Banter 107: 18Feb26 Drones, with Ben Ford

Drones, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, remote inspection, roof, gutter, masts, pylons, cables, thermal imaging, videos, drones for internal use, external use, drone regulations, drone pilot licencing,

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Presentation:

No separate presentation slides this session - the video is the presentation

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Meeting Summary:

Feb 18, 2026 11:52 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536

Quick recap

The meeting focused on drones and their applications, with Benjamin presenting on various uses including thermal imaging, roof surveys, and solar panel inspections. He demonstrated how drones can capture detailed images and 3D models of properties, identify insulation issues, and assess solar panel damage. Benjamin also discussed the regulations governing drone operations, including the need for qualifications like A2CFC certification. The group explored potential applications for drones in disaster response, traffic monitoring, and communications, with Mike suggesting the use of drones for emergency communication relays. The conversation ended with a discussion of the technical limitations of current drones, including battery life and signal interference.

Next steps

• Benjamin: Jot down drone regulations, qualifications, and relevant links in a document and send to Graham after the meeting.

• Benjamin: Put email address in the chat for participants to contact him if needed.

Summary

Drone Career and Applications Overview

Benjamin shared his journey into drones, starting as a hobby and evolving into a career, particularly focusing on thermography and data collection. He highlighted the importance of compliance with CAA rules and the potential risks of drones interfering with emergency services. Benjamin also discussed various commercial applications of drones, including solar and property surveys, and demonstrated a project for Harper Sans involving 3D modeling and orthomosaic mapping. The meeting experienced some technical difficulties with Zoom sharing features.

Drone Property Inspection Capabilities

Benjamin demonstrated drone capabilities for property inspections, including roof surveys and thermal imaging, explaining how they can capture detailed images and 3D models to help identify defects and insulation issues. He showed examples of both image data and thermal mapping, including a case where missing insulation was discovered to be causing mould problems in a rental property. The discussion revealed that while drones can provide valuable insights, they need to be complemented with on-site inspections for a complete assessment.

Thermal Drone Inspection for Solar Panels

Benjamin explained the use of thermal drones for inspecting solar panel installations and roofs, highlighting issues like damaged cells, delamination, and bird feces. He discussed the importance of regular solar panel inspections, especially for properties with installations within the last 8 years. Benjamin also mentioned a new device, the Manifold 3, which will enable automatic annotation of images with serial numbers and barcodes, and he provided recommendations for drones suitable for thermal surveys, such as the DJI Mavic 3T or Matrice 4T, along with the necessary A2COC certification.

Drone Technology and Regulatory Overview

Benjamin discussed drone technology applications, including thermal imaging and traffic monitoring, and explained the qualifications and regulations for drone operations. He mentioned working with companies like Drone Ranger for large-scale surveys and provided cost estimates for drone services. Graham inquired about thermal mapping for parish councils, and Benjamin shared his experience with a similar project in Ventnor. The conversation also covered the necessary qualifications and compliance requirements for drone operators, including the A2CFC and GVC courses.

Drone Safety Regulations Overview

Benjamin explained drone safety regulations, noting that drones weighing over 250 grams must stay 5 meters away from people and 50 meters away from larger drones. He clarified that flying drones over crowds of people, especially those over 800 in number, is a police matter and requires operational authorisation. Amanda raised concerns about drone safety at public events, particularly in light of the Terrorism Act 2000, which imposes additional responsibilities on councils for events with over 800 people. Benjamin advised that councils can request drone operators to cease flying if they are taking off or landing on council land, and failure to comply would be a police matter.

Drone Regulations and Safety Measures

Benjamin explained the use of NOTAMs (Notice to Airmen) to create no-fly corridors for responsible drone pilots, noting that some hobbyists may not be aware of this requirement. He emphasized the importance of proper documentation and risk assessment for commercial drone operations, including carrying identification cards and necessary permits. Amanda shared her experience working with Jennifer, a professional drone flyer for Thames Water, who helped her understand drone regulations. Benjamin also discussed the noise levels of different drone sizes, ranging from 50-60 decibels for smaller drones to 140-200 decibels for larger ones, and emphasized the need to maintain appropriate distances from people when operating drones.

Drones for Agricultural Mapping

Benjamin explained that drones are not feasible for delivery in the UK due to airspace congestion, but they are useful for agricultural mapping on the Isle of Wight. He detailed how multi-spectral drones provide high-resolution imagery (3-5 cm GSD) for variable rate spraying, which is more cost-effective than satellite data for small farms. Benjamin also described their automated drone system, which operates from a dock and can perform Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, though he noted that video footage is not as useful as photographs for mapping due to motion blur.

Drone Sensing and Collision Avoidance

Benjamin explained that drones typically operate autonomously with omnidirectional sensing and LiDAR capabilities for collision avoidance, and demonstrated a 3D model capture using omnidirectional sensors. He described different drone types used in Ukraine, including disposable FPV drones and larger drones capable of carrying mortars, with the Mavic 3 T2s preferred due to its rapid signal changes. The group discussed anti-collision technology, with Benjamin noting that most drones over £1,000 have omnidirectional sensing, including LiDAR and biomark sensors, while lower-priced drones may lack this feature.

Drone Mapping for Property Inspections

Benjamin explained how drones capture images at waypoints and create 3D models for property inspections, particularly useful for landlords who cannot visit properties in person. He demonstrated LiDAR data visualization, showing height and intensity measurements, and discussed the limitations of 3D meshes generated from camera data compared to pure 3D captures. Benjamin also shared examples of previous drone mapping work for Island Roads and Military Road areas, highlighting the utility of these mappings for disaster assessment and regular monitoring of landslide-prone sites.

Drone Safety and Inspection Applications

Benjamin demonstrated the use of drones, particularly an FPV drone, to assess hazardous areas and capture footage in challenging environments, such as cliff edges and flooded buildings. He explained that drones can operate in risky areas without human intervention and can be equipped with protective features like inductive propeller guards. Benjamin also showcased videos from previous drone flights, including one near a cliff at World Chime, which is inaccessible to humans due to safety concerns. The discussion highlighted the practical applications of drones for inspection and documentation in difficult-to-reach locations.

Drones for Surveillance and Communication

Benjamin explained the data storage capabilities of drones, noting that they record in 4K while transmitting lower-resolution footage back to the controller. He detailed the use of thermal drones to monitor sewage outlets during heavy rainfall, as hot water indicates potential pollution. The group discussed potential applications of drones in disaster areas, including communication relays, though Benjamin expressed uncertainty about signal interference. Benjamin also shared that his company uses a Tactical Communications Hub with 5G and Starlink capabilities for areas with poor cellular coverage.

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Chat:

00:40:59 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Drone Ranger LTd 00:41:47 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Dji Mavic 3T 00:41:56 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Dji Matrice 4T 00:47:05 Carl Turner: Many thanks. I now need to go. 00:50:11 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: notam 01:07:16 Amanda Davis: many thanks, gotogo 01:23:53 Sarah Barnett - Buckland Dinham, near Frome, Somerset: Thank you Ben, that was great! 01:23:58 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: [email protected]

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Audio-transcript:

97 00:13:46.510 --> 00:13:49.629 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, hello, I'm Ben from White Drone.

98 00:13:50.730 --> 00:13:53.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I've been asked today to come on and talk more about

99 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:59.519 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: what drones can do in the community, particularly more on the thermography side.

100 00:13:59.660 --> 00:14:05.740 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we… drones are everywhere now, everyone's got one, pretty much. Good and bad.

101 00:14:06.060 --> 00:14:12.969 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: we see people with drones doing stupid things. Recently, there's one that, someone's got,

102 00:14:13.420 --> 00:14:33.819 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I'm not sure in the sentencing yet on that one, but they recorded a fire up in Manchester, some emergency services working over, using their drone to be in that airspace. It is ridiculous. We could have helicopters or anything coming in from, from, some helicopters have thermal imaging cameras on, so they could be monitoring situations, or…

103 00:14:33.970 --> 00:14:38.539 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Vice versa, the airspace isn't…

104 00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:55.600 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: and open to drones as such. We limit ourselves to 120 meters. If we have to go beyond that, we put in no terms we comply with all CAA rules, but there are ways of not complying with that, and there are people who don't comply with that.

105 00:14:55.820 --> 00:15:01.639 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So there are nuisance issues with drones, but we try and use our drones more for…

106 00:15:02.310 --> 00:15:06.950 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So commercial aspects, more data collection aspects.

107 00:15:07.210 --> 00:15:20.729 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we do everything from solar surveys, property surveys, land surveys, we've had some different things as well, where we've had a device on it called a sniffer, which we've been using for methane detection. We're using that at Biodaches at Arrington.

108 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:27.509 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It's quite interesting to sort of see different levels of methane at 30 meters and 50 meters and 70 meters above.

109 00:15:27.510 --> 00:15:37.860 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: the asset there, and then seeing how much is in the air, and we can then apply that to a map, so we know the larger areas where the methane were, et cetera, et cetera.

110 00:15:37.860 --> 00:15:51.879 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: For me, my area is more geospatch for data collection and 3D modeling, so I prefer more to be mapping, taking a land map or a 3D model, interpreting that, bringing that either into a CAD model.

111 00:15:51.900 --> 00:16:03.710 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: To go further with clients, or to overlay onto different, CAD drawings that have already come across. So there's one that we did for… if I can just screen share…

112 00:16:18.520 --> 00:16:24.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, this one is… for Harper Sands.

113 00:16:28.540 --> 00:16:31.919 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they're taking what they've got here for their map.

114 00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:38.220 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I wanted to overlay over to what's already on site at the present time, which was…

115 00:16:38.760 --> 00:16:40.410 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Just over a year ago.

116 00:16:41.290 --> 00:16:44.900 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I still believe there's no progression going on this at all.

117 00:16:45.860 --> 00:16:46.890 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: As yet.

118 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:52.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is what they'll…

119 00:16:53.360 --> 00:17:04.970 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: are planning at the moment, I believe. I don't know if the plans have changed. So this is the more luxury side homes, this side is the affordable housing, and then back to more luxury homes that they wanted to put in.

120 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:12.720 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, what we did was we went out and captured what we call an orthomosaic,

121 00:17:13.130 --> 00:17:14.619 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Someone that we are…

122 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:27.100 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: capturing anywhere between 100 to 3,000 or 4,000 photos. The drone itself acts as a rover, and we have a base station with us on site, logged into an IMTRIP client.

123 00:17:28.290 --> 00:17:33.929 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Generally, we're looking around about between 10 and 15 mil accuracy.

124 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:38.759 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: How do we get out of the share thing?

125 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:44.100 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't know how to get other share thing, let's see.

126 00:17:48.890 --> 00:17:51.970 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Do you want to stop sharing, Ben, if you want to move out of there?

127 00:17:52.270 --> 00:17:54.630 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep, just trying to figure that one out.

128 00:17:54.630 --> 00:17:56.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: top of the screen.

129 00:17:57.270 --> 00:17:59.470 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: on the top of the Zoom screen, that is.

130 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:01.790 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There'll be a stop sharing bar.

131 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:04.020 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Something weird.

132 00:18:07.390 --> 00:18:09.110 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: She is, sweetie.

133 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:23.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So if you alt-tab to your Zoom screen, you should be able to see a stop sharing

134 00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:26.849 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Tab at the top of the screen, top middle.

135 00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:32.570 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: A big green one for sharing, and a red one for stop sharing.

136 00:18:39.580 --> 00:18:42.619 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Problem of having so many screens, it's on the other side.

137 00:18:42.620 --> 00:18:43.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There you go.

138 00:18:44.090 --> 00:18:47.210 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Sorry, I've got sick screens here. So…

139 00:18:47.610 --> 00:18:55.970 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: that's generally where I prefer to be, all of 3D modeling. So, we can come in, we'll do a share again.

140 00:19:00.860 --> 00:19:01.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Sweet.

141 00:19:08.510 --> 00:19:09.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Morning, David.

142 00:19:10.470 --> 00:19:11.679 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: What have we got there?

143 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:16.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That looks like… he showed up again?

144 00:19:17.310 --> 00:19:19.759 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Mavic Mini 2?

145 00:19:19.760 --> 00:19:21.650 David Newman: Autel Robotics.

146 00:19:22.250 --> 00:19:25.050 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Auto Robotics? Oh, you're one of those hotel people.

147 00:19:25.050 --> 00:19:25.690 David Newman: Yeah.

148 00:19:27.290 --> 00:19:29.460 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I've got a few over here on the side.

149 00:19:29.600 --> 00:19:31.920 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: How'd you find it? What'd you use it for?

150 00:19:32.580 --> 00:19:37.609 David Newman: Taking videos of areas around me.

151 00:19:40.950 --> 00:19:50.700 David Newman: to use… Either for the Green Party, or to pick up bits where developers are spoiling the environment.

152 00:19:51.850 --> 00:19:53.929 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, evidence data collection, then.

153 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:59.119 David Newman: Yeah. But also, things I go to, like,

154 00:19:59.370 --> 00:20:03.300 David Newman: Bike meets, with thousands of bikes in one park.

155 00:20:04.350 --> 00:20:07.570 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Okay, so sometimes there, you'd have to…

156 00:20:08.710 --> 00:20:11.739 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Are you quite clued up in your CIA ranks at all, or…

157 00:20:12.750 --> 00:20:19.609 David Newman: I go right at the edge, looking sideways rather than above them, and it's less than 250 grams.

158 00:20:19.890 --> 00:20:31.080 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So as long as you keep them 50 meters away, so one of the… there's lots of regulations, but one of the big ones is there's crowds of people, you keep 50 meters away. Do you have flyer ID or ATCOC?

159 00:20:32.270 --> 00:20:36.139 David Newman: Yeah, I got the operator ID.

160 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:36.530 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I didn'.

161 00:20:36.530 --> 00:20:41.739 David Newman: And, now got to do the exam for the, pilot one.

162 00:20:42.150 --> 00:20:42.660 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep.

163 00:20:43.810 --> 00:20:46.219 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, did another screen share, so…

164 00:20:46.600 --> 00:20:52.280 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Something that can be done, moving

165 00:20:53.670 --> 00:20:56.559 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The community could help for you guys.

166 00:20:56.860 --> 00:21:11.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: would be for roof surveys. This is a particular one we do, which we provide a 3D model of the roof, so it's more easier for clients to actually see the defect. It does come with a report of findings, then we can click on different parts of the roof.

167 00:21:11.370 --> 00:21:15.700 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That'll bring us to the image data that concerns… Sorry.

168 00:21:16.380 --> 00:21:22.590 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Probably from… Chip tiles, vegetation, tile slipping.

169 00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:23.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: -

170 00:21:25.190 --> 00:21:27.140 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Also, from this as well, you can…

171 00:21:27.910 --> 00:21:37.300 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: hand this over to roof contractors, builders. We can actually take accurate volumetric data, so we can take area mass data as well, and measuring

172 00:21:37.710 --> 00:21:39.130 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: moving points…

173 00:21:43.230 --> 00:21:45.549 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Another ass thing you can do as well.

174 00:21:47.150 --> 00:21:48.789 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Banola level of detail.

175 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:50.620 Mike Bundock: It's fascinating.

176 00:21:50.620 --> 00:21:52.120 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is really good.

177 00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:55.990 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Unfortunately, when we come to look at the thermal one I'm just loading up now.

178 00:21:56.700 --> 00:22:02.040 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The image camera wouldn't have… We just couldn't get that level of detail.

179 00:22:04.330 --> 00:22:21.670 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is a property in Cows, where we were looking at the thermal ethicity of the property. They recently purchased a property, and they wanted more to know whether the, insulation they had… they knew they had,

180 00:22:21.810 --> 00:22:28.209 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: People bearing insulation, the polystyrene insulation in the property before on records, but they wanted to know if it was taken out.

181 00:22:29.690 --> 00:22:38.409 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, we're looking here, so anything dark is cold, anything more gold is hot. So on this side wall.

182 00:22:39.150 --> 00:22:45.109 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's very, very warm, so we could probably say that it was taken out this side, but looking at the front down here.

183 00:22:45.910 --> 00:22:52.190 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Possibly not, but we did have a slate coverage up here, which can block the thermal… thermals coming out.

184 00:22:54.670 --> 00:22:56.409 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's do reverse of the property.

185 00:22:57.770 --> 00:22:59.199 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's get to work through that.

186 00:23:00.050 --> 00:23:02.999 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: One of the other things we do is dog searching.

187 00:23:03.830 --> 00:23:06.379 Carl Turner: So, sorry, can I just ask a quick question?

188 00:23:06.380 --> 00:23:09.089 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, on the thermal imaging.

189 00:23:09.090 --> 00:23:13.990 Carl Turner: If someone's got a slate roof, you're saying that you're not able to assess the…

190 00:23:14.380 --> 00:23:16.840 Carl Turner: Thermal integrity of the building.

191 00:23:17.950 --> 00:23:36.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yes and no. So, depending on the insulation that they have, so if the insulation that they have is directly over the loft cavity in space and it's thick enough, you're not really going to see a leak. If they have none, then we are going to see a hotter slate roof. It then depends whether it's slate, whether it's concrete tiles.

192 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:40.610 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And what time of day we go there, and how much heating they've got in their house.

193 00:23:40.940 --> 00:23:41.600 Carl Turner: Okay.

194 00:23:45.010 --> 00:23:47.079 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So one of the other things is…

195 00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:51.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Dog searching, so this one was for Dottie, so we're using the thermal camera.

196 00:23:52.010 --> 00:23:54.330 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Trying to pick up and find her.

197 00:23:58.380 --> 00:24:03.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And she was… just failed.

198 00:24:04.760 --> 00:24:08.399 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So then we help ground crews to then lead to the position of where she is.

199 00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:10.609 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So not…

200 00:24:14.910 --> 00:24:17.700 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And also going back to geospatial data collection.

201 00:24:17.830 --> 00:24:20.010 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: A couple of years ago, we also did…

202 00:24:21.810 --> 00:24:24.510 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: the landscape at Bunbridge as well.

203 00:24:24.710 --> 00:24:25.610 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

204 00:24:25.610 --> 00:24:37.009 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We've done an overlay, so we've done the author mosaic, we've done an overlay between what it originally was from the Google Map to what it was about a month afterwards.

205 00:24:50.900 --> 00:25:02.430 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, Ben, do you get a lot of commissions from councils who are looking for, changes to the vegetation, or lost people, or whatever? I should imagine old people who get lost must be quite high on the list.

206 00:25:02.630 --> 00:25:14.399 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Not so much. Mine's more, probably more insurance-focused. So the Isle of Wight Council does have an in-house drone pilot, and so they also use Ordnance Survey as well. So their in-house drone pilot is Mike Collins.

207 00:25:15.580 --> 00:25:16.529 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah, they're in.

208 00:25:16.530 --> 00:25:22.950 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: No, I know you'll see these Ordance Survey, so Auden Survey had flown out as well. That was for an insurance purpose.

209 00:25:25.980 --> 00:25:26.989 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So that's that.

210 00:25:27.150 --> 00:25:34.109 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If we go back to what we can do for property sides… So, first point would be…

211 00:25:34.990 --> 00:25:36.809 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: for roof surveys.

212 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:39.590 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Sounds good, too.

213 00:25:59.380 --> 00:26:01.239 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The roof surveys we can find.

214 00:26:01.710 --> 00:26:02.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Whoa.

215 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:07.540 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: either image data, image data with a report or the 3D model.

216 00:26:08.580 --> 00:26:10.960 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And… being…

217 00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:24.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: holding a GVC and PDRA, we can fly larger drones than most with a FlyOIDS, or the A2COC, so we can get more cleaner, sharper, and closer images of defects.

218 00:26:26.570 --> 00:26:27.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, could you just give us…

219 00:26:27.850 --> 00:26:28.750 Carl Turner: Dual bell.

220 00:26:29.500 --> 00:26:32.499 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: How far away you are when you're taking these pictures?

221 00:26:33.110 --> 00:26:42.009 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, the drone has a 7x zoom lens on it, or 7x20 photo, so roughly off of the asset, we're probably…

222 00:26:42.410 --> 00:26:44.760 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Maybe 6 meters, 7 meters above.

223 00:26:45.020 --> 00:26:45.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

224 00:26:48.100 --> 00:26:50.359 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I find that detail is fascinating.

225 00:26:51.780 --> 00:26:54.669 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Again, when we're trying to diagnose,

226 00:26:55.070 --> 00:27:02.039 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: and help clients with roof surveys. You can't just rely on Images such as this.

227 00:27:03.230 --> 00:27:05.240 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It doesn't give you enough detail.

228 00:27:05.560 --> 00:27:06.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

229 00:27:08.220 --> 00:27:11.909 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But right there, you can see the missing side… tiles and everything.

230 00:27:12.110 --> 00:27:13.020 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Nope.

231 00:27:14.340 --> 00:27:21.819 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You also look at how much debris there, track of those wires being broken, split tape. We can look at splitting the lead work here.

232 00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:25.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Not to scope for leaks.

233 00:27:27.740 --> 00:27:30.559 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And to move from there, let's just connect that one.

234 00:27:33.850 --> 00:27:37.120 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So let's come back into the thermal side.

235 00:27:44.390 --> 00:27:47.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is a property in Gurnerd.

236 00:27:47.900 --> 00:27:52.950 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And the people have just moved in, they've been there for 6 months.

237 00:27:53.090 --> 00:27:57.820 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: They were coming up for having a chat with their landlord, and…

238 00:27:58.330 --> 00:28:07.239 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Their big problem was they were having a lot of mould issues in certain rooms, and even with venting, having dehumidifiers on is still continually happening.

239 00:28:07.450 --> 00:28:13.680 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So they… I was contacted by the letting agent to come out and do a thermography report on the house.

240 00:28:15.060 --> 00:28:17.869 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is internally, looking up above at the ceiling.

241 00:28:18.870 --> 00:28:21.479 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You can see the dark areas and the hotter areas.

242 00:28:21.610 --> 00:28:25.939 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Which… they're getting to poor insulation. While the…

243 00:28:26.280 --> 00:28:30.509 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Before they moved into the property, they had had the roof re-insulated.

244 00:28:30.780 --> 00:28:33.520 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Once we put a drone up,

245 00:28:33.890 --> 00:28:49.309 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: another day inside to go and have a look through the roof. We found out that the insulation at the front of the property, and the rear of the property, was missing. They hadn't covered it, so that's where they were getting the build-up of mould and things coming through, the condensation.

246 00:28:49.500 --> 00:28:50.960 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: As you can see here and here.

247 00:28:55.930 --> 00:28:58.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So that was just a handheld camera at that point?

248 00:28:58.510 --> 00:29:06.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, this is using the… thermal drone, which we… this one… Shit?

249 00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:07.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

250 00:29:14.670 --> 00:29:15.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Whoa.

251 00:29:17.030 --> 00:29:22.319 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Then we can see more clearly between where the insulation's coming down, seeing between the rafters there.

252 00:29:26.570 --> 00:29:31.970 Mike Bundock: Benjamin, did you do a thermal survey from outside, looking down onto the roof?

253 00:29:32.130 --> 00:29:33.159 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I did as well.

254 00:29:33.830 --> 00:29:35.729 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is from outside as well.

255 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:41.389 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is looking down onto the roof.

256 00:29:41.610 --> 00:29:45.610 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Notice at the top of the ridge, you're getting hot spots there. This is clay tiles.

257 00:29:46.530 --> 00:29:49.390 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, really hard to see through for a very thick.

258 00:29:52.430 --> 00:29:55.190 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Again, so you can just see underneath on the eve here.

259 00:29:56.080 --> 00:29:58.900 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's starting to get a little bit of… Leaks there.

260 00:29:59.170 --> 00:30:00.800 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Along the bottom as well.

261 00:30:09.870 --> 00:30:13.110 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And then this is… That was God's Hill.

262 00:30:15.020 --> 00:30:20.580 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is an image from Godzilla as well, from above, to take a thermal image, which I believe I did a panorama

263 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:22.809 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Also, social media.

264 00:30:25.360 --> 00:30:27.030 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Again, back into the property.

265 00:30:27.770 --> 00:30:29.870 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And then the client received…

266 00:30:37.530 --> 00:30:47.859 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: this report. So, report here just to hold the values of different parts of the property to the temperatures. So, we logged in the outside temperature and humidity, the inside temperature and humidity.

267 00:30:48.750 --> 00:30:53.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And that helped us to do the EMS activity report.

268 00:31:04.130 --> 00:31:18.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, do you get asked to do this so that people can see where they need to do installation, or is it a lot of it is to do like you had here, where you need to go and show where the installation is supposedly been done, but has not been done properly?

269 00:31:19.150 --> 00:31:23.690 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's more… The thermal side doesn't get requested a lot of.

270 00:31:23.870 --> 00:31:24.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: He doesn't.

271 00:31:24.510 --> 00:31:31.240 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The more I get requested on thermal operations is for solar operations.

272 00:31:31.730 --> 00:31:43.930 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So those houses that have, recently have had solar panels been put on them, or have had solar panels put on in the past, or for solar farms, we do… generally, solar farms, we do it every single year.

273 00:31:43.950 --> 00:31:54.510 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: properties, large commercial units that have a large server array on them. We do those either yearly or bi-yearly, depending on the client. For home, not so much.

274 00:31:54.670 --> 00:32:11.259 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's something that I feel they should be checking on more, and especially more on the fact that solar panels have a 10-year lifespan or guarantee to them, so they do need checking. There's some solar panels, such as Trinder Solar as well. There's a lot of corrosion internally with buzz bar and delamination as well.

275 00:32:11.260 --> 00:32:19.699 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Which gets overlooked within the property sector, so anything sort of within the last 8 years that's been put on properties really does need to be looked at.

276 00:32:20.280 --> 00:32:22.419 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: What does your camera show you, then?

277 00:32:22.620 --> 00:32:25.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The solar operator was going to be interested in.

278 00:32:28.580 --> 00:32:30.710 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's up some images to set the fonts.

279 00:32:31.340 --> 00:32:33.029 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's do another share again.

280 00:32:44.040 --> 00:32:45.850 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is the solar array here.

281 00:32:46.490 --> 00:32:51.340 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, if you're looking on the image… this section here.

282 00:32:51.820 --> 00:32:52.290 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That.

283 00:32:52.290 --> 00:32:54.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Damaged. These cells are damaged.

284 00:32:55.070 --> 00:32:57.009 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This cell over here is damaged.

285 00:32:58.030 --> 00:33:01.109 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: These cells here are hotspots as well, so they are damaged.

286 00:33:03.370 --> 00:33:06.300 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Looking again, so this is a roof-mounted system here.

287 00:33:06.710 --> 00:33:07.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes.

288 00:33:07.270 --> 00:33:10.520 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, these panels here are actually newer.

289 00:33:11.510 --> 00:33:13.620 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So there's no damage in those.

290 00:33:14.510 --> 00:33:16.729 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But you have a few hotspots.

291 00:33:17.370 --> 00:33:18.330 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: up here.

292 00:33:18.970 --> 00:33:26.799 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Heh… Which would probably be more than likely bird feces. This was at Bexton Sewage Works in London.

293 00:33:27.330 --> 00:33:28.050 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right?

294 00:33:29.700 --> 00:33:35.719 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So it's just a general cell array. This is one we have… This one is at Shanklin.

295 00:33:37.230 --> 00:33:40.080 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we can see delaminations in the panel on this one.

296 00:33:41.060 --> 00:33:42.789 Mike Bundock: Gosh, look at that.

297 00:33:43.060 --> 00:33:43.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

298 00:33:44.730 --> 00:33:46.599 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Another job we do, which I don't…

299 00:33:46.710 --> 00:33:51.159 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Have the data to share with you is for the serial number data collection.

300 00:33:51.490 --> 00:33:57.269 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And I can't share that with you, because it's under GNN.

301 00:33:58.050 --> 00:34:03.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: like… But you can actually go ahead and find out the serial number of each panel.

302 00:34:03.240 --> 00:34:13.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yes, so we can scan the serial number of each panel. I've got a little device coming, which will be delivered today, called the Manifold 3, which we've used for 3D mapping.

303 00:34:13.260 --> 00:34:26.949 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But it pretty much adds a computer onto the top of the drone. So me and another client that I work for are going to try and create a program that would be able to go onto that device, so at the time of capture, it's able then to crop and annotate the image.

304 00:34:27.340 --> 00:34:35.129 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: With the serial number to it, and also the barcode, whether we can read the barcode or not, but the serial number's more important than the barcode.

305 00:34:38.600 --> 00:34:43.959 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is another cell race. This one's got quite a lot of damage, so we've got one full row of cells out here.

306 00:34:45.580 --> 00:34:50.509 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And we've got a lot of cell damage in between. The little bit of specks, they would be more bird feces.

307 00:34:51.060 --> 00:34:58.739 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: These larger hot spots are cell damage, there could be cracks, they could be burned out, it could be delamination.

308 00:34:59.730 --> 00:35:00.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Wow.

309 00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:03.899 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's see if there's a little more…

310 00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:15.160 Mike Bundock: Benjamin, I do thermal surveys in a volunteer basis.

311 00:35:15.350 --> 00:35:17.900 Mike Bundock: Yep. For fuel poverty homes.

312 00:35:18.200 --> 00:35:22.900 Mike Bundock: And, we've done many. I actually did two last Saturday.

313 00:35:23.120 --> 00:35:28.400 Mike Bundock: What type of drone can I purchase to do the roof?

314 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:39.789 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, you would look… be looking for a Mavic… a DJI Mavic 3T Mavic 40, but then you would need to have a A2C of C,

315 00:35:40.040 --> 00:35:43.249 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: To be able to operate that within close proximity to property.

316 00:35:44.310 --> 00:35:46.449 Mike Bundock: Give me that model again.

317 00:35:46.780 --> 00:35:51.610 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's the DJI Mavic… 3, or the Matrice 40.

318 00:35:53.050 --> 00:35:59.789 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Is it something you could put into the chat, Ben, that would… just… it stays as a reference and a record?

319 00:36:00.020 --> 00:36:02.600 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And also, we got to do,

320 00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:06.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Cell tower, surveys as well.

321 00:36:06.670 --> 00:36:11.879 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we do these as a 3D model, but also, again, looking at component issues as well.

322 00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:24.039 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, generally trying to look, make sure there's no loose connections or anything at all in between them. No broken or cracked wires, no damage at all from birds.

323 00:36:26.700 --> 00:36:27.410 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And…

324 00:36:28.310 --> 00:36:31.600 David Newman: By the way, what camera do you use for infrared?

325 00:36:32.830 --> 00:36:39.430 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, the camera we use is built-in from DJI, so it's a 640x480 Ridiance, thermal radiance camera.

326 00:36:39.910 --> 00:36:41.440 David Newman: Alright, spilled… yeah.

327 00:36:42.420 --> 00:36:51.120 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And another thing we can also do as well is, using drone is, stress tables. We've done one recently of Coppins Bridge,

328 00:36:51.600 --> 00:36:59.920 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We've done that a few times, where we just record one-hour footage from 10 to 5, all the way through to pretty much 6 o'clock.

329 00:37:00.080 --> 00:37:13.090 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And that's just recording the volume of the, traffic going through at certain times, and at certain times of when traffic's being held up. The last one was for when, there was work up at Cobbins Bridge. Not Cobbins Bridge, Horsebridge Hill.

330 00:37:14.290 --> 00:37:20.139 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is parking stress table for Tesco's. This was to help them work out

331 00:37:20.350 --> 00:37:28.680 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: parking areas, how much car parts used over a two-week period, for then looking at placing Burger King down here, I believe.

332 00:37:28.990 --> 00:37:29.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

333 00:37:36.980 --> 00:37:46.390 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, do you find that most commercial organizations are familiar with what drones can do, or is there a lot of education involved in what you're doing?

334 00:37:47.910 --> 00:37:55.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Depends on client. Some clients are, some clients aren't, and… It's…

335 00:37:55.370 --> 00:37:56.889 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's one of those that sort of…

336 00:37:57.430 --> 00:38:02.789 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You're trying to figure out what they want, and in the end, you're kind of telling them what they want sometimes?

337 00:38:02.820 --> 00:38:03.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Cheers.

338 00:38:07.110 --> 00:38:09.000 Amanda Davis: Can I ask a quick question, Graeme?

339 00:38:09.470 --> 00:38:10.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Go on, Ferduenda.

340 00:38:10.910 --> 00:38:13.690 Amanda Davis: Thank you. Hello, Ben.

341 00:38:13.990 --> 00:38:16.550 Amanda Davis: I'm in Borton on the Water in the Cotswolds.

342 00:38:17.160 --> 00:38:17.860 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep.

343 00:38:17.860 --> 00:38:19.910 Amanda Davis: We never have a down season.

344 00:38:20.460 --> 00:38:24.440 Amanda Davis: It's always busy. It's absolutely busy at the moment.

345 00:38:24.740 --> 00:38:28.489 Amanda Davis: And we're trying to do traffic surveys.

346 00:38:28.820 --> 00:38:44.010 Amanda Davis: and other data gathering to know how people arrive, how long they stay, what they do. It's not people, individuals, obviously, it's anonymized, but just to get an idea of the flow. Is that something that drone technology could help us with?

347 00:38:44.450 --> 00:38:48.560 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It would be. And a good company to help you with that is a company called Drone Ranger.

348 00:38:48.790 --> 00:38:51.390 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they can do 12-hour sessions

349 00:38:52.050 --> 00:38:54.049 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they're based in Portsmouth as well.

350 00:38:54.660 --> 00:39:04.120 Amanda Davis: Drone Ranger, thank you. And, can you give us… I'm not asking for a quote, but I am asking for a ballpark. How much would it cost us?

351 00:39:05.810 --> 00:39:10.930 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: for probably… so for me to do an hour's recording, which…

352 00:39:11.260 --> 00:39:16.659 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I supply raw data, too. I charge them £140 plus that.

353 00:39:17.350 --> 00:39:26.019 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But Drone Ranger, I've worked with them before, and they will edit the recording, they will do volumetric data calculations from that as well.

354 00:39:27.220 --> 00:39:29.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And I'm not sure how much they'll charge you.

355 00:39:31.030 --> 00:39:39.070 Amanda Davis: And is it a question of that I, could they do everything, or is it a question of that we come to you and then work alongside them?

356 00:39:39.070 --> 00:39:40.430 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You'll go straight to them.

357 00:39:40.430 --> 00:39:41.090 Amanda Davis: Okay.

358 00:39:41.090 --> 00:39:52.620 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they will be able to stitch the whole 12-hour video together, and then also do car counts. You can also do different types of car counts as well, from camper vans to, larger commercial vehicles as well.

359 00:39:53.170 --> 00:40:01.939 Amanda Davis: So it can distinguish between the coaches, the minibuses, and the cars. That's really what we're trying to get. And now pedestrian flow, too?

360 00:40:03.190 --> 00:40:09.019 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Potentially, so, difficult working closer to people.

361 00:40:09.020 --> 00:40:26.300 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Because we have to think about safety. In a car, people traveling, we can mitigate the safety, but people not in the car traveling, even though they're still traveling, there's still… there's a large safety risk there, so we'd have to keep much further away. But it may be something you can talk with a drone major about, that they may be able to help.

362 00:40:27.700 --> 00:40:29.409 Amanda Davis: Brilliant, thank you ever so much.

363 00:40:29.410 --> 00:40:30.299 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You're very rockin'.

364 00:40:32.260 --> 00:40:39.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And if, we have a parish council who's interested in seeing where they could best spend money to help,

365 00:40:40.850 --> 00:40:56.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: homeowners with their retrofits and so forth. Do you ever get asked for the coverage of a complete parish at night, so you can see what… which houses are leaking and which are not? I mean, I know you've shown us photographs of that, but…

366 00:40:56.630 --> 00:41:00.569 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Will you get commissioned to do that for us?

367 00:41:01.080 --> 00:41:06.470 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, we were in talks with a client for Ventner last year,

368 00:41:06.560 --> 00:41:22.259 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: to do thermal mapping and RGB mapping of the entirety of the vendor. As a company, we didn't get it, but as an individual, I got to do some white label work on that for two days, because the client wasn't… who came down to do it, wasn't able to cover all of it.

369 00:41:22.260 --> 00:41:27.000 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we can do a broad spectrum thermal map as well.

370 00:41:27.590 --> 00:41:31.420 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we can compare that with an RGB map during the day, and then a thermal map at night.

371 00:41:32.130 --> 00:41:33.499 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Okay, thank you.

372 00:41:35.220 --> 00:41:35.790 Mike Bundock: Hmm.

373 00:41:36.140 --> 00:41:40.049 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Don't let us… our questions interrupt your flow if you've got more to show us.

374 00:41:40.640 --> 00:41:45.839 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't know how much more you want to see. I could talk about drones for ages.

375 00:41:45.900 --> 00:41:56.989 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But how about, what we need to look for in terms of qualifications for companies doing things? Do they need to have the right compliance and so forth? What do they need?

376 00:41:57.140 --> 00:42:15.999 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Okay, so the drone rules have now changed, as of 2026. So, for anybody who wants to go out and fly a drone, obviously we need insurance first of all, and then depending on the size of the drone that we're using, so if we have a drone that's sub-249 grams, we can fly that with a flyer ID,

377 00:42:16.620 --> 00:42:27.460 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But I would request that everyone gets a minimum of an A2CFC, which gives us a little bit of knowledge of the airspace and the frame rules and regulations around how we operate.

378 00:42:27.820 --> 00:42:31.309 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And also meteorological data as well.

379 00:42:31.640 --> 00:42:38.529 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If you're looking to operate a drone that's anything really from 2 kilos up to…

380 00:42:38.910 --> 00:42:55.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: 25 kilos, anything for, like, an M400, M350 that have specific or set different payloads. We need to be looking at a GVC course, and then we provide that with a PDRA01, which is predefined risk assessment from the CA, or we can look at getting,

381 00:42:57.120 --> 00:43:06.939 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: operational authorization, so we can look at BV loss operations, look at other certain criterias of different operations, so that comes into the sale category.

382 00:43:07.070 --> 00:43:10.750 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Which they use the SORA methodology for now from EASA.

383 00:43:11.800 --> 00:43:19.339 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There's a lot of numbers and letters there. I think I might ask you to just jot them down in a document and send it to me after the letter.

384 00:43:19.340 --> 00:43:28.790 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: some links, but for mostly an A2C of C for people wanting to fly, a… so… I…

385 00:43:29.580 --> 00:43:37.140 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: C2 drone or C1 drone, something like… oop, something like this guy, that can be flown

386 00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:39.670 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: with an A2C of C.

387 00:43:40.770 --> 00:43:44.939 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: At 3 meters per second, flight mode, 5 meters away from people.

388 00:43:45.520 --> 00:43:50.809 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: For drones, that's slightly larger. Don't have any of here, so it's a slightly larger drone.

389 00:43:51.150 --> 00:43:54.580 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That one really needs to be kept 50 meters away from people.

390 00:43:54.870 --> 00:44:06.020 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And you can mitigate people, so with GVC, you can fly over people, and we can keep that, again, to the 5 meters, but we can mitigate things such as people in homes, the

391 00:44:06.860 --> 00:44:14.809 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: that drone's not going to cause damage, really, to a home or a person. Again, to a,

392 00:44:16.090 --> 00:44:17.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Again.

393 00:44:18.420 --> 00:44:29.850 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: People traveling in cars, there's a nice safety risk there, because those safety risks there to sat in the car, but for people standing around loitering, things like that, that then becomes a risk issue, and also becomes crowds as well.

394 00:44:29.990 --> 00:44:32.409 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We need to keep away from those.

395 00:44:33.770 --> 00:44:36.249 Amanda Davis: May I ask a question at this point, Graham?

396 00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:38.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Go ahead, Gander, just get on with it.

397 00:44:38.630 --> 00:44:41.270 Amanda Davis: Thank you, okay, Christmas time.

398 00:44:41.310 --> 00:44:48.720 Amanda Davis: We have our Christmas tree in the water at Borton on the Water, the Christmas tree light switch on with Father Christmas.

399 00:44:48.720 --> 00:45:07.839 Amanda Davis: We had over the 800 people, I say that just for those of you that know about the Terrorism Act, and what we will have to bear in mind going forward when that comes into being. If it's over 800 people in a public space that you're running as a council, then you've got additional responsibilities, so it was over that.

400 00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:22.760 Amanda Davis: And this drone was huge, and did have a camera attached to it, because I know that whether you've got a camera or not comes into play as well. And it was flying over the top of people, children, all of those crowds gathered.

401 00:45:23.030 --> 00:45:31.150 Amanda Davis: What powers do parish and town councils running such events have to ask that person to cease, desist, and go away?

402 00:45:31.990 --> 00:45:35.210 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Okay, so if they've taken off from council or parish land.

403 00:45:35.210 --> 00:45:36.190 Amanda Davis: Yeah, they would.

404 00:45:36.190 --> 00:45:40.990 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Then… then, if you ask them not… they're not allowed to, then they're not allowed to.

405 00:45:41.410 --> 00:45:42.020 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So…

406 00:45:42.020 --> 00:45:44.520 Amanda Davis: They carry on? Is that a police matter?

407 00:45:44.970 --> 00:45:46.599 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yes, it will be a police matter.

408 00:45:46.600 --> 00:45:46.940 Amanda Davis: Yeah.

409 00:45:48.030 --> 00:46:05.820 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The fact that they're flying over with that size drone over people as well, again, will be a police matter. And it depends on the organization that was doing it, whether they have applied for and have got a operational authorization to do that. We do have some drone operators that will operate over festival sites and things.

410 00:46:05.820 --> 00:46:10.860 Amanda Davis: We have bylaws that say no flying overhead.

411 00:46:11.340 --> 00:46:12.550 Amanda Davis: Of anything.

412 00:46:12.670 --> 00:46:15.330 Amanda Davis: But it predates drones existing.

413 00:46:15.770 --> 00:46:24.170 Amanda Davis: So the police are kind of, well, we're not too sure. There'll probably have to be a test case as to whether it applies specifically to drones or not. However…

414 00:46:24.310 --> 00:46:41.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's in the too difficult category for our little parish category. So the first and the largest category there is that the drone is flying over a crowd of people. A crowd of people is determined on how big the volume of the crowd is, and how easily they are able to move away if something happens to a drone.

415 00:46:42.670 --> 00:46:59.860 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: generally, a drone does not have, a redundancy as such, so some drones, larger drones, will have, like, an opticopter rather than a quadcopter, will have more than four sets of propellers, so if one goes out, then there is one that will pick up the slack there, but

416 00:47:00.390 --> 00:47:14.549 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: if one goes out on the quadcopter, the drone will fail and will fall. So I would class this one as… so this is a 900 gram drone with a battery in it. I would class this one if it falls and hits somebody.

417 00:47:15.390 --> 00:47:24.669 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: it can cause significant damage, especially if the propellers are spinning, there can be some severe lacerations to it. If it's a small drone, or sub-250,

418 00:47:25.420 --> 00:47:35.060 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: it's not going to cause too much in the way of damage, probably a few light grazes or cuts, but for larger drones, it is death.

419 00:47:35.060 --> 00:47:38.309 Amanda Davis: It's bigger than that. It's bigger than either of the two that you've shown.

420 00:47:38.510 --> 00:47:46.149 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we would class that as deaf, but unless they have an operational authorisation, which they should have talked to the council for.

421 00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:53.339 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: or about in the first place, then they shouldn't be filming. And if you haven't given them permission to take off, or

422 00:47:53.460 --> 00:47:58.009 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: land on council land. Again, then they're also breaking the law because they're trespassing.

423 00:47:58.310 --> 00:48:06.139 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But the biggest issue there would be not the trespassing, would be flying over a crowd of people, and that would be what to take away from it as well.

424 00:48:06.680 --> 00:48:16.639 Amanda Davis: Thank you very much, that's really helpful, and also the fact this is recorded means I can take it to Council. But I also add in the Terrorism Act, this is otherwise known as Martin's Law.

425 00:48:16.810 --> 00:48:19.449 Amanda Davis: That comes into effect this year.

426 00:48:19.510 --> 00:48:32.140 Amanda Davis: And all parish and town councils are responsible within their risk assessments for any events, and outside, any event over 800 people comes into this. So it's definitely one where if you're a parish or town council person.

427 00:48:32.140 --> 00:48:42.900 Amanda Davis: To, look into and ask some questions if you're running any form of event, or even if you're giving permission for others on your land, or that somehow you might be seen as separately

428 00:48:42.900 --> 00:48:46.959 Amanda Davis: Part of the chain of accountability and responsibility.

429 00:48:46.960 --> 00:48:55.900 Amanda Davis: So, I saw it also as a potential terrorism issue, in the sense that you don't know what's attached to the drone when you're running a crowd of that size.

430 00:48:55.900 --> 00:49:11.860 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: No, no, you don't. And you don't know whether what data collection is used off of this as well. It could just be used for media purposes and things, but at an instance, then, the drones do have fantastic zoom lenses on them, and when we come to a crowd of people, we can operate 50 meters away from them.

431 00:49:12.120 --> 00:49:31.269 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we can do that. Another thing you could do as well, or looking at when an event is coming up, that if you feel that you want to block drones, and you do have responsible drone pilots in the area who are thinking of flying, is to put a NOTAM in. So the NOTAM will create a no-fly corridor as such, and…

432 00:49:31.270 --> 00:49:41.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If a pilot is responsible, a drone pilot is responsible, they know that they can't take off there, or they need to contact the person who has, applied for that NOTAM to ask for permission.

433 00:49:42.470 --> 00:49:44.840 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But some people don't…

434 00:49:45.250 --> 00:49:53.140 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And there is no way on a… unfortunately, now with DJI, have taken away, the geofencing area.

435 00:49:53.350 --> 00:49:54.130 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Fair.

436 00:49:54.280 --> 00:49:58.919 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: They can fly pretty much wherever they want to, which is also bad as well.

437 00:50:00.210 --> 00:50:04.910 Sarah Barnett - Buckland Dinham, near Frome, Somerset: Excuse me, could you just say that word again? No… no tan? No fan?

438 00:50:04.910 --> 00:50:05.800 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: No time.

439 00:50:06.130 --> 00:50:06.970 Sarah Barnett - Buckland Dinham, near Frome, Somerset: How'd you spell it?

440 00:50:07.380 --> 00:50:07.929 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That's true.

441 00:50:07.930 --> 00:50:09.569 Sarah Barnett - Buckland Dinham, near Frome, Somerset: I mean, what's the acronym?

442 00:50:10.350 --> 00:50:11.880 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: There you go, I've just put it in the chat.

443 00:50:12.420 --> 00:50:13.450 Sarah Barnett - Buckland Dinham, near Frome, Somerset: Thank you.

444 00:50:13.450 --> 00:50:13.989 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: What's it again?

445 00:50:13.990 --> 00:50:16.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Perhaps you could explain what it stands for, Ben?

446 00:50:16.490 --> 00:50:18.000 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Notice to airmen.

447 00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:22.609 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So it's side nets, so every pilot in the UK

448 00:50:22.850 --> 00:50:36.439 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We'll go on there and check that before takeoff and landing to make sure that their flights are going to be safe. A responsible drone pilot should do that as well, especially as performing as part of their risk assessment, but…

449 00:50:36.570 --> 00:50:45.669 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: again, some hobbyist drone pilots don't know, and that's where having an ATCFC will come across as providing more… more intelligence from.

450 00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:54.490 Amanda Davis: We actually asked for name and a, you know, for personal details, and we weren't, they weren't cooperative, let's say.

451 00:50:54.850 --> 00:51:01.389 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So again, then that's… that's bad on their case. So if they're doing it for a commercial aspect.

452 00:51:01.560 --> 00:51:05.110 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to do that.

453 00:51:05.320 --> 00:51:13.280 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I wouldn't want to do that. I have a card that I always hangs around my neck, and that always has my operator ID, my flyer ID, my…

454 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:28.409 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: business ID, and I have a folder that comes on site with me. That always goes on my safety tub, and that has all my documents in it, so it has the risk assessment for it, method statement, copies of insurance, copies of any permissions that I need as well.

455 00:51:28.410 --> 00:51:41.450 Amanda Davis: That's what we understood we could expect from people. I was alongside Jennifer, who is known to the banter Sessions. Jennifer's a professional drone flyer, four times water, she's a catchment manager.

456 00:51:41.450 --> 00:51:50.580 Amanda Davis: And she uses drones and is trained, therefore, and she knew what to expect, and she's trained me in all of this, or made me more aware.

457 00:51:50.580 --> 00:52:04.289 Amanda Davis: So I had no hesitation when she said to me, we need to go and do something about this. So it was really helpful that you just clarified all of the back, sort of, information that I was just going on trust with Jennifer, but it also helps us.

458 00:52:04.290 --> 00:52:08.689 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Better next time, rather than approaching a drone pilot, as you guys in pairs.

459 00:52:08.690 --> 00:52:09.130 Amanda Davis: Yeah.

460 00:52:09.130 --> 00:52:13.319 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If you are an event, you do have a police presence there, is to take a police officer with you.

461 00:52:13.320 --> 00:52:22.780 Amanda Davis: Yeah, unfortunately, we've only got… we only had that night one police officer for the whole of the North Cotswolds, and they were already booked at another event, and this is Christmas tree light-on season.

462 00:52:25.690 --> 00:52:35.309 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Ben, you mentioned earlier being restricted from going closer than 5 meters to, people under certain conditions.

463 00:52:35.460 --> 00:52:44.989 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I would have thought that 5 meters with a camera and a drone making a lot of noise was extremely irritating, but is there a noise issue with drones?

464 00:52:44.990 --> 00:52:55.010 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yes, definitely. So the larger drones have higher decibels, so you can operate… the smaller drones will generally operate around about 50 to 60 decibels.

465 00:52:55.150 --> 00:53:02.390 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The mid-sized drones will operate around about 98, and then our large drones are somewhere in the region of 140 to 200.

466 00:53:02.690 --> 00:53:11.179 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So there is an issue with noise, and there is… it becomes anything from… the smaller ones are like a mosquito, the larger ones are…

467 00:53:11.810 --> 00:53:16.500 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Like a classic drone, and the big ones are…

468 00:53:16.500 --> 00:53:18.879 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Like a Spitfire taking off sometimes.

469 00:53:18.880 --> 00:53:24.929 Amanda Davis: I used to race carts, Ben, and when I raced karts, we were talking about 120 max.

470 00:53:25.650 --> 00:53:32.599 Amanda Davis: So you think of a racing cart, how loud that is. That's 120. And this is an exponential scale, isn't it, Decibels?

471 00:53:32.990 --> 00:53:33.520 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep.

472 00:53:33.770 --> 00:53:40.479 Amanda Davis: So for every one you go up, it isn't a linear relationship. It's significantly noisier at the time.

473 00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:52.389 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But then it also depends on altitude as well. So, if the drone is… is 5 meters, then it's… yeah. I wouldn't… I wouldn't dream of putting one of these guys 5 meters…

474 00:53:52.440 --> 00:54:05.349 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: above people's head, even in the public. Even when we're doing roof surveys in commercial areas, I would bring this drone in for more of the high street locations, and in within residential, I don't mind using the larger drone.

475 00:54:05.600 --> 00:54:11.549 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If people are coming in, then it moves backwards across to either the rear garden or the center of the roof.

476 00:54:13.530 --> 00:54:24.179 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: How are you doing for the… your future look at the… your crystal ball, Ben? Are we going to be surrounded by drones delivering packages from Amazon and DPD and all the rest?

477 00:54:24.180 --> 00:54:26.280 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't believe we can do that.

478 00:54:27.010 --> 00:54:30.560 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Because the air spaces will get too… too congested.

479 00:54:31.260 --> 00:54:37.509 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right, so big countries like Canada or Australia can do it, but not here in condensed little islands.

480 00:54:37.770 --> 00:54:48.139 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, one of the drones I have, which I've been picking up recently, is this guy here. So, this is a multispectral drone, and I've been working with a couple of farms on the island to be able to…

481 00:54:48.350 --> 00:54:51.169 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Use it to,

482 00:54:51.530 --> 00:55:04.310 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: provide index mapping for their crop, so GNDI, the NVDI, looking at different nitrogen takes, looking at different ways in which the crop is affected over the year, and then provide them with a,

483 00:55:05.050 --> 00:55:06.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So I haven't done it for a while now.

484 00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:20.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: so I could provide them with a map, so when they go out in their tractor, a variable rate spraying map, and then they're not putting 100% of the product over the entire field. They can rate where it needs to go best.

485 00:55:21.070 --> 00:55:29.329 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: we've got to a point now where we've come to cost. The cost is too expensive. It's too expensive for me to go into the field to fly, compared to the data that I get from a satellite.

486 00:55:29.330 --> 00:55:43.300 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this will provide us with anything from 3 to 5 GSD capture, and that's… the GSD is ground sampling distance, and the 3 and the 5 are measured in centimeters for each pixel, whereas a satellite from the sky provides an…

487 00:55:43.350 --> 00:56:03.100 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: with 33.3 metres, or 30 meters, depending on which service they use. For our farms on the island, it doesn't provide enough data, because the cropland is so small. The only way that this is really beneficial is for us to use a agris drone, or an agri-Drone.

488 00:56:03.440 --> 00:56:09.329 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: with the Isle of Wight demographic of everything so compact and so close, and footpaths everywhere.

489 00:56:09.670 --> 00:56:23.509 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I cannot feasibly use one of these drones. These drones are in the larger category, so they're what we would call a Class 5 drone, and one of those uncontrolled would take their arm off. They are…

490 00:56:23.800 --> 00:56:29.630 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: They've got big carbon fiber propellers, they're not toys, they're not…

491 00:56:30.260 --> 00:56:35.010 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yeah, so we can't use them over here, and we could generally…

492 00:56:35.260 --> 00:56:41.510 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If you use an agri-Drone on a crop, you remove tram lines, you can do complete crop,

493 00:56:42.030 --> 00:56:49.099 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: care, and you generally get around about 12% of the value of that field return, more than you would have interacted over it.

494 00:56:50.020 --> 00:56:50.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Boom.

495 00:56:50.690 --> 00:56:54.910 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We can't use it over here, and it's too expensive to take over on a ferry and a trailer all the time.

496 00:56:56.280 --> 00:57:06.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It is interesting that the state of the art now is such that the drone can pass the GPS coordinates straight to the tractor, and then the tractor knows where to go and how much to spray when he gets there.

497 00:57:06.060 --> 00:57:08.619 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep, so we link our drones with…

498 00:57:08.970 --> 00:57:20.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So our drones will operate on, our commercial drones will operate with a base station, then an entry client, and the drone itself essentially acts as a rover, so every picture is geotagged.

499 00:57:20.940 --> 00:57:25.939 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: with its location. It helps more for when we're doing our modeling and things as well, for tying points.

500 00:57:28.530 --> 00:57:39.899 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And is there a big difference between video and photographs? In terms of… I take it you can overlap photographs so you get a continuous survey, but they are photographs rather than video.

501 00:57:39.900 --> 00:57:51.059 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yeah, so video, you're going to get a lot of motion blur through, so you really want to be recording photographs, and you can slow the drone down, slow the shutdown, depending on conditions. With a video.

502 00:57:51.330 --> 00:57:56.349 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: it doesn't provide the same. I've done a couple of models with videos, and

503 00:57:57.080 --> 00:58:03.499 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: There's too much blur in there, or enough in there for me not to use, or see as a valuable asset, or deliverable for a client.

504 00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:05.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

505 00:58:05.970 --> 00:58:22.959 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And if you notice behind me, there's a flashing light. So this is one of our docks that we use. So, essentially, we now are starting to look into the world of automation. So we have a drone that lives in a dock. We've got a couple on site at the moment. We've got one here at our test site. We live over,

506 00:58:23.150 --> 00:58:30.450 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: offices are over at East Afton, we have a small solar farm here, so we have a drone that lives down there, and from there, we can do automated flights.

507 00:58:31.200 --> 00:58:35.029 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we completely… we call it as a BV loss operation.

508 00:58:36.180 --> 00:58:36.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

509 00:58:37.940 --> 00:58:45.930 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, do you have to maintain remote control of the drone all the time, or are you allowed to just leave it on its own, on autonomy?

510 00:58:45.930 --> 00:58:56.909 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: No, the CA prefer that we leave it on its own, on its predetermined autonomous flight, that we generally do around about 50 of those with us on site before we then hand over for it to be fully autonomous.

511 00:58:58.220 --> 00:58:59.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Fascinating.

512 00:59:00.830 --> 00:59:05.219 Mike Bundock: Benjamin, tell me, in Ukraine, do they…

513 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:08.180 Mike Bundock: Is there… is it… is there a drone?

514 00:59:08.450 --> 00:59:22.950 Mike Bundock: that can sit up, at 500 feet, continuously, fed with data coming down with a fiber optic cable, and power going up through a cable. Can it sit up there indefinitely?

515 00:59:23.250 --> 00:59:24.120 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yes.

516 00:59:25.780 --> 00:59:33.479 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yeah, as long as it's got consistent firefight power, and the weather conditions are adequate for the size of the drone, you can see it out there indefinitely, yeah.

517 00:59:34.600 --> 00:59:35.730 Mike Bundock: Is that a common thing?

518 00:59:36.190 --> 00:59:48.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't know on that side of the Ukraine things. I know on the Ukraine side of the two different types of drones that are used. I've flown one of the disposable

519 00:59:48.680 --> 00:59:53.400 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: FPV drones that they would use to carry a small, small

520 00:59:53.550 --> 01:00:10.679 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: mortar or bobbin, I'm not sure what it is. We had some, some clients over, last year who came and collected some bits, but, that was quite interesting, very fast. And they bought the Bubba Yeager over as well, which is the larger drone, which can carry

521 01:00:10.940 --> 01:00:15.690 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: about 6 mortars on, I believe, so 6 different payloads on it to deploy.

522 01:00:16.030 --> 01:00:17.559 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they took…

523 01:00:17.950 --> 01:00:34.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: one of our drones away with them, so they prefer the Mavic 3 T2s out of there, because they can change the signal on there roughly every 5 milliseconds, so they don't know where the pilot is when they're trying to track people bunker down at night when they're deploying.

524 01:00:34.980 --> 01:00:39.109 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And we also talked about… we've done some work counter-UAS over here.

525 01:00:39.220 --> 01:00:54.909 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: for a company, with doing different drone operations, and different ways in which it can pick up different sized drones. We had, 11 drones up in the field at one time, flying in front of the sensor, all ranging on.

526 01:00:54.960 --> 01:01:05.810 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: different speeds, one of the drones was traveling about 100 miles an hour, the rest of them were all traveling around very different speeds, depending on the size, how close, and…

527 01:01:05.970 --> 01:01:24.990 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We don't know, because of the client, we don't know any more information on that and how it was used, but they're trying to produce a sort of a small, compact camera, much like a PTZ camera form, rather than the large cameras at the moment. We've done a little bit of work with,

528 01:01:25.010 --> 01:01:28.029 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Client in cows, and…

529 01:01:28.500 --> 01:01:44.169 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We were pre-building a few drones for them that wouldn't mind taking a bit of a bash, because we were frying the milliwatt receiver in them, so they're potentially firing a high-band milliwatt ray at the drone to burn out the receiver.

530 01:01:44.610 --> 01:01:54.380 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But from what we've… for our client that we had over last year, the best county UAS use for drive at the moment is a single barrel shotgun.

531 01:01:55.320 --> 01:01:57.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Wow. Yes.

532 01:01:57.390 --> 01:01:57.920 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep.

533 01:01:59.750 --> 01:02:00.280 Mike Bundock: Yeah.

534 01:02:00.770 --> 01:02:05.930 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Ben, what facilities do they have for anti-collision nowadays?

535 01:02:06.130 --> 01:02:10.449 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: To stop you running into another drone, or a building, or an overhead cable.

536 01:02:10.830 --> 01:02:24.210 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Most drones now have omnidirectional sensing. Obviously, the lower-priced drones don't have that, but as the more commercial aspect and the more drones, generally over a thousand pounds, will have that on.

537 01:02:24.450 --> 01:02:35.849 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: FPV drones generally don't have any, anti-collision or omnidirectional sensing. The omnidirectional sensing is… sorry, let's open it up… so it has these small cameras in up here.

538 01:02:35.850 --> 01:02:36.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right?

539 01:02:39.020 --> 01:02:41.959 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And they have those also on the top as well.

540 01:02:42.120 --> 01:02:46.349 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: on the bottom. The bottom also has a small little…

541 01:02:47.150 --> 01:02:57.540 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: LiDAR unit as well, which it uses to track distance from the ground up to 25 meters. Beyond that, the drone has a built-in biomark sense… sensor.

542 01:02:57.830 --> 01:03:07.439 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And then with these drones, we can put on a payload, so we can have a small LiDAR sensor on the top, and that will also be used for anti-collision.

543 01:03:09.680 --> 01:03:14.850 David Newman: Yeah, even my little drone has got front and back sensors, but not the sides.

544 01:03:16.440 --> 01:03:21.820 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And does it have the software that will, having detected something, keep it away from that something? Yes.

545 01:03:21.820 --> 01:03:23.850 David Newman: Beeps and beeps and beeps.

546 01:03:25.730 --> 01:03:27.260 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's have a look.

547 01:03:42.480 --> 01:03:43.360 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Oh, fantastic.

548 01:03:44.140 --> 01:03:46.460 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So I'll just do another screen share with you.

549 01:03:46.750 --> 01:03:47.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yep.

550 01:03:53.980 --> 01:03:57.269 Mike Bundock: Benjamin, that… that LiDAR that you've got.

551 01:03:57.530 --> 01:04:08.610 Mike Bundock: On the drone. Can… is it possible to use that to get the height of a… of a building, and to get the… the area of the roof, the slope of the roof?

552 01:04:09.510 --> 01:04:12.520 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep, and you can do that as well with 3D model, so I'm just gonna share…

553 01:04:13.130 --> 01:04:17.490 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: video now, so this is one that I've done for a company called Heliguy.

554 01:04:17.970 --> 01:04:21.280 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: and… We had a certain product that,

555 01:04:21.630 --> 01:04:25.879 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: They wanted to test, so we've done it with very different variant models.

556 01:04:26.090 --> 01:04:27.979 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So if you look on the screen here.

557 01:04:28.450 --> 01:04:30.319 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Right down in the center at the bottom.

558 01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:35.080 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You can see that large red section. That's the omnidirectional sensors picking up the object in front.

559 01:04:35.480 --> 01:04:41.589 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Over on the right-hand side, we've got the actual Omnidirectional sensor camera feed showing us on display.

560 01:04:42.340 --> 01:04:54.859 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The virtual asset or display is down here in the bottom on the left-hand side, and what we're seeing with all these green lines going around is the flight path in which we're determined to take flight… flight reform for a 3D model capture.

561 01:04:55.400 --> 01:04:59.949 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So as the drone moves around, every waypoint gets roughly around about 5 pictures as it flies around.

562 01:05:00.640 --> 01:05:01.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Whoa.

563 01:05:03.580 --> 01:05:07.110 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Anyone got any questions on that video at all, or…

564 01:05:10.380 --> 01:05:13.840 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then the client will use this for what sort of purposes?

565 01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:18.849 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So once we've recorded all the data, we'll bring that together, render it into a 3D model.

566 01:05:19.350 --> 01:05:21.500 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And then we can use that to take…

567 01:05:21.600 --> 01:05:40.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: accurate measurement details. Some clients will have a 3D model done of a property before they, purchase it. Sometimes they generally can't come over to the island to view it, so generally landlords that are looking to increase their portfolio will ask us to do an inspection, or take several different images, depending on what

568 01:05:40.250 --> 01:05:42.929 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Which landlord and how much they want to pay for, really.

569 01:05:43.130 --> 01:05:43.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yup.

570 01:05:45.260 --> 01:05:46.649 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Very intriguing.

571 01:05:47.490 --> 01:05:50.970 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So let's just do a stop showing on that one. So for LiDAR,

572 01:06:03.160 --> 01:06:05.919 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is a LIDAR dataset from Black Gang Triang.

573 01:06:07.320 --> 01:06:10.639 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So at the moment, we're looking at the RGB side.

574 01:06:12.190 --> 01:06:14.410 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Just normal, regular camera side.

575 01:06:18.680 --> 01:06:19.940 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I love that maze.

576 01:06:21.860 --> 01:06:23.900 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Amazing.

577 01:06:24.500 --> 01:06:25.649 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Listen carefully.

578 01:06:26.940 --> 01:06:28.590 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So if we go through and look at…

579 01:06:28.830 --> 01:06:30.820 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, we can look at the height.

580 01:06:31.600 --> 01:06:33.830 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So that's height from ground level.

581 01:06:33.960 --> 01:06:35.770 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Or sea level being the green.

582 01:06:36.140 --> 01:06:39.439 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And then its intensity increases up to the top where the trees are.

583 01:06:39.730 --> 01:06:41.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right? Obviously the cliff.

584 01:06:42.480 --> 01:06:50.739 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Intensity, or… So the return rate on the,

585 01:06:51.750 --> 01:06:56.019 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: the laser point coming back from the drone, from what it fires out. So this is…

586 01:06:56.330 --> 01:07:04.270 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: the L3 sensor, so we were firing out 16 million laser points per second, anything with…

587 01:07:04.700 --> 01:07:06.679 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Green is good.

588 01:07:07.200 --> 01:07:12.160 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Blue… Not as good, and red is… is bad.

589 01:07:14.870 --> 01:07:17.690 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is looking at the return there in a greater detail there.

590 01:07:19.130 --> 01:07:20.060 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It's a point.

591 01:07:23.580 --> 01:07:25.210 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: moment, trajectory…

592 01:07:28.400 --> 01:07:30.819 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Most of the time, we'll generally be using

593 01:07:35.640 --> 01:07:36.869 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Using the height.

594 01:07:37.090 --> 01:07:39.340 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is the cafe here at Black Gang.

595 01:07:40.350 --> 01:07:42.779 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So let's say if we wanted to take a measurement.

596 01:07:47.860 --> 01:07:51.000 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This point here… To this point here.

597 01:07:52.260 --> 01:07:53.469 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Did you show me that?

598 01:07:59.750 --> 01:08:04.319 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't normally use Terra for… for this…

599 01:08:07.300 --> 01:08:09.070 Mike Bundock: That's interesting. Wow.

600 01:08:09.350 --> 01:08:11.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: What does a 3D mesh show you?

601 01:08:12.680 --> 01:08:13.700 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: 3D mesh?

602 01:08:14.160 --> 01:08:15.360 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: He's gonna show us…

603 01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:15.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Mmm.

604 01:08:15.850 --> 01:08:26.199 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: model generated from the cameras. It's not as good as doing a pure 3D capture. This was done as an oblique dataset and not a oblique

605 01:08:26.310 --> 01:08:29.970 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Or for mosaic dataset, not an oblique dataset.

606 01:08:30.819 --> 01:08:32.999 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah, but it does give you a view, though.

607 01:08:33.290 --> 01:08:34.720 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: It does give us a very good view.

608 01:08:34.729 --> 01:08:35.429 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

609 01:08:35.689 --> 01:08:38.329 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But not as more of a detailed view.

610 01:08:39.279 --> 01:08:41.749 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Sounds like some assets we've got on tarot already.

611 01:08:45.520 --> 01:08:55.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But if you're looking at some sort of disaster, and you can come in and people can immediately see how widespread it is, how severe it is, and that sort of thing, very, very useful.

612 01:08:55.950 --> 01:09:02.290 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yeah, so if Weverse allows us to, we did last year do…

613 01:09:03.189 --> 01:09:06.289 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I believe that was for Island Roads for…

614 01:09:10.029 --> 01:09:12.499 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So is this down around the Military Road area?

615 01:09:12.970 --> 01:09:17.140 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: The military road I did for free for Becky Cameron, Councillor.

616 01:09:17.149 --> 01:09:17.809 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yep.

617 01:09:17.950 --> 01:09:21.920 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That we did a bit further down from there.

618 01:09:23.399 --> 01:09:26.329 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: there was a… it was at Easter time, there was a rockfall there.

619 01:09:26.700 --> 01:09:28.420 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is something we do for…

620 01:09:30.660 --> 01:09:36.140 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Like, going generally every month during the winter, and then every quarter.

621 01:09:36.810 --> 01:09:46.169 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: during the summer, depending on can we get down there, timescale we can go down there. Obviously, 10 o'clock in the morning, we can't operate there at all. We prefer that as a no-go site.

622 01:09:48.279 --> 01:09:54.090 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I provide them with a 3D map consistently, all the time, of… This area here.

623 01:09:54.730 --> 01:09:56.049 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, predominantly?

624 01:09:56.290 --> 01:10:00.110 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This is where they've been known to having most of the landslips in recent years.

625 01:10:03.070 --> 01:10:04.350 Mike Bundock: Amazing. Hmm.

626 01:10:04.350 --> 01:10:07.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They can forecast when the houses are gonna start falling into the sea.

627 01:10:08.650 --> 01:10:11.459 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: We can measure how much is falling away, yeah.

628 01:10:11.460 --> 01:10:12.140 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

629 01:10:13.300 --> 01:10:15.900 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And… let's have a look… So…

630 01:10:20.380 --> 01:10:22.109 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't have a dataset for them.

631 01:10:24.350 --> 01:10:29.670 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: One thing we can do as well, using one of our FPV drugs.

632 01:10:30.380 --> 01:10:36.580 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So if we look at an area that, say, is hazardous.

633 01:10:36.950 --> 01:10:41.209 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So part of Page for Package is they had a small amount of full

634 01:10:41.970 --> 01:10:44.669 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Off of the cliff, and also they had

635 01:10:45.040 --> 01:10:50.649 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: quite a bit of flooding coming in a few weeks ago, when we had the severe rain on Sunday.

636 01:10:50.800 --> 01:10:51.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yep.

637 01:10:51.300 --> 01:10:55.280 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So they wanted a few different aspects captured.

638 01:11:03.050 --> 01:11:04.990 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Because of the risk area.

639 01:11:05.840 --> 01:11:12.749 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: come in behind here. They didn't want anyone to come behind or walk in here, so we could use a smaller drone

640 01:11:13.120 --> 01:11:15.240 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Such as this gentleman here.

641 01:11:15.530 --> 01:11:25.849 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: To be able to operate in there safely, and we're not too worried if it butts up against something, because we've got protection with the inductor propeller guards on there, and then we're able to…

642 01:11:26.820 --> 01:11:31.529 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Come down and have a look at the bottom here of the building. This is where we believe the water was coming in.

643 01:11:33.040 --> 01:11:36.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, no human transfitting there, just the machine.

644 01:11:37.260 --> 01:11:39.859 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Until you crash it. You have to go and get it.

645 01:11:40.660 --> 01:11:44.359 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Well, she… Hopefully, we don't want to go and get it, but…

646 01:11:46.840 --> 01:11:50.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That's fantastic detail, it is fascinating.

647 01:11:51.800 --> 01:11:54.740 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So, so down, just down here is where the water was leaking in that.

648 01:11:58.280 --> 01:11:58.980 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

649 01:12:07.670 --> 01:12:15.219 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And we use this… can use the same drone as well for doing… Speaking of videos as well.

650 01:12:15.640 --> 01:12:20.949 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Are they good at staying where you tell them, if you can just tell it to sit there and wait until something happens?

651 01:12:21.360 --> 01:12:26.550 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: They are. They're very, very precise. I… I'm…

652 01:12:28.880 --> 01:12:32.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I can't say how… I love flying drones like this. It's,

653 01:12:32.880 --> 01:12:42.839 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't often get a chance to… to fly what we call… this is FPV, but also in challenging areas where it is a challenge to fly around obstacles and things.

654 01:12:42.840 --> 01:12:43.320 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

655 01:12:45.010 --> 01:12:50.259 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Most time, I'll be doing… Stuff that's, with them.

656 01:12:51.620 --> 01:12:56.640 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: social media for this, let's quickly… Change my screen.

657 01:13:03.390 --> 01:13:06.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: This one is whale chime.

658 01:13:08.930 --> 01:13:15.819 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Again, it's well-trans and accessible to humans. We can't really get down there without risk.

659 01:13:16.280 --> 01:13:20.470 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is a really good way to be able to view the condition of that.

660 01:14:12.130 --> 01:14:15.979 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And there's also… You're all set, ready?

661 01:14:19.810 --> 01:14:26.660 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Victorious… Same, it's just for… for me to entertain myself, really.

662 01:14:30.580 --> 01:14:33.110 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Are you meant to be sharing this, because we aren't seeing it yet.

663 01:14:33.110 --> 01:14:41.079 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep, it wouldn't happen much. I do… every now and then, I'll go out and do a random flight and share.

664 01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:43.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Images from around the island.

665 01:14:46.590 --> 01:14:47.410 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: lose…

666 01:14:54.350 --> 01:14:59.170 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Along with this one, which is from our 360 drone.

667 01:14:59.170 --> 01:15:01.240 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: We're not seeing anything at the moment, Benjamin.

668 01:15:01.630 --> 01:15:03.919 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Oh, is that one not on screen?

669 01:15:03.920 --> 01:15:07.169 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: Now, when Graham says share, he meant that you meant sharing with us here now.

670 01:15:07.870 --> 01:15:11.139 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Oh, dear. Did you not share the last video at all?

671 01:15:11.320 --> 01:15:12.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Nope, nope, none of it.

672 01:15:12.780 --> 01:15:14.650 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: None of it. I'm pretty used to semi.

673 01:15:17.630 --> 01:15:18.840 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That's my thing.

674 01:15:19.810 --> 01:15:21.370 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: screen, have I got you on?

675 01:15:21.750 --> 01:15:23.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Surely you make up for it in other areas.

676 01:15:27.060 --> 01:15:28.179 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Let's have a look.

677 01:15:28.430 --> 01:15:29.880 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Now I've lost the…

678 01:15:33.460 --> 01:15:35.530 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Am I not sharing my screen at all with you guys?

679 01:15:35.530 --> 01:15:39.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: No, no, you need to go to your blue Zoom screen and share.

680 01:15:45.820 --> 01:15:46.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There we go.

681 01:15:47.800 --> 01:15:50.639 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Right, so did we see the stuff for Page to Packers?

682 01:15:50.640 --> 01:15:53.879 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: No, what we see at the moment is your Windows screen. There we go.

683 01:15:54.630 --> 01:15:55.939 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Switching back onto me.

684 01:16:00.310 --> 01:16:01.250 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: True…

685 01:16:09.670 --> 01:16:11.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I'm just seeing windows at the moment.

686 01:16:11.780 --> 01:16:13.530 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yep, I'm just gonna quickly bring up…

687 01:16:21.530 --> 01:16:23.520 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Video, sorry, I deleted that one off.

688 01:16:33.000 --> 01:16:33.770 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So…

689 01:16:33.970 --> 01:16:34.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Okay, now he has.

690 01:16:34.630 --> 01:16:35.630 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: final chart.

691 01:16:35.980 --> 01:16:40.580 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Did I put the video of page packers up, going behind the back there of the cliff in Venna?

692 01:16:51.400 --> 01:17:06.360 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So this is Well Trine. I think I said it before, but this part of Well Trine you really can't get to unless you put yourself at risk. Well Trine doesn't have an accessible footpath down to it anymore.

693 01:17:06.870 --> 01:17:10.649 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And there are people that do cross down the, slip bank.

694 01:17:20.750 --> 01:17:21.370 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: No.

695 01:18:10.830 --> 01:18:17.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, is this data being stored on the drone, or is it coming back to you for storage on land?

696 01:18:18.200 --> 01:18:18.850 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Life.

697 01:18:19.230 --> 01:18:23.480 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we get a low feed that comes back to the controller, there's some people coming down.

698 01:18:24.450 --> 01:18:39.399 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: But it shouldn't be. So we get a low feed coming back, depending on different types of drones, between 720p and 1080p to either the headset or the controller, and then the drone itself's recording in 4K.

699 01:18:41.240 --> 01:18:41.790 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Great.

700 01:18:48.220 --> 01:18:50.639 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That's quite fascinating, thank you very much.

701 01:18:51.410 --> 01:19:01.220 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Another use you can use for the thermal drones, which they have been using, is… so, this time of year where we're getting a lot of heavy rainfall, is for,

702 01:19:01.820 --> 01:19:14.200 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: sewage treatment outlets, so if they're outletting more than they should be, or outleting polluted water, that's a lot hotter than, the surface water. So they use a thermal drain then to capture that as well.

703 01:19:16.040 --> 01:19:22.089 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Is that the sewage company that's doing that, or the surface against sewage, and that sort of people?

704 01:19:22.450 --> 01:19:32.130 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So… this idea, there's generally… the sewage companies will, or there's… The sewage outlets will,

705 01:19:32.580 --> 01:19:50.759 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: be outletting more water than they should, because of the amount of rainfall that comes down through. So they could be outletting raw sewage, and the way you can see that raw sewage is because of that sort of hotter core temperature than the water that it goes into. Using a thermal drone, you can see that being outletted. Using something like a Mavic M4,

706 01:19:50.760 --> 01:19:54.589 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: TD or a drone that's more waterproof and more wind resilient.

707 01:19:54.590 --> 01:19:57.460 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You can see that in poorer weather conditions.

708 01:20:00.700 --> 01:20:02.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Southern Water, here we come.

709 01:20:03.540 --> 01:20:04.360 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Yeah, it seems.

710 01:20:04.830 --> 01:20:08.049 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Put those… put those wonderful big finds in on the water company, yeah.

711 01:20:08.050 --> 01:20:21.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, they put out an email every now and again when they're prepared to admit that they're overflowing into the ocean, but I'm not sure… I'm sure people would like to keep tabs on how accurate they are with their drones.

712 01:20:23.410 --> 01:20:28.569 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I'm conscious of time, Ben. Are you alright for time? Maybe what else is, yeah, no, I'm absolutely fine.

713 01:20:28.870 --> 01:20:31.809 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Does anyone else have any questions for Ben, please?

714 01:20:34.530 --> 01:20:37.099 Mike Bundock: Ben, I was thinking of,

715 01:20:37.720 --> 01:20:41.300 Mike Bundock: A drone sitting up stationary for hours.

716 01:20:41.470 --> 01:20:48.550 Mike Bundock: Have they used them for… for disaster areas, where they can put a… A cell…

717 01:20:48.830 --> 01:20:56.460 Mike Bundock: Up for… for, mobile phone communication in a disaster area.

718 01:20:56.890 --> 01:20:59.339 Mike Bundock: Because it would just sit up there and relay.

719 01:21:00.300 --> 01:21:12.469 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't know about using that for relay, it may interfere with the drone signal itself. They do operate on the 5G and the 2.4GGHz bands, which is also the same as for Wi-Fi.

720 01:21:12.750 --> 01:21:17.970 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: There could be potential issues there, on signal degradation on…

721 01:21:18.100 --> 01:21:19.840 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Not 100% sure on that one.

722 01:21:20.950 --> 01:21:29.079 Mike Bundock: And do they… have… have they been able to use a laser for communication, like they've… they're doing with the satellites now?

723 01:21:29.510 --> 01:21:30.990 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I don't know on that.

724 01:21:32.100 --> 01:21:32.930 Mike Bundock: Okay.

725 01:21:33.140 --> 01:21:43.810 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Most rains that we operate will have a laser rangefinder on there for distance, but that's about it, so we can operate with ground crews, and tell them the distance away of certain things, but…

726 01:21:44.130 --> 01:21:46.560 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That's about as far as we can get with the laser on there.

727 01:21:47.330 --> 01:21:59.130 Mike Bundock: I think that's probably coming, because they… they are now using laser for communication to the satellars. In fact, they… the laser communications can go from… from Saturn to Earth.

728 01:21:59.610 --> 01:22:00.689 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: That's very interesting.

729 01:22:02.280 --> 01:22:20.269 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But I… the quality of what you've been showing us must be really super useful for, earthquakes or tornadoes or things where houses have collapsed, and you don't want people to go trampling over the house, because they may well make it worse. You can certainly send a drone in there, I'm very interested.

730 01:22:20.270 --> 01:22:21.220 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: So we've…

731 01:22:21.610 --> 01:22:36.230 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: this drone again, we've used that before with a company called iRAD, and we trained Hampshire Enhanced Police for hostile situations. So, one of their mock units, they had, someone in a hostile situation with

732 01:22:36.230 --> 01:22:42.289 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Two people with armed weapons, and we used a drone to go into that room to be able to see what was going on.

733 01:22:43.030 --> 01:22:44.380 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Before they took it out.

734 01:22:44.740 --> 01:22:45.340 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yep.

735 01:22:45.940 --> 01:22:49.669 David Newman: How long can you leave it up before your battery goes flat?

736 01:22:50.260 --> 01:22:51.690 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Depending on the branch.

737 01:22:51.890 --> 01:23:06.599 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: all depends on drones, so that one's roughly around about 15 minutes. Our… some of our smaller drones are… some of my FPV drones last for about 3 minutes, and our large… larger drones, anything from…

738 01:23:06.850 --> 01:23:10.609 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: 35 minutes with the Mavic 4.

739 01:23:11.090 --> 01:23:16.239 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: TD that lasts for about 50 minutes, and the M400 lasts for about 50 minutes.

740 01:23:17.910 --> 01:23:22.450 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Like, again, all depends on weather as well, and what the wind resistance is doing as well.

741 01:23:25.420 --> 01:23:31.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, Ben, I found that to be absolutely fascinating and very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you.

742 01:23:31.270 --> 01:23:31.889 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: If new.

743 01:23:31.890 --> 01:23:39.879 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: else has got any questions, then maybe we should say thank you and call it a day. But it's been really fascinating, and thank you for your time.

744 01:23:39.880 --> 01:23:40.860 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: You're very welcome.

745 01:23:40.860 --> 01:23:43.329 Mike Bundock: Yeah, that's great. Thanks, man. Thank you very much.

746 01:23:43.330 --> 01:23:44.100 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Very good.

747 01:23:44.100 --> 01:23:44.750 Mike Bundock: here.

748 01:23:44.910 --> 01:23:51.919 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And if you'd like to put your, email address in the chat, then people who want to can get in touch with you should they need to.

749 01:23:55.420 --> 01:24:15.179 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: That's an interesting point you raise, Mike, about communications in a disaster area, because, mobile phone masks, some of them have got battery backup, some of them have got battery and generator, but we don't know exactly where they all are. In the event of you having, like, days or weeks, you know, once we lose the landlines now, which we will be doing, by next year.

750 01:24:15.400 --> 01:24:26.560 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: they're going to be relying completely on digital communication, and if that goes down, if your local masks go down, that'd be a good way to get some signal going, wouldn't it? To stick a drone up there with a transmitter on top, or really on top.

751 01:24:27.050 --> 01:24:30.860 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: Yeah. You want to float that idea, so there's a commercial opportunity there, mate?

752 01:24:31.090 --> 01:24:31.880 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: Potentially.

753 01:24:32.250 --> 01:24:39.150 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: I think we have, that we bring on site with us, is our Tactical Communications Hub, which has a…

754 01:24:39.150 --> 01:24:53.639 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: 5G router in it, dual SIM, and also Starlink in there as well, so we use that for wherever we go. Some sites, unfortunately, don't have any signal at all. Particularly in Wales, we're finding a few that don't, so we're using Starlink a lot more.

755 01:24:53.790 --> 01:24:56.740 Benjamin Ford - Isle of Wight: And the prices are starting to definitely coming down a lot more now as well.

756 01:24:57.100 --> 01:24:57.720 Mike Bundock: is…

757 01:24:57.720 --> 01:24:58.740 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: Right, okay.

758 01:24:59.080 --> 01:24:59.650 Mike Bundock: Interesting.

759 01:24:59.650 --> 01:25:01.550 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: Okay. Yeah, interesting, great.

760 01:25:01.690 --> 01:25:04.189 Ken Huggins north Dorset PC: Thanks for your time, everyone. Graham, thanks for organizing.

761 01:25:04.190 --> 01:25:04.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There we go. Thank you!

762 01:25:04.940 --> 01:25:06.380 Mike Bundock: Thank you very much indeed.

763 01:25:06.380 --> 01:25:08.139 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Too much. Take care, everybody.

764 01:25:08.440 --> 01:25:09.999 Mike Bundock: Take it out. Thank you, you too.