Episode 5: Unlocking FAA BVLOS at 200' and 400' - What Public Safety Needs to Know

Alright. Good morning, or good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining another, Skydio webinar here. I'm Jakee Stoltz with the Skydio regulatory team, bringing you another regulatory update for public safety. And today, we're gonna talk about altitude flexibility.

So flying beyond the line of sight at two hundred, four hundred feet. So really excited for this one. I've got some special guests that'll be joining me in a bit to talk more about this.

But before we kinda dive into the topic of the day, I'm just gonna start with a couple general updates on this part ninety one public safety beyond visual line of sight process.

I'm just kind of starting most webinars these days with with some updates like this. So we'll just kinda dive into it quick, and then we'll get into talking about four hundred feet.

So firstly, since the last webinar, I'm I'm just kind of showing a a map here of where all of our Skydio customers are, and they're getting these public safety part ninety one beyond visualized site approvals. So the map is growing, and congratulations to any agency that has received their waivers since the last webinar.

And you'll notice there's also a a little yellow pin here now, which we're gonna talk about in a minute here what that signifies.

But the the scales is just really happening now with these waivers, and it's really exciting to see. So the kind of some fun stats. So these approvals, these part 91 Beyond Visual Line of Sight approvals are still being approved, quite quickly by the FAA. So, we're still averaging about five days from the time of submission to approval.

And caveat there is that is for, you know, 200' foot approvals.

In the last webinar in June, that number was about six. So things have really kinda stabilized, and and the FAA just has a very streamlined, efficient process now for approving these waivers, which is awesome.

And then since last webinar again, the number of approvals has drastically increased. So we're at about four hundred and fifty now, maybe even closer to five hundred, as of today.

That is up from about three hundred two months ago. So just in the last, like, two months, the FAA has issued over a hundred and fifty of these approvals, which is, just a a crazy pace.

I've never seen, waivers get approved at this kind of speed before. So, and and most of them still are these two hundred foot requests, about ninety percent of them. But that means there's about fifty approvals or so out there, that are for four hundred feet, and that's kinda why we're here today to talk more about that as well.

So many of you, you you've probably seen, like, my last couple webinars where I where I talk about these two concept concepts of operation. But just in case there's anybody new today, I just wanna kinda quickly explain the two concepts or the two types of waivers that the FAA is issuing, and this will just kinda help provide some background for our our discussion here in a bit. But the two types of approvals are on the left side, you have your shielded operations or your two hundred foot approval. And this approval is based on flying lower to the ground and using ADS-B technology to avoid encounters with crewed aircraft.

This approval is is typically issued today as kind of a blanket approval. So it's really a a nationwide approval in effect that will cover your entire jurisdiction and and beyond. And then on the right side, we have what we call kind of the four hundred foot approval. And so the four hundred foot approval also uses ADS-B technology, but you have to also deploy a noncooperative detect and avoid system, such as a radar system, camera based system, etcetera, something that can detect aircraft that don't have ADS-B.

And so, again, just kind of these two concepts. Just wanted to provide a little bit of context quick for for the discussion ahead.

And one big change, that happened a couple weeks ago now, but certainly between, the last webinar and today that I wanna make agencies aware of is that the FAA is no longer requiring, the public declaration letter for these two types of public safety part ninety one requests.

And so instead of that public declaration letter and as a reminder, this was the letter that you had to go to, like, your state attorney, your county attorney, your city attorney, basically an outside counsel, and that attorney had to, create a letter that declares you as a public aircraft operator. And so agencies now can instead, they can basically create a letter. The FAA has a template that's kinda shown on the screen here, but you can create a letter that self certifies that your agency meets the two requirements for this waiver. So first requirement is that you're a public aircraft operator, and then the second requirement is that you're a public safety organization.

And so your agency can now just create this letter. The responsible person for the agency can can sign it, and you can submit this, to get this approval. So, if the public declaration letter was was kinda holding you up before, or if there's, you know, challenges working with your attorney, that that is no longer required effectively.

Okay. So bottom line, if you haven't requested your waiver yet or if you're still kinda wondering, like, you know, should I do this, or should I wait, We just highly recommend, going and getting getting the waiver today. There is a guide that we put together. That's the URL shown on the screen. The QR code as well will take you there.

And this guide basically walks through the process, kinda provides some background information.

There's a link on the website where you can request a set of forms and templates and kind of examples to help you go through this process.

And, we just recommend kinda getting started today. There's never really been a better time to get started with Beyond Visualize site. And there there's likely gonna be a few questions during this webinar. I know I've already fielded some before this about the proposed part one zero eight rules or the Beyond Visualize site rules.

And so if you're an agency that's wondering, like, you know, how do those rules impact this process, or should I wait? You know, is this process going away?

Just kind of if you're wondering, like, how to navigate that, my recommendation would be to just continue and getting get this waiver because, really, in effect, like, the proposed rule kinda has no impact on the the very near term and sort of what is happening today. So that rule, there's just mechanically, there's quite a a process involved with that rule. So it's just a proposed rule. There's gonna be a sixty day or or there is. We're we're in a sixty day comment period now.

FAA is gonna have to go review all those comments, which which takes some time. And then, you know, we we might see a per a finalized rule next year. But even then, there's a high likelihood at least that there's gonna be, like, an implementation period that will stretch this out further. So the the part one eight rules are are more kind of longer term. But if you wanna get started with a DFR program or just started with the on Visual Analytics Synapse today, go get this waiver.

Okay.

So, as promised, today, we are talking for the rest of the webinar at least, we're gonna be talking four hundred feet. So, I'm really excited, because you get to hear from some other people, this webinar instead of just me talking for an hour. So we're gonna kinda bring in our guests here. We've got Travis Scott with D Drone and then, surgeons Jay Kemme and Ben Miller from Cincinnati PD. And so I'm actually just gonna turn it over to them for a little bit of an intro themselves, and then we'll take it from there. So, why don't we start with Travis? We'll do a quick intro.

Thanks, Jakee. Hey. Travis Scott with Dedrone.

I'm the vice president of commercial sales. And in my position, I get the unique opportunity to work with a wide variety of different agencies on everything from Counter Drone, but also enabling beyond there's line of sight with Dedrone Beyond. So not only do I get to hear a lot of different use cases, a lot of different environments, but also with regard to the product development, making sure that we're providing the absolute best solution for beyond visual line of sight. So it's a pleasure to be here, and looking forward to the conversation.

Alright.

Thanks, Travis. And then over to Cincinnati Police Department. And, as they kinda introduce themselves, I just wanna say, like, a big congratulations. They they just launched a DFR program a couple weeks ago.

So I'll turn it over to you, Jay and Ben, for an intro.

Yeah. Jakee and me, pleasure to be here. Thank you.

We just went live with our DFR program about three weeks ago. We have nine boxes on three different rooftop rooftops around the city. By the end of the year, hopefully, we'll have nineteen, and we'll be covering about ninety percent of the city with rooftop drones. We also deploy the Dedrone long range radar, and, it's been wonderful the first three weeks. Been a great experience so far.

And I'm Ben Miller, obviously, since I am pleased as well working with Jay, getting this whole program rolled out over the last couple years and just excited to be here and excited to be flying.

So could you guys give, like, a little bit of context to, like, how how long have you guys had a drone program? Like, kinda where did you come from to get to this point? Just so agencies on on the webinar can kinda understand, like, you know, the the progress and kind of the steps to get to this point even.

Jakee, we heard crawl walk run a lot when we started, and we hated hearing that. But it's one hundred percent true that you need to do that. We started with, just drones and cars is where we started, and we just kinda flew. We had no idea what we were doing, and we figured it out as we went.

And we built from there, so we we added more drones to the fleet. We started training more pilots slowly, getting them to a one zero seven license. We started developing drone cars. And, ultimately, we did a, pilot program where we picked a neighborhood. And we would sit down in that neighborhood, and we would listen to the radio and respond to any runs that we thought a drone could be helpful with.

And we had great success with that program. We went about a month and a half. I think during our pilot period, we cleared thirty five percent of our runs by drone.

No cop ever responding, and we were first on scene upwards of ninety percent of the time.

We had wonderful success, and we passed that along to our supervisors who passed it along to city hall. But it truly was about a four year process to get to where we are today. It wasn't quick, and there was a lot of growing pains and bumps in the road on the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.

Okay. So, yeah, we'll let's kinda dive in a little bit to some of the waiver process, just kinda regulatory things. So, you know, maybe even kinda stepping back to the two hundred foot. So we actually all worked on the two hundred foot waiver first, you know, months ago. I remember meeting you guys earlier this year in Cincinnati and kinda getting that started.

So, yeah, pretty straightforward process.

I think, actually, you all were before this new process got put in place as well, so it probably took more than five days, I think, but, still relatively quick.

And probably the goals of, like, doing the two hundred foot at that time were just to make sure that, like, number one, you you got some kind of beyond vision eyesight approval kind of as quickly as possible.

And that gives, hopefully, like, maybe some confidence that, you know, this is real. This isn't just, like, you know, kinda hypothetical beyond vision on a site that we might be able to get. It's like getting that two hundred foot approval, probably just kind of derisk the program a little bit in some ways. But, yeah, just kinda any any thoughts on the two hundred foot process or or sort of what that impact was for you all.

Yeah. So I think it I think it took us about two weeks for the approval for the two hundred foot earlier on this year.

And exactly like you said, we knew that ultimately we wanted to get a four hundred foot waiver, but we also knew that those were not very common and that there wasn't as clear a path at that time for those. So we just wanted to make sure having invested a lot of money in the program at that point that we at least cleared that two hundred foot hurdle and then immediately set our our next site on that four hundred foot.

Yep. Yep. Hundred percent. Okay. So Jakee, go ahead.

One thing I I just wanted to jump in on on that process there.

The, the two week process that you guys had is is amazing. Right? The the speed at which the FAA is approving some of these things and and the, the rate at which they're gonna approve is awesome for the industry as a whole.

And there there's no doubt that you guys are are are leading the industry on that front.

I was curious if you guys were involved with the previous process as well and just kind of the the length of time that that went through.

Because I think a lot of agencies do get a little little nervous about all the paperwork that has to go and every all the details that they have to to put in. I'm wondering what the difference was from your guys' first time, if you guys were involved with that in the earlier process before spring of this year, and kind of the differences and the the paperwork and just the level of effort you guys have done on that.

A huge difference. So when we first started about four, four and a half years ago trying to get our first COA, we sat down, googled it, like, really didn't have a whole lot of people to lean on to give us any resources or help.

Through that Google search, we found a couple resources, reached out to them, had a little bit of help, but it took us months just to get a COA through, and that was a a huge learning experience. It was almost like trying to learn another language, getting the paperwork, trying to fill it in, not really knowing exactly what they're asking for in some of the fields, and then submitting it, waiting days, sometimes weeks before we would get something back.

And when we'd get the the information back, it it also wasn't always clear on what we needed to change or fix.

So it was a pretty painful and lengthy process.

The way things have come along, it's it's way better now. Not not just the speed of it, but submitting it is significantly easier.

Yeah. Travis, it took us a year to get that public declaration letter that is no longer needed from our city attorneys because, you know, nobody knew what this was necessarily, and nobody was very eager to jump into it. So that that took over a year. Our first COA or not COA.

Yeah. Our first COA probably similarly took about a year. So that that public letter declaration in the first COA, we were about two years in, and we were ready to jump out of a window. It was a lot.

It was it it we were learning as we went. Right? And we were failing, and we were learning. And, and it's just gotten so much easier, better, faster now where you can do these things in five days, like you said.

Yeah. No. And, I mean, even even with the, the process before, you mentioned a couple of things, Ben. One one of them was that you felt like you had to learn a new language.

Right? And, I mean, that can that can steer a lot of people away. And, I mean, I'll I'll say this, and I think I'll I think Jakee will agree with me as well. Both Dedrone and Skydio have resources for everyone to make sure that they don't have to be scared or timid of that process, making sure that we have all of the right resources from drafting the information, making sure from a technical details of whether you're going to two hundred or four hundred feet, needing to have all of the right technical information, identifying that area of operation.

I mean, these are all things if you've never done it before, you're kind of walking into a a a completely unknown situation. And so, I think that might, leave some agencies a little timid to just, the fear of the unknown. Right? And so some of the the lessons that you guys learned and the mistakes that you may have made, are without a doubt gonna help a lot of agencies, prevent them from reinventing the wheel and going through the, the same thing.

So you guys may have, taken a couple bumps and bruises along the way, but being able to leverage those and help other agencies across the country and leverage the resources of Skydio and leverage the resources of Dedrone and Axon are definitely gonna allow agencies to hopefully not experience some of that early pain that you guys felt, especially with that that old process that was extremely lengthy and very cumbersome.

Definitely reach out and ask for help anytime you can because there's a lot of resources out there that'll make things a lot easier.

Yeah. And it's a small community too, right? I mean, every everyone wants to learn, and what they'll find is that there's a lot of agencies who are willing to share the information. Look at us right here. I mean, you guys are you guys are, sharing a a lot of great details here. So it's a it's a good it's a good thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. And I think there's I'm curious, Jay and Ben, how how you think about this. But I I talk to a lot of agencies, and there's almost kinda two parts to getting the waiver too. There's, like, the part of knowing what to say to the FAA and, like, the forms and which documents and, like, that's a certain language.

And then, like, actually knowing how to operate, like, safely under the waiver. Because you get a waiver, and it's kinda these legally provisions. And it's like, what okay. And I actually have the waiver.

What can I actually do? Like, you know, even, like, the two hundred foot waiver, it doesn't tell you how to use the ADS-B technology to avoid aircraft or the Dedrone technology to avoid aircraft and so on. So there's, like, getting the waiver and then kind of safely operating on under it. And those are kinda two separate things even up themselves sometimes.

So, and then teaching the rest of your pilots everything that you figure out there trying to get them on the same page.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Okay.

Yeah. So, on the on the four hundred foot request then, and and I'm mainly just kind of pointing this out for for folks on the webinar. Like, again, I've I've talked quite a bit about, like, what it takes to get the two hundred foot. There's generally four documents that you're gonna wanna fill out. There's a seventy seven eleven. There's this letter that self declares you that you meet these requirements. There's a checklist, and then there's a a con up of concept of operation document that that we recommend.

So for the four hundred foot request, there's a lot of similarities, but I'll just kinda call out two, differences between the two processes. So you're gonna use the same seventy seven eleven, the same letter.

There's a DAA version of the checklist. So it's very similar, but it has a couple different, rows in that table of, like, the requirements that you need, to get the four hundred foot approval.

And then there's an additional document altogether called a CMD DAA document.

And that CMD DAA document, that's that's kind of the the details about the noncooperative detect and avoid system, you know, where are you gonna install it, what sensors does it have, you know, included, how does it work, and things like that. So, for for agencies, you know, looking at doing this and and to kinda echo what what Travis said, that CMD DAA document, that should really be, like, something the the vendors are helping you with, and not something that you, as an agency, like, wanna necessarily be filling out yourselves kind of in a vacuum. So as you're as you're looking at technologies or if you're going with dDrone and and Skydio, basically, we've got the resources. We're gonna help you fill this out, to kinda take that that work off your plate.

So, yeah, any any thoughts quick on this one?

Or No.

I mean, when I worked with you on that, you did probably ninety five percent of that work. Send it over to me. I basically just read through it to make sure that it was accurate and that we understood what was expected of us. So, yeah, you definitely made that part of that process about as easy as it could possibly be.

No. And the only only comment that I was gonna make there is that, and I we're gonna be covering this in some later slides is just when it comes to those technical requirements of, knowing how far the, the ground based detection avoid technology can effectively deconflict the airspace is gonna be important in identifying everything from your operational volume, your detection volume.

And we've got we've got more detailed comments here, but these are all things that go into that process and making sure that, you're leveraging the right resources who are experts in this. We do this every day. Right? We're working with agencies around the country in a wide variety of different environments. Some of them are very urban, some of them more rural. Every environment's very different. And so in some ways, you can kind of rubber stamp and just replicate the the same exact verbiage across different waivers, but there are also unique details to each one of them, and that's where we can come in and assist with with all of those specific details to make sure that that waiver is as effective as possible and enables your operations as far as you possibly can.

Yep. And so, I mean, the the outcome of of all that work was an approval, obviously.

But, you know, great is that it only took twenty one days. So that's longer than five days, but it's also way shorter than the year, that it took you to get, like, your first coa or even, you know, the three months is kinda where it was for a while. Like, what even when we started the process earlier this year, as I mentioned, this this kind of new really streamlined process wasn't in play yet. We were probably expecting a little longer.

But, yeah, it came came in in about twenty one days.

There was no RFIs, no back and forth or anything like that. I I kind of attribute that to, like, the just robustness of the the solution that we're we're putting in place here, which we'll talk about more. But but, yeah, really quick, pretty pretty painless, I think. So it's good.

Okay. So, yeah, now, just we're gonna kinda just hit on a few different topics of, like, things to think about if you're if you're thinking about a four hundred foot request.

We're just gonna kinda share some insights and and things about, about these. So, so first off, like, if you're an agency kind of looking at the different technologies out there, the the different DA technologies, you know, one thing you definitely wanna be thinking of is, like, if I if I actually purchase a a radar or a camera system or whatever the system is, like, does it reliably detect aircraft at low altitudes? Because and that's what we really care about is those low flyers. So, yeah, I'll pass this off to Travis to to touch on this a little more.

Yeah. No. And and that's the thing. I mean, we're we're on such the bleeding edge with technology right now, and driving the industry.

And especially with this new waiver process, it's definitely enabled agencies to move faster, get their waivers faster, but it's also enabled, the ability to kind of overlook or maybe not not focus on things that you would have no idea to think about. Right? You don't know what you don't know. And so one of the most important things that I think is is important for everyone who's considering ground based detect and avoid technology is to truly understand how far the system can, effectively deconflict the airspace.

Because even when we did our internal testing at d drone and we were we were doing some internal testing, We saw how far the the the radars could see, and and we were confident that we could deconflict at a a certain range.

We actually went with a third party validation through Virginia Tech, the, the map test site, and they're absolutely phenomenal. They're considered the the gold standard for all third party validation, specifically for airspace security and and the ability to deconflict the airspace. And so when they did their third party validation, they tested they flew thousands of flights past our system to make sure, in different environments, different angles, and and, all kinds of potential, challenges. And with that third party validation, the Dedrone system can effectively deconflict at 9.45 kilometers. And the reason that this is important is because you can't just throw a radar up on a rooftop and throw a couple test flights by it and then confidently know that that system can detect and avoid at those ranges.

And then it's also important to understand the difference in types of radar. There's 2-D radar. There's 3-D radar.

The absolute most accurate, detection of any non ADS B, the ones that the FAA is really concerned about, these are maybe low flying military helicopters or tourism helicopters. Even, at one site, the things like paragliders or, or people who are or just flying, others low flying aircrafts, these are the things that aren't broadcasting ADS B, and so it's important to have an extremely accurate track on that.

But asking those questions of whether or not the system can, was third party validated and is, certified at certain ranges, and then also just that type of radar. Is it a two d radar? Is it designed for marine, type surfaces? Or is it three-dimensional? And that is really, in my opinion, if you're gonna set the stage for true autonomy, which is where everybody wants to get to. Right? Everybody wants to has that vision of a drone coming out of a dock fully autonomously.

Uh-oh.

Alright.

Well, we'll give Travis a moment to get back.

But, yeah, I think point point made that third party validation is important. And I think, you know, maybe what people don't realize too sometimes about radar is it's it's not like a sort of an absolute, like, dataset. You know, with with ADS B, this is a system that's kinda based on, like, an aircraft GPS receiver, and it's just being broadcast, like, once a second.

So there's kinda no no question necessarily about, like, the the accuracy of it or what is it and so on. But radars is you're just sending out, you know, energy and getting reflections back, and then you have to kind of make sense of what that reflection is. So, actually testing it, you know, you'll see that, like, this is mean first detection and and so on, but, these are not kinda, like, absolute ranges. You know, there's just gonna be a lot of variables that play into this. So it's important to understand kind of the the effectiveness of the radar. Mitch Brown, Travis. Sorry about that.

I was like, No worries.

As always, I'm on the road, and I'm in a hotel room right now, and the the connectivity just decided to drop. So, hopefully, it stays stable here for a little bit longer.

Yeah. We we gotcha.

Yeah. But, sorry. I missed that last part there. But, Jay and Ben, I wanted to just kind of get your guys' thoughts really quick on on that ability to, confidently operate beyond visual line of sight up to four hundred, and just your experience with with, the overall process so far.

Really, your guys' goals from a scalability perspective, what what is the long term goal for Cincinnati with with your DFR program and how how you plan on scaling it across the city?

Yeah. So, I mean, ultimately, we said earlier, we're gonna have ninety percent city coverage, and we want four hundred feet at all ninety percent of that for a multitude of reasons.

One, sometimes we just don't want people to know the drone's out there. Right? There are many times, especially in VFR that we do. That's the idea.

We want them to see it, know we're there. We're broadcasting that back to our patrol officers, but sometimes we don't want people to know we're there. Other reasons are simple reasons that everybody knows. You know, we have really tight tall, high power lines and all of that kind of stuff.

So this system gives us the confidence to know that we can go out and fly, and we're not gonna hit anything. Travis, it's it's picking up birds.

These cameras are picking up birds in the sky. So, you know, it is if to your point about paragliders and all that, it's not just the ADS B. It's it's picking up hawks and even birds smaller than that.

Well and and and that's an important point too even on the smaller, sized objects because right now, while the FAA's concern is all focused on crude aviation, there's no doubt. I think we can all agree that there's that the airspace is not gonna get less crowded in the future. And there will become a time where there's gonna be a much larger risk for drone on drone collisions with everything from drone package delivery starting to take off, medical device delivery, and then just you got your hobbyists and every other stakeholder in the area, maybe other agencies throughout the city that are looking to utilize drones.

So the the huge benefit of having that foundational platform and leveraging d drone for the airspace security portion is that we've focused on counter drone or your traditional drone detection for the past decade. So taking that transition and being able to detect crude aviation, but also having the peace of mind knowing that as your aerospace needs continue to evolve and become more complex, that we can easily continue to scale the program, without having to develop new technology. This is something that we have perfected over the last ten years.

And so as those drones continue to, crowd the airspace, you can continue to have the peace of mind that you're not investing in something today that's gonna be obsolete five years from now or even two years from now, and it'll continue to grow and evolve with it.

I'm sure there's other agencies or other stakeholders in the area that are looking to to fly drones or you guys are already probably cooperate or, coordinating with, in the region?

Yeah. I mean, the the media, first and foremost, they're out there on on every big incident that pops up where we're also starting to fly. So we're we've been trying to start a communication with them to try to, you know, mitigate those kind of situations, but this is gonna make it a lot easier at least for us. So, yeah, it's it's very powerful, and it's been very helpful.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I've got another question on that same topic of shared network. We'll save that one for a second here, though. We'll keep it we'll keep it going.

Yeah. No. I love love the discussions.

Okay. So, yeah, let let's talk a little bit about where you put these systems. So, just just to kind of explain, like, the the two images here a little bit, and then, we'll have some discussion on this. But, these are basically some some line of sight analysis tools, and this is a a tool that Dedrone uses to basically look at you know, for for a given installation location, what is the radar gonna see or not see.

So based on things like terrain, structures, and so on, you know, you you wanna put this these these systems, especially the radar system, in an area that has a kind of a full view of the sky so that you can actually detect aircraft in a full range around you. So you you the the yellow shading in these images is basically, like, where it has good line of sight. So, without diving into, like, too much detail, on the left, you see a a pretty nice circle. There's really good, yellow all throughout the circle, which generally just means good line of sight.

You're gonna have good coverage. The image on the right, you're missing a lot of yellow. Right? So there's there's gaps.

There's and you if you know Cincinnati, you you could probably kind of put this together in your head. But if you put the radar, like, down in a low spot, it's not gonna see through a hill. Or if you put it behind a building, it's not gonna see through that and so on. So so just really important part of, installing and actually using one of these.

So, yeah, go ahead, Travis. Yes.

Before I jump into the technical analysis of this and and, provide some education on the view shed analysis and and why it's so important.

I think this is a wheel or a a a, we'll say, a a problematic situation that Cincinnati had to go through here. And I think it's important for agencies to think about some of these things as they're going to implement detect and avoid or even if they're just looking to, to implement their their drone program to start. Rooftop access is, is something important to consider even if you think you have it, but I'll let I'll let Ben and Jay, go through their experience. And and, I mean, it's frustrating, yes, but it's great, great great educational for everyone else.

Yeah. So the image on the left is where we thought we were going and where we ultimately are going to end up.

That's the University of Cincinnati, and, they're a state university. Go Bearcats. Anybody familiar with them?

So that's that's ultimately where we're going to go. We met with them multiple times.

We had a gentleman's agreement that, you know, hey. We're gonna put it here. Everything's good.

University of Cincinnati police are gonna leverage our platform. So it's a win for them. They were gonna install the data and give us the space on the rooftop. It's the the building we wanna be on is the highest building at the highest point in Hampton County. So, like, we can't get any better than that.

About a week before we were going to install the D drone system, the lawyers got involved and the because they're a state university, the state also got involved and said, hold on. You can't put it up here. We have to do all these other things. So while our gentleman's agreement, the handshake is still good, we're working through it, We had to find a temporary short term solution.

So we the second image you see is downtown. That's on one of our police buildings. It's a seven story building. And Cincinnati is very hilly. So you have two hundred foot hills, two hundred and fifty foot hills going up all around the city.

And that's why you see kind of the blotchy image there. So it Dedrone was kind enough to, we installed it. We got the system up and running, and we're gonna take it down, and we're gonna move it up to that first image when we get a chance. But, definitely a learning lesson.

Again, I go back to four years ago when we started this. We've learned a lot, and we've gone through a lot of pain that we're happy to share with other people so they don't have to do it.

And I would encourage you know, if if you're working on a long term location like we are, if you've got the opportunity to put it up someplace, you know, we're not flying at four hundred feet right now because we don't have very good line of sight. You know, our wheel on the right there is not looking so great. So we're maintaining two hundred feet primarily, but we're still leveraging that system so that we can learn it, learn how to interact with it. And just in the last couple weeks, we've, you know, learned a couple things about, you know, what are we gonna have up on a TV for all the pilots to be able to see versus what do I need to have on the monitor right in front of me, what alerts do we have, what sounds mean, what things.

So having that short term solution, albeit not really getting us that four hundred foot that we wanted to begin with, when we get that four hundred feet, we're not gonna have those learning curves at that time. We'll be familiar with the system and ready to go. So getting that short term solution was still very helpful for us even though it's not getting us exactly what we want just yet.

Yeah. And you mentioned you mentioned the the two hundred and four hundred. I think that's a very important thing because I I oftentimes get the question of, okay. Well, should I just go to two hundred, or should I just go to four hundred?

And it's really not one or the other. There's a major benefit to having both. And this is a perfect example of it where in the in the on the right hand side, in the the the dark yellow, I guess, if that's the the the saturated yellow area here, you you can operate up to four hundred. But in this type of deployment here, knowing where you can and you can't and maybe you wanna dip down and operate at two hundred at that level.

But I think it's extremely important, for anybody on this call who who might be thinking about doing a ground based detect and avoid system.

Even though we we went and got third party validated and dDrone can effectively detect and avoid at those ranges that Virginia Tech has has validated us for. As I had mentioned, every single location, every every city, every every deployment has a different topography, different building structure. And I say this all the time. You cannot just put a radar on a rooftop and say that, yes, we think that this can detect and avoid at nine nine and a half kilometers or whatever it may be. And so if you're thinking about doing a a system like this, it's extremely important to do these viewshed analysis. So if you put your radar up on a rooftop and there's a large building right next to it, there's gonna be a complete blind blind spot right next to it. It's gonna cast a shadow, and that entire shadow just is just gonna get bigger and bigger as it goes outward.

And so having this type of analysis, while it may be a little painful in the short term, I think from an educational perspective, it's important for everyone to know that radar is, is an extremely temperamental type of technology, and it needs to have a good location. And that location needs to be tested because even if it is the highest point, there may be something, tricky with maybe where it's positioned on the rooftop. And so doing this level of in-depth analysis is what really sets dDrone apart from, any other company when it comes to the airspace security. Some people might be wondering, well, why would you even show this image on the left?

That doesn't show very well. Well, the session here today is more about education and showing people the level of effort that we go into. While it may be a little frustrating and a little time consuming, it's important for our customers to have the absolute best solution out there and know that we're going through this in-depth analysis. This image on the right is a short term location, but we've identified the most optimal location.

We will get it there eventually and have a very robust system for beyond there's line of sight up to four hundred. But we would be doing all of our customers a disservice if we just threw a radar up on a rooftop and said, trust us. It'll be able to detect and avoid at that range because that could result in your system being pulled offline down the road. If the FAA wants to come in and audit the the the data and see if it's actively doing what you say it can do, we wanna make sure that everyone has the confidence knowing that we've gone through the process and they can, without a shadow of a doubt, know that the system will effectively detect and avoid at those ranges and that their system isn't gonna be compromised or at risk of being pulled offline sometime down the road.

And that's no nobody wants that. That that's a step backwards that puts fear and doubt in people's minds, and this is something that we need to take our time with the implementation, take our time with the the analysis of all the airspace and all of the different factors, and then you can continue to build from there.

But, I mean, I think both, Ben and Jay can attest to the level of detail that we've gone into, and everybody wants to move fast. Right? Everyone wants to we need to get it up. Let's get it up. But I think, they've seen the level of of effort that we've gone into on, and, hopefully, it's, it's starting it it will pay off long term.

No doubt.

Yeah. Yeah. And and kind of tying, I mean, both of you, I think, kinda hit this point, but tying it a little bit back to, like, the waiver itself too.

The the two hundred foot and the four hundred foot waivers that you actually get, the the piece of paper, they're almost identical. I mean, I'd say, like, ninety percent of the provisions are kind of the same between them, but the four hundred foot approvals will contain a couple extra provisions that talk about your detect and avoid system, you know, how it basically has to be, like, as you stated in the application and so on. But but one key part tying back to this this line of sight model is that the the last sentence highlighted here, if if you're operating in an area where the DA system, is compromised, you're basically not effective. You have to go down to flying at two hundred feet. So, if you don't know kinda where these areas are, then you could be putting yourself at risk of kinda not complying with your waiver, as well. So just kinda tying that all back together.

Yeah.

And there's also I mean So to speak with, Jakee, one thing we noticed when we got our four hundred foot, and I remember talking to you about it because I it said if there's a lost connection that your return to home has to be set at two hundred feet, and I thought maybe that was a typo, but it was brought brought up to my attention.

It makes perfect sense.

You know, you need to have pilot interaction with this drone for this whole system to actually completely work. So if you lose connection to your aircraft, your return to home needs to be set down in that two hundred foot ADS B area because you're no longer, hands on to be able to to maneuver that that aircraft should you come into a a conflict zone.

Yeah. Yeah. You might see something on the radar, but you can't avoid it then. Right? Yeah.

Correct.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What were you what were you gonna say, Travis? Think you No.

I was I was just I I I will save it for the next slide.

I think, I think Okay.

Okay. Perfect.

Got a good one here.

Yeah. Right on. Okay. Alright. So, yeah, just kind of another thought here, just insight with this with this technology is that, you know, you may hear, and you have heard that these radars maybe have, like, kind of these maximum detection distances or, like, average in the case of the third party validation, the the mean detection range of over nine kilometers.

But I I do hear some agencies get a little confused about this. Like, does that mean I can operate out that far, or kinda what does that mean for, like, operational areas? So just, one thing, you know, I I think it's important for agencies to know is that, do need to give a little bit of buffer between sort of where the the maximum or, like, that average detection distance is and where you operate so that if you do detect something, the the operator has that time to kind of do these four steps here. We call it detect, track, evaluate, maneuver.

But, basically, you need to have some time to actually react and if necessary, get the drone out of the way. So, there's oftentimes a small difference between sort of your detection range and then the max distance that you can operate the drone at. And and for our here and the the approval, we basically give the the pilot about a mile, which in terms of kinda, like, time and speed is about thirty seconds to to take action if something is actually detected at that range.

So Yeah.

And, I mean, when it when it comes to the the the mathematical equations that go into identifying these and making sure that your operational volume has a well clear buffer out to the detection volume. These all need to be in line with the ASTM standards, and we all know that there's acronyms for for the to the end of time when it comes to the FAA and just all of this industry. But the ASTM standards are are the set of standards that are extremely important to base all of this off of. And, again, this is just another reason why leveraging Virginia Tech, was such a a valuable resource for dDrone because, they go ahead and put all of those calculations in there.

So when we are are validated at that almost four and a half kilometers, we know that, all of the, near mid air collision calculations were put in. And as, you see here, there's thirty seconds for the operator to complete a chain of events. All of these things have to be put into to, consideration here, and it is a very complex process. One slight miscalculation could drastically change what the outcome is.

And so that's again why it's just very important to, make sure that the system has been checked, validated, and, and third party independently validated, using those, those different calculations.

So Yeah.

And then we got, like, this next one. So we'll we'll just move to it because I know there'll be some discussion on this. So, you know, we've kinda talked about, like, you know, pick the right technology, install it in the right location. But now as, like, an operator, how do you actually use this technology? Like, it's detecting things, but, now what? So, DFR command in in dDrone, there's actually a couple options really for, you know, Jay and Ben, how you guys can view this this data. D drone has a display, which might be useful in some cases.

And then we're also integrating in DFR Command. We're integrating this data directly so that, like, as a pilot, you know, you you mainly wanna be focused on the mission. Right? The video, what's going on on the ground, communicating, etcetera. You don't wanna spend a lot of time, like, kind of being this airspace monitoring system or or distraction. So, we're gonna be integrating this data all in one kind of pane of glass for operators with alerting so that pilots just know if something's getting close. But but, yeah, I I kinda wanna turn over, you know, Jay and Ben to maybe talk about how you're kinda setting up your your displays and, how you're using this data.

Yeah. So we're our our primary setup right now, we've got one thirty seven inch monitor that we're utilizing. That's, like, our primary monitor in front of us, and then we have our laptop monitor as well.

But we're using that thirty seven inch monitor primarily for the DFR Command. That's where we're doing our flights. We're getting our dispatch runs. We're clearing all of our stuff on there.

We also have a fifty inch TV up on the wall that all the pilots in the room can see, and that is what we have, Dedrone Beyond. Like, that is up there twenty four seven. So it's kinda like you've got two two options. If I'm piloting a drone and I'm flying, I'm gonna get that information inside that that window that I'm actively flying in.

So you really can't miss it. It's right there. It doesn't obscure your view of anything. It's you know, it pops up in a way with an alert, so you really can't miss it, but it's not gonna interfere with you.

It gives you the information you need very quickly.

And then kind of a a second line of defense there up on that TV. The TV is also gonna alert. So if there's other pilots in the room who maybe aren't actively flying, they can continue to monitor that as well. They can give you some additional information to let you know what it is that they're seeing, when you're clear, those kind of things. So it's kinda twofold, and it kinda it's a team effort at that point.

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Just one thing I wanted to to mention here, Jake, is that, I mean, as as we had mentioned, there's there's a a lot of different use cases here. So, that pilot, of course, we want Dedrone if necessary to just be completely behind the scenes. And I think a lot of people, when they think about integrating new technologies, they're gonna think about all the different screens that they're gonna potentially have to look at. And I've seen some pretty wild setups in my day.

Four or five monitors all doing different things, ADS B on one, and then still flying a drone at the same time. But our whole goal is to be the engine of the airspace. Do wanna think of that way? Just completely deconflicting the airspace, whether it be from crude aviation or drones or, anything that could potentially be potentially be an airspace conflict and ultimately feeding that right into DFR Command and reducing the amount of screens that you have to look at.

But there also may be a scenario where you're working a major event, and that person that work that's working on a command post may not necessarily be concerned with, crude aviation or or or the drone operations in general, but they are worried about airspace security. And that person may have a need to just look into the d drone system and see drone detections in that area. And so being able to segment the, user permissions based on different roles and responsibilities within the organization and then also different, scenarios, whether it be a major event or a rapidly evolving situation.

Having that flexibility, is huge, and and just being able to integrate with technology that you're already utilizing, is is phenomenal. Nobody wants to add more screens or make things more complex.

I'm I'm sure that, both Jay and Ben are already looking at plenty of monitors, on a daily basis. Adding another one is not something, we wanna do.

So And it's not cost effective.

You know, monitors are expensive. If you've got ten pilots, that's ten monitors. You know, that just adds a whole another expense to this already rather expense expensive rollout that you're working on.

So having it all built into one program where it's gonna give you that information immediately when you need it, but it can operate in the background in the meantime. You know, it saves you thousands of dollars just on your initial setup.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And maybe before I you know, we're we're we got about nine minutes left. We'll try and do a couple questions. But maybe before I get to, like, the q and a, just, just wanna open up, like, maybe Travis first. Any anything any final thoughts, anything you wanna hit on?

I mean, the the final the final thoughts on my end from from the aerospace portion is is really the key things that that I I focused on today would really be, if you could take away this one thing, I would say, when evaluating a a ground based detect and void system, make sure that it's third party validated, and that those those are independently tested, not just the company saying, hey. Trust us. We can do this. Identify those right rooftops so you can do it, and then also make sure that it's scalable for different types of operations, whether it be beyond visual line of sight, drone detection, and, of course, being able to integrate with the, the existing platform.

I mean, those are those are the key things that I I I just try to educate agencies because everyone's at a different stage of their DFR, journey. And so regardless of where you are, all of these different things really do matter. And you can't just throw a radar on a rooftop and hope that it detects and avoids and and think that it's gonna be effective. So, really taking those additional steps are some of the the most important things that I I would like people to to walk away on, at least on the airspace portion of it.

Yeah. And I'll piggyback on Travis a little bit. Three or four years ago two years ago, Ben and I were on the other end of this call, listening into people who have done it. Right?

And I'd just say rely on your sources. Right? Rely on people that have done it. We wouldn't be where we are without experts in the field, without people that were willing to help us along the way.

And now we're we're kinda here with it live, and we're doing it. And we're happy to help others. I mean, that's anybody that's in law enforcement knows that's what we do. Somebody does something, and then we share it.

Right? Then everybody kinda copies that. So rely on people that have done it, and it's a lot less scary now than it was even a year ago. It's it's all getting easier and more mainstream Yep.

For sure. Don't expect a a fast solution this it takes time depending on where you're at. If you're just getting started, it's gonna take a while. It'll probably go faster for you than it did for us because there's a lot more resources out there to to assist.

But it's gonna take some time and make sure as you're going through that process, you you are always asking, you know, who needs to be involved in this call. Learn from our example working with UC. You know, we met with law and public safety up there. We met with their the person in charge of all their real estate.

We thought we had all the right players in the room, and we totally left out an entire aspect of it that kinda slowed some things down at the very end. So make sure you're thinking big picture. You know, do we need to have lawyers involved? Do we need to have you know, it's a state institution.

Does the state have any scope here? Are they gonna be interested in in this process as well? And then lean on some of your stakeholders in your communities as well. You might be able to find some good partners who understand that, you know, this could help them as well, and maybe they'll help you front some of that burden or offer a rooftop, you know, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Perfect.

Okay. So, yeah, let's look at a couple questions here.

And I'll I'll try and kinda moderate these a little bit and and dish them out. But, there there's a I look at kind of a group of questions of, like, ADS B and and DAA and and just kinda, like, more technical on them. So, I'll I'll sort of answer the first part of it. Like, the question is, like, so x tens have ADS B on them.

So from a two hundred foot perspective, like, do I need any extra technology to go do that type of, of operation? And I can kinda skip back here to, the two concepts of operation here, really. Right? So so to get started with the two hundred foot approval, you don't really need kinda any extra technology. Like, Skydio has ADS B built in both to the drones and to our docking stations.

And so you can basically just request this waiver, and you don't need any kind of extra technology, software, etcetera, to go do that.

And then, you know, do do Skydio drones have the noncooperative detection avoid technology built in, though? No. And, I would say for for small drones kind of of this category, onboard noncooperative detect and avoid technology is, to my knowledge, there there aren't any options, really. I mean, Travis, like, the the radars we're talking here, and I'm I'm gonna pass it to you for kind of a little more detail. But these are these are bigger radars, almost bigger than an X10 themselves. Right? So Yeah.

So we we didn't really talk about it. But, Travis, could you just maybe quickly explain, like, what is a Dedrone Beyond system? Like, what sensors does it have?

And Yeah.

So is it go. Yeah. The the so the Dedrone Beyond system is is leveraging a a wide variety of different technologies. So the foundation of it is long range radar. Those radar panels so there's all different types of radar out there.

And some of them are short range, some of them are long range. And as I've mentioned, some of them are also two dimensional, but we are we're leveraging a a long range radar that's three-dimensional. We also have a p a PTZ camera on top for object verification. So as soon as something is detected again, these things are noncooperative.

So the radar detects it, and it gets a track. And there's very good classifiers that are are built in that can sometimes get a, an object verification, but having that camera to visually, confirm exactly what that, that object is, just gives you an additional layer of verification. And then, of course, we also had ADS B built into the, the d drone beyond system as well. So taking all of these different data points give you the ability to have extremely high quality airspace awareness.

And so that's really the the basics of it.

The technology itself, radar is is very straightforward, but, taking all of these different things into account, and, reducing false positives as much as possible by adding additional filters and things like that, This comes with the decade long experience that Dedrone has detecting very small objects, the the drones that are in the airspace. And so taking that same foundational technology and applying it to detecting larger objects will reduce the amount of false positive as much as possible.

There's no doubt we're still gonna get the birds every now and then. That's just how radar works. But being able to reduce them as much as possible is key because, otherwise, your your system's just gonna be going off constantly. And you're constantly having to take avoidance movers because you can't delineate what's a aircraft and what's a a bird or something that shouldn't be alerting. And so these are all additional things from a technology perspective that we apply to the, the foundational radar technology that make it, as effective as it possibly can.

Yeah. And to your point, like Jay mentioned earlier that we've been picking up birds, I wanna point out that we're not detecting them. The radar is seeing them. The camera is then pointing to them.

It's determining that it's a bird. It's not an aircraft. It's not a drone, and we're not getting any kind of alerts. So you would never know that that bird was being picked up if you weren't watching the large TV on the wall and seeing what that camera's doing.

So it's it is it is picking them up, but it is not throwing us alerts every time it detects a bird. It's detecting it, identifying it, realizing that it's a bird, and we get no detection whatsoever. So it's definitely doing its job there, making sure that it's only mitigating and deconflicting space with either manned aircraft or other drones.

Yeah.

And that's huge because Yeah.

You you guys know just as well as I do that if that thing starts going off constantly and nine times out of ten, it's a bird and not natural aircraft, eventually, you're just gonna be like, this is this is, out of control. We cannot keep doing this.

You you get that false alarm syndrome where you just stop listening to it.

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. That's such a good point. So glad that got brought up. And and just kind of related to there there's a question. I think there may have been a little confusion on so there's sort of a long range rate or times three here and whether this was one one Dedrone Beyond setup or multiples. But, you know, this is basically one node, kinda one installation that is covering now this, this large area.

And, Travis too. So so these are primarily, like, roof mounted on, you know, poles or or to kind of elevate them up. Right? But you also have, like, trailer mounted solutions. Like, you have a variety of kind of deployment options. Right?

We do. So the the standard and and my recommendation for these types of deployments is always rooftop.

That way you can also get a stable network connection and and just power connectivity. We do have the ability to deploy these on trailers with Starlinks, and that way you have a little bit more of a a mobile solution here.

And the FAA has said in their new process that, that mobile solutions can be utilized for ground based detect and avoid. But I think for most DFR programs, having them roof mounted, having them in an optimal location, doing this viewshed analysis, that's gonna give you the best results and consistent results. If you have a trailer that's moving around, it's gonna be very difficult to do these viewshed analysis on on the fly in real time and determine where you can fly and where you can't.

So roof mounted is definitely the recommendation.

And just for perspective, we were able to get ours up on the roof and completely installed in just under two days.

So it's not a super technical process.

It's, you know, a giant erector set, basically. Lots of screws, lots of bolts, but the instructions are super easy to follow. We had a couple, you know, people on-site with us from Dedrone, but we were also pitching in and helping out.

The hardest part of the whole process is just getting the equipment to the roof. But once you're up there, the install is really pretty simple.

Travis, it's probably important to point out that there's no, penetration to the roof. You guys don't put any holes in. So Yeah. No. That's important to a lot of people.

No. And that's that's actually a great point. On on the mounting, if if getting permits to actually mount something to the building is a problem, we can do non penetrating roof mounts just like Jay mentioned, and really work with any sort of configuration options.

All dDrone really needs is a three inch diameter pole to to put it on, and make sure we've got a good location, and, we can we can figure out the the best way that meets your agency's needs without having to jump through hoops for permits and mounting things to the actual building itself.

Perfect.

Yeah. And I and I know we're we're already a little long. I think we'll do maybe, like, two more questions. There's a couple good ones for folks that are sticking around.

So as far as, like, is is this system specific to, like, X10, or is it, you know, agnostic?

So, Travis, maybe if you could speak to that a little bit. You know, there's obviously a very tight integration between Skydio and Axon as as you saw, like, getting this data all on one pane of glass, but it's also not, you know, limited to just X10.

Yeah. No. I mean, we're we're committed to enabling the entire industry as a whole.

Agencies public safety agencies are the priority first and foremost, and we wanna make sure that they're leveraging whatever technology they're already utilizing. Of course, we're we're kind of part and partial to to Skydio. We wanna make sure that we're encouraging that. I do believe that it's the the best drone in the industry or the best American made drone without a doubt.

And enabling that and creating a an environment or an ecosystem, that has the ability to continue to scale, I think, is the the most important thing possible.

And with the partnership that we have, I I think that it's not even close to, being matched anywhere with the the product capability, flexibility, and scalability, if I just wanna continue to throw buzzwords out there.

It's a it has it has a lot lot of potential and a lot of ability, but it is system agnostic at the end of the day.

Yep.

Okay. And so so this last one, it it's not directly rated to four hundred foot, but, like, there's so many questions about this, that I I do wanna hit on it quick. So for both the two hundred and the four hundred foot approvals, the the sort of default approval, and this is related to the zero grids in the facility maps, to to tee off here. So these two approvals by default will allow you to fly in control airspace up to the facility map grids, and the facility map grids become basically like a hard ceiling.

If you have a if you have a four hundred foot approval, like, since APD, but the grid is two hundred, they're still limited to two hundred or zero. Can't fly it or and so on. So, so the all the questions here are around, like, how do I get around these areas? How do I, like, raise these grids?

Is there a process to do that and so on?

So the the short answer today is that the FAA is working on a process to, sign COAs. So these this would be sort of a second request, but they're they're working on a process to sign COAs that will allow agencies to routinely fly above certain grid numbers.

Now this is still gonna be a little bit dependent on the airport, the runways, just the the airspace situation in your jurisdiction.

You know, I I think you should temper expectations that you're gonna get ability to fly routinely, like, ten feet from the runway. But there are a lot of airports in areas around the country where maybe the zero grids are, like, bigger than they maybe realistically need to be, or, there there should be maybe another way for kind of professional public safety operators to fly in these areas.

And so the FAA is working on a process.

There's been some movement in the last couple weeks, that's very promising, so I think we're getting closer.

And we're gonna do some some follow on content to that when we kinda know about a process so we can give some more information about that.

But, yeah, that's kinda where things stand today. So you're you're stuck at your grid numbers for today, and, hopefully, very soon, there will be a process, and we'll be back to tell you more about that. So and I don't think you know, for Jay and Ben, I think you guys are are quite lucky that your airports are kinda generally outside of town, so I don't think this really impacts you. But, yeah, any final comments on that from the field?

Only just that, you know, we've been talking a lot about the four hundred foot, but for the last three weeks, we've been flying at two. And, you can accomplish pretty much everything at that two hundred foot point. So don't don't be discouraged if you do have an airport nearby and it's keeping you down at that two hundred foot mark. It's not a big deal. It's not impeded us one bit.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's all about you know, be be flexible. Right? It's just kind of one of the the big takeaways here.

You know? So it's not always four hundred. It's not always two hundred, having options and and kinda just being willing to work in the situation you've got is is key. So okay.

So, yeah, we we went long, but thanks for those of you that stuck around. Thanks, Jay and Ben and Travis, for joining me today. This was awesome.

Gave me gave me a little break from talking for an hour. So, and, yeah, for questions that we didn't answer, we'll we'll try and do some follow-up on that.

But, yeah, until we see you on the next one, fly safe, everybody. Stay safe, and we'll take care. See you.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, everybody.