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Kespry - http://www.kespry.com/ http://www.kespry.com/ We provide a drone to the (primarily aggregates/mining) industry that can create highly detailed survey

Kespry - http://www.kespry.com/ http://www.kespry.com/ We provide a drone to the (primarily aggregates/mining) industry that can create highly detailed survey quality maps. Our customers can use the data in measuring the volume of their material (stockpiles) and in planning a big project, construction, etc. Basically anything you can imagine someone would need information about a physical location from above. We develop the full stack in house. In that I mean electronics (PCB board level), drone hardware (mechanical), low-level embedded software, and flight controller software. We also develop an iPad app that allows customers to easily operate the drone autonomously. We also do all the data processing, using photogrammetry and open source mapping frameworks and tools (gdal) and provide users with a web interface via our Cloud platform for them to view, manipulate and download their data.

troncheadle 11y ago
Holy crap this is so cool. So cool! I'm a JR full stack dev, mainly proficient in JS technologies, and I have a cheap drone with a wifi camera. What would you recommend that I study to start getting involved with autonomous drone programming for fun?
- iamleppert 11y ago
  There are many open source flight controllers. My best advice would be to research and decide on one, then build a small fixed wing, helicopter, or multirotor. You'll learn a lot in the process of building vs. just buying something and while a longer project, it's certainly within the realm of hobbyist and there are huge communities to support you. Most of open source flight controllers support MavLink, a communications protocol that you can use to send path commands and receive telemetry info over a WiFi link. There are wrappers for many languages, including node. It's good to have a project in mind of what you want it to actually do in the end before you start that will help guide you through the process.
tonyhb 11y ago
This looks amazing.
karambahh 11y ago
This is a great product. It solves an actual issue (that I had never thought about since I'm very far from that field :-) ) in a simple and clever way. You deserve the award of the most original and useful use of drone tech I've seen.
LAMike 11y ago
Looks amazing
cprayingmantis 11y ago
Hey that's pretty awesome have you thought about applications of this tech in agriculture? Perhaps keeping an eye out on crops and trying to predict yields or crop health?
- brobinson 11y ago
  My first thought was futures trading. I've heard of people using their own private satellites to do something similar. There was a company in SF building and launching small, shoebox-sized satellites inexpensively which could be used for it.
  - kartikkumar 11y ago
    I suspect you're referring to Planet Labs: https://www.planet.com https://www.planet.com
    - brobinson 11y ago
      That was it!
- wfn 11y ago
  Yep, if you are able to gather data over near-infrared (NIR) as well as red channels, you can compute NDVI which is a kind of vegetation index. It's interesting stuff and I would look into using the tech for agriculture surveys, constant monitoring and automatic advisory compilation (where to water things etc.)
cscharenberg 11y ago
Surveying with drone fleets is going to be huge across many industries. Agriculture and animal husbandry, surveying hard-to-reach things like bridge structures, inside large engines and mechanical systems. Very neat
mladenkovacevic 11y ago
Were you guys at the PDAC this week?
viperscape 11y ago
do you sell the cloud services? that'd be a neat niche too
innertracks 11y ago
Sounds fun! I've been thinking of ways and places to mix my database, software dev, and commercial pilot/flight instructor backgrounds.
D3_4dl1N3 11y ago
Here some practical applications for drones: https://img.readitlater.com/i/cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/drone-uses/RS/w704.jpg https://img.readitlater.com/i/cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/upl...

troncheadle 11y ago

Holy crap this is so cool. So cool! I'm a JR full stack dev, mainly proficient in JS technologies, and I have a cheap drone with a wifi camera. What would you recommend that I study to start getting involved with autonomous drone programming for fun?

iamleppert 11y ago
There are many open source flight controllers. My best advice would be to research and decide on one, then build a small fixed wing, helicopter, or multirotor. You'll learn a lot in the process of building vs. just buying something and while a longer project, it's certainly within the realm of hobbyist and there are huge communities to support you. Most of open source flight controllers support MavLink, a communications protocol that you can use to send path commands and receive telemetry info over a WiFi link. There are wrappers for many languages, including node. It's good to have a project in mind of what you want it to actually do in the end before you start that will help guide you through the process.

tonyhb 11y ago

This looks amazing.

karambahh 11y ago

This is a great product. It solves an actual issue (that I had never thought about since I'm very far from that field :-) ) in a simple and clever way. You deserve the award of the most original and useful use of drone tech I've seen.

LAMike 11y ago

Looks amazing

cprayingmantis 11y ago

Hey that's pretty awesome have you thought about applications of this tech in agriculture? Perhaps keeping an eye out on crops and trying to predict yields or crop health?

brobinson 11y ago
My first thought was futures trading. I've heard of people using their own private satellites to do something similar. There was a company in SF building and launching small, shoebox-sized satellites inexpensively which could be used for it.
- kartikkumar 11y ago
  I suspect you're referring to Planet Labs: https://www.planet.com https://www.planet.com
  - brobinson 11y ago
    That was it!
wfn 11y ago
Yep, if you are able to gather data over near-infrared (NIR) as well as red channels, you can compute NDVI which is a kind of vegetation index. It's interesting stuff and I would look into using the tech for agriculture surveys, constant monitoring and automatic advisory compilation (where to water things etc.)

cscharenberg 11y ago

Surveying with drone fleets is going to be huge across many industries. Agriculture and animal husbandry, surveying hard-to-reach things like bridge structures, inside large engines and mechanical systems. Very neat

mladenkovacevic 11y ago

Were you guys at the PDAC this week?

viperscape 11y ago

do you sell the cloud services? that'd be a neat niche too

innertracks 11y ago

Sounds fun! I've been thinking of ways and places to mix my database, software dev, and commercial pilot/flight instructor backgrounds.

D3_4dl1N3 11y ago

Here some practical applications for drones: https://img.readitlater.com/i/cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/drone-uses/RS/w704.jpg https://img.readitlater.com/i/cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/upl...