How SkySpecs’ Danny Ellis is Evolving Drones as a Service (DaaS)
This interview is with Danny Ellis of SkySpecs which deploys autonomous drones as an aerial workforce to collect safe, affordable, and automated wind turbine inspections. SkySpecs received a Small Business Voucher from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Working with Sandia National Labs, the project will focus on automated blade damage assessment.
The Drone Series explores the drone industry via discussions with CEOs of leading companies, giving investors and industry analysts the opportunity to hear directly from emerging technology leaders. The series is lead by CEO Grant Canary of DroneSeed which is a drone company positioning to automate and dominate the forestry services vertical.
GRANT: Tell us about yourself and how you started in the drone space.
DANNY: SkySpecs is about four years old now, but our core team has been working together for seven years. We came out of the University of Michigan where we worked with drones for fun. We were part of a student research group, Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (MAAV), whose goal was to build a completely autonomous drone that could navigate an unknown building in order to retrieve a flash drive. After several years of that research, we had the opportunity to join the incubator program at University of Michigan. At this point, no one even called them drones yet!
A lot of people thought we were building toys. They didn’t really see a market opportunity there, but we were confident there were going to be commercial applications. We entered a few business competitions that we were very fortunate to win, which got us some early funding. After that, a team of the engineers learned how to grow a business and found people that actually wanted to the software that we were building for drones. We focus primarily on making drones autonomous. We are completely removing humans from the loop and are focused on applying that for infrastructure inspection applications.
GRANT: What professional achievement are you most proud of?
DANNY: I would say professionally, the thing I am proudest of was starting the student team at the University of Michigan. We wanted to work on drones and nobody was doing it. We found funding and raised lots of money from sponsors, primarily Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Each year, we had 40–50 students on this team interested in working on drones. I did that all the way through grad school, and then proudly transitioned from student team to a business.
GRANT: Is the student program still going?
DANNY: Yes, the MAAV program is still going. Students still join and go to competition every year. Students choose University of Michigan for the purpose of joining that team.
GRANT: Moving onto the current iteration, SkySpecs: what is your company insanely good at?
DANNY: Our team is insanely good at automating drone technology. Our real goal is to enable businesses to do infrastructure inspection easily by having an aerial workforce. We want our clients to have true advantage of drones without needing to know what drones are, which ones to buy or how to use them. We often see big companies that have tried to build internal drone task forces, but end up with mish-mashed, low-functioning technology. SkySpecs’ core technology is autonomy- autonomous navigation, autonomous data collection from hard-to-reach places and actionable insights.
GRANT: What are SkySpecs’ specific use cases?
DANNY: When you have a vertical structure, such as a wind turbine or cell tower, you need to monitor it. However, the sites are remote, inspections require teams of 2–3 trained specialists, and carry a lot of expense and insurance liabilities. More frequent inspections to get really data-centric are difficult to justify. Additionally, our drones carry any kind of sensor the client requires, whether a thermal camera, 3D laser scanner, or the next sensor that hasn’t been invented yet, at no additional cost. So, if you use SkySpecs’ technology, you are going to get more than a video or raw data- you will have that data deciphered for you to make it easier to digest and act upon. While wind turbines are a fairly small market, all infrastructure- whether cell towers, bridges, buildings- needs inspecting, which is where we are expanding in 2017.
GRANT: Can you speak a bit about how large companies approach drones and how drone task forces come into play?
DANNY: We have had more than one large company talk to us after attempting to develop their own drones in-house.. Next, they will look into the commercial drones they really need to achieve their goals, and get sticker shock. This is where Drone as a Service (DaaS) comes in.
SkySpecs owns and maintains and equips them with the latest and most applicable technologies to our clients’ needs.
GRANT: How do drones to impact how we evolve technically as a society?
DANNY: Right now we’re at a crossroads when it comes to drones — SkySpecs believes thatthe real revolution is in autonomous robotics. That includes the autonomous car and any form of robot in the workplace or home. Even things like Nest for your thermostat are part of autonomous robotics.
Once robotics become widespread and integrated into enough parts of our lives, we’re going to see a network to the internet, where all devices are connected and automated.
GRANT: Anything in the drone world that you’re super excited about?
DANNY: I’m really excited about some of the hybrid engines that are being developed by fellow Techstars company, Skyfront. Their technology is going to really change who can use multi-rotor drones because of the longer duration flight time with a hybrid engine. I can’t wait to see where that technology goes.
GRANT: Agreed! DroneSeed is looking at that technology excitedly too.
Have a question you want to ask, send it to founders@droneseed.co.
See other interviews in the series here:
From Kosovo to Sand Hill Road: A discussion with Skyward CEO Jonathan Evans
The Democratization of Flight by Drones
Drones and Simplifying the Future
Why Drones are Taking Off in Unexpected Industries
How to Build Trust in Drones
