61–70 of 84 posts
I'm an autonomy engineer at Skydio, and while there are limits to what I can reveal publicly, I'm happy to answer any questions people have.
Is there any way to get the 3d geometry out to create 3d models of things like buildings or rooms? Looking for something similar to Matterport, but flyable.
I'm an autonomy engineer at Skydio, and while there are limits to what I can reveal publicly, I'm happy to answer any questions people have.
Why do the front props point down?
I'm an autonomy engineer at Skydio, and while there are limits to what I can reveal publicly, I'm happy to answer any questions people have.
How much of your product is manufactured here in the US: parts, software? I saw the hiring post and it appears you're Redwood city based.
The parts come from all over the world, I don't know the exact breakdown of country of origin. Assembly, testing, and shipping all happens from Redwood City. Eventually, it might become necessary to move some of that work overseas, but we really enjoy the rapid development and iteration speed that comes from having the assembly line across the street from the engineers.
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What is your policy towards avoiding restricted airspace? If flying autonomously the drone enters a restricted airspace (without specific user direction to do so) could Skydio be hold responsible? Any user (or AI!) sharing the airspace should carefully read and follow FAA rules https://www.faa.gov/uas/recreational_fliers/ or the local laws, a point that is seldom mentioned by some sellers.
This is one of the reasons we don't let the drone keep following for very long if the connection is lost to the phone or beacon controlling it. As a person operating the drone, it's your job to know local and national regulations and follow them.
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I've never flown a drone before. How easy would it be for me to learn?
Take a look at the warranty. If the drone crashes, it's our fault not yours. In that sense, flying Skydio 2 should require about the same minimum skill as using a smartphone camera (i.e. none). We say a three year old can operate it, but that's not a hard minimum ;) That said, there is always a skill ladder to climb if you want jaw-dropping professional footage, where understanding lighting, composition, editing, etc…
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This is one of the reasons we don't let the drone keep following for very long if the connection is lost to the phone or beacon controlling it. As a person operating the drone, it's your job to know local and national regulations and follow them.
So, no geofencing or accesing NOTAMs, etc. in the AI? Regarding the second point I wholeheartedly agree, but I'm concerned when instead of the stern warning that flying these machines requires a good deal of study and preflight preparation to avoid endangering others or breaking the law, one constantly sees statements such as flying should require about the same minimum skill as using a smartphone camera (i.e. none),…
[1] https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000586653-Sk...
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Out of curiosity, how do you handle avoiding long thin objects (cables, power lines)? Is this something that modern drones can handle now, or something that requires careful flying?
Thin objects are really hard, and are probably the single area we have made the most software progress since the R1, especially very thin twigs and branches (it's still not perfect, fly carefully). We completely rebuilt the stereo vision algorithms to try to handle those better, basically by incorporating semantic knowledge (recognizing what is a tree, or a power line) in addition to traditional stereo vision techniq…
I've been keeping a casual eye on drones for a few years, and find it surprising that the flight time always stays between 20 and 30 minutes. Despite all the advances in every other department, the flight time has not changed. Why is that? I would have expected drones capable of flying for over an hour by now.
We’re very much at the extreme edge of diminishing returns with the current chemistries.
It’s a fundamental material science limit. There are a few new chemistries that are significantly better. But those are nowhere near mass-production. Expensive, unreliable, unsafe.
The very high-performance drones use carbon-fiber composites. Those have longer runtime with current batteries. But again, those are expensive.
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Do you have any plans to be more developer friendly? Do you plan to give some sort of API to make custom development? It can bring lots of opportunities to devs if it provides some sort of hackability.
We are working with various commercial and industrial users, but don't currently have anything to announce regarding a consumer accessible API (partially so people don't do stuff like make weapons). If you think you have a really good application, please get in touch. https://medium.com/skydio/skydio-2-drone-industry-34b5634d48...