Wistia provides professional video hosting. Engage your prospects, customers, and employees with video.
HostGator.com, your one stop shop to getting your business online. Your domain name, your website, your website design, and even your marketing, they've got you covered. Start today for 30% off hosting with coupon code “twist.”
It’s drones week here! Drones are becoming ready for primetime. They are safe, easy to fly, and are now able to do actual commerce in the world because regulations are becoming reasonable. Our first drones guest expert this week is Helen Greiner, Founder and CEO of CyPhy Works (a drone robotics company). Helen has been working in robotics for decades and was one of the Cofounders of iRobot that made the Roomba vacuuming machine. Jason also gets a chance to live demo the CyPhy Works LVL 1 drone!
Key Takeaways - 2 min read
Top Quote:
“I am so excited I will eventually get my packages within 30 minutes, and I believe my company is going to be the one that brings it to you.”
- Helen Greiner
Key Takeaways:
On Helen's Background
Helen has been working on robots for decades.
She is one of the Cofounders of iRobot that made that Rumba vacuuming machine.
In 2008 she saw it was time to jump in because the capabilities they finally had the technological capabilities.
On Quadcopters Vs. Hexacopters
Quadcopters had been around in universities since the early 2000’s.
What makes them better than the standard helicopter is they are much easier to control.
They have gone beyond even the quadcopter and CyPhy has made the hexacopter (6 blades) that doesn’t need to tip to fly.
It has all the advantages of the helicopter with the ease of control of the quadcopter.
On CyPhy's Kickstarter Campaign
They put the new LVL 1 hexicopter on Kickstarter two weeks ago and it has done phenomenal with more than $500,000 over 2 weeks.
They exceeded their initial goal of $250,000 within the first four days, which was great.
The cost of the new LVL 1 hexicopter is $495 (which includes a camera).
They have been able to get the price down dramatically because they don’t need a separate mount system underneath the drone for the camera.
Other Features Of The Hexacopter
There are some features of the CyPhy LVL 1 drone that they have been getting amazing feedback on:
Real-time social sharing because drone flying is a social activity, but sometimes you go out alone and want to share.
Geo-fencing technology - allows the user to walk their phone around the perimeter of where you want your drone to stay, and the drone will stay within those confines.
“Homing behavior” - if the drone goes outside of the radio communication system and you aren’t getting a signal anymore it will return home automatically.
On Drone Regulation
For regulation under recreational use there are some very simple guidelines to follow:
Don’t fly near an airport (within 5 miles)
Don’t fly higher than 400 feet
Don’t fly over people
Fly safely
For commercial regulation the FAA just put out a set of proposed rules that will most likely come in to effect in early 2017.
The rules are basically:
Don’t fly higher than 500 feet
You can only fly during the day
Don’t fly near an airport
On Drone Delivery
Helen is excited for drones to be everywhere in the future.
She is excited to get her packages in 30 minutes, and believes her company will be the one that brings it to you.
The shortest distance between any two points is as the drone fly’s, so you can get your packages much faster.
This will be instant gratification because consumers want what the want now, and the drones will allow them to get it.
Helen does not believe we will have a dystopian future with drones flying everywhere in the future.
Table of Contents (Full Notes)- 10 min read
*You can use the table of contents links below to jump to that section only on laptop and desktop.*
Two of the iRobot founders were grad students at MIT and one was a professor (who kept his day job).
They had been doing robots for 9 years for all sorts of different applications prior to coming up with the Roomba.
They came up with the Roomba and started playing around with it and realized the price point worked, the capabilities worked, and the customer focus groups worked.
Everything came together for this to be the first real autonomous robot.
They put the new LVL 1 hexicopter on Kickstarter two weeks ago and it has done phenomenal with more than $500,000 over 2 weeks.
They exceeded their initial goal of $250,000 within the first four days, which was great.
The old way to do things was to throw the engineers in the back room, feed them once in a while, and two years later you put a product on the market and hope for the best.
Now with Kickstarter and crowdfunding you are able to get that initial feedback, and beyond that you have a community of support that you can ask ongoing product development questions to.
The cost of the new LVL 1 hexacopter is $495 (which includes a camera).
This cuts the price of comparable drones by more than half and took some very clever engineering.
$500 is the price point you don’t have to ask your significant other if it’s okay you can just go out and buy it.
The new LVL 1 drone is going to retail for over $600 so it is a really good deal right now on Kickstarter.
They have been able to get the price down dramatically because they don’t need a separate mount system underneath the drone for the camera.
There is a weight to energy ratio that is a factor with quadcopters, and with the new CyPhy LVL 1 hexacopter the flying time is around 15-20 minutes.
They also have a line of commercial robots that use tether systems, which get their power supplied from the ground.
If you want to have an eye in the sky long-term like a near-earth satellite system you can have this flying 500 feet up and operating 24/7.
GPS is usually pretty stable but can technically be inaccurate up to 15 feet in either direction.
Usually they hover within 1-2 feet.
GPS is capable of doing much more finite precise location but it is not available to the public yet. It has the potential to be down to the inches.
There is a pretty good GPS signal today, but the way to get a better one is to have a differential station so you can have very precise accuracy.
This is basically two GPS systems where one of them is on the ground communicating with the one flying for better accuracy.
The GPS system we all use today is one that was created by the government for military use originally and was opened up to the public for commercial use.
Other countries have their own GPS systems, and you can use these for the drones as well.
The more GPS systems you have the more accurate your signal.
Another feature of the CyPhy LVL 1 drone is real-time social sharing because drone flying is a social activity.
They do real-time social sharing because drone flying is a very social activity, but sometimes you go out alone and want to share.
One thing they have got amazing feedback on thus far has been their geo-fencing technology.
With a lot of drones you have to select waypoints in your phone and do correspondence of that to the real world.
What they do instead is you allow the user to walk their phone around the perimeter of where you want your drone to stay, and the drone will stay within those confines.
If you are a little intimidated to take that first flight you know the drone will stay exactly within the perimeter you set.
How high and far these current drone can go really depends on the transmission system.
With their drone they built a “homing behavior”, which means if the drone goes outside of the radio communication system and you aren’t getting a signal anymore it will return home automatically.
They also do an automatic takeoff and automatic landing behavior so you don’t have to control it in that difficult region.
Helen is excited for drones to be everywhere in the future.
She is excited to get her packages in 30 minutes, and believes her company will be the one that brings it to you.
Jason was calling a little bit of BS on the amazon drone delivery system, but was told that it is not BS and they are testing delivering the packages to the top of urban buildings where residents can retrieve them there.
You can also have the packages delivered in suburban areas because you can pick where you have the package dropped off on your satellite system, and the drone can use its visual system to map exactly where you selected.
The package will be lowered via a cable and can hold a shoebox-sized payload of up to 5 pounds.
The shortest distance between any two points is as the drone fly’s, so you can get your packages much faster.
This will be instant gratification because consumers want what the want now, and the drones will allow them to get it.
Helen does not believe we will have a dystopian future with drones flying everywhere in the future.
You don’t get enough packages to take up the massive amounts of space in the sky.
Nobody pays any attention to helicopters that are flying around everyday, and the drones will be the same way.
You can’t hear them when they are up above 200 feet, and they will probably be flying around 400-500 feet.
You can barely see them when they are up that high.
