WEBVTT 00:13.460 --> 00:15.100 - What we're doing here today is to 00:15.100 --> 00:17.380 explore some of the technology that we identified 00:17.380 --> 00:19.750 in one of our recent hackathons that was in Austin, Texas. 00:19.750 --> 00:21.910 - Colonel Richardson came into the classroom 00:21.910 --> 00:24.240 and said, hey there's this opportunity down in Austin. 00:24.240 --> 00:26.720 It's a hackathon, where there's a competition 00:26.720 --> 00:28.160 to go and solve some of our nation's 00:28.160 --> 00:30.000 toughest problems with small UAS's. 00:30.000 --> 00:32.600 And I said oh my gosh this is perfect, 00:32.600 --> 00:33.930 I need to get Todd involved in this 00:33.930 --> 00:35.590 because he's got this piece of equipment 00:35.590 --> 00:38.160 that would be perfect for acoustic detections of drones. 00:38.160 --> 00:41.510 So I reached out to him, he said yeah I'll join the team 00:41.510 --> 00:43.170 and so we went down there to Austin, 00:43.170 --> 00:45.200 we didn't know quite what to expect, 00:45.200 --> 00:47.030 but we were able to form a collaborative team 00:47.030 --> 00:48.780 with some of the local industry partners 00:48.780 --> 00:50.210 down there in the Austin area. 00:50.210 --> 00:52.190 - We won the event, so with that 00:52.190 --> 00:55.110 came a 15,000 dollar contract 00:55.110 --> 00:57.290 through Army's Future Command to continue 00:57.290 --> 00:58.640 to develop our project. 00:58.640 --> 01:00.570 - The heart of this concept that we presented 01:00.570 --> 01:03.410 which is an acoustic detection capability 01:03.410 --> 01:05.900 is based on an actual prototypes that can 01:05.900 --> 01:07.913 be effectively used in the field. 01:10.360 --> 01:13.030 - MIMS is Micro Electro Mechanical System 01:13.030 --> 01:15.760 and this one it's about the size of your fingernail. 01:15.760 --> 01:18.330 - It's essentially a micro-antenna tuned to 01:18.330 --> 01:20.500 a particular frequency that it can pick up, 01:20.500 --> 01:21.900 and these are tuned specifically 01:21.900 --> 01:24.460 to the frequencies for the different drone families. 01:24.460 --> 01:26.810 - And so by looking at that very specific frequency, 01:26.810 --> 01:29.220 it's not listening to all other other distracting noises. 01:29.220 --> 01:31.230 So broadband microphones work on the range 01:31.230 --> 01:33.180 of maybe 20 to 100 meters. 01:33.180 --> 01:35.500 The initial results in the lab have shown 01:35.500 --> 01:37.510 that this could be potentially a thousand times greater. 01:37.510 --> 01:39.610 - If we can acoustically or in some other way 01:39.610 --> 01:42.670 detect those drones that are coming in early enough 01:42.670 --> 01:44.540 and get an idea of maybe which direction 01:44.540 --> 01:46.160 and which heading they're coming in from 01:46.160 --> 01:47.920 then we can mitigate some of that threat. 01:47.920 --> 01:49.990 - The recent attack on the Venezuelan president 01:49.990 --> 01:51.400 with a small UAS system 01:51.400 --> 01:53.110 potentially was an assassination plot. 01:53.110 --> 01:56.930 It certainly raised the awareness of the challenges 01:56.930 --> 02:00.400 that UAS systems pose, both in the civilian arena, 02:00.400 --> 02:01.540 just on the streets. 02:01.540 --> 02:03.530 - [Clayton] Border patrol officers can use this, 02:03.530 --> 02:05.070 while they're looking for maybe drug smugglers 02:05.070 --> 02:06.970 going across the border using drones. 02:06.970 --> 02:09.570 Can we have security teams usin' this to defend 02:09.570 --> 02:11.880 sports venues, let's say a football stadium, 02:11.880 --> 02:13.070 something like that. 02:13.070 --> 02:15.970 - And also in the military environments, 02:15.970 --> 02:18.970 where that conflict puts soldiers at risk. 02:18.970 --> 02:20.410 - There's plenty of applications where 02:20.410 --> 02:23.240 we can use this technology and by introducing it 02:23.240 --> 02:26.700 with a commercial side, it gives a larger scale 02:26.700 --> 02:29.110 and makes it then in the end cheaper for the military, 02:29.110 --> 02:31.330 but also drives that innovation because 02:31.330 --> 02:32.660 in the commercial side they're gonna keep 02:32.660 --> 02:33.690 making this thing better. 02:33.690 --> 02:37.170 - Even if drones didn't engage you with a threat 02:37.170 --> 02:38.670 they weren't loaded with explosives, 02:38.670 --> 02:41.540 they weren't loaded with some sort of toxin material, 02:41.540 --> 02:44.930 the very fact that they could collect information on you, 02:44.930 --> 02:47.050 they fly overhead, they cause the soldiers 02:47.050 --> 02:49.500 to become distracted from his core mission, 02:49.500 --> 02:51.250 which might be to engage somebody 02:51.250 --> 02:54.470 or to find someone or to just move. 02:54.470 --> 02:56.890 That's really the threat and so if we figure out 02:56.890 --> 02:59.290 ways to respond to that threat, 02:59.290 --> 03:01.050 that's good for us. 03:01.050 --> 03:03.100 - What if we could put this on every single soldier, 03:03.100 --> 03:05.430 what if we could create a network across 03:05.430 --> 03:07.670 an entire force with these small systems 03:07.670 --> 03:09.700 that were put on each individual person 03:09.700 --> 03:11.670 to help us identify these drones 03:11.670 --> 03:14.120 in a faster way, in a cheaper way 03:14.120 --> 03:17.640 and a solution that could be scaled across the force. 03:17.640 --> 03:19.670 - I think these are very exciting times 03:19.670 --> 03:21.590 'cause this is becoming more common 03:21.590 --> 03:23.790 across all services is how do you work 03:23.790 --> 03:26.700 with industry and academics and the soldiers and sailors, 03:26.700 --> 03:28.280 how do you mesh 'em all together? 03:28.280 --> 03:31.440 - The success of the hackathon represented 03:31.440 --> 03:34.100 the value proposition that career military professionals, 03:34.100 --> 03:36.200 so officers and NCOs that are sent to study 03:36.200 --> 03:38.330 at an institution like Naval Postgrad School. 03:38.330 --> 03:41.380 - It reflects really well on NPS's research institution. 03:41.380 --> 03:43.520 That's primarily what we're here for, 03:43.520 --> 03:46.980 is to give graduate studies for the military 03:46.980 --> 03:49.470 and make students go back to the force 03:49.470 --> 03:52.310 more lethal and ready to solve our nation's problems 03:52.310 --> 03:54.080 but it also highlights a really interesting part 03:54.080 --> 03:55.730 and that is the collaboration 03:55.730 --> 03:58.530 across the different departments within campus. 03:58.530 --> 04:00.550 - This is a great group and we're all open 04:00.550 --> 04:03.070 to constructive criticism and understandings 04:03.070 --> 04:04.620 of way of forward and we definitely have 04:04.620 --> 04:08.070 the experience level, I think to take this 04:08.070 --> 04:10.510 out of the field experimentation phase 04:10.510 --> 04:14.303 and actually put it into actual field ready product. 04:15.720 --> 04:17.430 - One of the biggest things of this event 04:17.430 --> 04:18.870 being here at Camp Roberts, 04:18.870 --> 04:20.950 is that it was an opportunity to bring 04:20.950 --> 04:23.750 some folks from Army's Future Command out, 04:23.750 --> 04:25.090 because it's their newest command, 04:25.090 --> 04:26.430 it was a chance for them to see 04:26.430 --> 04:28.320 what the Naval Postgraduate School can offer 04:28.320 --> 04:30.920 and so in the future as they're working on 04:30.920 --> 04:32.830 innovative designs in order to solve their problems, 04:32.830 --> 04:34.770 they keep in mind that the Naval Postgraduate School 04:34.770 --> 04:37.180 is a great source of people and a great source of talent 04:37.180 --> 04:38.550 that can come out and tap into 04:38.550 --> 04:40.200 in order to solve their problems.