# Hextronics Global Advanced

- Event: NestGen ’22
- Published: March 4, 2022
- Length: 37:28
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/IZshUvKenZk/

> 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

Latest updates & full walkthrough of the modular battery-swapping drone docking station Hextronics Global Advanced engineered by Hextronics.

## Transcript

**[0:12]** hey guys hello and welcome again to the one of the most awaited demo sessions we are here today dive into the amazing drone battery swapping stations that houses refuse the drone by the one and only curtis level curtis curtis is the founder and ceo of hextronics a mechanical engineer from miami curtis studied at georgia institute of technology with his passion for robotics product development he started hextronics in an in an early 2020 and has been refining the design of battery exchanging docking stations ever since along the way the extronics team has won the engineering capstone design competition at kurtz alma mater graduated from gt creator x startup accelerator received recognition from the largest rich largest tech general in south florida refreshed miami and as enlisted as miami

**[1:14]** eno stopped under 25 25 companies hi good thank you thank you for joining us us here cut over to you without much further ado I'm here I'm excited to be part of nesgen can everyone see and hear me all right yes I think yeah okay great well I would definitely like to go into expressing my excitement for this uh for the show I think that we're really starting a new industry together especially with FlytBase and the and FlytNow and and ever since the beginning it's been great to work with the FlytNow team um helping us along the way and also being able to learn from each other many many special things about this industry and we're just excited for where it will go and where it will take us so ever since the beginning we started off with the vision of scalable reliable and portable machines all with the same purpose to launch control and schedule automatic drone flights and in order to do this we also understood that

**[2:17]** customers wanted continuous use so of course we had to have a rapid refueling station for these vehicles and in order for it to be uh like we said scalable portable and also cost-effective it should easily integrate with commercial drones in the market and I think we can all understand that the mavic 2 really really is a critical role in the fundamentals of pursuing drone autonomy with the docking stations that we're all producing today and so from this we've gotten interest from groups of public safety law enforcement who will use it to monitor crowds survey areas analyze crime scenes control traffic upon many many other use cases construction as well has extreme interest and use for this as they will deploy these docking stations at sites uh moving them from one site to another or just planting one in order to have constant um surveillance over the site and also constant

**[3:19]** awareness of what is going on and what is being produced agriculture as well livestock and and as well as crop harvesting many analysis tools are currently available on the market to view the actual video from the drone feed in real time near real time or even post processing in order to get health of the crops in order to understand how a yield is doing in order to map the fields and many other things that truly gives farmers an edge on getting the most out of their production and also we have had extreme interest from the disaster response um communities across the nation and the world where they really need to be able to do something like deploying a chopper on demand for search and rescue or for a wildfire or for an avalanche or for a hurricane response or even things such as reporting locations

**[4:19]** in order for the insurance um to understand what happened before and what happened after a natural disaster and all of this situational awareness is possible with the hexatronics docking station in the back of a truck uh some people say why not just fly it uh yourself from the truck well in many natural disasters the people that are on the field are the people that are the most valuable at the time and being able to deploy a chopper getting a third person perspective from individuals back at base who are have all of the resources in hand to provide a more conceptual understanding of the what is happening on the ground they can do it from a third eye perspective freeing the individuals on the ground to make the decisions and make the actions that's necessary and with the hextronics global advance really a portable battery swapping docking station is possible like never before and then it comes to asset inspection a typical use case where you survey systems

**[5:19]** that are in operation in order to get understanding of their longevity in order to get understanding of what maintenance needs to be created on them even things such as railway solar power line wind turbine energy roof many different areas that need either constant or routine inspection can be completely automated and analyzed simply with having one of the hexatronics docking stations planted in this in in the environment and from our initial launch uh kind of last year with FlytNow if you remember back in the day it was called the hextronics one um but ever since then we've gone to hextronics global simply because we've gotten global interest it's truly amazing the community that is growing around us and and pushing us forward um and we are really open to working with all these groups to make sure that they're successful and to make sure that they can truly get the use out of this product that the

**[6:21]** industry has been looking for for decades and and our ability to provide it at a scalable cost effective and also um weatherproof and very small package just just makes everything work work simpler for everyone and so let's just go some of you may have seen this but this is kind of the history of hextronics ever since we got the initial interest from making a docking station we figured out ways to swap the battery you guys will know this this track it's a hexatronics track but so we've learned that definitely prototypes are the easy part um what really it comes down to is how well your products can ship how well they can operate in the field reliably and also how compact and portable they are in transport and then of course also there's simple things like cycle

**[7:22]** just optimizing the cycle times to make the battery swap process a bit faster and then we really got into being able to analyze the battery's state of charge and also ensure that we're always working to pick up the correct battery for the system also what we've learned in making all these systems is how tough the environment is and also how much energy that the wrong sort of equipment can consume and so what we've really done it had many different cycles of iteration to find out the best most basically most rugged reliable compact and high performance system and this is only possible through rapid iteration design and testing from this initial launch we've had many shipments out to all corners of the globe really understanding how to make it work together

**[8:23]** and so from this we've come to the main product the hextronics global advanced it's really going to be the system that unlocks drone autonomy for many industries it's going to be the system that is the most well tested most well-supported and high performance system that currently exists as you can see we built it in mind for longevity and reliability in the outdoors and this is for the industry leaders to take their next step towards autonomy really this is this is the docking station that is kickstarting this industry and it has taken much pain from our teams here pain and learning and pain and growth in order to bring the system to you all today and we we we literally we don't sleep to make this happen for you all um and so we really need to go into kind of the specifications of what we've created and so we've we've designed it for a wide operation temperature and this is something that

**[9:26]** is extremely crucial and critical in all of these systems because when it's outside in different seasons and environments the sun is unforgiving and the cold is cold um so we've really put in the state a state-of-the-art compressor system which we'll talk about later and also an internal heating system that ensures that all components do not really go below freezing which could damage damage the the battery packs themselves and then we've gone into making it rain and dust proof we have systems already that have been sitting outside for four months and they still boot up even in the heat of the miami heat or in in in environments where it rains nearly three times a week and then upon our iteration cycles we've now been able to um to decrease the weight so now it's just under it's under 100 pounds which in order to do all this in one

**[10:26]** package and have the cooling necessary it's really one of the most compact systems that's even possible um and then we stuck to our anodized aluminum body um just because it is the the best to work with it's it's relatively lightweight and it can sustain the environments um very well and then our swap time of course gets quicker and quicker every day um through these little updates quicker and more reliable um we're always looking for ways to improve it um however it's it's it's sitting really good at more at less than 90 seconds swap time and we've clocked over 10 000 swaps on a single unit without any degradation of the part or lifetime and so furthermore we'll just go into it from another angle once again we'll touch on the compact and efficient cooling system and then also we have the capability to integrate cellular and gps capability directly within the unit this is powerful for our truck mounted systems where this docking station can

**[11:30]** move at any given at any given time and also we have a micro hard bullet plus router probably one of the most fastest 4g lte modems on the market the system is also designed for when 5g routers become easier to obtain and also the 5g spectrum becomes more widespread it'll be able to integrate very easily just by a couple nuts and bolts and then within the system we do have capability to charge six batteries relatively standard they all charge simultaneously and it's about 90 to 110 minutes to charge one battery what we've also designed really and put a lot of detail and intensive work with the FlytNow team um is the landing pad the self-centering landing pad and the back door that ensures that any orientation that the drone lands it's able to take off again and also be centered inside of the station um it's it's really a complex

**[12:33]** problem when when you try to funnel everything mechanically but we've been able to successfully do this with countless numbers of successful precision landings with the team um thanks to thanks to dhiraj and the precision landing guys we're really able to make a reliable system that comes back and lands every time and it's it's only going to get better and so from also inside we'll touch on the built-in backup battery we found that this helps a lot because it builds up a large level of capacitance which prevents many of the internal systems from going offline ever if there's a sudden jolt and it also enables the system to stay alive even if there's a power outage to the entire grid it can sustain up to two hours of of continuous life after unplugged which is enough for the drone to return back home and on top of all this what was one of the first things that we received from customers was saying this is great and everything but can we put it on our truck

**[13:38]** and first first and foremost we were we were a little confused about this but then we understood it's probably the best way to portably deploy one of these systems is just having it in the back of a standard truck so we've developed hex truck it is a standard shock resistance mount mounting kit that integrates within practically any truck bed um yeah practically any truck bed in actually most um most atp atv or mule beds as well and really all it requires is an external um an external inverter that draws power from the alternator of the vehicle and with the hex truck you need the cellular package so that you could really receive and transmit signals from anywhere with this also it generates a wi-fi hotspot so if you have one in in your truck you'd be able to um to tap into its wi-fi and really carry out any of your operations that you need

**[14:39]** and let's keep going so what we want to talk to at at hextronics we have a saying um that we're entering the drone industry with whole enchilada mindset and it's kind of a a miami type of thing just because of the culture down here but it's also the main principle of thinking about everything the whole enchilada and when it comes into everything you gotta be thinking about not only just can the docking station swap it's much more than swapping um it we we swapped over a year ago you know um and really what we've had to learn since then is how to make it for production how to make it for extreme climate control how to make it so that the batteries um really charge and have a good life cycle um how to make it so the network communication and so the whole um automation framework actually works and integrates perfectly um and a host of many other

**[15:40]** issues that also comes along with just being able to integrate with um traffic control systems or being able to plug into uh weather service providers and really make the definitions of is it okay to fly or not right now and this is really going to be kind of the last 90 percent of drone industry automation is okay great the station swaps and the drone can fly but what's prevent what like should it fly or should it fly in this region or if it can fly how can we make it fly safely so that beyond visual line of sight is not a blockade anymore but really it's kind of just everything that we need to have approved and checked off before we can understand that yeah it's okay we can have an autonomous flying drone it's quite insane that um humanity has has come to this but it's actually amazing and I don't see this as much of a of a blockade but more of just the next challenge that we've got to solve um

**[16:41]** together and from this okay I told you we touched back on this this is our state-of-the-art hvac cooling system this is actually the smallest commercial compressor available and it really goes to show that in order to get something like 400 watts of cooling which is necessary when you're placed in some tough environments even over 90 90 degrees outside in the hot sun you're going to get to temperatures that don't make lithium ion batteries happy and so for this you need an hvac cooling system I can't stress this enough but it's also something that is relatively complicated but we have figured out here at hextronics it's really a fundamental thing we call it uh internally we call it the hexvac but that's just it's just another step in the in the puzzle of full autonomy and so now we'll go into it I said prototypes were the easy thing we got the battery swapping a year ago um but what's difficult is bringing a new product like this into

**[17:43]** production um it is pretty hard um because any step of the way if there's one flaw the whole system collapses so we've detailed our whole production process and we followed through with some of the best the best production team here in miami and even in the world I'm extremely proud of these guys and I think that that they're really going to be the ones that make it happen um because you can spend all the time building them at 2am in your garage but it really only gets realized when you're able to build a family that can put this stuff um together for the world um and that's exactly what we've we've built here we're doing it all right we've got we've got about four to five thousand square feet uh we're being able to produce these things at 20 to 30 a month right now but we're aiming for uh to break 50 um pretty soon um dhl is some of our best friends there and we've really got our production and and testing sequence nailed down and it's only going to get better

**[18:46]** and it only gets better from the feedback of our customers and that's really what's going to help push us forward in the drone industry what's going to help us build the best products for you all for the for the service providers and for the users and really for the people that get benefit um we we need your your support and we need your input because right now we're able to do it and if if you want to keep um kind of going going into research and development for other stations or you want to kind of fuel your own system great but for the groups that want to start being on the forefront of drone automation technology and for the groups that want to start implementing drone autonomy as soon as possible we figured it out and we are the ones that are going to be bringing this industry forward and if you want to work with us

**[19:48]** our inbox is wide open and we're just trying to make sure that all of our agreements work with all the groups that we work with together so that we can all grow in this industry and so that we can all take advantage of the technology that we've been able to design invent and produce um and this is hextronics and of course there's something bigger coming um on the horizon that we'll talk about um on march 30th and so we'll direct you all there and if you come see our website I'm sure you'll figure out um that that we don't just work on one product um even though we figured one out there's always more to come right so I would just say uh while you were speaking right I can see a lot of customers uh in the chat section in the q a section and uh I'll be just taking all those quick q and a's one by one okay can we should we start sure okay all right

**[20:49]** yeah you got it so yeah I'll just I'll just go one by one and now you'll be taking all the time okay so one second right so there's a question or one question uh so do you have a system that are based around uh non-DJI drones so basically yeah no I mean basically a nxt yes yes um we're we're working on on on some some special projects but uh right now um DJI drones are the ones that are pretty much the most um scalable and the ones that we found the the best to develop with and develop for um in working with the uh with the FlytNow team um really we found um great reliability with the mavic 2 and of course with the whole enchilada and with the whole principle of drone autonomy um if the fundamental drone is is reliable that's how we can build a system

**[21:52]** around it um many many drones in in the field now that we're working with um are are just peaking that level of reliability and the mavic 2 was kind of the first for us to crack the code right now okay moving towards the next question which says so it comes to a question where he's asking um can we configure bht whether on a private cloud or a private mesh network and operate it inside a facility uh private mesh network so um really the the system itself uh has two internet options two network options uh it can be ethernet directly plugged in or it can be um it can be also through cellular if you are building your own private mesh network that could be through ethernet or even through a different signal band

**[22:53]** what you can do is simply have your own signal signal modem or router um plugging ethernet into the unit um and then if you want to have it private completely so that there is no exchange with the external internet even with the drone video feeds um this is something that um we would have to work together with um FlytNow um in order to um kind of push out the the off network or the private server version um that does not require authentication with the main FlytNow server um at all times but yes it's completely possible yeah yes so coming from coming to the similar kind of questions where uh so is the system uh possible to is this the system is possible to integrate with the inside which is a 4g cellular connection and can they be operations and can can they be used in operations you know

**[23:54]** with elsight I'm sure we've been working we've been looking at this um for a while um really it can work with any um 4g modem the fact for it to be integrated within the unit just simply the modem hardware has to have or the router hardware has to have simple sma type connections and that can mount directly within the unit we supply something like 12 volts to it and then it just needs to be able to provide ethernet for the other internal systems to consume so yes lci can definitely be integrated as well we've just we're still looking at many other providers and we have a slot right in the unit that's pretty simple to configure um with a system that you you would need so curt uh but which means we can configure our own private modems right there is a

**[24:56]** space to configure our own mod apps right exactly there's the space right there right okay so coming to the next question so well uh the new stations will be working with djm 600s you'll have to tune in on march 30th right sure okay so the upcoming question is how many amps of the electricity electricity are required basically in order to put a solar pass size of solar panel for the remote placements to provide the electricity to the box sure so the the station itself now uses um less than 600 watts and so this can be powered by 120 or 240 circuitry um and so if you're if you're developing your solar panel grid typically they're either on 12 or 24 volt circuits for solar and so really you would need about um 600 watts of of

**[26:01]** solar power and you'll you'll you you'll probably need a couple probably I'd say I don't know um 10 kilowatts of um 10 kilowatt hours of backup battery power just to be safe um and then also an inverter um with with you as well um and so if you're developing that package and would like some more communication regarding this please let us know and send us an email and and we'll work to really give some more specifications about kind of our internal included backup battery and then also the power consumption of our cooling system which is um which is the most most efficient uh cooling system on the market today all right so right coming up to the next questions can the xt box host two drones right now like the hextronics station um yeah so our our principle is because this industry is kind of just getting getting

**[27:05]** started our principles keep it simple with one drone one box so you can you can easily have two drones if you have two boxes and they'd be able to replace themselves in the air however yes we we we will we'll stick to one for now um in in the unit um it just it just makes the um the principle of um reliability um and and the principle of simplicity much easier um than if you want to have two in a system um and coordinating that effort it's it's easier to start with one than it is to start with two right okay so there is one more question coming to the like coming around the connection so the about the customs first custom drawn let's say if uh felt there I mean like you have already answered there'll be a chance you can put a non-custom drones also right

**[28:09]** on to the hextronics right I mean so there is one uh question regarding the clarification let's say if they don't want to use a child uh DJI drone or we would say in a chinese company law will there be a chance to host a custom drone which is based on the pixel or something else if it has a similar frame um yeah then I'm sure it's it's something that that could integrate well but I mean the process of battery swapping it's very um mechanical um in in nature and requires a certain reliability in the battery latching mechanism and if it's going for a custom drone we simply would need to come together and decide kind of the minimum order required for a system like this for our team to take on the research and development efforts to modify our system or work collaboratively

**[29:11]** to develop your your drone to interface with our system as easily as possible right so basically we have to work with the DJI I mean the battery is similar to how DJI works and all those kind of rnds will be required to do the same okay okay so I think there are many more questions so I think that is a generic question regarding the weatherproofing of the drone itself and during the flight uh I mean light weather how would the drone will react and the box will react are there any failsafe than welding sure so with um what we do is we ping um a few weather service providers to get the the predicted and the current weather condition of the station and we're working to make a basically not fly or no-fly kind of a flyer no-fly distinction on the environment so that um so

**[30:13]** that the drone does not run into a rainstorm typically a light drizzle it's okay to return home and then there are also ways to weatherproof the drone body itself um with kind of a drone wetsuit um we've seen these in in the market and definitely there's interest behind it um however the method of actually um taking out the battery um when the wetsuit is on um it's a little bit more difficult just because of the the air kind of vacuum that needs to be created um and so right now we recommend to check that the weather is good before flight because also I mean if it is raining there's a high chance of high winds and also high chance of low visibility and so it's that would be at a time when you typically would not be flying a drone anyways um and so right now for this for this product to get into the into the field without any large blockades um we just will have um simple prevention of any any

**[31:20]** any um any harsh weather that we would operate in we'll start with pretty much sunny or just a cloudy day and go from there all right thank you for that so uh there is one more question right regarding law the I mean the hardware integration of the box so uh so if there is any problem like let's say in the debris collecting in the launch tray would there be any upgrades coming to the system how can we avoid how are we going to avoid those let's say there are in their breathing so if you see in in the presentation we have now um kind of more more open areas in the the launch tray to kind of allow any any debris to simply fall through um and and it's it's it's not been a problem um I mean we haven't like dropped any heavy levels of debris inside of the system while it's open and it is designed to be

**[32:21]** open for kind of the minimum amount of time that's just for drone takeoff and drone landing and so right now we have not encountered any any problems with debris becoming stuck in the tray simply because we have now a tray with with holes in it and now we also do not keep the tray open for extended periods of time okay right so with like uh continuing with that will there be any plan for putting our heating elements for snow as well while we are scaling so right now we already have over 100 watts of heating within the system um there are some use instances where having a heating pad on the landing pad itself could be beneficial to basically warding off snow and also keeping the system cold even after a large snowstorm

**[33:22]** and then also there's a principle of snow buildup on the front which can be avoided simply by having the unit placed on a post rather than directly on the floor um and so yes um we're we're developing the the heating pad that goes on the roof of the system however right now we do have heating elements within the system that already are capable of basically melting off minor snow particles but I mean probably two inches of snow would take would take about roughly six hours to be melted off the station currently and so of course we're working to optimize this and we're looking for partners in the in the field because right now we are in in miami we're definitely looking for partners in the field to help test some of these initial designs for um integrated heating on the roof of the system right thank you good so I mean we since we are moving ahead with time I should just

**[34:27]** take one more question so what's the current battery so our failure rate uh like right on the system are there anything so the failure rate is less than point it's less than point zero zero one percent as we've had ten thousand concurrent without issues um it comes down to the initial calibration of the station which we do calibrate all of our systems before leaving the door so there should not be a battery swap failure um unless if the system either becomes manually miscalibrated or if it is um kind of um like dropped off your truck please don't drop the unit um but it should remain calibrated and there are a couple minor details that we have included within the actual firmware of the system that does some very intricate things with the stepper motors themselves in order to increase the reliability of

**[35:28]** the battery swap mechanisms all right thank you so much kurt for answering all those questions so uh audiences like if you have any other questions you can visit xtronix booths uh right by going into the reception and this by selecting the expo and by clicking on the register button and uh they will receive an email regarding the same and all those questions can be discussed again all right uh apart from that uh like before closing thank you kurt do you have any closing thoughts for this session now well just the thought of um excited to be in this uh with you all together and of course any feedback questions or or comments or suggestions are always appreciated um and we're just going to work to continue building these these systems um to be used um globally as it's it's what uh now we've we've eliminated many of the blockades that have been preventing drone autonomy um from really taking flight

**[36:33]** all right thank you so much for joining the session and I think you just gave us a quite amazing hint for coming upcoming m300 box we'd love to see see it in action so I think the other audiences are also waiting for the same and uh you can reach out to kurt and we have only dropped the contacts in the chat section so as you can see those over there and regarding this um I mean the rest is you can just go to the booth and like they've already explained and uh after this uh we we also have three upcoming sessions in next five minutes please visit the receptions for the sessions they have to learn more about the upcoming sessions thank you thank you god thank you it was nice to have you work of course thank you all