# Building Blocks of a Successful Drone -in-a-Box Trial Program

- Event: NestGen ’24
- Published: April 11, 2024
- Length: 46:13
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/PT2iy2lUdtQ/

> 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

Explore firsthand experiences and expert insights from industry leaders in this informative session on drone-in-a-box trials. Hosted by Jackie Dujmovic, CEO of Hover UAV, and featuring Ed Boxall, Managing Director of Sensorem, the discussion delves into the intricacies of implementing drone technology in various sectors. From regulatory approvals to technology integration, discover the key elements for a successful trial program. Gain valuable knowledge on selecting equipment, defining concepts of operation, mitigating risks, and ensuring operational efficiency. Whether you're a novice or seasoned professional, this session offers essential guidance for leveraging drones in your business operations.

To know more, visit:

=====
Subscribe to FlytBase YouTube -

Follow Us On -

LinkedIn -
Facebook -
Twitter -
Instagram -

## Transcript

**[0:20]** hi all and um welcome to the NestGen session for our building blocks of sucessful drone in a box trial program um firstly I'd like to thank our title sponsor DJI Enterprise and also sponsor sunflower Labs also I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the team from um FlytNow uh for hosting this fantastic event as well um my name is Jackie dumovich I am the CEO and founder of hover UAV um now being I think this is my third year I'm being involved with the NestGen so so excited to be back and this year as a moderator um I um hover UAV is based in Australia and we're regulatory approvals sort of we that extra support companies go to to get their regulatory approvals um we've got a great speaker this session um and we're going to run this session a little bit different from normal we're going to do it more like a fireside chat um the speaker tonight is Ed boxel the managing director from sensor room um we've actually known each other for a little while so

**[1:22]** we thought we just uh have a conversation throughout this session um Ed welcome um and if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself thanks Jackie um great to be here good to see you again um and um thank you for also for flight Bas for inviting me to share some knowledge on this particular topic um have a a passion with regards to the Drone in the Box um solution um so yeah and and welcome to everyone that's um viewing this session at the moment wherever you may be around the world uh even in the chat uh when the uh when it started about an hour ago just seen people from all over the world um us uh Poland uh in the Middle East so um but before we begin Jackie um just a quick shout out to the sorum team um that's around Australia um also our friends and colleagues um from the many aerodine group um subsidiaries and partners we an aerodine um subsidiary um so it's I'm sure there are plenty of the aerodine group subsid and partner people um that are listening to this session or watching this session so um I'm Ed uh managing director at sorum um we are a um

**[2:27]** a drone um service provider but um even uh even more than that we're about technology integration digital transformation so we integrate Cutting Edge drone and remote sensing Technologies plus Aid driven software into various aspects of our clients businesses um sorum's been around for over a decade now um providing um really unique services to agriculture um you know critical infrastructure utility and Mining uh in a 2020 we joined the aerodine group um and that really um did um a allow us to um boost our um you know opportunities um in Australia so yeah that's um that's me um I'm located in Perth um Jackie I know you're on the other side of the country so it's six o'clock in the evening so it's quite reasonable time um for me so and I appreciate there are a lot of people out there that are um early in the morning so thanks everyone for for joining us thank you Ed for joining also just a reminder this session is being recorded um so we can watch at a later date as well

**[3:27]** also please start posting your comments in the chat even if it's just to tell us where you're from at the moment or what time it is as well um as said it said I'm on the East Coast of Australia so it's pushing uh just 8 o'clock at night so luckily I've got the kids to bed so hopefully there's no um interruptions coming from behind me throughout the session as well so let's get started Ed um sort of you know what you've been you've got some fantastic work that you're doing as you said through you know mining and utilities and talk about throwing the boxes with me let's yeah absolutely yeah yeah great um thanks Jackie so I I I presume you can see the can you see the slide there Jackie we can't if you want to just press not yet okay let's see if we can get this um up and running so oh it's up now I can see it I think I think someone in the background has got involved there um Jackie so I look I think I think um you know before we start the

**[4:28]** slide or you know this this first first page um and when we chat about this particular project um that we're involved in at the moment it's currently ongoing but just drone in the Box projects in general I think it's worth noting that it's just you and me here but it it takes a a large talented and dedicated group of people um to make this project happen uh projects happen so it's not just um the staff within um sorum uh it's also our contractors um suppliers um and our and our client who who are committed to constantly thinking outside the box it's use the pun um and helping make this project successful and um full transparency um hover UAV was obviously integral in that um from a regulatory side of things so um for those out watching um that's hover UAV did did a fantastic job on that side and so um you'll provide some really interesting insights for us um with regard to this project so thank you Jackie um so yes yeah no worries building blocks for a

**[5:28]** successful drone in a box program I don't think that a year or a year and a half ago I would have thought that I would be sitting here talking about um six um nested drone Solutions or drone in a box sitting out in um Regional Western Australia being operated from the room that's right behind me um sort of you know 14 15 hours a day seven days a week so this is um super exciting how quickly the technology is um is changing so maybe Jackie um if you could give us a bit of a rundown on um on this on conops and what does that mean and definitely conops is definitely something and look I know that everyone's in different parts of the world so sometimes I might relate back to sort of Sora or the jarasa quite a little bit as well um it's a methodology used from The Joint associations of Ru making for uncr systems it's probably there used to be 62 countries last time I looked but I'm pretty sure there's a lot more countries around the world utilizing now so a lot of the

**[6:29]** terminology use from that um we'll talk through our conversation today and conops is one that they Define but basically I think it's really crucial and I'm sure look I'll path back to Ed soon to talk about their concept of operation but coming up with a plan of why you're doing something so what are you going to do what is the outcome you know what height you're flying what you want to fly all of those details is so crucial um we're going to talk a little bit about the regulatory side later but not having a firm idea of how you're going to do it and what you're going to do really mck you up later on as well because you know if you're saying that you know you're flying in a farm or a mine or you know from a police station roof or whatever you may do there's different risks associated with that um so then the regulatory process or the type of equipment you need may change so a concept of operation is really all of those different elements from as a mentioned where you fly um what

**[7:32]** you're going to use all the safety equipment you're going to use it's all of that information that then can be utilized to further develop your safety plan and your testing parameters and things like that so Ed tell us about how you got started with your con conops was it your idea or was it your client's idea look I think I think it was um a bit of both to be honest I think they had a problem that they they they knew that they were going to eventually use remote sensing Technologies he didn't know what it was going going to be um and I think often we uh we see clients that come to us and they have certain expectations on what this technology can do but they don't really have an understanding of um some of the regulatory issues um that might occur um and so I think it's about sitting down with people with clients and giving giving them really clear expectations um so um getting those ideas and then forming them saying hey look this is what I think we can do um now and this what we can move to in the future and that's exactly for this project that's what we did

**[8:33]** with the with the client so they they had an issue with regards um to um collecting data at remote sites that were often unmanned at this time of the year particularly um and they can't have people everywhere they've got over a hundred um sites that are in these remote and Regional areas and and so we we gave them a proposal on how we could potentially solve that problem um talked about timelines um from sourcing equipment sourcing software um timelines with regards to approval processes writing these risk assessments and then obviously the big one um is how much does it all cost um obviously this technolog is quite new and so the pricing for these sort of things um can be a little bit um in the air until we really start to get down to the nitty-gritty and say this is exactly what we're going to do this is where we're going to fly this is the height we're going to fly Etc so from from us the first thing that um once the client knew what um some of or we understood what the client

**[9:35]** wanted to achieve then we had to said about selecting um equipment and and software um I suppose for us um we were pretty lucky um being part of the aradine group we were able to travel to Malaysia where we had a number of different um drone in the Box Solutions um so we had a look at those um and then we basically decided on using the um DJI um dock in the end um obviously the reason you know there's always reasons for using different um Solutions and for us um the DJI doc was really just about um having access to um suppliers in our region uh and that also um boiled down with regards to software where we chose the Flight Hub to because we had resellers in our in our region um we're quite remote um Perth is one of the most remote capital cities in the world um so to be able to have equipment inevitably with this technology equipment um can fail um and if you need to get that to the client pretty quickly we need to have reseller so that's how we went about um selecting the

**[10:36]** equipment selecting equipment is definitely sort of you know a big part of it um I've been involved in a few trials now um early on for droning the boxes and have trial you know multiple systems from you know ppto to hexatronic to omnid do to the DGI doc to he hexatronic docs and you know picking that right selection you know there's no one solution for everyone at this stage I think as well so it's sort of you know understanding like what we said about the conops understanding what you need and what data you need to collect to make sure that you know what you're going to have the hardware that's suitable for that job and the suitable drone or the RPA that you need and then the suitable software as well not not every software is is exactly the same so some software are more designed for you know um survey and some might be more designed for inspections and things like that so it's really um selecting your right equipment that's right for you and when you're doing these trials or if you know if you're doing a trial in the future you might be trialing

**[11:38]** multiple at the same time as well just to really Define what you need yeah and I I think it's important for people um who are moving into this um into this technology um to doing some trials to understand that there it's there's not one solution that's going to solve all those problems um and then it's about then how does that shape your risk assessment how do you go back to the client and say hey look you know it's just you know there there's there there are multiple Solutions it's not um you're not going to be able to solve all of your problems um with the technology as it is now um but you know we we've think we found a solution that will will work best so um from there I think um we just we moved on to then working out um the parameters for the project you know what that equipment and the software how that was going to work on on our client's site um and then we just had to work out the parameters that we set what what were the sort of the goals was it you know to be able to collect like was it you know to see if you could get through the regular or was it to see you know if

**[12:39]** the hardware would with withand or was it just to see if it could do they really only cared about the data and the the end product and and weren't that um process as long as you got to the end look we are very we were very lucky with this particular client they actually have a in-house Innovation department now you can imagined um they're really enthusiastic about this sort of technology and other remote sensing technology so they had an open mind they knew that this was um obviously trying to solve a problem that they had on site um but it also they were very interested in how does this technology survive the harsh conditions of Australia so we have had like for example today um out on site it's been about 25 de C but it was 46 deges CS last week um so how did these systems survived as the air conditioning work its Dusty um environment so they were very interested in that I mean I mean we'll come to this a little bit later on when we're talking about recording you know what's the

**[13:41]** success how does how do you measure the success of a project um but they wanted to make sure all of these things you know were these systems um portable you know could they pack them up and move them to another site if they wanted to do another trial somewhere else so um you know that were some of the things we discussed with a CL with a client yeah and that that's sort of what I'm seeing as well at this stage it's you know making sure it can fit during a test and a trial it's how that they can fit it into their workflow as well so they want to know you know what involvement you know what is the reliability um the weather is a huge thing here in Australia it's like and especially on some of our minds there's a lot of Red Dust trying to get into all those little premises and or there's you know um I know Paul's speaking today as well from surf life saing you know otherwise we've got a lot of coastal environments where there's a lot of sea salt and things like that so definitely seeing how that they they with stand um which you know what at this stage some of them are doing

**[14:41]** okay um and with you know some that you know that have had some easy fixes like you know just some extra seals and things but you know everyone's still trying to to obviously it's still trials for a lot of these drone the Box manufacturers yeah agreed look once we got to that point where we had decided on what the parameters were we we knew what the problem that would needed to be solved we' selected the the Drone we selected the software then we went about Gathering people around us like your um self Jackie and hover UAV plus um it Specialists um people that create you know um VHF radio over the Internet we we've got all of those suppliers and contractors together um we chose the right ones um that that had the same vision as us and also our client um we needed to make sure those people that were around us were solution focused because we knew that we were going to come across technical issues regulatory issues along the way and so we had to select the right team which which I think um Looking Back Now 100% we did so um you that was good so that's the

**[15:46]** most important thing and that's the most important advice when you start something like this it's a long journey and those that are around you need to be um solution focused and realize that it's not potentially as easy as it seems when you read the user manual um it's not just putting a uh drone in the Box solution out on site and um away you go um there are some there are quite a lot of other bits and pieces that go on behind the scenes y agree um all right I'll move on to the next slide um this is your area of expertise I did I did I did watch in Wonder um as this unfolded um over the first few months of this project so um I'm going to let you talk about the basics of how this process works yeah definitely and look for those I know that you can often um look back on the FlytBase and FlytNow um website and some of the old ones over the last two years I have actually done some full Sora overview for drone in the boxes um but as mentioned before we do use the Sora methodology here in Australia and surprisingly you know I see so many surveys come out on

**[16:48]** LinkedIn saying you know what are the biggest challenges that you know people from around the world are facing for this sort of integration and Regulatory seems to be at 80% um T I'm we see look we're doing all right in Australia we we're sort of the regulatory process is going on um and some of you might go I'm GNA say oh you know what it you know took three to four months it was so slow and then I'll probably get some comments back in the feedback it takes a year or two years where you are so um we're really lucky that you know Australia we are a very large C country um we have low ground risk which so low population density and our air risk is not that high as well um which is a great place to start Beyond visual Lin ofite so we follow the normal Beyond visual Lin site um methodology and filling out the Sora looking at what are those risks where are you actually flying um you know are we expecting don't forget you're not on site anymore you're going to most drone in

**[17:50]** the box companies that you know are doing trials um like Ed I think I might be able to see it in the background where his remote operations is but they're flying from office you know sometimes in a different state or definitely in a different location so they can't you've got to start thinking well you know you've often used your eyes before to mitigate the risk so you you know you've looked around and said yep there's no air traffic or you know there's no people but you're using other tools so you you may be using you know radio I know I' mentioned VHS before you may be using things like um notams and um cameras or whatever the other mitigation measures are you've got to start thinking about how you going to mitigate that risk to the air and the the other air users and also the people on the ground as well that's sort of where you start um and then there's a lot of paperwork but as I said it really comes down to if you've got a defined concept about operation you can work out what risk you have and then once you know your level of risk you can start working out the solutions to try to

**[18:52]** solve that so I'll add to that Jackie just um when we when we went through through this particular process um we realized that that we what we would want to do for the for height and the area particularly for where we wanted to that it really wasn't necessary for us to actually be that high or go that far out on this particular site and I think it was about saying this is our ideal situation for our client um and then we can actually then just shrink that down it then makes it easier to get this process across the line with the regulator um and I think that what we found and it keeps everyone happy so it keeps timelines on track and I think that uh it's important important to understand that regulator particularly in Australia I'm sure in other places around the world they're still learning as well and often they're learning from from um from people like um sorum and hob um they're learning all of these things and they're Gathering data but they're taking a cautious approach to

**[19:52]** start with so um I think it's just about being sensible and saying what do we really want to achieve here yeah I think every country around the world love I still don't really get it because I love to just run but they love the craww walk run approach um as well so you know yeah like defining or pulling in those areas or you know if you've got this brand plan of doing it on you know a trial on 20 sites but then you realize to a right near an airport or you know to a right near you know a football field or somewh where it's quite quite busy it might just be pulling back those areas a little bit you know moving the operational volume or just say hey you know what phase one get that regulator on S side like get that experience and the data of like you know the reliability start on some other sites and then expand out so it's really yeah knowing where you're going to operate the one big thing that we find that people jumping to BV loss in that thing you really need to know your equipment so you need to know what your fail safes are you know some people have been flying

**[20:53]** for years and I don't really understand like you know what is the latency and what's all the different requirements but you there's so many different elements um from you know sorry let throw back to Ed you like you know the communication links is a huge one that you know you've got to try to solve you're now flying in a different location so um do you want to just actually I'll pass to you for this one like what are you using for communications are you using sty link or or yes I think for for us we were very fortunate that um some of the Stars aligned um and we have the opportunity to use starlink it's available um across across Australia now um 12 months a year and a half ago it wasn't um so we are using starlink which gives us a great um connection back to our um to our office here in per so we're about 5 to 600 kilm away from where the actual um Nest drone Solutions are located so we um use starlink to send back um VHF radio over the Internet we also use that for um the

**[21:54]** CCTV camera the cameras that come on um the DJ DOC for example um are okay for having a look at what's happening right there at the Drone to make sure the props are okay Etc but it doesn't give you a full 360 degree view of that area at a at an appropriate height so we had to add in a CCTV camera and and obviously then VHF so it's all just streaming back um to our office um at pretty high speed which is which is great so the Lany is really low um I suppose the other thing though as far as just you know we looked at some of these areas and they looked like they were in the middle of nowhere um we saw an air strip didn't look like anyone was going to be there um or Landing there uh it was pretty overgrown with grass so the research that went into actually finding out who goes and lands at these air strips you you can't put someone there just for 12 months and just hope that you'll find that one person that uses that air strip so it's about doing a lot of research with you know local

**[22:54]** authorities and councils people that maintain those air strips to say who comes in here how often do they come in here um to to make sure that the regulator was happy that we did done enough research to say that we had a very good understanding of what was going on how often does the local park get used by sporting teams that's really close to the site um those sort of things the the regulator was was saying there's no excuse to say well we went there on one day and there was no one there so no one uses it that's that's not that's not good enough so a lot of research go on into it so I would say my advice to people is be patient and do a lot of research um because you want to be informed um about what's going on on these particular sites and going there for a week may not be enough of a snapshot so I mean our sites were also unique because although we have a lot of mining which is very safety orientated and and closed off the areas that we're operating are actually near homes um residents that um have a right to to feel um safe with drones flying around on these

**[23:58]** sort of remote operations yeah and it's one of those things that concept of operation may change like you know when you're there you working with in a trial situation you're working with a client it's always good to look at that regulatory aspect before the client goes you know what I'm going to pick this and I'm going to pick this area like try to get them to pick five areas and then do a regulatory analysis on those areas um yeah you just don't want to go in really hard to start with and say right I'm going to fly right near Sydney airport as my very first drone of the Box trial air risk is really high so it's really important that you know the regulatory requirements also is taken into consideration with the conops and you might actually you know start going through this safety case and go yeah this is not not going to work very hard or you know what it can work but the the a lot of regulatory um you know from around the world it it might be a longer process so you know sometimes harder is it's just you know might be a year weight or you need to get

**[25:01]** third party certification or or there's different components also you might need additional equipment they might sort of so the cost goes up so the Don in the box is not the only elements um I've heard it's just been talking about all these other elements he put in there from a safety perspective because he needed to get that through the regulatory safety case so you know we saw fencing we saw you know he saw cameras and all of those elements all come into that cost of the project so that's one thing we see a lot of people when they start the trial they go wow we just saw a brochure for this box and this drone and it's you know this small amount of money we can make this work but really we're sort of seeing it's like double or triple that cost for the hardware is that what your experience was Ed yeah definitely I mean again our client um ex expected um that there were going to be cost increases um so we tried to keep those to a minimum which was great but definitely it um it's not just the cost of purchasing um a doc unit um the comm's cabinet for example um was

**[26:02]** obviously more expensive and then you get things like even a starlink you start streaming and it might might sound like it's unlimited data streaming but all of a sudden you're um recording every single time you fly you're now uploading that data every time the Drone lands and you get unexpected costs that come in um not huge um but certainly um unexpected I think I'll just touch on before I move to the next slide I probably also need we need to touch on the fact that because we were operating um in these six locations near homes the priv Privacy issue is something that does not necessarily come up with the regulator but absolutely has to be considered um because again these people who are neighboring to these particular sites um they they they don't necessarily they're not necessarily involved in this process um and obviously drones most of the drones that um we're operating are carrying um cameras sensors and so people obviously have the right um to their privacy so it's something quite new particularly in these Regional areas um it's

**[27:06]** it's new technology and all of a sudden there's a camera that's pointing potentially um near their near their homes um obviously that's not the focus um but that's that's the reality so it's about also engaging with people and making sure they feel comfortable with the fact that there's a drone with a camera that's potentially going past and looking near where their house is so that was something which was um really important to us to consider and also the client Pro that was probably one of the biggest issues the client knew that this was going to be safe but how would we manage the Privacy issue um and so I think we got to a really good position on that but I think it's something that sometimes gets missed yeah and I'm sounds like you you did that and I mean social license is an issue that you know we sort of face within the Drone industry and it's something that you know may hinder growth in the future um we're also luck in Australia um for those that are watching from this or others that might want to look there's a website called drones.com . Au run from our department of infrastructure they got a very very long name um but they give guidance out to General Public about privacy um also to local councils and things

**[28:08]** like that so it we are actually allowed to they don't own um I know in some other countries like the UK it's quite different but in in Australia um you don't actually own any of the land over your property um so legally drones are allowed to fly in and around those areas um legally there is still some privac privacy issues and definitely a social license so it's still very very good practice like what Ed and his team did by engaging them as well all right um so this is for us this was we had all these things in place Jackie um we had the paperwork with the regulator um now we need to start preparing for that um first flight um so staff training and Licensing um they're sort of things that we W prepared to commit to and initially until we knew that it was something that were going to get over the line the project was actually going to start um we were again very fortunate the Stars aligned again with regards to licensing um so in Australia we moved away from

**[29:09]** the traditional irex exam which um my background is an airline pilot um so I done the irx 20 something years ago um and it was um challenging back then and so for people who were not in the man aircraft industry um you know that was I would imagine quite overwhelming so they appropriately created a new exam um called um Beyond visual line of sight um OCTA um so we basically send our staff on training um courses and um yeah proud to say that um a number of our staff um passed that exam and we're basically ready uh to operate um once we got our training instrument um obviously what you see here um this is HH our our chief remote pilot um who uh he's in our in our Rock um enjoy himself there set up it very comfortable um it was basic basically making sure that our whole setup and our whole Rock um was set up appropriately it was comfortable for hours and hours of of use um so things like

**[30:12]** that you know that human machine interface um the latency had to be really good we couldn't afford to have any breakdown in that um but just the general setup and you can see he's got um the the CCTV camera up on the on the left hand side on the iPad he's got a UPS providing backup power two screens um that provides him all the information he needs interestingly enough as well we we we have a dedicated phone on that desk um we put signs up on all of the sites on the fencing around and so if we um if we if we needed to speak to somebody or someone needed to speak to us we had there was a number you could call that rang straight through to HH uh interestingly enough I was satting there The Rock um a couple of weeks ago U with HH and uh someone came up and leaned up on the fence to watch the Drone take off which obviously we need them to go back um at least 15 M uh he was able to talk to them through that um CCT CCTV camera and said hey can you see the sign there it's got a number if you call that number on your phone it rang and he was he was able to give

**[31:15]** that that person some information um about what was going on uh and what he needed that person to do um yeah so from there once it was all set up we had all the docks in place we were happy with the latency we were happy um that we had VHF comms you can see on the right hand side of that screen on the right screen there all the the VHF com setting set up ready to go um then it was just a matter of um of practicing the missions uh but at this point uh as you know Jackie there was no no test instrument to operate um Beyond visual line of site from a remote Operation Center so it required uh someone to be in the Rock um behind me uh and also someone to be on site um so it was really watching the operation from in the Rock while someone actually manually controlled um the Drone with a traditional controller I think because I there might be people from all different I might break down a little bit so obviously visual L sites visual liner site extended visual liner site um how we

**[32:17]** refer to it here um in Australia is very similar to how BB loss is run with the FAA and other people it's really Beyond visual line of sight from the pilot but you're using a visual of Observer to clear that air in the ground risk on that site um and when we talk when Ed and I have been talking about BV loss or Beyond visual line a site here in Australia it usually utilizes just the um remote pilot in command at an operation Center orever they are um with no one on site um as a visual Observer utilizing their tools and equipment like you can see in that photo to mitigate those risks um the other thing is just um on on site just making sure that we had all the required fencing up uh we had the required distances it requires tape measures to make sure that you know we were 15 M from the nearest building and to be able to do that 15 meter distance we needed to make sure that the people on site were actually informed prior to going on site um so otherwise we would have had to push out to 30

**[33:19]** Metter U and then that was going to make it difficult so we needed to make sure that there was signs um that were on the entrance to the site um that these are grain receiver sites by the way these are not mining sites um so as people drive in they need to be made aware by the signage when they sign in U they're giving some information a small risk assessment um and information about staying away from the dock uh or the fencing uh and then on the actual fence itself um some just some more information um about that so that all had to be in place before we even started any of these sort of um sort of preparation flights the the few trials that I've been on the site infrastructure or where you're actually going to put the box is actually been one of the hardest and sometimes the most costly like trying to work out or building that infrastructure required to make it work long term as well often trials are sort of done either like you know portable it might have solar panels or generators but you know to run this longterm trying to find locations where you know you've got often drone in the boxes you might be running by you know starlink or LTE

**[34:24]** from the the remote Operation Center through to the box but the box often still communicate to the Drone by radio frequency so you still need electronic line of sight um in that way so you know you need to find a spot that's you know suitable that you're not going to be flying over a hill or you know behind some sort of building that you're going to lose that electronic line of sight as well um yes you need to make sure you've got you know power you know good open area um and connectivity as well yeah absolutely there were some of the things that we um we always work on expect the unexpected um and there were some a lot of challenges even just the slope of the ground um it was was not easy in the middle of nowhere getting a bobcat out to go and um move move the ground to make sure that was all really level um once we had that all on um set up this is this is what our setup looks like um so we've got our starlink we've got the CCTV we've got the coms box it's all connected um it's all fenced off appropriately uh and then we've got it connected to

**[35:27]** um the DJI um doc um this was the most exciting part this is where we started to learn a lot of things um so um we had to do our sort of final kind of um sign off on all of our staff to make sure that they were um they were all approved from a licensing point of view um and that they were comfortable um that they were going to be operating something completely unique they were all very familiar with flying drones but this was a completely different kettle of fish um so that was just about um you know making them feel comfortable and doing something completely um new one of the biggest things with these test flights is um talking over VHF radio so you're now potentially talking with manned aircraft now I know in the Drone world we we we make broadcasts on a handheld VHF radio sometimes if we're around an airport but that can often be really overwhelming for someone for the first time all of a sudden an aircraft is now talk back to you how how do you talk to that man aircraft um I

**[36:31]** think um man aircraft Pilots probably take that for granted they're making Radio Calls all the time um so that was quite um overwhelming I think and the guys have got used to that now um we also needed to get the regular regulator to provide us with a test instrument which I think is actually a fantastic idea so you don't have all the pressure of doing the assessment they basically look at what you've provided all the risk assessments you you tell them about what you set up and they now allowed allowed us to go to one site and test out some of our procedures with with tight um you know conditions um and restrictions around that obviously that's a fantastic way to approach an assessment in a month's time because if they came and did an assessment um and it was the very first time um you know you're going to you're going to you're going to learn a lot on that day and you probably are not going to pass um that assessment so I thought was a great way um it allowed us to basically look at what we had um written um uh and as far as our procedures are

**[37:37]** concerned um all of the things in our mind that we imagined how it would work and then how that actually translated in the real world so we were able to then go and say hey um this is what actually happened let's make some amendments to the procedures before we go to our final assessment and obviously that's where we came back to you Jackie and said hey look this are some of the things and you guys went and rewrote some of the procedures um so uh I think that the regulator really appreciated that um because they believe in this continual Improvement um and again like I was saying before they are learning a lot from us um as as well as us um taking advice from them well at the beginning of this session while we were waiting on the like behind the scenes chat and and I like how are we going going to do 45 minutes that's a lot of talking and I should have realized that you know we're both so passionate about like throwing the boxes and you know getting everyone to use their own technology it would come up really quickly so we've only got five minutes

**[38:39]** left yes um for this session um we've got one question in here I know we're going to move to the next session but this will still fall into it so from Benjamin how do you maintain um BB loss connectivity um so obviously with the RF like you know how do you ensure that I'm just going to quickly answer that you know depending on the level of risk is what you required to keep that connectivity so often what depending on what country you're from they made ask for you know your phone service provider um your agreement um and then you have to just do that testing so you have to ensure that you know you have that latency you've got to do viewshed analysis to make sure you're going to have signal over that area as well um but Benjamin if you do want any further questions please you know offline come and contact me and I can go through that as well going to jump through to Ed's live project now so let's just talk about his day today they they're now up and flying every day which is fantastic all that lovely long which I think took about four months in total Ed from beginning

**[39:42]** to in from that concept of operation through to that instrument being issued for you it did and I'm G to keep this one quick um Jackie because I know we're running out of time but look the live project has been fantastic um we got all those Nots organized we've had people come up and um we've had to manage um curious onlookers um in in the project but I think the important bit is we've been recording all the data we've been um making sure that we um store of that information because we know that that information will be used for future safety cases so that we can move to you know um you know one to many and that sort of um type of O operation so um we expected and we had a a sort of a philosophy of you know expect the unexpected um we always do um things like drone pilot fatigue drone pilot sitting for sort of you know 14 hours you know they got to have big breaks in the middle of the day um you know we had power outages on the day we had assessment the power went offsite for a week um I mean who would have thought just a massive storm came in and took power

**[40:45]** out of I think it was something like 2,000 square kilometers the power went out so um that that gave us some challenges but we were prepared for it um and it's really enabled us to build our confidence um uh um throughout this process um so how did we Define a successful drone in the box project um you know um everything worked as expected um the procedures that we we had um and the deliverables providing to the client are as a as a as we expect um you know today you know we've provided us unique technology um it's reduced the amount of people on site uh we can operate 247 um seven days a week and we can basically um solve the problems that the client had the we're on scope the quality was um exceeded our expectations we're on shedule costs um this's I mean everyone knows that these things don't always work out that there there were variations they were um minimal um but ultimately it was a safe um

**[41:45]** uh operation or it is a safe operation where where we're providing solutions to our um to our client and through this process this is the best bit about the this this whole project is we're seeing so many many interesting surprising value ads that we can provide to the client um using this technology these drones they carry speakers lights thermal cameras and it's amazing um what we've been able to say to the client hey there's these are other things that we can provide to you and um they're super excited um about the future um so really just getting to the end here Jackie what next from here I mean I know a lot of people are right at the beginning um but for for us we're already looking at as to what next um thoughts yeah look I think the next thing you know this year we're sort of seeing lots of Trials and testing um I think the late 2024 and 2025 for especially us here in Australia will be looking at how do we actually scale that now how do we move from one to many ensuring software companies you know it's still looking into that human machine interface and how you

**[42:48]** manage you know how you managing six different or seven RPA from One Pilot um from sort of one computer how how do you do that that's sort of what I think is going to be next they looking at scaling um and I mean this is probably a whole another topic you probably talk on like hours for but the airspace integration um will come I think you know as we start to sort of go to busy areas and we want to start integrating where there's you know crops crop spraying and other areas we're going to sort of need to ensure that we've got the right tools to integrate into the airspace as well yes and look I just quick question that's come up Lee um has there been any problems with the Drone or the dock um I think cross fingers so far we've been really lucky we're doing approximately 30 flights each day um starting from about 5:30 in the morning through to about 7:30 at night so 30 flights that's across six sites um so far we haven't seen any issues at all um ranging you know from

**[43:50]** really windy conditions um through to kind of you know 46 degrees C um there inevitably are going to be problems it doesn't matter what solution you choose what drone what nested drone solution there will be problems I'm sure um for us at the moment is just about keeping an eye on the maintenance that's required seeing any Trends um so but yeah so far so good yeah look I've done trials that haven't been successful it doesn't mean it might just be that it's earlier I've tried multiple different drone the Box Solutions and sometimes the software is not quite integrated or we've had you know only 75 % um Precision Landing which depending on the site may not be suitable that's what we sort of say you know do trials um and make sure you find obviously Ed's found the right source for his project the next project he might have to change softwares and do different things but it's finding those right things that work for that concept of operation um but I can see someone saying but being patient is is yeah is definitely something you have to do with doing this yeah and I

**[44:55]** think if you if you're if you're not patient with this technology um potentially you're in the wrong game um so I think this this sort of technology is rapidly evolving um and look we've seen plenty of um drone um sort of solutions over the years not just related to this sort of um that that haven't worked out um you have to be patient the technology will come um and I think it's just you know we're prepared to crawl for a little while um and then we'll walk and then we'll run so um yeah it's it's exciting times Jackie and I really appreciate the um the opportunity to have to run through this project um yeah it's been exciting perfect well look you know Ed and I are both sort of on LinkedIn so you know connect through to us if you've got any questions or you're interested in the regulatory side please come and ask me if you're interested in you know sort of getting edney's team to do some trials you know reach out um yeah we're more than happy to sort of talk offline as well I'm sure you Echo that Ed yeah absolutely and look I hope everyone enjoys um

**[45:58]** you know the rest of the sessions um that are happening um from here on in um and uh yeah um really appreciate the opportunity perfect thank you all and enjoy your evening morning day whatever time zone you're in