Accelerating Drone Technology with Chad Sweet and Dev Singh

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper countins counting beans Contador quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy beer and coffee My coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo, the taco stand in pesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean Watch the sunset la Hoya shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders who who believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SDTechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Startups get the party, startups get the.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle. This segment is brought to you by Cox Edge. Our longtime partnership with Cox Business has helped their engineering teams develop new tech products for small businesses and startups. Cox is investing in Edge capabilities and working with developers and engineers across the ecosystem to deliver ultra low latency compute solutions, helping customers to improve application performance and to reduce cloud transport and on premise infrastructure costs. Interested in hearing more about Cox Edge? Please visit coxedge.com and mention Neil Bloom or freshbroodtech.com for our partner discount. And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom. I've got two guests with me, a returnee, Chad Sweet, co founder and CEO of Mobile AI. Welcome Chad. And I've got Dev Singh from Qualcomm, the GM of robotics, drones and autonomous systems. So Dev, thanks for joining. Chad, welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Neil, thank you for having us over.

Absolutely. I'm so excited to have this conversation. Personally, as a mechanic, aerospace engineer in past, I love to nerd out about this stuff, but you guys are making some really awesome technology that's impacting all of our lives and I think Our community of tech workers and tech enthusiasts are really going to enjoy to hear the progress that's come about. And so why don't we quickly, Chad, give us a one minute overview what modal AI is. We know, we heard it on the past podcast, which we'll link to, but love to hear quick overview. So we set the stage.

Absolutely. And thank you again for having me. Modal AI is a San Diego based robotics startup that accelerates autonomy for smaller, smarter and safer drones with our swap optimized and blue UAS framework autopilots that we build here, all in Southern California.

I love it.

Awesome. And Dev, want to give a quick overview of kind of your purview where you focus on within Qualcomm?

Absolutely, yeah. So I lead the robotics, drones and intelligent machines business at Qualcomm. I know that's a long segment thing, but it's all robotics and autonomous systems. So we work, I build this business grounds up in Qualcomm where we are using the technology that Qualcomm invests in, like the processors, the communication technology, and take that and leverage it into robotics. And robotics is everything. Robotics from $200 Thai robots that kids play with, the iRobot Roombas that are in people's home cleaning the floors, to machine robots in factories. And then drone is a sub segment of robots. Drone is nothing but a flying robot. So even in drones, we are doing a lot of different kind of drones, consumer drones, enterprise drones. So that is the business that I have built, leveraging the technologies that we have.

It's fantastic, especially to see Qualcomm obviously go into many other devices. Most people obviously know it for the handsets, but there's so many smart devices out there that deserve the same kind of connection. Chad, Dev, did you guys work on this together internally at Qualcomm? Can you give us a little bit of backstory there?

Yeah. So I was at Qualcomm for 20 years before starting modal AI. And the last five or six years I was there was leading robotics R and D, the robotics R and D efforts. And so part of that was early on in say 2014 and earlier helping push Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon products into new use cases like robotics. And so we were really the tip of the spear for what ended up becoming a much larger effort with IoT and smart cameras, smart cities, robotics and so forth. And so yes, our program matured. We worked with Dev and team to commercialize it. So it went from kind of proof of concept and lab work into actual formal products that are shipping in lots of devices today.

And I would call Chad, my partner in crime. We worked together, of course, and he did the R and D piece and then it was so good that I could build a business around it. So yeah, we worked very well.

So it sounds like R and D. While Dev, you were working on commercialization?

I was on the business side of things, making sure we have a business plan and being able to have the strategy around it correct.

So fast forward a little bit to today, Chad. Qualcomm has continued to have a relationship with modal AI. Right. We can talk a little about that, but I guess take us through also. What's happening more on a macroscopic level, what's happening? What's the changing landscape of drones over that time since you've started modal? And why is this even more important now?

It's a great question. It's a deep one. I'll try and keep it short, but it's a big one actually. We founded Modal AI with great collaboration with Dev and Qualcomm, who were super supportive and generous of the new effort. Of course, modal AI uses Snapdragon technology today or well, Qualcomm chipset technology today. When we left, DJI was the big dog and owned the market and at the time I think had something like 95% market share. And so that was quite painful in the competitive landscape. But quickly there became a lot of security concerns both on data and supply chain and the US government stepped in and has subsequently tried to make it a much more competitive landscape and put ultimately DJI on the blacklist and so forth. And this has created a. A lot of new opportunities for companies like modal AI to build out a US ecosystem. That's been a big part that ended up as well as transitioning to enterprise, that was a big one. Where DJI somewhat owned this consumer devices market. The enterprise landscape has opened up a lot. The regulations have become more clear as to how one can go produce a lot of value using drones.

Got it. And during that whole time too kind of in the back end, obviously the cell network is changing and potential to use cell networks actually for this, this kind for drones and other things probably change as well too. Right. The having actual, the ability to speak quick enough between devices probably wasn't able to be done until this generation of 5G dev. You want to take us through a little bit about kind of the overall changing landscape with 5G coming out?

Yeah, and I'll touch upon the previous one as well. And since Chad left Qualcomm, I mean, it's actually a thicker relationship that we have with model AI. And why it makes more sense is Qualcomm is a technology enabler. We provide technology that goes into all drones. Barring the geopolitical issues. We work with everybody, of course, right. At the end of the day, there's a lot that goes on in making a drone. We are the technology provider. So working with Chad is a great thing because the status quo where the industry has been is using Frankenstein approach as to people have to develop a drone, grounds up by picking sensors, picking pieces that they have to just come up on the fly. But at the end of the day, to make a product commercially viable, you need to have a good starting point. And that's what we work together with Modal to provide that as a RB5. Now talk about connectivity. I believe the future of drones is beyond visual line of sight. Today you own a drone, you want to use the controller to fly it, right? But that is for your personal use, like a hobby or you want to take a photography of something close by. But when we talk about this future use, cases that like search and rescue, delivery operations remotely, you want to be doing this remotely over a visual line of sight. So that can only happen on cellular. And when Chad was in Qualcomm four years ago, we actually started working on this as cellular technology being prime ready for use with 4G to begin with. But then when 5G came in, 5G was built with these things in mind, like the mission critical services. The ultra reliability of 5G enhances the experience as well. So connectivity is going to be key for the use cases that your listeners of this podcast would envision in future, like delivery for roof inspection. And things that drones are going to do, they're going to happen over this networks like 5G which are more robust and safe.

Got it.

Okay.

And so fast forward to today 5G is apparent. @ least all the main handsets are theoretically saying they're all on 5G. And are all the drones already utilizing that or are we still a ways away from actually seeing the products out there?

So we launched the world's first 5G platform just two months ago with modal AI. So yes, we are working with all the players. Model AI is helping us scale. Model AI is our scaling partner. So we together have the first world 5G platform. And fast forward six months, eight months when people are starting to build this and we can't name the names, but everybody's going to have a 5G drone built on the RB5 flight platform.

Okay, do you want to speak a little bit more what that platform is? Either one of you just like what it looks like, what other people can do to engage with it?

Yes. So it's an incredibly capable development platform or reference platform that ultimately, as Dave was mentioning, is about getting the ecosystem to scale. And so this is the starting point. And what it does is really shows people how to build these and then offers a platform for how folks can program and utilize them to go build new applications. And so it's not meant to be like your consumer product that goes out and takes beautiful pictures and you share them around. It's like is to go build those or go build the next asset inspection platform, or go build the next coal shaft safety drone and have it all connected with 5G because it's not obvious how to do it. In fact, we've worked on this platform since last about 16, 18 months to get to this point. So it's not easy, it's not a trivial effort to go do it. So this is, it's intended to be a jumpstart for the ecosystem to go take it and run with it and go build really the next great applications.

I can envision another startup that comes up in San Diego. Somebody in their garage wants to build a drone and they have a unique use case. What we have done along with model AI is provided that starting point that they don't need to break their head over. Which shop? Radio Shack, even if it exists, do I go and get my radio and put it on this platform? They don't need to do that. They have a great starting point and they can worry about the use case they want to define.

Yeah, I mean you, you mentioned San Diego, which has a great drone community, you know, both from the giant enterprise defense side. So that's one thing, right? The General Atomics and Northrops, but even these startups that like SHIELD AI and some of these others on top of I believe like a south county Chula Vista whole testing ground facility. Right, Chad, I think you're a part of that or maybe both of you are.

Yeah, absolutely. We have definitely taken advantage of the Chula Vista flight testing site. It's actually beautiful. It's a beautiful place to go fly the drones and you can look at the lake and everything. But yeah, big wide open space to go fly. San Diego weather. Right. Like is really great for drones drone flying. It doesn't rain that much, doesn't cold that much, so you can go out and so you can see why? This is a good spot to go build these type of companies. Plank is another one. They're down by the airport. They do a lot of maritime drones.

So you mentioned you've got kind of this almost off the shelf kind of starting point for whether it's startups or longtime incumbent companies here. What's the first step? They want to engage, they ready to kind of up level to the next generation. How do they engage and kind of get involved with this platform?

It's available for sale right now and they go to our modelai.com and purchase it and start developing with it. We have a lot of documentation online. We have docs.modelai.com which helps developers build out against the SDKs and APIs. And then we have a forum that developers can ask questions and we try to be very responsive to solving those problems and questions and pointing folks in the right direction.

Do you envision a bit of an ecosystem community that maybe has events like hackathons or other kind of events where you bring developers and companies together?

Yes, but we've got to get through this Covid thing. But yes, absolutely. In fact I feel like we're long overdue on that at Qualcomm.

I mean we, we have a lot of events that we are planning up and just this week we had an event was Smart City Accelerate event here, three day event. A lot of people came in, a lot of partners. It was a very successful event. Even in that event we did do demos beyond 5G drones that we have with RB5 platform. And at Qualcomm ecosystem is a big piece of our strategy. Model AI is great scaling partner. So like Chad mentioned, you can go buy the platform out there right now it's for sale. But when you start developing your platform, there's a ecosystem support that comes in the different kind of vendors, different kind of partners. We can help map them. And when you talked about events, yes there would be events and hackathons that we are going to be planning, working with the universities, working with different organizations like Ross and others as well.

Awesome. Well, we look forward to promoting those. Bring the community in, especially local if we can always. And that Smart Cities event we actually talked about this week in the Fresh Brewed Tech newsletter specifically around Magic Johnson's connection to wanting to bring smart tech into underserved communities as well. So a lot of great happening of bringing tech to the communities in a variety of ways. What are other ways that the community can get out, can get involved? Maybe some asks if you'd have feedback or other Things like that from our.

Tech ecosystem, I think developing some good use cases and how the drones can enhance daily life. Right. I mean, of course we are looking at use cases where it makes sense, but it is what we are looking at. The obvious, it's similar to the analogy would be in 2005 when the phone came out, we didn't know about Uber. Uber is totally based out of the phone. So today we don't know what we don't know, but it's the community that is going to build this cool apps that is going to be creating the services around. Right. Qualcomm enabled cell phone, Uber to everything. Today you can order your food. So this is going to all happen and this is going to be through ecosystem. And that's where I think people should look at these technologies as enablers for them to think about solving issues in daily life or whatever that could be which would enhance the experience and that becomes a killer app next killer app, right?

Yeah, you're right. It's so exciting to see what could be coming next. One thing I don't know if we all would have seen is just having Qualcomm chips in space and on Mars, you know the first helicopter, I believe it is that, that's on Mars. Now do you want to speak to that a little bit? And the involvement, Dev?

Absolutely. And Chad was still in Qualcomm and he was doing the R and D for that. So we worked on it together. So that is amazing project. We are super proud of it. It is a history that has been created. So 150 years ago, Wright brothers took the first flight on planet Earth. And since then, this is the first flight outside of planet Earth. Powered manned flight with taking off from the surface of another planet. So it's, it started out to be a technology demonstrator. NASA jpl, when they worked with us, they saw our demos that we had with with our drones and they wanted to do this and they just wanted to prove that a flight can take place on Mars. And it was a good three year project. We worked with them. They have a chamber in Pasadena where they replicate the surface and atmosphere of Mars and do the test flights. So yeah, we were always waiting for it to fly out and the plan was that it would do couple or five flights and just call it a day saying yeah, we proved it. But it's been so successful that now, right now it's on its 13th or 14th flight and it's gone from being a technology demonstrator to being actually a deployed mission along with The Rover. So yeah, I mean, whenever I talk about it, the whole San Diego community contributed to it in many different ways. People in San Diego, my team particularly, and of course Chad was also involved. So it's a super proud moment for us.

That is super cool, especially a long time in the making. And funny enough, in a past crew of mine, I worked on the engines that launched that rocket. Uh, so you know, we're all connected in a multitude of ways for sure. Well guys, you know, it's a beautiful place to be. Flying drunk in San Diego, but also eating tacos. And so this being the tacos and tech podcast, we got to know, do you have a favorite spot? Chad? Have you got a new spot or is it still Robertos?

Yeah, I'm going with Las Solas this time. Lobster tacos. We're about to hit that season if it's not already. Usually October, they start to bring those back online. That's, that's what I'm looking forward to.

Can't beat it. Ted, how about you?

I'll be simple guy. I like the taco stand in La Jolla. I mean everybody know about it but it's really popular. I take people who come from outside as well and I've been there before. I just probably know other places but could be better. But that is a go to place for me.

No other taco spot in San Diego needs a taco drone delivery program than the taco stand which always has a line and the only way to beat is got to get delivered. Right. So when are we getting the drone delivery taco?

Let's work on it.

Well guys, this is awesome. It's so great to have you on. Thank you for what you're doing and building and thanks for being on the podcast.

Thank you, Neil.

Great. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the tacos and tech podcast with Neil Blum. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music. And this podcast is edited and mixed by Patrick Norden@citizenrecording.com you can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom and on LinkedIn as well as well as fresh brewed tech and tacos and tech pod on Twitter too.

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