# AI-powered Industrial Site Operations with SensHub in Regional Australia

- Event: NestGen ’25
- Published: March 7, 2025
- Length: 35:44
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/hgCsTtKBUyY/

> 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.

## Transcript

**[0:20]** moving on to the session and our speakers let me first start with ED we have Ed boxall founder and managing director of sensum ed brings over 25 years of Aviation experience transitioning from an airline pilot to becoming a Pioneer in unmanned aerial systems under his leadership sensor a secure ground B groundbreaking be loss approvals enabling truly autonomous drone operations across Regional Australia joining Ed is cooper cooper smart general manager at sensum with his background in M mechanical engineering and Robotics Cooper has been the driving force behind some of sorum's most ambitious deployments he's led the roll out of sens hub across industrial and agricultural sites in Western Australia integrating AI powered drone operations with realtime analytics welcome to the session Cooper Welcome to the session Ed it's a pleasure having you here so maybe you can just do a quick wave and you know say a quick hi to the audience pleasure to be here thank you so much for the introduction thank you so much looking forward to

**[1:24]** it so uh before we start some housekeeping rules uh we have the Q&A section on thep top left so you can drop in any question that you have during the session I'll be a moderator and I'll help uh you ask those questions to Ed and Cooper throughout the session the session is being recorded so you'll have the recording on our website after after NES genen is uh is concluded uh feel free to drop a LinkedIn post with the hashtag hash NES genen uh the top three posts will receive specialness gen hampers so uh let's let's make this a big event and let's get that interaction on social media everything's all about social media nowadays we're a small world uh if you face any technical issues uh feel free to reach out to our support team pish is the support uh is for is available for support on this session um what we'll now do is I'll just give a quick introduction for the session uh and then we will pass on the mic to Ed and Cooper for their insights so personally I've

**[2:25]** worked very closely with sorm and I've worked closely in for a lot of deployments across Australia and what makes sensor room's work particularly fascinating is the scale and impact of their deployments they're not just operating one or two dock drones they've built a network of autonomous systems across Western Australia their drones are conducting daily inspections of massive grain storage facilities monitoring remote infrastructure and providing 247 security surveillance all while operating Beyond visual line of CER this isn't just automation for automation sake it's transforming how companies manage operations and some of Australia's most challenging environments uh I know Ed and Cooper have a lot to share and I'll pass on the Das to them uh all of these sessions are possible because of our sponsors so thank you for our sponsors with that Ed Cooper I know you have a lot more to this story and uh could you walk us through some you know through how sens sub is revolutionizing industrial site operations in Regional Australia so with that over to you guys I will quickly share your presentation and then you can get

**[3:28]** started thanks while while we're just waiting to share that screen um I suppose thanks for everyone watching live um it's fantastic to be back at SNES gen it's been a year on so much has happened so many learnings uh as is fairly typical with this technology most importantly and um is the overwhelming success that we've had with our initial drone in a box roll out um from way back in 2023 now um I'm Ed boxel I'm the managing director as mentioned um joining me is Cooper uh kooper smart he's our general manager um hi Cooper thanks for joining the conversation this year um's been he's been integral part of the the development of our drone in a box program as mentioned so it's good to have you here and I'm sure to share some of your insights um also a huge thank you to the team at FlytBase for inviting us to be part of the this event um it really is an honor um so as mentioned our topic for 2025 is uh around our now mature it's hard to say believe that that's the case our now mature drone in the Box um operation at industrial sites in Regional Australia

**[4:31]** using um the sense Hub solution and how we're now sort of starting to focus more on taking advantage of the power of AI to further automate our operations uh to make them more efficient more cost effective particularly as we head um towards uh one to many operations so we might just drump to our um introduction um so just give you a bit of a background about our experience um since Orum has been a commercial drone operator for over 12 years now um and we were an early adopter of the Drone in a box technology so we tested the pre-release uh DJI doc one system in uh 2023 uh since that's time we've rolled out uh over uh 20 sens Hub systems uh consisting of seven doc one systems and 13 do 2 units uh all paired with our custom communication system that provides the vital link between the drone on site uh often hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away and our remote Operation Center and for 2025 we're we're looking to deploy uh around uh another um 30 units um just in the next

**[5:36]** 12 months we've completed over 11,000 flights today and expect this number to be approximately 30,000 flights by the end of 2025 um particularly as we move towards um continuous 24hour um drone box operations um this has certainly been an earlier time frame than we expected 12 to 18 months ago um as with any new technology uh um and as an early adop of the journey from initial deployment to the maturing of the operations operations can sometimes and has at times felt slightly overwhelming um we've proven that uh it's worth it to to stick stick with it and in the long run um hopefully we can kind of share how we can sort of remove the mystery around the Drone and the Box operations um throughout the presentation um so for those that are out there feeling like this is um you know a complex technology to deploy um uh if you stick with it over time it's definitely well worth it so today we're going to be covering a um three key key areas um deploying the Drone in a box

**[6:40]** so we just go back I think on to yeah there we go so in this presentation I'm going to be um talking about deploying a drone in a box in Regional Australia um some of the challenges limited connectivity harsh environments uh extreme weather and I'm talking about heat and obviously vast distances between infrastructure so that requires robust commercial Solutions autonomous uh operational resilience and uh reliable power sources just so that we can uh ensure that we have continuous and effective performance of our systems um we're going to talk about our operational success uh We've successfully deployed drone and boox technology in Regional Australia we've overcome some of those challenges the connectivity limitations the harsh environments by using Technologies like starlink communication AI driven automation um and advanced remote monitoring ensuring again that we have reliable and continuous operations in those Regional areas and finally one of the things that's a bit of a theme across NestGen 25 is AI um driven enhancements so for the

**[7:41]** Drone and the Box um operations in Regional areas to you know the AI helps improve the auto automous decision- making in real time intruded detection for example which basically ensures greater efficiency reliability and operational resilience in in Regional environments and for those that are familiar with Australia it it's um the distances are vast um even something that seems just a few hundred kmers away to go out to sight and back is often a five or six hour roundtrip so just a little bit um about us uh so where we consider ourselves to be innovators and integrators of um of drone technology um we're leading the integration of drone technology in Real World um applications uh with the the aim of enhancing efficiency safety and making um we're focused on delivering uh automated inspection and mapping using these types of Cutting Edge drone systems um often with unique uh senses um Cooper has been

**[8:43]** involved in the deployment of um things like the valot Drone and um you know magnetometer um equipment um so we're always sort of sitting on that on that on The Cutting Edge and I think that's fair to say CPS that we that it has its challenges at time um deploying these systems it looks great on paper yeah it does um but it's just the the advantages that drones are bringing to different Industries um they're just finding new ways to do things and often that's with a new payloads so um you just got to find a way to make it work that's good I think I think we often look at those specs of those um those um Technologies you know whether it's a drone in a box or um other sensors and other drones and we see how it might fit into our complex environments particularly the remote areas and you know the Heat and the winds that we have just to make sure that they they've been successful so we've been pretty happy with that um I suppose you know we we've got amazing feedback from um our clients around um our expertise and our and our safety and I think you know we're

**[9:47]** pretty proud that we've done um you know over 11,000 B loss missions safely um and it demonstrates our extensive experience and and I know that you sit pretty close to the remote Operation Center in our head office um you get to see that you know how how's that been you know what I mean looking at those flights every day it's it's been a learning curve um it's been a good learning curve there something completely different you think on paper initially it's just okay we'll put this in place we'll do this but as you're as you're going through the process there's a a lot of things that come up new challenges um everything from the hardware to the integration to the the software um but it's a it's a it's a great challenge as you said over the last 18 months where it's now matured to a robust robust operation um so yeah the the biggest challenge I think that this is where the whole topic of this presentation is going is with AI is the amount of data movement um we're now capturing more data more often and I'm trying to man manage that is the the biggest

**[10:52]** challenge for everyone I think and I think we'll talk a lot about today just about the um the technical aspects as far as the hardware and the software but obviously it takes a big team right to get this um over the line so having you know casassa for now regulat CA certified Pilots having data analysts and and um and project managers that can you know help execute these drone operations um having a lot of approvals as well helps but um you know that's that comes from a lot of hard work um proving to the regulator that um that these things can work um but everything has to be um really aligned um we're obviously focusing as you mentioned on AI so you know on machine learning um we being able to process a lot of this this data um having AI powered software to help with our drone in a box um program is certainly going to make these large scale UPS of drone a box um you know really effective um our clients that we work with they often have not just one or two sites they'll often have a hundred sites in Regional areas so looking to roll these this technology out

**[11:54]** to 100 sites for one client AI um you know software a AI driven software has been been really crucial um at sorum we offer like a full endtoend solution so we've got a comprehensive sort of service model which covers the entire workflow from Mission planning data capture and processing through to cloud-based reporting um and um we have our own cloud-based platform called um Dron OS um you know which ensures secure interactive and um accessible reporting allowing for streamlined collaboration and decision matings decision maing so that's very similar to the um same concept that we see with FlytBase so cloudbased platforms are really crucial these days and then obviously we've got um our favorite uh which is our custom drone in a box solution which we call sens Hub um so it's fully autonomous drone in the Box system we we have integrated with the DJI um doc systems it's designed for continuous remote um drone operations we're really proud of that product um which has been really Cooper's been at the Forefront of of building that um solution it seems to be

**[12:54]** getting smaller and smaller and smaller uh which is fantastic smaller footprint on site uh we're going to do a live flight today which is actually the doc one um and that'll give us an opportunity to look at the flight based software and our original setup which we're still really proud of so we'll just talk about a bit the technology and how the the technology stars have have aligned for us and many other people around the globe with regards to droner box um the Drone and a box deployment um two or three years ago wasn't possible because all of the Technologies um were not were not available so it's important to remember that when you're um for these people who are out there watching this that are looking to um deploy their own drone in a box um program it's not just about the DJI doc or what other product you might have that's that's similar it's more than that um it's about building a system that's suited to your environment and for us that's all about um Outback Australia um so finding the critical supporting products that can withstand the challenges of regional Australia

**[13:58]** um has been a significant hurdle in in in deploying a drone in a box Solutions um we've got vast distances between towns we've got limited infrastructure we've got harsh environments means that the more commun the more common communication power and support systems are often um not there or they're not suitable so having reliable connectivity has been a bit of a challenge for us um particularly in areas where we lack mobile or cellular coverage um so you know it's made us forced us to go and look at other Technologies like starlink satellite you know uh um VHF radio over the inter internet to maintain realtime data transfer and Communications um with man aircraft um so over overcoming these challenges has been a crucial part uh with regards to building uh a robust and scalable industrial um site drone in a box solution for regional and remote Australia um so CS I might just give you get you to just give us um bit of a an idea about the the starlink and VHF over in internet and

**[14:59]** maybe some of the the challenges and how we overcame that yes certainly um so the VHF over internet um yeah required a direct pipeline so there was some setup requirements that were um critical to making sure that could work over starlink and then making sure all the other subsystems within the uh the communication box all worked reliably um also on the The Rock end making uh that we have redundancy and the capabilities to make sure bring that all in um priority feed servfaces in whilst the other you know the other part of the office keeps me um keeps being operational um the the VHF um you know location to location can be quite different as well um with different interferences different amounts of uh communication traffic um and proximity to airports so it's not a case of um simple installation or the one one VHF

**[16:01]** installation is going to fit for all places so um the it's not overly complicated but it's just knowing that when you go to do a science store there's a few things that need to be checked because um one of the downsides is with these units being so remote which is their this Advantage is that once you've left and you come back to your um Operation Center um you want it to be working 100% because traveling back out can be a bit bit lengthy yeah agreed um I suppose the the next one is the power considerations which we we gave a lot of thought to um um so it's a major issue um with many remote sites they they lack that stable um grid access so it necessitates basically monitored backup Power Systems um which we've put into our Communications box which you can see in that um image there which is our original um setup from 2023 coms box um um with our um full communication setup so we've got to have Power Systems are long enough to

**[17:02]** return the Drone back to the dock um in case of any sort of power outages um to the to the to the system so sourcing sort of Hardware rugged enough to withstand the extreme heat and dust and and storms not giving away too much IP like that was that was a challenge trying to you know have those Battery Systems you know sitting there and you know pretty extreme conditions yeah it was and it's not having to add in additional um measures maybe like air conditioning and that to to help stabilize them um and just finding that that good balance um because there wasn't the aim was to make this an efficient install um the idea is to be able to get a dock on site um it's not about getting a whole other complicated piece of hardware on site um so it's just finding that that balance um and um I'd like to say our our first iteration was very successful but we've taken learning from that um and develop that into our sens sub product um and

**[18:05]** with certain sites as well we haven't seen any downsides not being completely off- grid power um there's usually people within close proximity um and the reasons for power being out are actually widespread and um it's not uh not a key requirement it has a lot of other complexities about installing a very um you know electrically complicated system or be it could be done um is about efficiency at this point I think our Target to our clients was to say that we'd have all the equipment in place um operating at full capacity requiring maintenance only every say 6 months which was a real challenge but we were really pleased when we deployed the the first original doc ones that you know we did we only went to site and um checked on those systems after six months and to be honest I was really surprised that they were like you know out of the factory um across all of the products not just the Drone in the box but the comm's cabinets and um CCTV and everything so that was really reassuring for us and we were able to um pass that information to the client so that's really

**[19:06]** important especially when your Regional areas um you mentioned about the you know solar and connection to power the solar arrays for drone or box systems they can be a challenge uh in their own um you know some of the the issues with regards to the to to to to building an ass solar array there is and um it's pieing the correct components together which is again just another integration process but every operator has its own um requirements so it's making sure that gets through their electrical certification um site specific requirements there's a lot of other complexities in introducing a um off- grid power system um from a A supplier uh that is actually far above and beyond what integrating just a simple doc solution can be um so it it added another operational um um hurdle to get through and it was another in the chain it's another maintainable item um if we as we've all seen the dock systems from DJI have proven

**[20:10]** to be very reliable Hardware even in these extreme conditions with the only maintainable item potentially being well part from propellers is the battery um and with hundreds of flight Cycles on it it's been um extremely reliable but adding in copious amounts of lithium batteries and then solar panel cleaning and inverter checks um Canada another whole maint maintenance schedule that is far above beyond what the um the DJI drone needs so at this point it's it's another cost it's not really um a necessity it doesn't net that much more from um the actual system and I think this picture here gives a demonstration of the last one adapting to the very droner box product sizes the first one the droner Box doc one was significantly larger than doc 2 um the varying sizes that has its own challenges when you um build support products around the platform um and then um the um the manufacturer of the Drone in the Box DJI in this case uh changes the size significantly um that does

**[21:11]** also pose some challenges so and there are other products out there obviously than DJI that produced drone in the box so Shifting the you know shifting Footprints and positioning requirements can impact on on how we build these systems the installation Logistics and you know what that causes on delays and you know additional cost Etc um conscious of the time so we'll just move on to um I suppose some operational success and we're we'll try and do a screen share I think um while I'm talking about this if this is possible this is our remote Operation Center our team working in there um classic Western Australian kind of outfit for our guys um the fluo kit uh which we see in our mining operations and these guys work in mines a lot so they're quite used to wearing that so they just get into the remote Operation Center into the air conditioned comfort and they're still making sure they full um PP um intact so um while we're talking about um our operational success we might um do a um a screen share um so I'm just going to uh jump on now

**[22:14]** and right hopefully we can now all right so we're just now I'm I'm I'm a guest um having a look at our operation hopefully this will become live in a second and um in the meantime I'll just um share sh some of our operational success while we see um Jack who's our pilot and he'll be coming um Airborne in about 10 seconds um so I suppose we've we've proven the reliability um you know of this technology um in harsh conditions have demonstrated exceptional reliability across Regional australas we're were talking about before um you know operating autonomously in challenging weather conditions remote locations and critical uh industrial environment so all these environments are very dusty at this time of the year they're very hot um so this is believe it or not this is actually a live flight this is actually happening right now this is not a pre-recorded um I'm going to go and

**[23:15]** change my um pick to the satellite to give you a bit of an idea of what that kind of looked like so um with the DJI doc units custom unification setup um including starlink AI driven software um the air unit that's been provided by flight FlytBase assist systems have been providing consistent um sort of realtime aerial insights while minimizing obviously that's the idea minimizing human intervention um the robustness of the um of this equipment ensures 24/7 hour operations I mean with some of these um aircraft are flying you know every hour you know 10 minutes um 10 minutes 10 minutes 10 minutes right throughout 24-hour period even the extreme temperatures high winds uh and these isolated regions um where traditional type of inspection methods would be certainly inefficient um and possibly hazardous um we've also discovered new use cases um through the client adoption so really it's really important to get the

**[24:17]** stakeholder engagement so once deployed clients quickly realized um recognized additional applications beyond their initial requirements so for this particular site um you know the original interest was around bird scaring um and now we've expanded to using the technology to cover uh site monitoring security and asset inspection um so they gained as the clients gained confidence in their technology um we we you know we've worked closely to refine the workflows and it's led to more integrated and data driven decision-making processes um and it's just about seamless remote operations and scalability that's really important scalability is really important for these um for these areas with this particular client they've got 100 sites uh we've got other clients in um the eastern states of Australia that are now um rolling out our sens up um products throughout 2025 and these clients again they don't just have one site they'll have um over a 100 sites um in their portfolio so um through this remote Operation Center that we have here in Perth we successfully enabled this BBL loss missions allowing

**[25:21]** for fully remote monitoring automated scheduling rapid response capabilities um and this is ultimately provided cost savings efficiency gains for for industries that are relying on these large you know on large scale asset inspections and site surveillance um like this client um so our scalability of our or the scalability of our drone in a box systems has allowed our clients to expand from single site deployments to multi-site um networks which has reinforced the long-term viability um of autonomous drone and a box technology in um in Regional Australia so um our last um slide which we'll just leave this live sharing just um just for going for another 30 seconds while we finished our last slide and it's just all about the AI driven enhancements um you know using our um sens Hub unit so it's allowing us to do now more automated flight missions um we've been able to integrate with the flight based AI unit I'm pleased to say that we were the very

**[26:24]** early adopter with that um with that technology thank you to FlytBase um we've had that in in place for a little while now um and it's certainly helping us you know with automatic um OB uh obstacle sorry object detection so vehicles and people um including at night so um it's really been interesting for the client and interesting for us and we're looking for for for more updates with the um with that product um you've obviously got the NextGen DJI intelligent operational functions as well you know we've seen that with the matrice 4 Series and um these advancements with DJ we expected that to be sort of integrated into future DJI doc models that come out um and also sort of for us it's about future proofing um drone in a box using AI integration um with AI technology sort of sort of advancing um rapidly since as a business we're ensuring drone the Box Solutions remain right at the Forefront by continuously integrating new intelligent capabilities which is

**[27:25]** demanded Often by our clients but also internally for us as well so the combination of flight bases air um units um robust um AI algorithms plus DJI nextg automation it's going to lead to higher autonomy proactive issue detection um and um scalability for sort of multi-site operations using sort of one to many um operations um so that sort of finishes our presentation I'm going to um sort of stop um sharing now thank you to jack giving us a bit of a demonstration of the flight base um software uh in a live um live environment I suppose um Cooper any and do you want to sort of finish up there and summarize our drone in the Box um roll out and where you see this being for our business over the next sort of 12 to 18 months um this is the next new thing um it's the AI side of it is the real the interesting part because as I touched them before it's

**[28:27]** the the data movement and it's the data we're capturing and the data you have to sit through and make decisions from and you want those drones to be able to react to those decisions and if we can automate those processes um the whole thing just takes another step forward um it's it's quite exciting like I I think we touched on you and I were chatting bit earlier is the AI technology race um is full steam ahead uh but it's quite amazing to see that the Hardware is actually right there behind it ready to go where sometimes you're always waiting for the hardware to pop up um catch up so now it's about hey where can we where can we push the AI into where the hardware is being used um which is is quite exciting we're not really having to wait it's really just on what we can all do together so um yeah looking forward to it that's the next 12 to 18 months is let's take throwing the Box the next stage it's the new new systems are coming out um which again add more capabilities and more um technology and and it's just what else can we take on yeah agreed and I think a lot

**[29:33]** of people watching out there for um will probably be looking at this and saying it's that seems like a long long way down in the future this is really complex I think we've proven that over in 12 to 18 months uh period you can really roll out a drone in the Box program and and be very successful um so thank you very much to flight Bas for having us here thank you so much Ed coer that was that was very insightful uh for sure and you know we've we have seen how your operations have scaled over these last few months and we fully understand the nuances of each and every deployment that you guys have made and overall in general there are you know very similar stories coming across especially of uh mapping with your stakeholders and understanding what use cases they would want to Target because uh you know humans are quite imaginative so they are able to come up with interesting use cases for themselves and then um operationally setting um all of the you know docks up it's not just about the docks it's about the internet it's about the connectivity the uh Power so and so forth so we have we can take up one question uh in the interest of

**[30:39]** time and we have one question from David yeah uh on the lines of what I was just mentioning so David is asking that he's a sec he he's part of a security company in southwest of USA they're planning on deploying uh hubs in dry hot weather and freezing nights in a year calendar with extreme weather like heat freezing high winds Etc what are you seeing on a realistic 24 cross 7 365 deployment your yeah yeah yeah that that's a great question thanks um David I really appreciate it and what I would say is um just do it um it's worth it um the technology is ready um we I don't know what sort of dry hot weather where what we have is I'm going to talk in Celsius so you have to convert it apologies but if 45 degree temperatures during the middle of the summer um it does actually get pretty cold um in those areas in the winter time when we have clear skies often now um it'll be you know um 0 degrees C um you know overnight so it is pretty cold um and it operates seamlessly we've had

**[31:44]** we've had no issues um with regards to operating our drone in the Box technology with regards to um weather related issues um obviously the you know there are some limitations with regards to wind speed it'll it'll recommend not to fly um so don't fly when it says that it's going to you know exceed the limitation set by the manufacturer uh as long as you stick to that um you know we've we've had huge success like I said first six months we went out there and we had um we had no issues whatsoever it was like these this equipment had come out of the box now that's just the Drone in the Box side of things obviously You' got the comm's cabinet to support that but there's a lot of um communication infrastructure that's already been deployed for decades in other use cases um in areas um exactly as David's refer into and it's but they they've been surviving quite well so yes be rest assured um it does work awesome so I think David uh David replied saying awesome that is exactly what I was wanting to hear uh one question I know we over time but we'll just take one question because just come in from Sean Barrett do you have Ops over or near people

**[32:49]** approval for your Ops over grain terminals that is for staff working around terminals or is it considered sheltered Ops SL or low population density Ops yeah so that's good thanks Sean um yes we do have o NP um for our operations over these grain terminals um I suppose we take a really conservative approach we just um we we just don't fly over people um and I can see your questions come up do we use a parachute no we don't and the reason we don't use one Sean is because we have other equipment boltes at the top so the speaker um and Spotlight system so there's no more room um for a parachute system so we have to take a really conservative approach and uh if we see people come to a stop and maneuver around them that can be complex and difficult in a industrial environment um there are some sites industrial sites um in Metro areas that we're deploying right now where we'll sacrifice the speaker and Spotlight and we will use um a parachute um system um to help us with

**[33:51]** some of those um approvals but that's a very good question and that is that is a challenge in an industrial area where um the drones are so quiet these days uh it's very hard for people to know that the drones are actually overhead even though they know when they come into sight they sign on knowing that there's a drone uh in operation um but yes it's very difficult to hear so we've just got to take a proactive approach and and monitor those drones um so that there are are always challenges with regards to humans and um drones you know mixing together in the same environment um so it's always a work in progress but I think it's important to always take a conservative approach thank you so much uh Ed Cooper it was a pleasure you know hosting this session it was a pleasure hearing you speak about how your deployments have scaled in Australia uh thank you for the audience for tuning in and for asking all the questions uh thank you David Shan GI all the other guys so we'll have the sessions recorded and we'll post them on our website soon stay tuned for that uh you can follow Ed and

**[34:53]** Cooper on LinkedIn you can also go through their website and you know you can keep in touch with them uh through the through this uh session uh and through the goldcast platform as well thank you so much Ed Cooper any closing thoughts anything that you would like to uh share other than that or look mate it's I just wanted to say it's it's an really exciting time and like I say again the stars have aligned with this technology and um it's uh it's it's going to be really interesting to see what happens and I'm looking forward to n gen 20126 awesome thank you so much for those thoughts Ed no worries have a great day thank you for tuning in okay thanks cheers everyone bye