StarTalk Radio - Unmanned: Drone Racing and Tech

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Is it an Esport? Is it a “real” sport? Or is it a bit of both? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice investigate drone racing and technology with world champion Paul “Nurk” Nurkkala and drone engineer Justin Pearce of Insitu, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Boeing Company. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/unmanned-drone-racing-and-tech/ Photo Credit: DRL. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist as host. It is a sports edition of StarTalk where we are going to talk about drone racing. That's even a thing. And I got with me Gary O'Reilly. Gary. Hey. You're the sports guy. I am. Because you were an ex-pro footballer. Thank you. Yes. He still is an ex-pro footballer. I guess. You are a present tense ex-football player. Yes, I am.

Football as in soccer. As in soccer. Yes. Chuck. Hey, man. Love you, man. Love you, too. And we slipped some guy.

Who's this guy? Yeah. This is Nurk. Nurk. Nurk. Nurk. Paul Nurkala, known only as Nurk. This is the 2018 Drone Racing League champion

and a man with his own YouTube channel. Fantastic. Wait, wait. First, that's all a thing? That's all a thing now. That's a thing. It is. Did anybody tell you like NERC

is a little too close to NARC? I don't know if I want to... No, it feels like nerd to me. Oh, well, see, but nerd is a good thing. Because I don't do drugs the way you do, so it sounds like nerd to me.

It sounds like NARC to you. I no longer do drugs the way you do, so it sounds like nerd to me. It sounds like narc to you. I no longer do drugs. No longer ex-drug dealer. Let's stick with nerd. Dealer. Wow, I've graduated. Well, you're so fluent in metric, I thought. Aren't you glad you came?

Absolutely. Good. Nerd. Nerd. All right, so tell me about your guest here. What do you got? All right, so Paul is one of these guys that has a passion. And his passion has brought itself into drone flying.

Now, it's a sort of split off of the eSports universe. These aren't guys who just sat on a sofa with a control panel surrounded by cans of Red Bull. Some of these guys are actual athletes. And when you get to fly one of these things, you realize they're going at 90 and probably more than that miles per hour. They're racing on 3D courses. They're not racing against the clock.

They're racing against other pilots. Yeah. And the clock. Well, I mean, if they're in the front, they can strategize just like you would do in a Formula One race. So there's all sorts of things. So this guy actually now becomes an athlete, becomes a racer. And we like the idea of the fact

there's so much tech involved in what he does. It's another way to explore the world of science and sports. Well, I got to tell you this. So I know about your world, Paul, or Nurk. Which one is it? Both are fine. Okay. So I used to come you this. So I know about your world, Paul, or Nurk. Which one is it? Both are fine. Okay.

All right. So I used to come home from doing comedy. ESPN used to have these races on. Actual drone races. They would be inside of like a warehouse with a set. There were like certain hazards that you had to navigate. They were racing against you. And, you know, I couldn't sleep, but I'm watching it.

And I got to tell you, it's super hype you get sucked in and i realized i should not come home and watch this crap and then try to go to sleep because you'd be so adrenaline filled from watching it you would have trouble sleeping afterwards so how is it racing yeah well so there's a temptation when you're looking at something like this like a robotic sport sport as like, like, like you're saying, like it's just a bunch of guys that sit around and drink Red Bull. Like I don't particularly look like an athlete. I know. I recognize that.

Okay. I didn't want to be the one to tell you. But. You're going to break the news to him? Oh, thank God I don't have to break the news to him. All right. That's it.

But, but I look at it like a precision sport. So you look at precision sports, that's racing, that's bowling, that's archery, that's, you know, Olympic level sports are these things where it's about repeatability. Did you have bowling in the same sentence as Olympic level? Yeah.

Did he put those two? I meant archery as the Olympic level thing. But, you know, but like, but it's all about repeatability. It's all about measuring what you can do to do better. It's about gathering, you know, analyzing how your performance was so that you can take it out and do it the next time. And so, you know, we're athletes of the mind as much as anything else, and that's allowing us to compete at the highest level, building, you know, 3D courses in some of the coolest places in the world.

Absolutely. And when you say of the mind, it's definitely got to be, you've got to be pretty mentally tough to navigate these things and races. But just to be clear, when you say racing, I'm thinking who can get from A to B the fastest? But that's not what's going on here. It's more like A to B to C to D to... So it's a navigational task.

Yes. More than it is how fast can you go. You're not like Usain Bolt here. You're just... You are going around obstacles, I guess, and this sort of thing. Yeah. And it's in the drone racing league,

especially is spec racing, so we're all flying the exact same drone. So we've got a smorgasbord of drones here in front of us, but when we are at a race, the DRL brings 600 identical drones. So NASCAR tries to be something like that. There's a lot of specs that they satisfy, including right on down to the weight of the car itself. This is first-person viewing,

which means you have sat there with a visor, with goggles, with a headset, and there's broadcast-quality cameras attached to your drones. Yep. So you're not flying it from stood somewhere here, watching it with your eyesight. Watching it. Yeah, you're doing it like that, so you're really involved.

Chuck, did he give you permission to pick that up off the table? No. Please do. No, he did not. But this is uh so these are looked like vr headsets yep and when you are looking through the vr headset you're what tethered to the camera on the drone yeah so we see as if we're on board the drone so like you when you're flying it when you're riding along it you feel like you're a bird or superman like you just write

like you're there right yeah hang gliding off the bottom, off inside the drone. Yeah, so like for example, when I tell people that when I'm flying, like it feels like an out-of-body experience. Can I pick this up? Yeah, please, absolutely. Like there's moments I've had and I still have

where I'm flying around outside getting some practice in and I see somebody sitting in the corner. I'm like, who's that? Oh, that's me. You know, I was like, because I forget that I'm not on board the drone. Oh, so you have an out-of-body experience. Oh, that's really cool You know, I was like, because I forget that I'm not on board the drone. Oh, so you have an out-of-body experience. Absolutely.

Oh, that's really cool. So I see two cameras. There's like a simple GoPro up here, and then there's another lens down here. Yeah. So which one are you? So I'm the one on the bottom. This one here. The lower lens.

That transmits the information at a much lower response rate. So there's only like 25 milliseconds of delay between that camera and what I see. Milliseconds is a thousandth of a second. Yeah, and it's important to have that as low as possible. Right, yeah. Because you want to be able to respond to whatever you're seeing. Right, right. See, then the angle of the camera is important.

I was going to ask you that. All right, easy. So if this is hanging like this, then the fan blades will just keep it buoyant. But you want to move forward, you're going to have to tilt that so that it pulls it forward. But now you're looking down at the ground. Correct. So we tilt the camera and leave it tilted at the beginning to about 45, 50 degrees. Oh.

So that when we're flying straight and level, according to what we're seeing, it's really tilted 50 degrees forward. To go forward. To go forward. And that's what allows us to go 100 miles an hour. All right. Wow. Is that the actual speed?

Yeah. So these drones can top out around 100 120 um for the show they top out about 80 and they go zero to 60 in less than a second so how much do these wait wait zero to 60 in less than a second wow that's pretty wild so does the faa know about this that part they don't they're not worried about. Okay. But we fly inside. We fly with all of the licensure and stuff that we need, absolutely. Okay.

But if you ever go outside, then you can't tell the FAA? Then we stop at 99. Stop, okay. Oh, wow, is there a regulation about 100 miles? There is. Oh, and what would that regulation be

so that we can make sure that no one ever breaks it? He never flies higher than 100 miles. No, never. Okay. So now when you guys are flying, because I've seen these, man, sometimes you hit things, and these drones, they are no more.

Well, they're a lot of pieces. Yeah, exactly. How much do these things cost? This looks very homespun. And are they yours? Because in the next race, the guy who crashed, he's still back in the race. I mean, they still have a drone.

So there's a little give and take there. So when we're flying for the league, the league brings all of the drones for us. They bring 600 identical to each race. And they say, go as fast as you want. You know, if you crash it, no hard feelings. That being said, you know, I know all the tech guys, the guys that build all the drones. Like, they're the heroes of the show. They're my favorite people.

But I don't want to crash too many of them because I don't want them to be like after the race, like, what are you doing, man? If you crash, you're allowed to just grab another one. Exactly. But you could build this yourself. Absolutely. So the drone that we've got here, I have built myself

with individual components set aside. That one's called the Shen Drone Squirt. It's just a tiny little, you know, it's a squirt. It's a tiny little guy, and we use it to film and fly inside. It's a little bit slower, but it's very safe and protected. How important is it for you? Squishy. Yep.

A squishy. Ducks. Ducks. Ducks. How important is it for you as a racer to be able to build and understand every single part of your drone? Thank you. Good question. Being able to build in a, single part of your drone? Thank you.

Being able to build in... So if you don't know how to assemble the drone, every time you crash, every time you break something, you're going to have to get a whole new one or go to someone else. So if you have learned how to build it from the ground up, when something fails, you can swap it yourself in just a couple minutes. So when I'm out in the...

No, but okay, fine. I get that if it breaks. But if it's not broken and you're racing, does your knowledge of every single thing about that inform your strategic actions? Yeah, absolutely. You can pick and choose different kinds of

components to suit different needs. Do I want it to be super durable? Do I want it to be extremely fragile but extremely fast? Do I want to find some kind of balance? And that informs the kinds of decisions that I make when I'm on the workbench assembling the drone. So you've got three blades in your propellers. Yep.

But you can vary that. It's a three. Three props. A tri-blade prop. Tri-blade, right. So you can go from two to three to four. To four to five to six. And it does what in terms of what you're doing here?

So we like to kind of... So in other words, what's the advantage? Because you see some airplanes only have two propellers. You spin them and then three, four. Why have one number of propellers relative to another? So changing out different kinds of propellers, adding or removing blades allows you to change depending on whether you want higher performance,

higher speed, higher efficiency. You kind of pick and choose which of those you want and use that to decide what kind of... So in general, the more blades, the what? The better maneuverability. But it weighs more. It weighs more and the motors are working harder to spin the prop,

so you have a little bit less efficiency. There's a little bit more surface area, so it's a little bit less top speed. But if you go all the way down to a single blade prop where it's counterbalanced weights and stuff, it starts to get much more efficient. So if they are determining that each drone is going to be identical, when you're practicing, do you try to match that? Or is there something that you can do that gives you

an advantage when practicing, like swinging a heavier bat in practice and then going to a lighter bat in the game because you can get a faster whip around yeah so that's that's exactly right on the money we so when we're practicing drl sends us enough drones to get ready for the next race and all the parts that we need because we'll go and fix them. And then actually a lot of people will actually strap two batteries to it and only leave one plugged in so that it is a little bit heavier. It's a little bit more doggy

so that you can kind of refine your racing line. Interesting. Interesting. So Chuck, why are you so drone fluent? What's that? I'm drone curious. What can I say? I'm just drone curious.

Oh dear. No, I mean, first of all, if you've ever seen it, well, one, when drones first came out years ago, I, oh, God, why am I even telling this? I'm opening myself up for more abuse. Okay, so when drones first came out years ago, I tried flying drones. And it is very difficult.

I'm not talking about... You know the first time I saw a drone come at my... You have a drone baseball bat? You have a dedicated bat for drones? Dedicated for drones. You got notches on the bat. My dedicated drone bat. Just, just, just, just... Right.

So the fun of flying a drone is. I wouldn't do it to your drone, of course. You tried to earlier. But the fun of flying a drone is not like what you would think, which is, you know, just lift off, forward, back. I mean, okay, that's going to get boring really, really quick. So the fun of flying the drone is finding something that you can maneuver. It's like going around stuff and through stuff and over and under. And that's when it becomes very difficult.

Well, I would add there are shots that you never would have gotten cinematically. Right. So, for example, when we filmed Cosmos, we went to the largest telescope in the world, which is a non-steering telescope in a crater in the ground in China. Sweet. Okay. And we brought drones. Because it's just too big to get.

If you're up upon it, you can't. You can't see it. You can't. It's too big. You can't grasp it. So we had a drone, and it just lifted straight up. And I saw the monitor. It was like, whoa.

That was a money shot right there. So I think it's not just the maneuverability. It's point of view. Right. Yeah, and for me, that's one of the things that I like the most about it is it offers not only a unique perspective on, like, what's around you, but one of the things that's really cool about drones

and the hobby and the passion of drones is that everybody is the same, right? You all have had this shared, like, collection of experiences. So I've traveled to China, to Taiwan, to Germany, and gone and flown with people and we don't have to share a language to share a language.

Right. And so not only does it offer a new perspective on the world, but also on people. And that's one of the things I like the most. So at the moment, we've got piloted drones,

but we are adventuring into the world of autonomous drones. Yes. And at the moment, they don't stand a chance against a human pilot. No.

What? Oh, at the moment. At the moment. Only at the moment, they don't stand a chance against a human pilot. No. What? Oh, at the moment. At the moment. Only at the moment. I know me some future where that's going. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords. You will succumb like the rest of us to our

AI overlords. You're in there pushing triple digits, and at the moment... Triple digit speeds. Yeah. At the moment, the winner of the autonomous drone competition was at 5.6 miles per hour navigating a course. So that's a lot of catch-up. Yeah.

I was actually there for that race. It's the same as driverless cars, right? I mean, that's the same real... They're en route. Yeah, you're en route, but the truth is, I mean, it's not to the point where a car can actually be a human being behind the wheel. Not yet. Then that's what the Alpha Pilot Program, which is a partnership between the Drone Racing League and Lockheed Martin,

is creating the framework for being able to create autonomy. All right, now that's some scary crap right there. Lockheed Martin has the F-35. That's what I'm saying. you know, the framework for being able to create autonomy. All right, now that's some scary crap right there. Okay. Lucky Mark has the F-35. That's what I'm saying. Yes, yes. All right, so it gets even better because, you know,

one of the sponsors for the Drone Racing League is the U.S. Air Force. That makes sense. Isn't it just? They're just looking for pilots. Duh. They're for drone pilots.

This is the future of, listen, this is the future of all warfare. Wait, do you have, like, two huge thumbs or something? Let's see. About normal. This is the only fit part of my body right now. Well, and something I wanted to go back to

that we talked about at the beginning was that we mentioned eSports. And we were talking about how eSports are informing modern day performance in athletes. And one of the ways to become part of the Drone Racing League is to go through an online tournament. And so somebody can just

sit down at their computer, play a simulator that's a one-to-one representation of what it's like to fly our drones and become a member of the show on NBC. Wait, wait, so...

Well, so that's a big incentive. It's a big incentive to win the esports category to actually come in and be a racer with NERC. Okay, well, all right. And that tournament is happening right now. Let me ask a heretical question.

Go ahead. If the simulation qualifies you to do it for real, why do you need the real thing at all? Right, why not just create everything inside a simulation? Because you can clearly create more interesting, more challenging, and more dynamic situations. Of course, obstacles. Right.

But you don't get the visceralness of being in person to watch the drones go by. Because when they're screaming by... You're not watching the drones. You have the headset on. I'm not. But the audiences, the people that come to watch. It doesn't become a spectator sport. Exactly.

Oh, because we can watch the drones. We want people to see the technology evolve. So what you do is you simulate the people as well. And then in their own mind, they are people watching moving drones in the simulation itself. But they get the first-person view, don't they? The spectators with the headwear. They can. But we put everything up on Jumbo Trans and you can see everything.

They choose. So now what is more difficult? Because when you're flying a drone, and I'm holding the controller in my hand right now. And so when you're flying a drone and you have the controller and you're looking at the drone, that is completely different for your brain when you are looking at the first person representation of the drone itself. So what's more difficult? It depends on who you are. of the drone itself. Yeah. So what's more difficult?

It depends on who you are. So like some people that, for example, people that start with video games that have a lot of video game experience tend to prefer to be in the goggles. Some people prefer line of sight. But for me,

I think the most difficult part of either is maintaining your nerves, right? Because all of your controls go through these tiny little sticks that move like two inches in each direction. And if you have like a little bit of a nervous shake or something like that, the quad is going, you know, to you so staying calm is the most

important part so he has nerves of steel the hands of a surgeon except he's flying a drone carrying somebody that could probably make more money as a surgeon so um has anyone considered some variant on quidditch like drone qu Quidditch? Absolutely. Like, because the bird could then be just some... Right, the snitch. The snitch, excuse me. Yeah. So drone racing is such a young thing that, you know, we're starting to figure out new and new ways to do it.

So, you know, whether that's just heads-up racing where it's first to the finish gate, we're starting to do, like, team races where it's marathons. Like, I've competed in a race that lasted 12 hours on purpose. Like, it was the most laps in 12 hours and stuff like that. And we're starting to see more and more adaptions.

You can have ultimate Frisbee and the Frisbee is a drone. Yeah. So I can throw it in a certain way. Then mid-course, it just takes off. Wow. Right? So that it's non...

I like your Harry Potter idea better. Okay. I don't know. We're just helping out here. I don't know. So we got to land this plane, land this drone. Yeah.

So any final thoughts you want to offer? Tell parents who have kids who... Yeah, start playing video games now. It's the future. No.

You know, drones are such an awesome hobby, sport, whichever way you want to look at it. It's, you know, I've learned how to solder, how to troubleshoot, how to... I've refined refined my google foo um you know my ability to figure things out

and and i think that everybody should have at one point tried to fly tried to build and and gotten into that technology how many hours of practice will it take for somebody to be proficient enough to be a professional drone racer during During the season, I practice 10 hours a day. Oh, my. I go to the field at 10 a.m. and I'm there until 10 p.m. So, in three years, you've done your 10,000 hours. Hopefully. And then... But in AI, it will take how long?

Overnight? Oh, yeah, overnight. So, you did your 10,000 hours. Yeah. I mean, I'll be doing the 10 hours a day for about a month at a time. Because I've got to make some money once in a while and all those kinds of things.

Yeah, and there's personal hygiene and this sort of thing. And your wife and the in-laws. He probably appreciates the personal hygiene. Sometimes. There you go. All right, so rule number one. Keep your fingers out of the blades. Lesson taught me, because otherwise, it's not good.

Right, so, Paul Nakala, Drone Racing League Champion of 2018, and no doubt, championships to come. We've got to take a break, but when we come back, more on the Drone Racing Universe. Welcome back to StarTalk Sports Edition. Today we're focusing on the Droneiverse. We just invented it. You did. Just make that up.

The Droneiverse. The Droneiverse. It's ours. We own it. We've talked about racing them. That's understandable. Of course. Okay, put that on the speed channel.

But now it's time to look into the technology that's being developed outside of esports. Yeah. And to do that, we've got our next guest, Justin Peirce. I think I pronounced that name right. And Justin, we got you on video call. Yeah, we can hear you. Good. Did I pronounce that correctly?

You did. Excellent. So you are chief engineer at In-Situ Inc. And it's a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing Defense, Space, and Security. Oh, so you guys are doing okay. Sounds important. Sounds important. That's the word I thought, important. And what is this?

There's an RQ-21 unmanned air vehicle chief engineer at in situ for that vehicle. Is that correct? That's right. That's correct. That's correct. Type model series. Okay, so what are all the specs of the RQ-21, even the classified specs? What are they?

Yes. Yeah, we'll start with those first. The RQ-21A is considered a Group 3 unmanned aircraft system or drone. For scale, that's about 16-foot wingspan, 10 feet long, 135 pounds when it takes off. Wait, so is the group a size reference? Yeah, that's correct. There's group sizes that go from what you would expect on a low end, like a quadcopter, all the way up to a large Group 5 platform.

Sounds like an underfed basketball star. Yeah, Group 5 is normally my boarding position. Group 5, not an airplane. That's under the wing. They strap you on. They hold on tight. You're in cargo. What are you doing in this line?

So what's it being developed for? Yes. Yes, so RQ-21 is a program of record. It's actually through development and fielded with the United States Marine Corps and United States Navy. Today, it does intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and a number of important missions for our troops. Oh, okay. And so how does it differ? I mean, other than, of course, it has security elements. When the public thinks of drones, I think we think of the annoying ones that are buzzing around the park. And then we think of the military ones that get deployed in

Iraq or Afghanistan. And yours is somewhere in between those? That's correct. Yeah, it's size, scale, endurance. So what we offer is a runway-independent aircraft that's launched from a catapult and recovers on a vertically attached rope by its wing. It's designed for mobility and transportability. Some of the differences are special payloads that you'll see from a military perspective, but also encryption and different types of cameras we put on there to be able to see at night,

thermal, EO telescopes, just a little more high performance than you would have in that lower end commercial drone you would expect like a quadcopter, but not as large as say say, a Predator. And I got one last question I'm going to hand off to these guys here. And I assume it's not autonomous. There's someone at the joystick?

That is correct. It flies autonomously, but there is somebody at an operator workstation that is directing the behaviors of that aircraft, taking care of it if there's emergencies, and driving the primary payload, which is an electro-optical sensor that is on the front of the aircraft. Oh, so it's basically a spy, it's a spy drone. That's right. Yeah, okay.

So they prefer reconnaissance. Okay. Recon. So, okay, we've got this amazing piece of machinery, but what sort of hurdles have you overcome to go from the quadcopter scenario to where you are now? And what are you still in process of overcoming for drones and their development? Yeah, I think, you know, one of the major areas that we focused on is reliability,

as these are used with our warfighters. We want them to be reliable, always airborne and providing eyes in the skies. Obviously, over the years, we've moved. In-situ has a family of unmanned aircraft systems or drones that it sells. So this is our largest version of aircraft with the smaller one being eight feet across. So how do you increase that size but still retain the way that it recovers? Because it's actually recovered on its wingtip. So that's a high energy recovery.

Those have been some technical challenges that we've had to face. Oh, so structurally, it has to stay in one piece as the wing gets captured by your... That's exactly right. So let me ask you with respect to that. It's kind of like an aircraft carrier, you know, the way it's made for mobility. It's made for being able to take off and land on the spot. But it's really big. It's made for being able to take off and land on the spot. But it's really big. It's huge.

So if it's made for mobility, does it collapse? Is it buildable on site? I mean, I can see with the capture system, if you're in rocky terrain and you want to do some recon, it makes sense. But this thing is huge. Yeah. Depending on the model of aircraft that we sell, we have a line of sight and a beyond line of sight capability. So you'll typically do launch and recovery in one area where you can have a little more room to set up, probably not near a runway. And the aircraft itself actually collapses and the wings come off in a modular fashion. The nose comes off. It all breaks down into very small cases that are packed out.

Okay. But that takes a human element. It can't just... It's a fixed wing. That's the next model. It's the Transformer version. There you go. Oh, please make that sound.

Just build that soundtrack into the next drone. Whatever you do, your next drone, no matter what it does, should go, uh-uh, uh-uh. Okay. Maybe. I'm sorry. Justin's looking at us like, what the hell did I get myself into? How soon can I go home?

When will he release me? What's the range on this? So typically advertised is 50 nautical miles is how far we can fly. Away, and then it can still come back. And then it can come back, always in positive control by the operator, equipped with a different nose module or front of the aircraft. We can actually extend that 200, 300 nautical miles with our extended range platform. Is that because it's lighter in that extended range or you get more fuel?

We use a different data link. Instead of using a line of sight radio, we actually talk to space over satellite communication. It allows us to not have to have line of sight between the operator and the airplane. So your range is a line of sight problem. That's correct. Not how far it can fly.

Yeah, these aircraft can fly 16, 24 hours depending on them. So even when you're flying 50 nautical miles, you could fly 300. And then we fly. Yeah, these aircraft can fly 16, 24 hours depending on them. So even when you're flying 50 nautical miles, you could fly 300. It's just that for those purposes, you can't talk to it, so you need to just keep it to that 50-mile radius. That's exactly right. That is amazing. Okay, okay. So the quadcopter ones that we see kids playing with,

those obviously use rechargeable batteries. At what point is the transition between batteries and actual fuel that is driving the energy of the craft? That's an interesting question. I think it happens when we talk about groups or sizes. Typically, when you get to the 30 or 40 pound aircraft, you're looking at more energy density that you're getting from a fuel like gas or jet fuel. And that's typically the transition point you'll see. But there are larger aircraft that fly hydrogen fuel cells and other propulsion sources that are different.

But regardless, if above a certain size, the battery is not going to work for you. That's exactly right. Right, right. Okay, we're all considering electric vehicles in terms of cars and trucks and buses. Is that a viable source of power for a drone, or is the battery weight just another hurdle that you won't be able to overcome for the moment? Yeah, it really is a trade-off. Typically with drones, the largest trade-off we're making is endurance and payload mass.

So when I choose to equip myself with batteries so that I don't have to manage fuel, I'm typically going to get lower endurance. Some customers want that. They want to fly shorter sorties or shorter missions. And so an all-electric aircraft can go a few hours and that may be sufficient for them. Our customers have preferred persistent surveillance. And so we typically don't use that because it's not as efficient. Our customers, the US military. Well, speaking of that, speaking of that persistent surveillance. So some police departments are now using drones such as yours. They keep them in the air pretty much all the time. When a crime happens, the drone goes to the crime, to the replace,

and then what they're able to do is follow the action. So instead of a high-speed trace, whatever, they just basically mark a card and they're like, all right, we got it. Now we're going to follow and see where it goes. What other applications, and one, what kind of drone is that? Is it this kind of drone? Two, what other applications do you have for this type of drone outside of the military that you can't talk about? So, yeah, typically you're going to have airspace considerations for where you fly this type of drone. So we're typically seeing with police forces in congested urban areas, it's going to be a quadcopter or something of that size. Typically not one of our aircraft today. But depending on FAA regulations,

you can see us transitioning in the long term away from that. Some of the more interesting applications that we have are around infrastructure inspection, so railroad or pipeline monitoring that's typically staffed by somebody in a helicopter. Brilliant. And we like the idea of being able to extend the reach of our platforms and encourage basically pulling people out of jobs that require them to fly around.

There's no requirement for the aircraft to come back. So infrastructure inspection, high resolution mapping, disaster relief and search and rescue. So we've participated in several disaster relief efforts. And then one of the more interesting ones we had locally was wildfire support. So helping firefighters understand where the fire line is, how it's changing overnight, because they can't go and fight wildfires in the dead of night. So we're there to be able to provide overwatch for them. So do you and your staff, when no one is looking, do you race your drones? That's a yes if I know!

Guilty! Guilty! That was amazing! Oh my God, I wish... And for those of you just listening, Justin got a look on his face like, oh man, why'd you have to ask me that? No, we typically have to have vertical and horizontal separation.

There's no knife edge passes. Yeah, he's lying right there. Oh, by the way, yeah. Plus he imitated the knife edge pass with his hands. So, okay, Justin, if you've got that range of capacity in terms of infrastructure, search and rescue, and your agriculture, you must have an array of optics because you're using different parts of the spectrum

to analyze what you're seeing underneath. That's exactly right. So if I'm doing a search and rescue operation, I may want to equip, or I'm looking for a boat that's lost in the sea, I may want to use a payload like Vidar, which is visual detection and ranging that constantly searches and gives an operator cues when it finds something that otherwise you wouldn't discern in water.

And then I can put another camera onto that potential target or point of interest and see what's there. For agricultural monitoring, you're looking at hyperspectral, so operating in different bands to be able to create a picture of how those crops are performing. Yes. Just to be clear, as I understand it, hyperspectral imaging can give you early leads on the need for irrigation and the like. More water, less water. Are these built for speed at all or not? So as an example, our dash speed is on the order of 100 knots. So we're not talking

Mach 1, but obviously there are larger aircraft that are built for that, and they use different propulsion systems. All right, so 100 knots, you're saying. How high does it fly? It could fly up to 15,000 feet, depending on avoiding acoustic detectability. When we consider, obviously, what we do for our defense customers, we typically fly anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 feet, but it can go as high as 15 or more. Okay, so what's to stop me from watching you come in and I'll pull out my shotgun and just take you out of the sky?

If you are purely recon and you have no armament, no offensive or defensive measures, and I don't like you, I'm just gonna shoot you out of the sky there's America Jack so the way we avoid that obviously there's the what we call the launch and recovery operation or takeoff and landing in a conventional aircraft those situations definitely have to have perimeter and base monitoring susceptible encounter measures but there, yeah. And countermeasures.

But when we're over a target, we mitigate that by the size of the airplane is relatively small. The color is typically gray. The engine is relatively quiet compared to what I can see at a given standoff distance. That's why we equip them with telescopes

so we can stay far enough away but still see who is there. For some of the other applications, mitigating that isn't something we worry about. We can fly as close as we need to, to see as well as we want to. So you're talking about piloted, we'll call them drones, you call them unmanned craft. Where do we go with AI? Because when we spoke to our drone racer, NERC, Paul Nakala, the whole thing was a lot of prize money was put up by Lockheed Martin, a million dollars to be able to win an annual event. And the average speed of these racing drones is about five and a half miles per hour

because they can't process the optic, the visuals. Now, how far are we from cracking that? Because that's ridiculous if all of a sudden you've got AI able to process like a human eye with that speed. And then, you know, those speeds you were talking about, then they really do max out. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the evolutions of the industry we're currently in directly is attributed to what I would say closely to Moore's Law and the ability to do advanced processing in smaller and smaller areas. So to do those very complicated high-speed processing, you need a lot of horsepower in your electronics. And we're finding in some of the payloads, including VIDAR I just mentioned, you can do quite a bit there. And we're finding in some of the payloads, including VIDAR I just mentioned, you can do quite a bit there. I wouldn't know enough to comment directly on drone racing, but if there are projects like Project Maven and the DoD that are targeted at artificial intelligence, in general, this is all about reducing how much the human has to work.

So today, I have an operator and one aircraft. In the future, I think you So today I have an operator and one aircraft. In the future, I think you're going to have an operator and many aircraft. And you're going to have aircraft doing missions that the operator doesn't have to have any concept of what's going on unless there's an exception, unless there's a problem. Because that means the AI is doing what it's supposed to. Is doing what it's supposed to. Also too, I just had a thought.

It maybe makes sense or maybe it doesn't. The idea behind the AI, you could treat it like driverless cars where the car itself, or in your case, the unmanned drone, would be receiving the information, not actually doing the calculation. So the calculation is done on a base somewhere. And if you have 5G, that type of transmission technology, you're just really sending it split second decisions as it's receiving it. So it doesn't really have to do the thinking. There's a brain someplace else. Does that make sense? Or am I just losing my

freaking mind? No, no, it makes sense. Today, even, when you asked before, is there a person in the loop? Yes, to monitor what the aircraft's doing. But when we tie algorithms with sensors and have autonomous autopilots that are moving the aircraft around, you can begin to see that the aircraft can do the entire mission

with a person largely not in the loop. So we do that today. That's where the market has gone. Actually, we do that on the planes that we fly on and we don't know that we're doing it because half the time that we're on a plane, those guys are in the front smoking weed and chilling. What airline are you on? It's called Autopilot. It's called Autopilot. No, no. It's a new airline called Get High With Us.

High Flyers. High Flyers. CBD. CBD Air. Justin, one last thing. We're all, I think, comfortable with getting on these trams at airports. And we all know there's no one conducting those trains, right? They go between from one terminal to another.

Yeah. And that doesn't freak anybody out. Okay, you just freaked me out. I didn't know that. No, look around the front next time, Chuck. I am never getting on a tram again. Thanks. So to me, that's the beginning of our comfort level of what we will entrust to pilot that is autonomously run. So how soon do

you think we would have pilotless airplanes? Will that have to wait until long after we have pilotless cars, do you think? I think obviously that driverless vehicles are going to pave the way for pilotless passenger aircraft. What's going to have to happen is airspace deconfliction. There's going to have to be an ability to sense and avoid other people that are flying around so that it can make decisions. So that's more sensors. But I don't think the leap is that great from driverless cars to passenger aircraft? It all comes down to safety. And there's a ton of people that are in this space and leaning forward. I initially expect that it'll be passenger aircraft that are optionally piloted. So similar to you would see today with so-called driverless vehicles, somebody has their hand on the steering wheel. And once the flying public- Even if they're asleep, their hand is on the steering wheel.

Yeah, the videos of people driving that are asleep, I don't think that's going to work for optionally piloted aircraft. But I think as we gain confidence and trust, as you mentioned, Neil, the flying public will begin to entrust themselves with that technology. Yeah, okay. Mm-hmm, okay. All right, Justin. Well, thanks for being with us Yeah, okay. All right, Justin. Well, thanks for being

with us on StarTalk. All right. So, when we come back, we'll finish out our final segment with StarTalk Sports Edition. We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition. We're going to land this plane somehow. You mean this drone?

This drone. Okay, so we've got Paul Nurkula, the Nurk, the drone racer. The drone racer. All right, we've got Justin Peirce, who's our drone engineer. Peirce, spelled Pierce. It is, but I think it's an Irish Peirce. Peirce. Peirce.

So I think this is... He said that. He said that good. Yeah. That was a good broker. That was good. So I look at the drone racing and I look at who their involvement is.

It's NBC as a media partner. You've got sponsorship from Lockheed Martin and the good old US Air Force. So there's a recruitment drive, a sponsorship and a platform. I think what we've got here is a sport that might be just beginning and I won't even go with the takeoff pun beginning

to grow itself into some stature because did you get the buzz out of it because of that that 360 support from three very different branches of what we know has the power and the resources to keep something buoyant right well the other thing too and we didn't even touch upon this though uh and right now it's being kind of worked out and that is airspace conflicts so that delivery drones you're thinking pizzas aren't you well i in a way i am because guess what that's gonna be i'm hungry yeah but but that's going to be like probably the most drone traffic that we will see in our society. Because, you know, think of the number of trucks that it will cut down on when you drop off. There'll still be trucks, but they'll just make a drop at a place. And then the drone will do the delivery because it'll have a pre-programmed route just like the truck guy does.

The truck goes to one hub. One hub. And then the drones come back and forth to the hub. And then the drones come back and forth to the hub. You're going to create a beehive with the drones like... And they're just going to... A drone hive. A drone hive.

Well, I hoped you'd get this. Let's just hope they don't figure out how to make a queen. Oh, snap. And then the drones take over. The drones achieve consciousness. Rise of the machine. The rise of the drones. Rise of the drones. And then the drones take over. The drones achieve consciousness. Rise of the machines. Rise of the drones. Rise of the drones. And then they learn how to reproduce, and there's the queen.

So, therefore, we're looking to continue with the size of the drone over built-up urban spaces. Right. That's going to matter. That is going to matter. But that's the whole, but listen, right now in every single city, especially larger cities, there's a big fight as to what is the bandwidth of space or airspace that you get and how big can your drone be? Because that's going to determine how many deliveries are going to be made.

And just to be clear. I'm going to put my money on Jeff Bezos. I'm putting my money on Bezos. No matter what. No matter what. So here's something I think that people need to remember. You might say, well, I can go to the store and get my. Fine. The drone can deliver your milk and your butter, okay, and your salad. But there's another

use here that I think has gone underseen, under-recognized. It's, I live in an apartment building. I don't have a garage. I don't have a workshop, okay? But I own a hand drill, okay? So I've had that hand drill for 20 years. And I can ask myself, how much time in total have I used that hand drill? Okay, I'm not a builder. I just need it for some emergency things here and there. I might've used it for 15 minutes.

I mean, think about it. Right. How long does it take to drill a hole? All right, that's seconds. Right, right. does it take to drill a hole? Right? That's seconds. Right. 20 years I've used it for 15 minutes. So the future of drone deliveries might be all this crap that you own

that you hardly ever use just let someone else own it. No, no. And I say, no. I don't like that idea. Why? Be quiet, man. That's a good idea. We can do this. Oh, sorry. And I say, no, wait. I don't like that idea. Why? Shh, be quiet, man. That's a good idea. We can do this. Oh, sorry.

What's the problem? You're just giving away all the good stuff, right? We gotta talk to him. I mean. So basically, I rent a hand drill with the drill bit I need. And it's coming from a place that serviced it. Okay? Like a rental car.

They polished that. He keeps telling him. He's giving them away. What are you doing? Like a rental car. They polished that. He keeps telling him he's giving them away. What are you doing? I'm just saying. You know Jeff Bezos listens to this show. You're killing us. So think about all the things

that we would share. Right. It's basically shared economy. The shared economy. The shared economy. Absolutely. Like an old classic barter system. And I don't need the storage space for it.

No. Because I only, and I need it, I'll be here in 15 minutes. 15 minutes. And it's boom. Boom. And you need a special size drill bit. That's the one it gives you. Right.

Dude. You're not fumbling over the thing and the chuck key. Like I told you, I hate that idea. It will never ever work. Never. So that's a, I hate that idea. It will never, ever work. Never. So that's a whole other thing other than just bringing today's milk. In fact, today's milk,

let the refrigerator monitor how much is in all your containers. And let it get your milk. Let it get the milk. Send for the drone to bring the milk. We're exercising it in a positive way. But what if we exercised our mind, and this will happen because we know

it will happen. How do I criminalize this little drone, lovely drone, little gaggle drone? What you can do is you can, I don't want to give people ideas,

but if you know the frequencies over which they're communicating, just hack into the frequencies. Just hack it and it brings all the groceries to me. Right. Right?

Exactly. And I don't have to pay for a damn thing. I just got grocery jacked again. Grocery jacked! Grocery jacked again! Jeff Bezos is going to do that as well. With Whole Foods.

You got grocery jacked. And believe it, that's happening right now. They call them porch pirates. It's people who just walk by places randomly and pick up whatever Amazon package is on a person's... Oh, this is on suburban streets. Suburban streets. Right. They just walk up and...

That won't happen in the city. No. You get your whoopin'. People see you doing that. So this is a whole... It's like we're witnessing the birth of an entire industry. Industry, community, and technology. See, the thing is, we've gone... Because the drones originated back in the beginning

of the 20th century, and it's always... Look at the way he said that. Way back in... The beginning of the 20th century. Way back. always... That's the way he said that, way back in... The beginning of the 20th century. Way back. Wait, the 20... You mean the... 1917, something like that. Drones?

Drones? Yeah, well... Gary, you're telling me we had radio-controlled planes in the 19-teens? I do believe so. And the good old military got there first.

Wow. Nice. Wow. So they're thinking about... Yeah. Pilotless aircraft using radio frequency because back then we had there's some big names back then we had tesla right you know tesla the man right not the car yeah right edison was still at it you know there's just there's some fun inventors back then so maybe it's obvious that that would have been the next thing they did

because we were trying to control and understand radio frequency energy. Now that I know that we had pilots' planes back then, we probably had Teslas back then and didn't know it. Oh. Wooden Teslas. Wooden Teslas, right. That's pretty cool, though. Yeah.

Right. So if you take a step back now, if you can have a radio-controlled airplane, that means you can, at the time, radio-control a plane carrying explosives and not put a pilot at risk and attack an enemy. Damn. Yeah, man. People are just—what's wrong with people? The moment you start—

What's wrong with people? The moment we start thinking about how we're going to kill each other, we come up with the most brilliant stuff man that's it it's the it's the blessing and the curse scenario what should be a blessing someone turns into a way to curse it no now you sound like now you sound like my parents that's okay talking about you exactly that was the joke by way, I own an actual letter written by Orville Wright to a friend of his who asked him, you know, your new aeroplane, what is the future of that? Could it be used for evil ways?

I'm paraphrasing. He said, I hope not, but maybe it'll only be controlled by the good guys. The good guys. And then it'll be okay. So early in this, people were thinking about the weaponization of these tools. And I'm glad to see it worked out just how he hoped. Just how he hoped. By the way, I own a letter from Orville Redenbacher.

Who said, thank you for buying my popcorn. You're such a good customer. Did you weaponize it? So the thing, we've gone from military to sport. And now it's back to sort of search and rescue. my popcorn. You're such a good customer. Did you weaponize it? So the thing, we've gone from military to sport and now it's back to sort of search and rescue. And we now seem to be entering,

as well as the military phase, a more positive social phase where you can sense in infrastructure, pipelines, agriculture, development of crops, but then search and rescue.

And disaster, very important. Post after tornado, after forest fires. Plus roads might be closed off because of destructive forces of nature, flooded and fire. So, yeah, so I appreciate the hopefulness with which you want to end the show. Thank you. Absolutely.

That, yes, you have the militarization of things, but when you pause and take a breath, you can say, how do we improve humanity for having done so? And the answer is drone racing. Drone racing. There you go. Full circle.

And fridges. All right. Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, bringing you another episode of StarTalks Sports Edition. Until next time, keep looking up.