wrong position or like you can get the license plate or a person who is in an area where they should not be there and then it will send out an alert to the security team and then they can go and check it out so they can focus more on on other tasks other than the mundane just driving around a perimeter or a fence to to check it out over and over again because it's very inefficient not just the efficiency but also being cautious about the environment and just burning all this uh all these fossil fuels and just driving this car aimlessly so so the drone box definitely provides an option that is not always not just much cheaper but also much more effective and you can add like when you add like uh cameras like thermal cameras then you have even additional things that you don't have with

**[31:27]** conventional methods all right uh thanks again uh tariq for sharing this uh speaking with because of discussing dubai and uh as seen as in the news the commercial drone market in the uae seems to be booming mohammed could you share some insights or you know like a 10 000 feet view of the commercial drone industry in dubai well as per the statistics the the commercial draw mark will reach about 1.5 billion dollars by 2024 so that's a huge amount of investment that will be put into multiple industries such as in the military or construction am I audible yes we can hear you yeah so so it's expected to reach about 3.5 billion dollars in the middle east and

**[32:29]** specifically for the for the it's about 1.5 billion dollars and a good sign of this can was seen in the previous dubai air show that was happening the past november in 2021 where we have seen all the country countries are participating the officials and how the drone industry or the aviation industry in general have been playing a big role in the economy of the country thank you mom with the for sharing such positive insights on the drone industry yeah come on come on to dubai bring in your investments do we are here to do to help you in your projects both welcome if anybody wants to reach out to mohammed please drive into the chat or you can visit the booth and he'll be there to answer all your questions with regards to the industry in dubai moving to yuji uh yuji you've been one of the early adopters and uh being an early

**[33:31]** adopter comes with an own set of challenges uh what were the major challenges that you faced in terms of adoption especially in japan well I don't think there are many challenges that are japan specific but if the regulation is kind of similar with other countries and a lot of paperwork going back and forth and uh we are in the transition period uh for uh remote ids and maybe this is japan specific but we [Music] yeah right and the registration of aircraft will be mandatory and yeah I think it's the same and pilots licensing system and these things and in terms of bb loss operation in japan uh delivery is uh much more advanced than inspection and experience so

**[34:33]** we we have our expert inside the company from those the guy from those experience so we we've managed to have the vivi lost approval for the first time in japan with using DJI drone in solar pop once but yeah that's a that's a great uh example if anybody in japan wants to learn more about how to get vivoli's permissions with a DJI drone please reach out to yuji he's available in the chat available in the chat as well as in the booth of afterfit uh okay let me quickly move on I'll move on next to ellia I've heard very different um opinion on the italian um drone landscape so why don't you share some about how the drone landscape and awareness is in italy are there a lot of restrictions from authorities or is it

**[35:34]** favorable to conduct uh BVLOS as well as drone operations okay so uh basically here in italy by sunny there is a good awareness of these technologies but there is still no regulated just a second so uh so basically there is good awareness of these technologies but uh but still there is no regulated infrastructure in order to be able to deploy those systems and use them as it was intended to so whatever is being done now is just subject to long authorization processes and this these authorizations are only valid in these specifically you know like scenarios uh so for that reason we are actively promoting and investing in this uh

**[36:36]** in this you know direction in order to increase market awareness and involvement in such technology so uh in our opinion it is the perfect timing to develop now to promote and test these technologies because this is what we've been doing here now so the awareness is there it's just a matter of setting up all the regulations all right I think that's that's pretty much a blue ocean in italy and we would love to see more adoption and thank you again ellia for front you know front running that whole effort uh taking the word out spreading the message on how drolls and drone in the box units can be used in italy uh moving back to tariq what what is the user as well as authorities perception of drone in a box deployment in saudi arabia specifically um so here it it's definitely a new concept um one of the main challenges we are

**[37:36]** facing constantly is trying to explain to the client what is the drone in a box and why do they why will they benefit from it and we we tried when we first started we tried the conventional methods which is through like meetings and powerpoints and obviously when we first started it was still at during covert time so it was very challenging to meet people in person so it that that experience was uh unsuccessful we were not able to to to explain it properly or or showcase it properly and right now we found that the most effective way is actually going to the client with one of the stations and sitting up in their location and doing like a one day or sometimes maybe three days like a live demo and they can sit and watch the dashboard and see the mission planner and see the box open the don't fly it comes back fully autonomous and that

**[38:40]** starts their imagination going so they can uh so all of a sudden they will say okay we can do this we can do this so so they can see where this solution would fit in their organization and how it can help them uh problem solve because if if you send a video it looks very cgi or like what am I looking at it's not very clear but when they see it in front of them it's it's a completely different story this has been the same with with also the regulator in the beginning they were of course like many of the aviation regulators in different countries it's a new technology so the adoption takes some time uh sometimes there is no regulation so you need to just get like a special permit or a waiver but so far this was the most successful method is is through live demos and that's how we've been able to secure our clients

**[39:41]** thanks again tariq for sharing such a wonderful advice I think even elia corroborates the same thing that demos have been helpful you know to put the word out on drone in a box units and how uh you know industries can adopt drones um I think one question that I need to ask which is in popular opinion uh jio drones uh to mohammed geodrone's provides flying permits and rpas drone pilot training so one question that constantly keeps you know popping up in people's mind will drone in a box completely replace pilots what what is your take on that um on the contrary it will create extra opportunities um actually even if you have drawn in a box solution still you you still need your pilot the pilot if whether he is on the field or he is monitoring the operations from remotely you still need to have the experience and the mission

**[40:41]** planning management and manage managing the live stream uh managing the data with the with the clients so the pilot anyway needs to be to be there to monitor the the the full full application and and also from my point of view as we are in the infancy stage for the drone in the box uh we approach the clients with the drone in the box solution we we operate everything remotely but the client still has to be there on the field in case of any emergency or any unexpected results that happened especially with the bigger drones for example you are talking about m300 drones or bigger still needs to be regulated and managed maybe the charging station is not working for bigger drones so it need to be manually replaced some some some technical management needs to be done by by the drone operator and here for the uae

**[41:46]** to get the permission you have to have a pilot on the ground drawn in a box or normal flying you have to have a pilot so still the pilot need to be on the ground next to the box even if it's working autonomously we are we always need the pilots they are we cannot get rid of them yes correct uh again I think at the early stage there has to be more of you know visual line of sight operations uh at the same time keeping safety in mind so uh thank you again mohammed and for sharing the positive uh you know note of how this is not going to affect a lot of pilots uh second I I think we are almost up on time it's it's been 45 minutes and it just passed we didn't realize it was 45 minutes since the conversation started I would like to ask one open question it's open to all if anybody would like to uh you know take that up uh if you would have to share

**[42:47]** one advice or one piece of advice to any budding entrepreneurs or dsps in the audience what would that be uh would anybody like to take that question well I can advise the entrepreneurs to check uh what do the client want not what are the services that we are offering so first let's see their challenges their pain points um is it timing issues is it safety issue is it cost which which issue that you need to tackle so that in this case you can't come up with an exact proposal that matches or perfect with the with the client needs as tariffs have said um that doing a one of their clients have said I don't care whether it's autonomous or or manual I care at the end about the value of the data that you're proposing to me so that's

**[43:50]** the key um yeah I can I thank you muhammad I can add also one short point is try to specialize in something don't try to do everything for everyone because it's not gonna work that way you know in the beginning everybody was very excited and we tried to do all industries and all but each industry each segment requires different set of skills different softwares different image analytics different types of drones so you need to find in your market what's what's the opportunity and then specialize in that and then you can gain expertise in that field and then you can branch out to other segments that's a good tip thank you again tariq thank you mohammed for sharing these insights thank you all for your time today's session was indeed an attestation to the fact

**[44:52]** that autonomy is going to be the future and thank you for showing the path to adoption and how all our fellow entrepreneurs can reach there um would anybody like to share any closing thoughts before we close it out well basically I just would like to close saying thanks to you for uh hosting this session and thanks to your team for hosting this amazing event it was a pleasure being here and I hope uh more will come in the future thank you thank you alia for your kind words we are sure gonna come back with more content and more such sessions uh look forward to see you all again and thank you audience for joining us and uh have a great time at nesgen we have three upcoming sessions coming up next so please go to the sessions tab or to the reception area to see the upcoming sessions and uh enjoy

**[45:54]** thank you very much vishali and thank you thank you everyone thank you bye