Produced By - #18 - Daniel James: Cancer Survivor On a Mission To Revolutionise Drone Delivery Services

Starting point is 00:00:02 Daniel James is a cancer survivor and media manager for Inteliports and motion robotics, collaborating on building drone ports to facilitate fully automated drone delivery. Daniel, a native of Somerset, relocated to London to get a degree in television production at university. He later began working for a virtual reality startup, creating a variety of VR products. Then he left London and went to work as airport security, where he remained until he remained until he he learned something that would change his life. After receiving a diagnosis, David spent several months' immobile with some lasting effects. Now that he has mostly recovered, Daniel works as a media manager for IntelliPorts and Motion

Starting point is 00:00:46 Robotics, a business that seeks to revolutionize drone deliveries with its technology. Handling all social media, video recording and promotion-related manners. Listen to this episode to find out more about Daniel's predicatement, learn what it's like to work in airport. security and get a deep dive into drools and their use for deliveries. Enjoy. Hello Daniel, thank you for JDNus today and welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for me. Can you please try to introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Daniel James. I am currently social media manager for motion robotics and in Tadaport's. Social media manager wise, not too heavily at the moment, mainly just video. recording and a bit of web design at the moment and I'll be editing.

Starting point is 00:01:39 Although the social media posting should increase, as a few projects are going further along. A bit of a background. I haven't been working in media for too long, mainly for the past. Well, it depends how you want to look at it to be nice. It's a bit of a weird one. My kind of resume is a bit all over the place compared to some of taking a bit of a weird route. This is good we can explore that route. How was it?

Starting point is 00:02:04 Or what did you do before you started with social media? So, first job I had was bartending in a bar in Soho. I guess that's something that a lot of us did. Yeah, everyone has to do some kind of jobs to get by. But because it was in shortage, it was pretty close to a few media outlets and production companies and pretty good area to kind of be around. There was this one company called Rawls, TV, that would come to our bar quite a lot.

Starting point is 00:02:33 Unfortunately, I didn't really have the social tools to actually get into anywhere. So I started working with a virtual reality company, some friends set up, who set up their office directly, like in the attic of the bar, basically, in like a small closet. Was that in the bar you worked in? Yes, yeah, they set up in the same building. So it was a virtual reality company developing virtual tools for VR. Can you say a bit more detail about it so that we can try to imagine something? Yeah, of course.

Starting point is 00:03:05 So the idea of the company was to virtually be there. So creating 3D representations of houses or phenomenon projects and allowing people to observe them in a virtual reality environment, which would also be used as pre-visualization or nice renders that they can show to investors. My side of it was to show building. that had already been renovated in and work with 360 video, which was kind of interesting at the time. So my role was to work on 360 video to present 360 video tours, which unfortunately didn't really catch on too much. And it supplied quite a few images for Google Maps around the shortage area.

Starting point is 00:03:51 I think they've got up to around 60,000 views collectively. It's kind of, yeah, that's like... Is it still there? Yeah. Yeah, the Google Maps are still there and also virtually be there are still operating and they are doing fairly well now, to be honest. They've been doing a few things. I had to pass away, unfortunately, because it was one of those things where you start working for a company and with the promise that something's going to happen in the future. So I kind of ran out my time and my patience with that.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Unfortunately, so I had to kind of part ways and that's when I started working security at an airport. I mean, in Bristol, near a part of the country. so that was completely different. Why such a career change? Like, why this industry? It was just because I just needed a job at a time. I just needed something that was paying, as quite a lot of us do.

Starting point is 00:04:39 And unfortunately, if it can't... Don't get into the media industry, things can be quite tough. It's not hard to get into the media industry. It's just I have dyslexia. And I didn't really think of it as an issue until quite recently. But because my social schools didn't develop

Starting point is 00:04:57 up as quickly as someone else's. This was quite a contributing factor into why every time I wanted to approach someone that could have led down to a more traditional media job, there was a pullback in me and I couldn't really figure out what it was. Yeah, that's kind of what led me into security. The whole whole use spend there in security? We started doing that around 2019, I think, so I did. So I did. that for about two years. Was it during the COVID or around the COVID? Just before COVID.

Starting point is 00:05:34 I must have started around 2017. Yeah, I started doing Apple security and just did nine to five. Nothing in that job really, just literally just working all hours, no free time, just doing meaningful tasks until one day my feet started to swell up from all the walking I was doing. Oh yeah, I can imagine Matt has been a lot of... Yeah, no. Oh, yeah, no, there's so much walking around that airport. It was crazy.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Feats swallowed up in quite a large way, so I had to leave for the hospital. They got me on some medication to reduce the swimming, came back for some blood tests, and went back to work thinking nothing of it, recovered after some antibiotics, and then got a phone call during the middle of my shift, saying, you need to come to the hospital right now. We've got a bed for you. Yeah, come in, please. And I was like, okay, do I?

Starting point is 00:06:27 Can I wait till tomorrow? Can I inform? No, you've got to come right now. And I was like, okay. Still not really knowing what was going on. We got to the hospital, went to hematology and oncology. Started reading posters on the wall, and it was all for all character stuff, and I was like, oh, I don't know. And that's what the doctor came in and said I had acute molloid leukemia. So that put me out commission for about best part of 2020, really. So was it because of that walking, or did they find out? based on those tests that they did after you walk in?

Starting point is 00:07:01 So keep myeloid leukemia is cancer of the blood, which develops when the blood-producing sensor, which is the marrow inside your bones, doesn't produce the right amounts of certain blood cells, whether there's blood cells, red cells, and platelets. Oh, yeah. So that values of cell, but I wasn't producing enough platelets, really. The cause of it, still unknown, really.

Starting point is 00:07:24 It was just kind of random. So was it kind of that you were lucky that you went to the hospital so that they found out? Yeah, I got a blood test, otherwise I would have never known and it would have just, I would have just kept working at the airport and eventually just got worse to the point where it was too late. I think I got it at a pretty decent time, which was, yeah, very lucky. How was, I mean, I cannot really imagine such a scenario if it happened. It was very bizarre. It was very bizarre.

Starting point is 00:07:55 just multiple months of just sitting in the bed and things happening and you're just trying to wait for time to go by as your body gets weaker and lose all your hair. Kind of incredible that I got my hair back in the way that I can have pretty much the safe as it was just a little bit thinner, which was not too so great for my beard, but I managed to grow enough of it to kind of restore it. I think, I don't know. I don't know if it works that well. And how was the treatment? Was it just you lying in a bed and waiting for pills to work or your body to cope with it? So most of it is intravenous. So chemotherapy is mixed up into a solution and then it's intravenously introduced into your body.

Starting point is 00:08:40 I had to have a splint insert into my arm through one of the arteries leading to just above the first heart bowel. So I had to have a bent all the way into there, which was quite uncomfortable every time. But once it's in there, it's not terrible. You can still feel it now, and it's a bit off-footing, but it's not too bad. And you just get weaker, you start passing out and throwing up a lot. It's not fun, not fun at all. And what is the percentage of survival? Is there like a high percentage or low?

Starting point is 00:09:13 The percentage of survival for acute mild leukemia was, I don't think it was that bad, to be honest. I can't remember exactly what it was. I mean, you just double-check. Just to imagine if it's something very serious that you are scared of your life, because obviously you are scared, but to what extent? More than 25% of adults with AML, about 45% of those can be expected to survive three years or maybe more. So, about 45%, so not terrible in the schemes of cancer. I think I was given a better number than that, to be honest, but. Do you know or did they tell you what was like the cause in the first place that it happened?

Starting point is 00:09:58 It's just that happens to someone, or is there like a specific reason for that? I don't think they really had a specific reason for it, no. As I was working in the airport, I was close to X-ray machines quite a lot, and it was quite common for us to lean on them, which they did say in training not to do, but we just did it anyway because it was just something to lead on after like a long day of work. So that could have led to a cause of it, I don't know, I can't really say that because I don't really know if there's actually been

Starting point is 00:10:27 much of an investigation on that. Are x-raying machines those that they use for baggage checks? Yeah, you put your bag on a conveyor belt and it goes into a box and then it does an x-ray. And then some old fart with glasses you can barely see, looks at it, sees a small electronic device, goes absolutely crazy and then you get a full bag search because they don't know what they're looking at. How long you said you spent in the hospital? Was it pretty much the whole year?

Starting point is 00:10:55 Most of the whole year. I was in hospital from December 2020 up until we see I had about three rounds of chemo. It was originally going to be four, but they changed the rules during COVID. That chemotherapy should just be in three rounds instead of four. So that was a great relief. So I was in there for probably around four months in total, or four and a half, probably. Unfortunately, after I got out, I did start becoming very sick shortly after, because my immune system was shot. So they had to put me under, and I was in a coma for about another two weeks, which then that completely shot my body out and the lost muscle mass and had to learn to walk again.

Starting point is 00:11:38 Oh, really? Yeah, I had some crazy dreams in that coma. It was wild. When you were in the hospital, was it during the time when hospital was getting busy because of the COVID with the patients? everything. Yes, I was learning about COVID as it was happening during chemotherapy. So I was watching a bunch of information about it from like the web leaks, which were the most probable course of it, but still no one's ever going to know for sure. Up until the first science was starting to spread and well, hey, for help organization, I'm an R ring, whether to declare it a little

Starting point is 00:12:13 pandemic. So yeah, I was watching all that happen. And I was saying to the nurses, hey, it's going to be like pretty serious. And they were like, oh, I'll be fine. Don't worry about that. So I don't think anyone would be taking it seriously enough. Okay. I thought it was like being excited finally to get out, but at the same time, you're getting into some kind of apicality that you just saw on the new. Yeah, I've got a bit of a dark sense of humor, so I was like, ha ha, I'm taking you all with me. I'm sorry. That was going in my head. Yeah, so as it went on, then masks started getting introduced, which we now know probably led to more deaths in hospitals than save people because it cut down on the amount of oxygen that sick people were getting into

Starting point is 00:12:55 their lungs. So that led to more complications, which Blacklean, whilst you were in the bed, you didn't really have to wear the mask. So that was fine. I don't know if that would lead to McCorme or not. I don't think so because I wasn't wearing it that much. So that's just hearsay. It's not really any scientific fact behind that. But I guess you must have been especially careful, since your immune system has weakened. Yeah, I was definitely being careful. Just I wasn't going out at all, which I probably would have done anyway,

Starting point is 00:13:21 just because of the situation. When I went in for the last time, after I got sick after my last round chemo, that's when the hospital went full on contagion mode, and I was just put onto like an earlier with like dark red flashing lights. Everyone was wearing a mask.

Starting point is 00:13:38 Everything was like a bit of a haze. And then I got a mask put on me, apparently. And I fell to sleep. And then, yeah, that never work up a few weeks later after some really vivid dreams. Yeah, that was a big weird one. While you were in a hospital, where you spend in all time? I understand you cannot do anything, but what did you do to kind of entertain yourself or spend time? If you, for example, were reading or watching something...

Starting point is 00:14:05 I think I was just watching some kind of daytime TV on the little light pants that they have in some of those rooms. I started watching Ricky Jervais's afterlife got to around season two and I started proper bawling like breaking down in tears it was really good especially after the theme's death and mourning

Starting point is 00:14:25 that really like picks me up in that really sensitive time and that was really emotional that was quite far after the hallucinations has stopped because after you come out of the coma the vivid dreams kind of leak into reality for like another week or two

Starting point is 00:14:40 so I was a I'm sure what was up or down for quite a while after that. So it's like you've got dreams and you don't know if it's a reality or if it was a dream and those dreams are crazy? Yeah, that's just random dream stuff. You don't really know what's going on. You're not conscious really at all. It's just things are happening and I guess you're reacting to them as naturally as you can.

Starting point is 00:15:02 One nurse came in and said, oh, you're doing a bit better this week. Last week you said there was an illegal rave in a bathroom and I was like, okay, right, so my subconscious is snitch. that's great. I would never do that. I would never say it'll be grave. I mean, it's weird that it was in the bathroom. It was kind of...

Starting point is 00:15:20 It was happening when you returned home from hospital, right? No, when I returned home from our story, it was pretty, pretty normal. I was just extremely weak from chemotherapy and the kind of work. How long did it take for you to feel kind of normal or as before again?

Starting point is 00:15:36 So, if I had kept up with physiotherapy, it probably would have taken better have of a year to do it. For me, it's taken almost two years now to feel fairly normal, although because I was working the airport job and I was walking a lot, that I'm not going to feel like that stage

Starting point is 00:15:56 really ever again, just because of the muscle mass and muscle memory dive are lost in that. So I'm fairly decent now. I can walk just fine. That's absolutely fine. I do use a walking stick if things are going to be quite strenuous.

Starting point is 00:16:11 just so I've got something to fly on. But above from that, everything else is fairly okay. And do you know, like, number of steps or a kilometer did someone who works as airport security just to get an idea? Average steps. I wasn't really one of those people who actually measured steps and that kind of thing, so I wouldn't really know. I could pull up on Google Maps.

Starting point is 00:16:33 And remind me what airport was it? It was Bristol Airport, so it was more of the small ones. Why not in... Or I forgot to ask you from London or not? Oh, yeah, so originally I'm from Somerset, from a small town called West the Supermare, a little beachfront place. Used to be for holidays and that kind of thing.

Starting point is 00:16:52 We moved to London for university, went to Middlesex University for television production, and then started working in various areas around there, stayed in London as long as I could, but unfortunately I couldn't really keep it up. Right, so the length of it was, ran up to 640 meters lengthways, which you had to patrol quite often, especially at night. You had to do the whole airport in one go.

Starting point is 00:17:21 So why did you go to work there? Why not work in London? So after I worked with the virtual reality company, I had kind of run out of my resources because I wasn't get paid there at all. I was just working on a free. and the bar is working out wasn't paying me enough to sustain living in London on part-time wage. And I did try and get jobs in other places, but for some reason or another, it just didn't work out just because of the times I was working, and I couldn't make it to any interviews. So I ended up moving back to my parents in Somerset, back in Westchester, and Rishel Airport was the closest airport near me, and it was tiring, and I thought, yeah, it's not too bad of commute.

Starting point is 00:18:06 That could work. It's going to be decent pay for a lot of hours, but at least it'll be something. So, yeah, I just like that. And actually, while working there, before that happens, did you enjoy working there? I didn't really enjoy working there as much. I enjoyed the people I was working with. I formed the small clicking there where people were working with. It was quite a good gang of people, and some people I still talk to fairly often today.

Starting point is 00:18:31 But the actual job itself is very, very eye-opening. In what ways? Well, the security system for airports is way too tight for what it needs to be, which is really just a glorified bus stop, which you think of getting onto a bus, you don't have all this crap, and it didn't used to be that way either. But when it comes to actually stopping the things that it reports to stop, there are much better methods of doing that kind of thing apart from airport security.

Starting point is 00:19:01 The airport security has never prevented a terrorist attack ever, since its inception. It's never caught anything of real use. Shower may have caught money smuggling and that kind of thing. And drugs, maybe. And drugs are more border forces area, actually. So drugs coming in, we don't normally care about that kind of thing. If it's going out of the country, we don't care.

Starting point is 00:19:24 It's coming into the country, we do care. It's so backwards. But, yeah, the actual, like, people behind airport security, you've got no power to do anything. You're just there to look doing something, doing the searches that are mandated by the government but it's not really

Starting point is 00:19:41 needed. And a few of the things are starting to drop now with liquid testing. I think that's starting to go away. Yeah, so you heard that sounds actually for travelers like a great idea. Yeah, soon you'll be able to take a bowl of water. I cannot imagine.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Just fine. When that's all I was doing bag searches for so many bag searches for like, I'll someone left a bottle of water in their bag or something. Yeah. Like so many times. You put signs up everywhere, but no one's going to... You're in the airport.

Starting point is 00:20:11 All you're focusing on is I want to get to my flight and make it to my location. You're not thinking, oh, no, I've got a bottle of water in my bag. No, no, who cares about that? Like, the risk is not actually that big. But, yeah, just because someone did one thing and they called it before they even got to an airport, that's what we got a search for now. So, yeah, no, it was... absolutely silly. And I don't know if you can say it, but is there like some, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:20:37 excited or dangerous occasion that happened to there, or probably not, as you said. No. No, it's just nothing. Literally, literally, literally nothing. There was one point where... Didn't save anyone. Yeah, there was like some answer to the guy who came in and started like, because I had to do a bad search in his bag. He was like coming into areas he shouldn't and being like, I was a dude chill. Just like, I've got to do this. I'm sorry, man, but like, I'll do this. So you did like that little. And the most interesting thing I ever did

Starting point is 00:21:11 was the amount of large dildos I found on X-ray. And I knew they were like jildos. I knew there were large phallic objects made of silicone. I didn't pull them for liquids as everyone else did. Everyone else sees that image on an X-ray and it looks like a bottle of water or a weirdly shaped bottle of water. But I know what it was.

Starting point is 00:21:31 I've been on the internet for a long time. I know what that is. You got the grubbars with the little glasses and they're like, I'll put it in safe. I don't know. The amount of embarrassment that happens on an airport on a daily basis is blessed. That's the only thing that I can say. I find it funny.

Starting point is 00:21:47 But like to the person that's happening to, it's horrific. And is there like, doesn't need to happen. Something that you would want to share for tourists not to do that you as airport secretary that it was like pissing you off that people do and shouldn't do? I don't think there's anything he can say really, just because with the state that you're in, like the mental state that you're in to get to an airport and catch a flight on time, everything goes out of the window.

Starting point is 00:22:15 Like, everyone's brain just melts as soon as they see the security line, and they're like, oh, I don't want to do. They just joined the line, like cattle. And everyone turns into sheet mode, and you're just trying to get them through. And mentally, like, as a security agent, that kind of changes in your mind as well. you don't think of these people as people, which is so bizarre and not right. Like, the amount of stress I was getting from that job at some point, I woke up in the middle of the night shouting at someone for putting their hand over a rail,

Starting point is 00:22:49 and I woke myself up shouting. Like, I shouldn't be worried about that. That's just someone doing a thing just because, you know, they're late for a flight, they're not really thinking about anything else. They just want to go. They don't care about this thing. me to be so upset about that that I woke up from a dream about that the amount like mental stress that puts on you. Did you then learn not to take it, you know, too seriously or not to

Starting point is 00:23:12 stress about these things? I never try to take it too seriously, but it just ends up kind of going into that, especially with the training you get, which is valid because they're training you for possible scenarios. But with that, they're using the worst case scenario over time, which makes sense in a training perspective for that kind of environment, because that's the best example. you have. But for people who are just coming out of the training, they're thinking that they're some kind of like super airport agent and they're going to be stopping all this stuff. And everything that could be wrong is the end of the world and they need to stop it. And that results in such long lines in security. And after COVID as well, with the lower and members of staff that stayed on, because

Starting point is 00:23:59 COVID allowed people to, especially in task jobs, to look back at what they were doing, actually reassess, is this actually worth it? Is this worth my time being distressed for something that's not really that important? So they're working with lower numbers now and with people who just need it because they need it. But is it still possible to keep like the same level of, let's say, service with less people or they still struggle to find people? It's still possible to do the same level of service with less people, as long as those people are skilled.

Starting point is 00:24:34 And when you're hiring for that kind of job, you're not looking for skilled people. And skilled people aren't looking for that kind of job. And so it's one of those things where, is it possible? Yes. Is it in any foreseeable way part of reality? No. And would that job differ if it was one of the,

Starting point is 00:24:56 a larger airport, for example, I don't know, Heathrow or somewhere? Larger airports is the exact same system. It's just you've got to do more things. So we have international flights, depending on what kind of country you're flying to, if it's outside of Europe, it might change soon, but if it's outside of Europe, you've got to deal with their aviation rules. So you have to search for certain different things that they're worried about, or we had one flight to America every couple of weeks, which you had to do a special search for every time we had to search the plane after every single time it landed

Starting point is 00:25:34 and protect it and not leave the plane until the people started boarding. And we also had to do a secondary security check where if the government flagged that they were on the no-fly list or their name was close to sounding like something on the no-fly list, they would have to have a secondary search. Full bag search, non-mandatory, had to happen. So you can't deal with other things like that, which countries may expect of you, which is just bureaucracy. That is worse. I can imagine at a larger airport, it just becomes

Starting point is 00:26:06 more things to deal with and yeah, just more stress, more silly things. Yeah, that makes sense. Just a quick one. If you enjoy our podcast, please give us a review on your favorite podcast app, subscribe or share it with your friends. For more information, visit the show notes. Thank you, and back to the show. That's a bit the R as you worked in. It sounds like exciting topic. We're the virtual reality company. Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:34 So yeah, we were working on virtual tours of houses. So pre-pandemic, there was a few companies doing it. And during the pandemic, it erupted. So I left at the wrong time. I left before it all happened. So I stuck with it, it might have actually turned into something pretty crazy. There is this company out there at a moment, which was around when we were around

Starting point is 00:26:56 and they were already doing a lot better stuff called Matterport. These people sell 360 scouting camera that property developers and estate agents can buy or lease and it takes basically a Google street view

Starting point is 00:27:12 of people's houses. You just set it up in different rooms and hallways and you just do a scan at the whole entire house and from their data it would also create a floor plan as well So it uses LIDAR and photogrammetry to figure out the size of the space and the dimensions. And then you're also able to see a top-down view after. It's a pretty good piece of software.

Starting point is 00:27:36 And during the pandemic, a lot more people integrated into their website. So the only time you look for a house now, a lot of the time, it will have a Maple 360 virtual tour included. So you can get a better idea of the space? So can you just try to explain, What is LIDAR and photogrammetry, as you mentioned? Yeah, sure, okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:57 So, photogrammetry is when you set the camera down in one spot and you take a bunch of pictures in a spherical direction and also at different heights, different angles. And you just take as many pictures as you can around a certain sphere. And then you stitch those photos together in a software like mesh room. and that will create a 360 image, basically, that you can use for certain things. That's one way to get HDRI images for 3D work. So if you want to recreate a light scene from the real world,

Starting point is 00:28:35 you would grab a HDRI by doing a photogrammetry sweep of one specific point, and you would import that as a HDRI into your 3D renderer of choice, and then that will recreate the light scene exactly. Based on that 3.15 image that you took, a H.G.O.I level, which is taking in different exposures. So you've got the whole range of exposures in there. And that will allow you to recreate the light in the environment exactly as it was. There's also photogrammetry as well, which is when you center on a certain object or an area, and you take a bunch of pictures from every switch angle around it in a circular motion,

Starting point is 00:29:17 kind of like you're doling around the entire scene. Just imagine like a sphere around this object and you're trying to take as many angles from it around that sphere. And then you drop that again into a software like mesh room or more sketch fab, and that will recreate the object that you've taken in 3D space. Normally you have to clean it up a little bit, but that will recreate the mesh

Starting point is 00:29:37 and it will also recreate the textures as well. So that's a really good way of capturing an object or a room or even an entire building, which is quite fun to do, especially with the work I do now at Motion Robotics, we quite often have to do 3D visualizations of some missions that we're planning to fly. So that means we will have to go up with a drone, capture the area that we're planning to do a mission on, and then represent that in vendors in 3D.

Starting point is 00:30:05 So you can scan buildings with it. It's such a fun tool. And what should we imagine when you say mission? What kind of mission is it, or what do you do there? So the current company that I'm working with, motion robotics and the teleports, which are basically always the same company. It's just the teleports is the new branch of that.

Starting point is 00:30:24 Certain missions that we're flying, it includes port-to-port drone delivery. So what Amazon and Google Wing are trying to do with delivering pastores via drone, so that kind of similar thing, but in a right style. And do you already provide it, or are you, like, developing it? At the moment we're basically developing it. We're developing a system that multiple drone companies can use.

Starting point is 00:30:50 So if Amazon wanted to use our drone ports or Google Wing want to use our drone ports, if DGI wanted to use our drone port, anyone can use the infrastructure that we're building to increase their distance of operations. So they should be able to fly a bit further. So you just have these small, like, post office basically type of areas. And from point to point, it allows you to hop in between. and either swap drones or swap packages, but then you can expand that with more hubs.

Starting point is 00:31:20 So the distance you can fly is not really a factor anymore. You can just part swap the package in between ports like you do in a typical logistics network to reach further distances in a much quicker time. And is it already being used by delivery companies? I saw a few times, but I don't know if it's like a regular thing or certain types of parcels. So at the moment, what we're developing with Inteloports,

Starting point is 00:31:47 is still in development, so we're not really using it with other companies at the moment. But we're building it with the intention of bringing on different drone companies to join our network that we're starting to build up now. There are some other companies doing a similar kind of thing, but at the moment, now we're just developing it out, hopefully building it so others will come.

Starting point is 00:32:08 Yeah, fingers crossed. Yeah, definitely. Will then the primary customers be like Amazon and these type of companies that deliver goods for people? Yes, the Amazon or Google should be able to join up some network or even smaller drone delivery workers like Skype era. There's Manor Aero which is doing great things in Ireland and starting to move to the US. At the moment we're developing it to be drone agnostic, so it's great with literally anyone. And what's the area where you plan to use it or where you are developing it? It's like London or UK or what is the size?

Starting point is 00:32:46 Yeah, so at the moment we are mostly developing it for the test area of the Solon, which is an area between Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. You've got a massive waterway separating these three areas. So you've got Portman and Southampton, which are on the same coastline going up towards England. And then you've got this separated small island, the out of white, which needs, if anything's going to get there, it's going to be delivered by ferry. And that includes chemotherapy drugs as well for some cancer patients. If they can't be moved to the mainland, chemotherapy drugs will have to be mixed up in Southampton and then drug driven and then boated to the art of white. So the UK is currently looking for options of delivering it via drone.

Starting point is 00:33:34 there are a few companies offering this service but they're not actually participating in active trials to do this yet so it's still kind of all-man's land kind of free game for anyone to attempt to so we're going to attempt to open up a port in the eye of white and one on this side of coast and then start all day operations flying from each side to hopefully start getting the flight numbers in Yeah, so such a strategic idea behind it.

Starting point is 00:34:05 So it sounds good. And it's like a timescale when it may start or when it may be possible? Yeah, so we've already got two drone ports in various stages of development. We've got 40 port, a drone port in 40 war side. That was our first drone port that we designed. Well, the guy is designed and is now in a disused power refinery that used to generate electricity. and they've just demolished that building and are starting to develop it into a new community. So that's going to be a nice little housing development down there.

Starting point is 00:34:39 And we managed to get permission from them to build one of our drone ports down there. And that's already up. It just needs a bit more work on it to get it actually operational. And we've got our newer version of InteriPort Go, which is probably what we're going to go more towards, which is basically a shipping container with a drone port inside of it. So, yeah, that can be transported as well. It's on Sharmar recently. Yeah, we did that recently.

Starting point is 00:35:05 We managed to get it to Cranfield University Airport for a demonstration to some of the investors. That was a bit of a task. Finding a truck driver who could deliver a shipping container was quite interesting. Why was that? Can you say more? Yeah, it shouldn't be that different. But the way shipping containers work is when people, people come to collect ship containers. They normally just have a trailer that can take a container and they go to the port and then that loads up onto the gym and container with a specific

Starting point is 00:35:39 mounting point and then they take that to wherever it needs to go and normally the infrastructure is already in place for that kind of thing. With us, we've just got ship container lying down somewhere so you need a more specialized way of moving it which is normally called a high have which is a crane with a trailer and a truck pulling it. it. So you need a crane that's large enough to pick up a shipping container and put it onto the back of a crane onto the back of a truck trailer, which is a bit more of a specialized field. There are a lot of people out there who do this, but it's a bit of a push to get it because of the time scale we had along with the budget limitations, which at a moment is basically

Starting point is 00:36:20 nothing because we're putting everything into development at a moment and everything else is starting to fall by the wayside. That should be evening out now just because we've got this bit here and we should be able to start pitching to venture capitalists fairly soon with the content we have. That's when I get back to work, hopefully. Yeah, can you introduce us a bit more the role that you've got in a company? Yeah. What do? What are your responsibilities? So for motion revolins and interleports, increasingly in teleports, I am currently the media manager, which is just kind of a temporary hold-all term at the moment that we're using. So I, I work with social media side, making sure all those pages are up-to-date, clean,

Starting point is 00:37:05 and that we're, and I'll be managing the social posts that go out every time on that. And also, most of my responsibility at the moment is capturing test footage and promotional footage to provide with our contracts to make sure that we're still beating tasks and quotas to keep the funding going. So at the moment, I'm just mostly recording test footage, and we are slowly starting to build up promotional material that we can start sending to venture capitalists and firms to start pitching for seed funding, which is going to start relatively very soon. So that's going to be a very big jump, which will be great. Also organising public events. So I was responsible for organizing our attendants at fully charged last year, which is an electric car.

Starting point is 00:37:56 expert but also had a section featured on electric flight so he managed to get in there didn't go in this year just because of kind of financial issues with the company at the moment just because we're not really balancing books correctly and that led us to being able to attend the wood festival of speed which is this massive motoring event happening in gidwood where all the latest supercars get announced and everything it's absolutely it was crazy it was such cool events go to and just to get picked out of nowhere just like, oh yeah, I should come and feature in our Future Lab exhibit. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And does it really help with the promotion of the company and to spread the world

Starting point is 00:38:40 when you participate in this type of events? Hugely, yeah, mainly because, so the work we kind of do is mainly in office and because it's kind of technical and working with grants and that kind of thing. we don't really have time to publish anything until it's done. So when we get to go to these kinds of events, it's also a great experience for the team as well to get feedback from people. Because a lot of the time, most of the engineers are just working behind the desk, behind their computer, working on prototypes, just tearing the hair out to get something to work.

Starting point is 00:39:15 And then for people to actually see the work that they're doing and comment on it and talk about how cool it is, really boost morale at the office. well. So that's one of the main things. When it comes to promotional, who we are and actually getting in front of people, there hasn't been much promotional work lately since I joined, just because until now, the main focus has been working on these grants, working on this technology to get something that resembles working. So, yeah, no, it's getting us out there. People are seeing us. We get the opportunity of people covering us, like social media influences, or just people walking past with a camera phone tweeting about it.

Starting point is 00:39:57 And you may have mentioned it, but how long you've been working there? I've been working at motion robotics and interpoles for about two years now, almost I've lived on. I started working here because of, so I just finished cancer. I moved down to Ringwood with my nan and my mom, just because things in some said just kind of didn't really work out too well. and I was just looking for a job

Starting point is 00:40:24 whilst I was recovering from chemo I felt like I was in a good state to start working and we found this opening on LinkedIn for working at this drone company making a video met the guys

Starting point is 00:40:38 start producing a video for them and just kind of stuck around so yeah that's how that's kind of worked out but I just love the concept so much I just kind of stuck around yeah it sounds great to be part of something like that you know you've got like a mission and product which are developing together.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Yeah, so it's a really cool idea and a really cool sector that is you want to work, working really. So most of my media careers, especially would virtually be there, and now motion products in the teleports, is finding something that you're interested in and just going along for the ride, really. I'm not really focused on anything else as long as it's interesting. Like, that's all on my airport. Yeah, and it sounds like there is a wide big future for,

Starting point is 00:41:22 this industry or this specific type that the company is working on at a drone delivery, right? Yeah, definitely. So, drone delivery has been something that's been in work since at least around 2014 when Amazon announced that they were going to start doing drone delivery. Dron drop off has always been a thing, well, with the military, where they can drop off through one of their drones missile systems, like a package with a parachute or something like that. But Amazon was the first time that people looked at quadcopters to specifically deliver items to certain points, either people's houses or their gardens or something like that. So then that's been a really big push for people to actually get that promo video into reality.

Starting point is 00:42:06 And do you know if Amazon is actually using that this-dice to deliver certain types or still experimenting? Yeah, so you don't really hear too much in the news about them, unfortunately, but they've been working on it since then very heavily. And unfortunately, Amazon's a bit of a tough tale when it comes to that kind of thing because of, I think they've had a lot of squandered potential, unfortunately. They've been working on it for so long and they've got a product that currently fairly works fairly well. But because of the way it's been progressing and the arguments they've had with the Civil Aviation Authority and the Federalized Aviation Authority, the FAA in America, it's kind of stunted their ability to do certain things. So recently they attempted to start doing flight trial in California, but they couldn't get the permission from the regulator,

Starting point is 00:42:59 the aviation regulator, to cross roads, fly over roads, without someone seeing it and making sure it was clear to pass. Like if a car drove underneath it, they couldn't fly the drone over the road. Like that kind of stuff, yeah, at the moment Amazon is battling bureaucracy and the fact that people on their team don't really stick around that long. So, yeah, no, it's been a bit of a weird journey for them, really. They do currently have drones that they announced in the last two or three years. That does seem pretty promising, but it's still a very small parcel that they're hoping to deliver,

Starting point is 00:43:34 which you would think they would have a range of drones doing that right now. Google, with their wing project, have been operating for a little bit less time, But their methods have actually proven themselves really well with just a simple hook that winches down and self-releases. They've been doing that very successfully to the point where it's always adopted into the real world. So yeah, no, it's incredible. But they're still operating from car parks of grocery stores. So they've still got a bit of way to go with figuring out their workload. So they're still working on it, right?

Starting point is 00:44:09 Because I feel like I haven't heard. I mean, I don't follow it. before. You say it's like in the news or somewhere, but I feel like... Yeah. Yeah. Every time you see a news story about drone delivery, it's normally about Amazon. Because they must have like some kind of hard on ever Jeff Bezos or something. When it comes to this idea, they must like not like him for other stuff and this is the one thing they can talk badly about him for. Which is totally fair, to be honest. There was a crash at some point, which started a small forest fire that got reported on.

Starting point is 00:44:42 I'm sure there's been other examples of that because the nature of the drone technology, just that's that kind of thing. As you mentioned before, it's not easy with regulations in the US. Is it a similar situation in the UK? It is really, unfortunately. The reasons in the UK, what hasn't really kicked off is because of if people have gone on a holiday and they want to show a drone shot of the airport they're going to, they will get their little drone up, fly around the airport,

Starting point is 00:45:10 and then that causes a ridiculous response from everyone being like, oh my God, there's a drone flying around at the airport. This is a massive security risk. No flights can leave. And, like, please get called. And airport security call, get called with BB guns and have to shoot the drone down. And this guy who's just, like, ignorantly tried to get a shot at the airport for his holiday. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:32 He's now gone to jail and got a pretty hefty fine. So it's because of stuff like that and also fears of privacy. that are perfectly valid, to be honest, have kind of gotten away of the development of delivery drones. Yeah, so you've got to fly at a certain height. You've got to be able to react to certain things, and the most damning of them at the moment has been the ability to fly the drones

Starting point is 00:45:58 without having an observer. So at the moment, most of drone delivery flights are V-L-O-S, visual light of sight. So you've got to have someone, or at least the operator, viewing the drone at all times and being able to see it. At certain distances, that's almost impossible. So you can only fly a certain distance before you can't see it anymore, realistically. So people are assigned to develop systems of the past or three years beyond visual

Starting point is 00:46:25 site, and that has started to open up, but only between specified corridors. So you've got to create these up-in-the-air delivery drone flight paths, these pathways, these invisible roads above the skies, that only drones can follow this certain pathway. So that kind of limits you even to another extent, but at least you're able to fly about visual line of sight through a much further distance. So at the moment, the way the regulatory bodies are approaching it,

Starting point is 00:46:52 especially in the UK, is they are pushing things very slowly just to make sure that it's as safe as possible. So incrementally, they're pushing certain things, and eventually that will lead to more open, relaxed rules. as the technology progresses, which is a total valid point of doing it. And does the progress look positively? The progress does look positive, to be honest.

Starting point is 00:47:17 There's less and less accidents every day, and the way that drones operate, they won't hinder privacy in any way, really, because we don't normally use cameras unless we really have to. Cameras are mainly for locating where we're landing, and that's only looking out for a certain image on the ground. normally some Arrugu marker, some little black and white square, that someone's placed in the ground. And that's all we're really looking for. Nothing else, nothing's getting recorded or anything like that.

Starting point is 00:47:47 And everything else is just through GPS and flight control. So most of the drones can't see where they're going. They're just going. And do fly drone by yourself? Do you have one, like, for a hobby or in your free time? Yeah, a lot of the guys fly FPV drones, which are first person VU drones. which have a small camera on the front of it where you can view with these radio control goals so you can get a live video feed from that and people do all sorts of crazy flights with them

Starting point is 00:48:17 I'm not one of those guys unfortunately I love to get the experience to do it so I should probably ask them to guys over summer to give it go I do operate one of the small DGI SE minis which is just a small camera drone we started using that over the past year just to get some aerial shots because it's kind of difficult to show what drones can do just from the ground alone.

Starting point is 00:48:40 So yeah, I've been experimenting with that kind of thing recently as well. And makes beautiful shots for social media, I'm sure. Beautiful, yeah, no, it's really, really nice. We should get a video of a drone flying from a drone's perspective, so high up fairly soon. It's just the guys are a bit nervous about me flying next to one of their very expensive drones that they've pulled all this time and effort into, with this little DGI.

Starting point is 00:49:07 Yeah. And how long does it take or did it take for it to learn with it for a descent level? They're fairly simple to operate, to be honest. I picked it up in basically an hour. Oh, okay. Yeah, you pick them up and like the flight controls that they keep you are fairly self-explanatory. I've never tried it, so I've got no idea. Yeah, it takes you a while to get used to the controls,

Starting point is 00:49:34 But if you've ever played any kind of video game where you have a free roaming camera, not attached to a character at all, especially in video game engines, where you've got to fly around. I kind of put it towards when I was playing Halo Reach in the Forge mode when you're flying around with the guilty spark

Starting point is 00:49:51 in a map editing mode. It's kind of like that. Just slightly different controls on the sticks. So as long as you've got that, it's absolutely fine. It's not going to drop out of the sky. You don't have to maintain the height that it's at. It will do that, mostly automatically. Really? Well, is there something you are afraid of, like, when it comes to any risks, or the drone is smart by itself and it's a reliable device, so you don't have to really be scared of if you don't do anything stupid?

Starting point is 00:50:18 The DGI is small enough where I don't really care. Like, it's so small. Sure, if it comes flying towards you, it's going to hurt, but as long as you keep control, then it's going to be fine. The software that DGI provides is so bloody stable. It's kind of incredible. as long as the wind speeds are over 30 miles an hour which is kind of crazy for such a small drone it's kind of crazy that it can be controlled

Starting point is 00:50:40 in under 30 miles an hour wind mad so that one's absolutely fine I do get kind of scared of the large drone that we have it's about the size of a small kitchen table and it's very loud we are working on hopefully using a different kind of prop that should

Starting point is 00:50:56 reduce the sound levels but just the deep hum that it gives off it's quite spectacular and when that's flying over your head. That's different. And what is the weight of such a drone? At the moment, we've got that one down to around, oh, let me see, 15 kilograms. Yeah, the max weight we can carry is also 15 kilograms,

Starting point is 00:51:18 but we're kind of limited to 8 kilograms. Just because of regulation we're at right now, the included weight of the craft and the payload can't exceed 30 kilograms, I believe. So that's the current regulation. We have applied to carry above that, So with our next version, the heavy lift run, we should be able to carry. We're aiming for around 200 kilograms.

Starting point is 00:51:40 That's going to be crazy. With that, we're using our own motor technology on that as well. So that's going to be quite a long process. So yeah, that's going to be mad. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, Daniel, I would suggest to finish for today. We can, like, chat any time in the future for second episode or as a follow-up. Yeah, if you want to, that's absolutely fun.

Starting point is 00:52:04 Because it was a really interesting chat. They didn't know about this drone-related stuff. And working in airport, this was also interesting. Yeah, I guess so. At the same time, inspirational story about your cancer survivor. Oh, thanks very much. I'm glad you found it interesting. No, yeah, for sure.

Starting point is 00:52:22 And I'm sure people will find it motivational. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, everything's happening in your lives where you think everything's just stuck into you or you think there's no hope. Just take a deep breath and just continue going. You like everything should still continue. The world's still going to revolve and the next day is going to come. If things seem insurmountable, you just got to slow down and just take things small tasks by small task and just build yourself up. Yeah. I think that's a great note to finish all. No, absolutely. So thank you so much, Daniel. And good luck in the meantime.

Starting point is 00:53:00 There always. Thanks to talking. Thank you for listening to Produce By. Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast app, leave a review or send us your feedback. For more information about the host, links from the episode and ways to connect with us, visit the show notes. If you know someone who would be an ideal guest for our podcast, please get in touch. Thank you and see you soon.

Produced By - #18 - Daniel James: Cancer Survivor On a Mission To Revolutionise Drone Delivery Services

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.