Drone Insights & Technology

Drone reality capture technologies, such as laser scanning and imaging,  are helping a myriad of construction professionals such architects, building owners, general contractors, engineers and commercial real estate receive an accurate data set about their building projects. Join us as Jared Curtis, President of Existing Conditions, discusses how drone technology, combined with traditional architectural tools, helps provide a comprehensive, big-picture view of construction projects.  In this episode, he discusses how drones offer new levels of speed and accuracy, and increasingly allow his team access to spaces that otherwise would be dangerous or inaccessible to accurately document. 

Overview

With an aerospace background and an MBA degree from MIT, our guest David Morczinek explores the opportunities and challenges of dealing with large datasets to aid in construction engineering. His company, AirWorks, has an advanced platforms that can transform data generated by drones into CAD, DWG, topography, or any other kind of spatial representation. He makes the case that this type of analysis acts a powerful supplement to the work of professional engineers and surveyors, enabling them to do their work with greater speed and precision than ever before.

About Our Guest

David Morczinek is the Co-Founder and CEO of AirWorks where he spearheads the development of AirWorks’ autonomous drafting technology to advance the application of aerial intelligence and transform the engineering and construction industries. Previously David had a successful career with Airbus in both France and Spain, where he led the first delivery and completion of Airbus’ newest aircraft, and secured aircraft and services contracts of roughly $300M. David holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, as well as M.S. in aerospace engineering from Hamburg University of Technology.

Overview

ConnexiCore is celebrating its 6th year in business, so in this episode the tables are turned...and our CEO Frank Segarra is the guest speaker! 

Frank Segarra is proud of the hard work and determination of his team to build one of the leading turnkey drone service providers in the industry. In this podcast, he shares insights and lessons he learned over the past 6 years in the drone business, including some great personal stories from his early career.

Frank talks about the origins of ConnexiCore as a telecommunications company, and how it evolved into a leading drone services and technology company. Along the way it grew from a 4-pilot team to a nationwide pilot network of over 1100 pilots, serving hundreds of clients across a range of industries.

Frank also shares his perspectives on the drone industry, its origins, where it is now, where it is going in the future, and how drone technology and regulations have changed over time.

Today’s Guest

Frank Segarra is the founder and CEO of ConnexiCore. He has over 30 years of IT, telecommunications and aviation industry experience and was a US Navy aircraft carrier airman specializing in Avionics Engineering. As a thought leader in drone technology, Frank was invited to be a founding member of the CompTIA Drone Advisory Council. and is on the Board of Advisors for the PA Drone Association.

Our guest in this episode is Tom Nettleman, Senior VP of Operations at Property Condition Assessments, LLC (PCA), where he oversees the operations for performing condition assessments on all types of commercial properties.

Tom has used drones for both small and large scale projects, from façade and roofing inspections on New York City townhomes to a 50 acre university campus in St. Kitts that needed a 3D topology map. 

Tom shares his first-hand experience on how invaluable drone technology has been for many types of projects. The drone data was quick, thorough, easily accessed and made the assessment of the properties much easier than having “boots on the ground”.

Overview

Our guest, Scott Northrop of Drone Tech Imaging, works with construction companies and engineers to gather various drone generated datasets to help them analyze and manage their projects.

After starting a drone business a few years ago, Scott started to explore what might be possible beyond just images and videos. After working closely with a family member that owned an engineering firm, he realized the incredible value that drones can provide to the construction and engineering workflow.

Leveraging his background in software and technology, Scott innovated ground-breaking techniques that combine multiple datasets to create rich deliverables, including DSM, DTM, Ortho, 3D point cloud, LAS, DWG, DXF, and more.

He also created ways to share all of this important data with his clients in a way that was accessible and understandable.

About Our Guest

Scott Northrop is the founder of Drone Tech Imaging.  He started out as a Political Science Major, working on Capitol Hill for 2 different senators. Following his entrepreneurial drive, Scott decided to become a business owner, running several companies, including some tech firms. After getting his first drone 4 years ago, he started exploring how deliverables could be more useful and intuitive for his clients. Scott was fascinated by what drones make possible, but also saw an opportunity to make the process more intuitive and accessible for his clients. His companies now provide advanced deliverables for the construction and engineering industries, plus more.

We talk with our guest, Allen Cortez, VP of Safety Administration at Hanover Company, a nationwide developer of high-end apartment projects in major metropolitan areas. We explored the positive impact drones and related technologies are making for conducting commercial building envelope inspections.

Allen’s team manages the safety program for construction sites, the quality control program, operations scheduling and IT initiatives. He shared examples of how drone technology has advanced substantially each year, creating powerful new tools for both quality assurance as well as safety procedures. We also talked about the challenges and opportunities of effectively dealing with the large number of drone deliverables at scale.

In this episode, we covered a range of topics, including AI, cloud-based asset management, facade inspection, the pros and cons of an in-house drone team versus outsourced, and what might be possible with drone technology in the near future.

TODAY'S GUEST

Allen Cortez manages the Hanover Company Construction Division safety and quality assurance programs and project control systems. His responsibilities include project management, planning, scheduling, mobile technology solutions, and administrative support staff throughout Hanover Company’s entire portfolio. Allen also manages Hanover’s IT systems including, outsourced IT services, and hardware and software selection and implementation. Before joining Hanover Company, Allen was Vice President of Operations for Tribble & Stephens Co., a private commercial general contractor providing nationwide construction services. Allen graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Construction Management.

Many companies interested in drone technology still think of drones as something that works only for capturing visual imagery.

Of course, drones can do much more. While drones can capture stunning and clear video and still photography in a way unthinkable even five years ago, they also can produce data that produces actionable insights.

Steven Katz, Founder and Chief Pilot for Sky Ladder Drones, said he recently had a client who wanted drone video, a service Katz has provided many times. But after learning more about the actual business needs, Katz devised a three-day program that not only got the client video, but also photos and mapping data that actually answered provided the answers to the underlying business questions.

More industries are now beginning to understand how they can utilize unmanned aircraft systems. “These ‘ah-ha moments’ happen in little bits. With the use of drones becoming more prevalent and those within the industry working to make effective use cases more apparent, over time more people will understand drone technology can give them far more than just pretty pictures.

Listen to Drone Insights and Technology Episode 003 to hear some interesting specific use cases.

TODAY'S GUEST

Steven Katz, Founder and Chief Pilot, Sky Ladder Drones

Sky Ladder Drones is a commercial UAS service provider based in Los Angeles specializing in drone mapping, construction progress photos, asset inspection (both visual and thermal) and training. Sky Ladder Drones uses only FAA Part 107 certified pilots, has Level 1 Thermography Certified staff and holds a FAA Daytime Waiver for permission to fly at night.

On this episode we are joined by Vice President of Sales at Measure, Abigail Lacy.

We explored some nuanced topics in the ever-expanding drone industry—how can you distinguish the contenders from the pretenders? And how can drones be presented in a way that avoids overpromising and underdelivering in an industry that undergoes constant growth and innovation?

“There’s a lot of fluff in the industry that makes people believe that delivery with a drone is going to become commonplace tomorrow,” Lacy said. “That’s actually not the reality. It’s still very much in the R&D phase. That’s just one example of the kind of misinformation that’s been built up around drones.” 

Lacy also shared key questions to ask a drone or software provider, along with best practices for brokering successful partnerships and making sure your business needs are met.

Learn more by listening to Drone Insights and Technology episode 002.

TODAY'S GUEST

Abigail Lacy, VP Sales, Measure

Measure is an aerial intelligence company that builds software to automate drone operations workflows. With end-to-end program management, user-friendly flight control, and in-platform data analysis, their comprehensive software solution, Ground Control, helps businesses save thousands of hazardous man-hours and create millions of dollars in operational benefits.

Drones can take thousands of images or hours of video of things that previously would’ve been unthinkable.

But what good is all that data if you have no way to sort, analyze, and prioritize it?

Ken Falk, CEO and Founder of Scopito, has a platform that allows users to understand what they have and quickly find what they need to detect.

“Drones allow you to capture much larger amounts of images in a much higher quality than was financially feasible before,” he said. “You need all of this data in high quality and high volume to start doing predictive maintenance work.”

Learn more about the impact of data on drone projects by tuning in to the Drone Insights and Technology episode 1.

TODAY'S GUEST

Ken Falk, CEO and Founder, Scopito

Scopito is the leading software platform to store, analyze and share visual inspections. Ken initially offered drone inspections as a service for power line inspections, though soon realized that the industry needed an effective way to manage data. Leveraging his computer engineering background developing mission-critical systems for the defense industry, Ken and his team developed the innovative Scopito platform. Now Scopito is available to drone operators around the world to help them effectively manage thousands or even millions of inspection images.