Your Partner in Public Safety

[MUSIC PLAYING] At Boston Dynamics, we believe that human ingenuity should serve human life. So we designed Spot for you. The first one into the breach. [MUSIC PLAYING] The one going in when others are running out. The one diffusing the most dangerous situations. The one who always puts others safety first. [MUSIC PLAYING] And we are grateful. [MUSIC PLAYING] It is why this simple idea drives every innovation at Boston Dynamics. And Spot isn't just a robot. It is the total embodiment of our conviction to build remarkable machines that empower and uplift humanity. So we make Spot to be first through the door. Stepping in to keep good people away from bad things. [MUSIC PLAYING] We make Spot for first responders. [MUSIC PLAYING] We make Spot for you. - Thank you for joining today's webinar. Your partner in public safety. The future of incident response. My name is Vatche Arabian, application expert for Boston Dynamics. We've got a packed webinar today. But before we get started, I just want to run through some quick housekeeping. We'll be sending out a recording of today's presentation following the webinar. If you have any questions during the webinar, please use the Q&A button below, and we'll be going through some of those towards the end of the presentation. We've also got moderators that will answer some of those in chat. So send those to Q&A. Before I introduce you to today's panel, I just wanted to quickly walk through today's agenda. We'll be starting with a short introduction of Spot and highlighting the latest updates to our quadruped platform. Then you'll hear from our amazing partner of FLYMOTION. And finally, we're extremely grateful and privileged to be joined by Lieutenant Rego of the Miami-Dade police department who will cover their history with robotics, their adoption of Spot, and a few ways that Spot has been used in real world special response scenarios. With that, Kamila, do you want to kick us off? - Thanks, Vatche. Yeah, sure. So, hi, everybody. My name is Kamila Blain, I am the sales manager for public safety agencies in the US and Canada. I've been with Boston Dynamics since last year, and I've worked at multiple robot and drone companies in my career specifically that cater to public safety. - Thanks, Kamila. And hello, everybody. Maurice Cooley, I'm the Director of Technical Operations at FLYMOTION. And believe it or not, I was the first employee with the company. And I have a background also with public safety. I served with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office for 9 and 1/2 years assigned to the Homeland Security division. And I also have a background in industrial controls. - How's everyone doing? My name is Lieutenant Francis Rego. I've been with the Miami-Dade police department now for 18 years. The last eight of which I've been assigned as one of the commanders of the special response team. - All right. So I wanted to get started talking about a recent story from Massachusetts State police bomb squad, which is our hometown bomb squad here in Massachusetts. So they're a long time customer of Boston Dynamics. They use Spot for both IED and SWAT support. And on March 8, just a couple of months ago of this year, they were called to assist with a barricaded suspect in Hyannis, Massachusetts, that's on Cape Cod. This barricaded suspect fired at or in the direction of law enforcement. So they really wanted to use technology to keep distance and locate the suspect in the home. So Roscoe is the robot that's pictured here. He entered the home and was able to systematically clear two stories of the home. And eventually moved to the basement where the suspect was located. So the suspect came up to Spot. Actually pushed or kicked Spot over. But Spot has a self-righting feature. So the operator was able to right the robot and start following the suspect up the stairs from the basement. And this is where Spot realized that-- or the suspect realized that Spot wasn't going to give up that easy. So he proceeded to take his rifle and shoot at Spot three times. Spot was injured three times, two in the arm and one in the belly. You can actually see the bullet wound in the S of SQUAD on the chassis. So there was obvious damage to the arm as well as the hip. There was also a camera that was broken, but all of this is repairable. This Spot was the first one in 1,500 robots that have been delivered thus far by Boston Dynamics. And we are honored to take Roscoe and actually have it in our museum at our headquarters so that visitors can come in, pay respects to Roscoe. And while we have Roscoe here at our headquarters, we actually gave Mass State police a brand new Spot whose name is Roscoe Junior in the memory of his dad. Now, the best feeling is knowing that robots like Roscoe keep our officers safe every day while trying to peacefully resolve situations like this barricaded suspect situation which could have ended much worse. So I've been around a lot of robots in my career. Most robots in the industry are really operated in a simple way where you have a robot, and you have an operator, and the robot is really taking control, actions from that operator. Spot works a little bit differently. So you have the robot on one end, you have the operator giving the control actions on the other side. There's also this third layer that brings in environmental factors. So what that means is Spot's constantly keeping tabs on balance, gravity, friction, and it's changing environment. So for example, if there's an obstacle in the way and an operator is telling Spot to go forward, it will walk around that obstacle. If there's a bad agent who decides to push or kick Spot, Spot will shuffle to the side to keep balance on 4 legs. But if it does ultimately fall, it can get back up. If the terrain changes as it's walking, Spot will adjust its pattern of walking to accommodate those changes. So it really is the definition of a smart robot. And pictured here on the right-hand side is what we call the public safety package. So what it features is the quadruped robot, obviously, with a manipulator arm, a radio package, and a Spot Cam on the rear of the robot. And it includes multiple cameras as well as two way audio. And in this configuration, Spot weighs about 100 pounds. So Spot can operate in pretty unique terrains that traditional robots may have trouble in. So Spot can go up and down curves, through gravel, and uneven terrain like you see here. It uses five perception cameras to make decisions on where to place each individual foot and use a stabilization algorithms to keep constantly balanced. As the operator, you're giving it very high level commands and then Spot does the rest. On stairs, it really couldn't be easier. The operator pushes forward on the joystick. Spot centers itself on the stairs and climbs. There's no need for special stair climbing mode or any adjustment of center of gravity. And then as I mentioned in the story about the Mass State police incident, Spot has a self-righting feature. This can be used if Spot falls over or after swapping batteries, which is located on the belly of the robot. So this is where things get really interesting. Manipulation of the arm can be done a few different ways, autonomously, semi-autonomously, or manually where you're telling Spot to reach its arm forward, backwards, up, down, tilt, et cetera. So using the arm can move objects out of the way, carry them to a safe location, even inspect high or hard to reach places. There's also various options on grip strengths or settings where you can pick up by the fingertips or the whole palm customizing your approach. There is autonomy built into the gripper. So in the manipulation menu, the operator selects pickup object. The operator points to the object on the screen, answers some questions on how to approach. And at this point, the operator's hands are completely off of the controls. Spot is really figuring out how to pick up this item on its own. And then once picked up, the operator can select some post grasp actions such as carry, drag, twist, or pull, or simply just operate the arm and move the object where needed. Now, using the arm, Spot can carry 12 pounds, can pick up 20 pounds, and can drag more than 50 pounds really depending on the terrain. But where Spot shows its canine features is in the dragging. Spot not only uses its arm, but you can see that it's using its whole body. It gets down low and really starts using the arm to yank on an object if it becomes stuck. So the arm manipulation really converts Spot into more than just a surveillance platform. It makes it a more valuable tool for public safety with the increased capability to manipulate the world around it. So here, one of the most dangerous and time consuming missions for public safety is around opening doors. Spot can open doors like in this video and as easy as 15 seconds. The cameras will give critical information back to the team on what's waiting for them inside. It's pretty simple. Again, in the manipulation menu, you select open door. You point to the door knob, answer a few questions for Spot. And again, at this point, the operator's hands are completely off of the controls. Spot's really doing the work for you. So he approaches the doorknob, turns it. And because it's a spring loaded door, which is one of the hardest doors to open with robots, it sticks its foot into the door so that it can hold itself for it. Snakes its arm around and opens the door and walks on through. This, by far, is my favorite feature of Spot, and we're the only ones that can do this. Commercial push bar doors. They're also programmed into Spot and other doors that include handles and push bars too. But we hear this all the time. Opening doors manually with robots takes a long time and a lot of practice. And this automated feature is a game changer for agencies. So lastly, we'll take a look at the user interface. All the items are at your fingertips. What you see on the screen is a 360 camera on the bottom. And then a PTZ camera on top. The PTZ has 30x optical zoom. So that really gives you a clear picture of what you need to see. Interestingly, you can tap on the 360 image on the bottom and it allows the PTZ to move to that area of interest. And then the Spot Cam also features a fleer thermal camera to identify heat signatures such as a person who may be hiding. So Spot just surpassed 1,500 robots delivered. This is a huge milestone for us. Spot's being used every day worldwide. We're in 35 different countries. So with all these customers, we love getting feedback on Spot to make them better and better. So for a few times a year, what we do is release software updates, major software updates that include product features or customers have been asking for, or just general features that improve the functionality of Spot. What's really important to note here is that the software updates are completely free for the life of the robot. There are no subscription costs for this. Some of the product updates that we've done for our government customers include multiple door options, so we used to just have door knobs, now we're able to open door handles, the push bars, push plates, et cetera. So for stairs, we no longer require a stair climbing mode. Stairs are auto-detected by Spot, and the operator just pushes forward on the joystick and starts climbing the stairs. Stability is one of those things that's really undervalued for quadrupeds. But it's just like us. We use our muscles to stay upright and move in our environment. And Spot has to do the same in some pretty tough terrain. So we recently released a major software update 4.0 in February. And you can see the difference in that top video here. It allows Spot to maneuver through very challenging environments like this rubble pile or slippery floors, those types of things. And then other features include position hold for the body. So that allows for improved inspection or deploying tools. And then safety has been added to-- we've enabled tablet locking. And the idea here is that Spot hardware is pretty much set in the design. And Spot's constantly evolving not through the hardware, but through software features. So for the life of the robot, you're able to take advantage of those improvements instead of having your equipment go obsolete. So next I'm going to pass it over to Maurice with FLYMOTION. There's no way that we can support all of the customers on our own. So we rely on partners like FLYMOTION to be essentially an extension of our team. And Maurice is going to talk about how they can customize Spot for some of our public safety and government customers. - Well, thanks for that introduction, Kamila. So for those who aren't familiar, FLYMOTION is an end-to-end advanced technology solutions provider around the categories of drones, robotics, mobile command vehicles, communications, system integration, training, and of course, support. Some of our core customers are local, state, federal agencies, as well as the DOD. And I do want to take a moment to touch on announcing that we are celebrating this year 10 years in business, which is really an incredible milestone. I remember back in 2015 when we were talking to public safety agencies about the advancements of drone technologies and how they could benefit their operations. And while they all thought it was very cool, they were very hesitant to adopt it because of public perception. So it's been quite interesting to see these agencies adopt this risk-mitigating technology from drones onto quadrupeds and robotics such as Spot. So as with any company that celebrates success, it wouldn't be possible without a strong team. And we certainly have that at FLYMOTION. So I want to send a shoutout to our team and thank everybody for their contributions over the years. So what do I mean when I say that FLYMOTION is an end-to-end solutions provider of advanced technologies? Well, what I mean is that we're certainly not a big box mover. So typically, our customers come to us with a complex set of problems. We will pair them and identify solutions to those problems, integrate hardware and software, train them, and then tie it all with a bow at the end, and offer them world class support. So that's FLYMOTION and that's what we offer. So why do we find Spot to be a very compelling solution? There's really three main points. The first is that Boston Dynamics has really been building dynamic and stable leg machines for longer than anyone else in the world and to be exact, over 30 years. And so that's an incredibly important and that's really shown in Spot's capabilities. Kamila talked about the dynamics with Spot and being able to handle some of these dynamic terrains that law enforcement would certainly be venturing out into. So it's a testament to the R&D that's been put behind Spot over the years that we see in the platform. Next is really the software updates. And so what drives software updates? Well, it's primarily both Boston Dynamics and FLYMOTION listening to the feedback that's coming back from our customers. So it takes not only hearing but also listening and implementing these software updates to make the robot better. And as I typically say, Spot's like a fine wine that over time just continues to get better and better and better. And that's thanks to listening and implementing new solutions through the software updates. And last but not least is the payload integration and the possibilities for payload integration. So it's one thing to integrate these payloads. And I'll talk more about some of the payloads that we've done coming up next. But there's integrating the hardware onto the platform. But then there's also finding an elegant way to integrate the hardware and to get the data back from the hardware so that the operator can make use of it. And so what we want to avoid when we're doing that is introducing additional pieces of hardware that the operator has to contend with. So it's integrating the payloads, but also leveraging the SDK from Boston Dynamics to really bring that data in right on the native Spot application and not introduce additional hardware. All right, so as we step through the next few slides, I'm going to talk about some of the more recent payload integrations that FLYMOTION is done for our customers. We'll talk about our FLYMOTION Ridgeback solution. And we'll tie-in also the Tactical Bubble concept that works in tandem with Ridgeback. We'll take a look at the Leica BLK ARC which is a LiDAR solution. And then we'll talk to some of the future payloads that are on the horizon coming soon. So we'll start with FLYMOTION Ridgeback. So the native communication link between the Spot operator and the robot is Wi-Fi. And so Wi-Fi is wonderful when you're in a controlled environment such as a factory. It works great. But once you venture outside of that controlled environment and you have the complexities of the outdoor environment, there's two things that suffer with Wi-Fi, that's range and penetration. And so we knew early on that we needed a way, an elegant way to solve that problem. So along came FLYMOTION Ridgeback. So Ridgeback is a payload that marries to one of the payload ports of Spot and it accommodates an IP mesh radio. So we're radio-agnostic, so we can basically implement any radio that we need to into Ridgeback as long as it meets the specifications that we require for the operation. But we typically use either persistent or Silvis radios, radio nodes inside of Ridgeback. So that gives us the range and that gives us the penetration and throughput that we need by leveraging multiple input and output technology and mesh radio systems. So in the next slide, we'll get a look at what a typical deployment scenario looks like when we roll out Spot to a customer along with our Ridgeback solution. So we can see here with the illustration we have a radio node that's implemented into our Ridgeback system that's communicating to the Spot operator who has an additional radio there. And then we see we have our traditional P25 radio link. That's between for voice communications, obviously between the operator, the team operators, and the aviation unit. But the video link and really the power of this mesh radio link in this scenario here it's really acting as a point to point this mesh link. So we're not really seeing the benefits of a mesh link. We're solving the problem with distance, throughput, and range between the operator and Spot. But it kind of ends there. So next comes really the idea on the next slide here of a tactical bubble. So ignore the countywide ring on the end to the right here and let's focus in on deployment and the scalability and the assets that we see here. And this really, really defines the benefits of this tactical bubble. So we can see here that we have Spot that has Ridgeback. So we know that that's a mesh network IP radio node. We have a radio node on the robot operator, but now we've introduced a node on a drone we see there. Our team operators also have radios. Our aviation unit has a radio, as well as our mobile talk. So this really allows for a quick deploy private and secure mesh network that unifies all of your operational assets in this tactical bubble. So a couple of benefits here. The tactical bubble is not-- it's a MAN A network. So it's a mobile ad hoc network and it is not reliant on other existing infrastructure. So we're not reliant on a cell network, we're not relying on your traditional P25 network. And what's really great about that is also is that if you deal with a lot of natural storms that come through as we do in Florida with the hurricanes, and we're entering hurricane season right now, if we have-- we had two years ago, Ian, that came through and wiped out a lot of the communication systems down around the Lee County area. So these types of situations it's really beneficial to be able to come out within minutes, really turn on these radios, and have a mobile ad hoc network that you're able to then leverage communications through. The other point is high bandwidth video. Both video, so imagine you need to send the video feed that Spot's seeing and have your ground operators be able to see that feed, or perhaps the incident command folks that are back in the mobile talk to be able to see that feed or perhaps to feed from the drone or the aviation unit. That's all handled through that tactical bubble and through the mesh radios. Also voice. So you no longer needing to depend on solely the P25 network, we can do ROIP and voice over these mesh radios. And also bridge in your existing P25 radios. A lot of agencies out there have Harris and Motorola they can also be bridged into the mesh network there. So they could be used as well. And as well as any data that needs to be transported over the network can be done. Another beautiful thing is that you get when you have especially your aviation unit and you have these ground operators that have nodes as well as we see the drone here, those are additional hops in the communication chain. So as Spot ventures deeper into a structure, you're not going to lose your communication link to Spot because there's hops that the radios are able to take to get that signal back out. So as we saw in the previous slide, we had Spot that was communicating directly with the operator and there was that sort point to point connection. Well, now Spot ventures deeper into a structure. It may not be able to communicate back to the operator. It may need to take a hop first to the aviation asset or to the drone to get that signal back to the operator and on the larger network. So that's all handled in the background. So that's wonderful. Let's say you've got your aviation unit up and they're doing a persistent ISR and we can see here from our blue hashed lines here that we've got the drone that's connected to the aviation unit and a couple other pieces as well. That aviation unit has to leave and refuel. It's a self-healing network. So that aviation unit may leave the area, touch down on the ground power down, and you've lost that link. Well, the system is able to reheal and find different routes to hop to keep that network stable. So that's really the benefit of having sort of this tactical bubble. And then we see our friends at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office who've gone a step further and they've actually added countywide coverage. So they've got some existing towers that were already in existence that they've added antennas to and nodes to. And now anytime that the aviation units up anywhere over the county, they're connected to the larger mesh network. So it's a very, very powerful system and tool that can be certainly scalable. And so this next slide is really the icing on the cake. So we talk about Blue Force Tracking through TAK, ATAK, WinTAK, iTAK, whatever your agency's able to use there. But the benefit of Blue Force Tracking is that as we can see in the illustration here, all of your mobile assets, your team operators, Spot, FPVs, they can all be as we covered in the last slide, they can all be tied in a larger mesh network. And ATAK is able to also operate on that mesh network. So now that enables a full common operating picture for the operation that you're on. Video feeds can be shared, and obviously mission planning as well. So that's really the icing on the cake. All right, so that's Ridgeback and the concept of a large mesh network and tactical bubble. So this next project was interesting. This was a project that we did for NYPD. They acquired to Spot robots and they were both outfitted with the same payloads. So we can see here we did our Ridgeback solution for communications and we did a LiDAR sensor that was the Leica BLK ARC. And so what they're using this sensor for is hazardous situations. So imagine you have a partial collapse structure and you really need to get high clarity 3D maps of the environment without introducing a human into that environment. So they're able to mount their LiDAR sensor, the Leica BLK ARC, get into the environment, get back a point cloud 3D map, and run it through the software that's able to give them accurate measurements of items in the environment so that they can plan on getting inside safely and getting to anybody that may need aid. So next we're going to show a quick video here of sort of the detail of the imagery that you get back from the sensor. So what we're seeing here this is an actual exploded Metro subway car that is in one of the environments in an immersive training event that FLYMOTION hosts once a year called UTAC. And you can find out more information by visiting utac.co, utac.co. But this is one of the environments that we have access to. And so what we did was is that we walked Spot through this environment with the LiDAR sensor going. And this is the data that we got back. So Spot walk through it. Took Spot just a few minutes. He came back, we exported that data, ingested it into software, and we've sort of have this fly through effect that was created. But this fly through effect can be static. And then you can really go through and take measurements of where things are in real space and do the planning that you need to execute a rescue. All right, so that's the Leica BLK ARC. And then I'll conclude with some of the future projects that we're working on in terms of payload. And again, before I start, I'll go back and I'll touch on the importance of really the great job that both Boston Dynamics does as well as FLYMOTION and really working with our end users and our customers to understand what it is that we can do to make their job even safer, to make their job more streamlined. And so this is a result of that. So first, I'll talk on the mesh radio node deployment cradle is something that's coming for Spot. And this will be a cradle that will carry an additional IP radio node that works with the mesh radio system. So imagine if you have two radios or three radios and you're venturing deep into quite a large structure, let's say a warehouse type environment where you need to have Spot clear that warehouse and you need to be stood off from the property. And you need to have connection throughout that facility. So Spot will be able to-- with Spot's arm-- spin around via an action, grab the radio out of the cradle, and drop the radio wherever you need it for an additional hop, an extension of the distance that you can go inside of that structure. Next is the FPV Perch. So this is really cool because we talk a lot about robotic teaming. So imagine you have a barricaded subject which happens quite often in a single family home. So imagine Spot goes through the front door and Spot's responsible for really clearing that structure. Well, now we're introducing an FPV that's able to perch onto the back of Spot. So as Spot enters that structure, Spot can stop at the ground floor in the living room kitchen area, let's say, and the FPV can launch from a Perch on Spot and then quickly go through each room and clear it. You got a closed door, not a problem. We send Spot to that closed door. Spot opens up the door and then the FPV is able to fly through and continue its mission. So it's a wonderful real partnership, a robotic teaming that can be had. And this payload of the FPV Perch is something that's coming very soon. And last but not least is a high demand that we've had for CBRNE sensor. And so this is something that we're very excited about. It's something that's been in the works for some time. And as I mentioned, with all of these payloads, there's a lot of rich, real time data that needs to be brought in from the CBRNE sensor. And that's going to be happening by leveraging the SDK with Spot. And we're bringing that data right back to the native app on the tablet so that the users can view it as well as everybody else that's on the mesh network, and perhaps leveraging TAK for that as well. So that's on the horizon and we look forward to those introducing those payloads as we progress through 2024. And of course, into Q1 of 2025. So thank you for your attention, and I'll pass it over to Lieutenant Rego. - Hi, everyone. As stated before, my name is Lieutenant Francis Rego. I'm with the Miami-Dade police department special response team. And I'm just going to go over a little bit of the history of how we acquired Spot, training, and some of the incidents that we've had utilizing Spot. Next, please. So a little bit about the Miami-Dade Police Department. For those of you that are unfamiliar with, we are the police department that you've seen inCSIMiami,MiamiVice,Dexter,those shows. But basically, we are a 3,400 sworn officers on our police department. Currently, it's the largest police department in Florida, and the seventh largest in the United States. Although we are the Miami-Dade police department, we are the traditional sheriff's department of the county. But through county politics, the head of our department is actually a director that's appointed by the mayor. But that's actually changing through a referendum. So we're actually transitioning back to a traditional Sheriff's department this coming January in 2025. So next. So a little bit about the section that we work in. I oversee the special response team, which is basically the SWAT team, just a different acronym that we use. We are part of what's called the tactical operations section which encompasses four different units. So it's the special response team, which is made up of 40 personnel. We are a full time SWAT team. Along with us we have the K-9 unit. We also have the bomb disposal unit. And we also have the incident management team, which I will be going into a little bit more about how they assist us with Spot and drones. So our department how it all started. For most of the people tuning in that are from law enforcement agencies, robotics amongst law enforcement agencies, it goes back decades. As far back as the early '90s where traditional tracked robots and wheeled robots were being utilized by explosive ordnance disposal and bomb disposal units throughout the ages. That transitioned over into using them by SWAT teams to help mitigate barricaded subject calls, hostage rescue incidents. From there, there's been a plethora of companies that we've actually acquired different systems from whether it's been Remotec, or ReconRobotics, drones has-- the introduction of UAS into law enforcement really took off in within the last five years. Everything from initially using DJI to now Skydio. There's Teledyne, Brinks, is another amazing company that we utilize their interior drone. But basically, it's just been an evolution of the types of robotics that we've utilized which has now brought us into the next evolution which has been Spot. So we first came or Spot first came to our attention back in 2020. And at the time, we actually found Spot via YouTube. It was one of the first teaser trailers of the Spot robot where you saw Spot not in its current configuration right now. Basically going through a construction site. We saw it, the personnel that we have in the incident management team at the time did a direct connection to Boston Dynamics, reached out to them. We were highly interested in the robot, seeing what it could do. And at the time that we were looking at it, the arm was actually still in the beta phase. So it wasn't actually released yet. There were other systems on Spot that were released. I believe the cam system on the back was already something that you could get. But the actual arm was still in the beta phase. We decided basically that we were going to try to acquire Spot through a UASI Grant, which again, for the law enforcement agencies out there, I'm pretty sure they're familiar with it. It's the Department of Homeland Security's under their umbrella of FEMA. They have the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant Program. We submitted the project. That's the actual date, August 30, 2020. Government red tape, UASI grants, they take a while. But basically, we got the grant awarded. And right prior to us getting the actual grant awarded, Boston Dynamics at that time put us into contact with FLYMOTION. During that, the interim phase of waiting for the actual grant to get approved, FLYMOTION actually came down to Miami with one of their Spot demo robots. They demoed it and our first reaction was we really needed to get this and add it to our inventory. Fast forward, the robot was actually purchased on April 11, 2023, and less than two weeks later it was delivered. Talking a little bit about training. So when Spot was first delivered, FLYMOTION provided a two day training course that they actually came down and they ended up teaching the personnel and our incident management team. Just a little bit about them, they are basically the unit that is kind of tied to the hip with SRT, the bomb squad, the K-9 unit, they're a logistical support section within the tactical support section. And they're also the guys that basically they all have their Part 107. So they're all the drone operators, they operate for us, previously they were operating the Titus robot. And they also attended this training along with some of the guys as a redundancy in the SWAT team to basically learn how to operate Spot. Since that time, what we've realized, and this is actually something I kind of want to harp with, is for the law enforcement agencies out there that already have ground robotics, I would almost assume you're running either something from ReconRobotics, or Remotec, there's a couple other companies out there. And while they all make a great product and we've used them to great success, what a lot of you would probably already know is that those robots they require a lot of hours of training, a lot of hours of operational experience. Learning how to actually manipulate the arm because you have to control every single thing that the robot does it can be tasking. And while those robots at the time that they were introduced were marvelous feats to be had, I mean, ground robotics has throughout the decades has advanced so rapidly and it's, you know, brought tremendous basically success rates for us and the operations that we've had. Spot, the beauty of it is that while it does require training, it was one of those items that when we actually received it and we took it out of the box, FLYMOTION and Boston Dynamics wasn't with us. It was a quick step guide of how to turn it on. We turned it on and we already had some of the IMT guys actually already running it in the office with ease because the interface on the screen actually makes it so that anyone with just a little bit of training can actually pick it up, operate it, and go forward. What we've done is a lot of the training that we focus on now is robotic teaming. And they were talking about this before is a lot of the operations that we have, whether it's a barricade, a hostage situation, whatever the case may be. What we've actually learned is that in a lot of these cases, there is a huge value added to actually introduce Spot into a structure along with an interior drone like a brick drone, the lemur. And what we've learned is while Spot is working to open a door or clearing a room, we could land the drone in a specific area to basically make sure that nothing-- a subject doesn't come out double back, get behind Spot, whatever the case may be. So for them, working in tandem is actually I would recommend to all the law enforcement agencies a great way to understand how to approach utilizing Spot. In the future one of the things that we're focusing on is actual team integration. So actually, utilizing Spot to go with the team ahead of the team for basically large structures, whether it's a school, a hospital, whatever the case may be. So that's kind of what we're leaning towards of looking at in the future. I'm going to go over a little bit of some of the incidents that we've had. And before I talk about the incidents, I want to basically just talk a little bit about what we've learned from these incidents and things to keep in mind. So going back to the historical robots that we've had in the past, and that we still have in our inventory, for those of you in law enforcement typically when you introduce one of the ground robotics that are out there whether it's a track robot, or whatnot, it can take-- if you're talking about just a single story, single family home where none of the doors are locked, there could be clutter in the house, whatever the case may be. Historically, at least for us it wasn't a surprise to realize that sometimes it could take 30 minutes upwards, sometimes to an hour to clear an entire house. Sometimes you encounter clutter, removing the clutter, getting over the clutter. One of the problems with a lot of the ground robotics that exist on the market today is especially the ones that have arms, is they have difficulty trying to climb stairs. Some of them cannot climb stairs. And the ones that do climb stairs, a lot of them don't have an arm to manipulate opening doors. That's one of the things that Spot, just having Spot has basically been a peace of mind and an at ease for us knowing that it can actually overcome those things. So there's three things to consider. When I talk about these incidents, it's first obviously utilizing any type of ground robotics there's a greater safety measure. The other beautiful thing about Spot and the Ridgeback and utilizing what we utilize is the mesh network from persistent systems is being able to have the video feed go back. For us, most people would just for layman's terms would call it the command post or it could be the tactical operations command center, the incident command center, whatever it is, is being able to see the video feed come back to the command post, makes decision-making for all the stakeholders a lot easier. It removes a lot of the guessing. And the third thing is there's a great reduction in fatigue utilizing a robot-like Spot simply because of how fast Spot can operate and clear structure. So you can imagine historically if you're waiting for the robot to clear a house and it takes upwards of an hour, that's an hour for all the SWAT personnel that are on the perimeter. You could be baking in the sun. It just adds to the amount of fatigue. Wearing your vest, holding point, Spot makes things a lot faster. So one of the first incidents that we're going to talk about just actually happened a few months ago. Very tragic. It was basically a double homicide suicide along with the subject actually killed the dog as well. This is one of those incidents that it was an apartment. And when the decision was basically made after negotiations, we weren't getting a response. At the time, nobody actually knew that the subject had already taken his own life. But basically, in this situation, once the decision was made to actually get eyes into the structure and see what was going on, this was one of those that the feedback that I got from the IMT personnel that were there that were actually operating Spot is and the SRT personnel that were forward, Spot cleared that structure in less than 6 minutes. Went into every room, was able to see everything, traversed all the obstacles that were present. It was able to identify the deceased in the structure and basically utilizing that information, the decision was made that basically let's send in a SWAT team, finish up, clear the structure once we knew that the subject was no longer a threat. Next. All right, this next incident is kind of a very interesting one because this one in this case, the actual subject was a retired police officer. She was actually a lieutenant with our department. That for all intents and purposes, went through a really bad time. And in this case, we had our threat management section, a bunch of units on the department looking for because of the threats she was making. And ultimately, she ended up having an altercation with an ex-boyfriend. There was some violence involved. And the decision was made to call off the SWAT team. She had barricaded herself inside of a residence. She ended up-- not to go into too much detail, but she ended up actually shooting at us four times. Don't ask me how she missed the Bearcat all four times. But she ended up shooting at us at that point once we were able to utilize one of the BearCats to actually push open the front door. Again, the decision was made, let's send in Spot. So when we introduced Spot into the house, this is actually the second time that I've seen this. The subject in this case, the retired lieutenant, she ended up pouring-- it was liquid detergent all over the living room floor. And what she was basically doing was setting a quasi trap because as any other guys from law enforcement would know, you walk in, you're going to step on that slick floor, you're going to take a tumble. So what we learned is once we send Spot in, this was prior to the most recent software update. So when we send Spot in, Spot had difficulty traversing the terrain. It did let us know that the ground at the time they thought it was oil, we ended up finding out it was laundry detergent. But still the same. It's soap, it's going to make the ground slick on the tile. Spot had difficulty actually traversing the area. Did a couple slip and falls. Every time was able to get up, take a couple steps, did a little slip and fall. Ultimately, we had to bring Spot out. Now, most would say, well, that's a failure. Well, the difference in this case is actually, it's a failure but it's actually a good feedback story for how the relationship that we have with FLYMOTION and Boston Dynamics in the sense that we were able to basically just tell Boston Dynamics what happened. Historically, if you had a ground robot that encountered an obstacle that it couldn't get by, whether it's climbing stairs, whether it's going over a pile of clothes, there was no software update. There was no patch to actually make it better. And using however Boston Dynamics does it, but their engineering department, instituting algorithms into the software, they actually were able to create a software patch. And that brought us to version 4.01, I believe, which was just finished not too long ago. And what did it do? It corrected that problem. So now Spot if it encounters a slick floor it knows how to balance itself to actually overcome that. Why do I bring this up? Like I said, this was one of those things that it encountered a problem. We were able to give the feedback to Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics fixed it. It wasn't a, well, unfortunately, our robot can't do that. No. They were presented with a problem. They ran it through their engineering department, their engineering department fixed it. And now if we were to have that issue, we know that basically Spot can go over a slick floor that has oil on it probably better than a human could. We would tiptoe. You take the wrong step, you're going to slip and fall. Spot, if you see the video, I've even seen it on their social media page. It's really interesting how it does it, but just dropping it's center of gravity and tiptoeing and it overcomes it. So next slide. [INTERPOSING VOICES] - Thanks, lieutenant Rego. That was awesome. So I wanted to end with if you're interested, how can Boston Dynamics help you acquire Spot? So there's a couple of different things that we can do. We have a huge network of users like lieutenant Rego. They love talking about how they've used Spot, how they've implemented different tools or overcome certain obstacles. So if you are EOD, SWAT, urban search and rescue, hazmat, whatever your mission, just reach out to us and we can connect you with our network of Spot users. The other thing that we just recently did is we hired a company called GovFunds. One of the big barriers is funding for something like Spot because it's usually not something that can be purchased through budget funds. It has to be through grants. And as a lot of us know, grant funding is actually declining year over year. But what this company does, and this is a free service to our agencies is they take a look at various different grants that are available. And that could be federal funding, state funding. But what they really specialize in is private foundations. So that could be police associations, community foundations, it could be wealthy individuals within your jurisdiction. And really just walk you through the process community engagement plan. And basically, what we do is we help you introduce policies around Spot for the public. It's just very important to communicate to the public what Spot is, what it can do, what it doesn't do, those types of things. So we have plans that we can help you launch Spot for your agency. Vatche, back to you. - Amazing. Thank you. So we're definitely going to go a little past the hour. So hope folks hang on for a little bit of Q&A. We've got some great questions that were coming through. So just a reminder, if you've got some questions that we haven't covered in some of the content, please use the Q&A button. Anything we don't get to we read all your questions, so please submit those questions. We will follow up with you on any things that might be too detailed for the conversation we're about to have on the content here. So let's kick things off with lieutenant Rego. There was a question that was submitted in advance on, how do you deploy the robot? Where does the robot live and how does it get deployed in a scenario? - Yeah, good question. We actually utilize a Lenco BombCat. So it's a lot like a Bearcat, but it was specifically designed, the BombCat to carry a ground robotics. The version that we have, which is a lot of it was tailored to our needs, which is really good feature about Lenco. They could basically build the inside of the vehicle however you want. The beauty of having the BombCat is that the ramp system that's on the side Spot easily gets up and down the ramp system with ease. If we ever had to-- and we've encountered this before, not with Spot, but previously with some of our ground robots. Down here in Miami it rains a lot. So if there's-- we have a situation that's in an open field with grass which we've had before and we've had to get a robot across that field will utilize the BombCat. The front ramp we could actually put Spot on it, drive it to the location, which is going to avoid a lot of things. If you're crossing a field that you don't know, you have potholes, if it just rained and it becomes muddy, you're basically avoiding all of that. You can drop the robot off, and also it offers the team and the operator of Spot it offers them a bullet resistant vehicle that they can house themselves within, they can operate it from within. It has a mass system that we can attach a sector antenna to actually increase the mesh network. So basically, we utilize the Lenco BombCat to do that. - Great. There was some clarification questions on Ridgeback as well as questions like range. Does it work with cell networks? Maurice, I don't know, it's a little bit all over the place. But maybe you could reiterate some of the qualities of Ridgeback. - Yeah. Yeah, certainly. So the Ridgeback payload alone paired with a radio with the operator, that's all you've got, two nodes. You're going to get about a half mile in terms of your distance that you can go now. I have to preface that with saying that RF is tricky, radio frequency because it's all around us, but we can't see it. And so things like penetrating, subterranean, going through brick rebar, various walls throughout structures, and other environmental RF items that are happening in the RF environment, it really depends. So it depends on the environment that you're in will dictate how far you go. Another thing that will help you is having elevation. I mentioned this earlier. You have a node on a drone or perhaps an aviation unit or as LT mentioned, getting a sector antenna on top of a mast, for example, any elevation is going to help you immensely with range and penetration. - Great. There was, can you attach Ridgeback to Spot and then connect everyone to Spot? And the answer is exactly. That's exactly how it works. Great. - Yes. - One thing I wanted to go back to, Kamila, there's been some questions on GovFunds and there was a pre-submitted question about what-- how can I apply? How can I acquire Spot using grants? So you want to just kind of reiterate that a little bit again? - Sure, yeah. So GovFunds is a third party that we hired. Essentially, what we do is we have a conversation, I have a conversation with you on what you're looking for, and really talk about what the process looks like for GovFunds. Essentially what it is there's an onboarding process and you submit a questionnaire about what your project looks like. So I'm a tactical team, I'm looking for x amount of money, I'm looking for a robot for these missions. So you submit this questionnaire and they do the research for you. So I think that question or one of the questions was with Texas grants. So I did a quick search on their fund finder portion of their website, and there's 423 grants that are available in the state of Texas. Now, not all of them are going to cover the cost of Spot, but it really gives you an idea of the vast amount of funding options that are available. And some of them may cover the cost of Spot. Some of them may be half, some of them may be a little bit, but maybe you just need that little bit to cover the excess of what may be a department of homeland security grant can't cover. And they'll really walk you through the process. So they'll give you a prioritized list. You'll walk through that with them. They'll take a look at your justification and maybe give you pointers on how to make that application stronger. I think there's also points of contacts that you can reach out to within your state. So if there's expiring money, for example, you can take advantage of that or at least start the dialogue within your state so that agencies are able to maybe take advantage of some of those expiring funds that must be used by year end. So they really take a look at a holistic approach. I've worked with them before and it's a great service. And again, it's free. Boston Dynamics pays for that so it's free for our customers. - So if customers are interested, obviously the next step would be reach out, let's have a conversation about what you're looking for, and then that's the next step? - Of course, yeah. - There was a question. Will the slides or this presentation be available later on? Missed the first part. Yes, this will be. When we're wrapped here, we'll be sending out a follow up with a link to the recording so you can rewatch and then use any sections that you want which is the question. Lieutenant Rego, there was a question. How will you navigate public perception and acceptance of robots? And there was some reference to that earlier, but I'd love to get your thoughts on that. - Yeah, that's a good question about how the public views Spot. So the best thing that I could tell anyone that's going to acquire Spot or for that matter, any type of robot or UAS, I know that the next thing coming out now is the drone first responders is you got to get ahead of it. The way that I would phrase that is don't let the public find out. Tell the public that you have it. When we acquired Spot, before we even rolled it out, we had a conference meeting between Boston Dynamics, public relations or their media section, and our public information office. And to give our public information office props, they are amazing at what they do. But they basically were able to communicate with Boston Dynamics, they learned the stories about what happened with some of the other agencies and the friction that they got from the public. And what they did was they basically created a video on the acquisition of Spot. They put it out all over the department's social media. They said, look, this is something that we have, this is why we have it. A lot of the media channels got interested. And anytime one of the news network gets-- they become interested and they want to find out about it, we invite them. We actually will let the reporter grab the controller. Here, take it for a spin. See how easy it is to actually pilot it. And when they see it and when they interact with it, public perception, typically, at least for what happened with us, went up. We did the same thing with drones. The very first time that we ever used a drone to actually capture a narcotics transaction, a felonious buy, we invited the media. So we tell them, look, this is something we have, this is why we're using it, and we show them beginning to end the entire basically operation of why we bought it, what we had before. And what they come to realize is it's just the next step. That's really all it is. It's just the next evolution in something that we've been utilizing, like I said, for decades already. - Great. How robust is Spot? For instance, if it fell down a flight of stairs during operation, would it be able to continue the mission? Kamila, you want to take that one? - Yeah, sure. So Spot is pretty robust. So I think I touched upon it in the Mass State police incident. Suspect kicks it over, it does have a self-righting feature. As far as stairs and being able to traverse those, I feel like Spot rarely falls down stairs if they're typical standard stairs. So unless you're on some wacky crazy stairs, Spot does pretty well. If it does fall, it does tuck its legs in and slides down on his on his belly. So there is some programming in there that helps minimize some of the damage that's there. But overall, I feel like Spot's in some really crazy environments. Like we're looking at the homes and different buildings. But even in some of our other industries, we're in nuclear facilities, oil and gas, mining, those are some really crazy environments, and Spot's being successful in that. So it is-- it's pretty robust. - Yeah, I know-- - There's-- oh, yeah, go ahead, Maurice, sorry. - Yeah, I'll just add on quickly, we've been pretty privileged to be out to and participate with some of our law enforcement customers and some of their trainings and in actual call outs as well. And I can say that Spot was designed from the ground up to be robust and reliable. And we've seen that because we've had a lot of falls with our robots certainly. When we've been out to some of the agency trainings, we've seen Spot take a tumble and get right back up and continue the mission. So I've had numerous firsthand experiences with falls with Spot and it does just fine. - There's a great question. It's like perfectly timed. It almost feels like a plant. Someone asked, what is the expected lifetime of the equipment and which parts wear out the most? What kind of special maintenance is required? - Yeah, I can take that. So expected life of Spot is kind of a hard question because we've really only been selling Spot for the last four or five years. And I know from our sales assets that we use on demonstrations and at trade shows they're at that four or five year mark and they're still kicking. So one of the things that I really like about Boston Dynamics and how we do things is everything can be retrofitted. So even if you had a robot from 2020, there's an upgrade path and a lot of the sensors and things that we've integrated are available on systems all the way from the first generation. I think typically we say five years, but we just haven't reached that life expectancy yet. So, yeah, about five years. - Someone asked this question earlier in the chat. They didn't ask in the Q&A but did catch it and made note of it. What happens if comms is lost between operator and Spot? Does it pause at its current location or return home? - Yeah. - That's a great question. - Yeah, there's a couple of things there. So as the operator, once you're operating the robot, there's a bunch of cues that you need to be aware of. So we do give you signal strength of the connection that you have with that radio on the robot side. So as you start seeing that comms are degrading, you can take some actions whether deploying another radio node, or maybe changing your position, putting the antenna higher or outside, and things like that. So I think that's one thing to prevent your communications lost. And then once communication is lost, it's really what the user has programmed the robot to do. So it could do one of three things, I guess. One, it can sit and just wait for communication to regain. You can set a setting so that it just freezes so it will keep standing until its battery degrades and then sits down. So you can keep it standing. And then third, there is not a return to home, it walks a path back up to and you can set the distance that it walks back. So for example if you walk around a corner and you lose communications, if you have that return function turned on, it will come back around that corner and then hopefully you'll regain comms at that point. - I'm just going to ask a couple more questions. Lieutenant Rego, what's the most unique reaction you've seen in your deployments on scenes? Anything interesting anecdotes around that and how people react to the robot? - Yeah, good question. We've employed Spot now for a year. And we haven't had any negative reactions from a subject towards Spot in any of the cases where Spot has actually made visual contact with a subject and the subject has actually seen it. We had one gentleman actually in a call out basically see the robot but ignore it. What we ended up learning afterwards he was basically inebriated. So he just basically saw it, didn't know what to make of it, and ignored it. Actually one month prior to us having acquired Spot, we actually had a situation where we had to utilize our Titus robot that actually went into a structure and it was shot at by a subject. Now, is that a bad thing? No, it actually basically highlights a few things. Number one, I would much rather the robot get shot than one of my officers. And number two, you actually start to develop the subject's intentions. So if the subject actually did shoot it, you basically know where his mindset is at that point. And again, as was the case with the Spot robot that they were highlighting in the beginning of the webinar, I would much rather have the robot get shot at than one of our personnel. But have we had any adverse reactions to someone actually like so far hitting Spot or shooting at it? No, no we have not. - Cool. What is our aftercare like? Kamila, maybe you can highlight a little bit about our warranty. - Oh, yeah. So we have this thing called Spot Care. And that's our warranty/service plan. So the first year comes with the robot, and then there's optional years that you can purchase after that. So a lot of times when an agency is interested, the command staff will ask, how much is this robot going to cost me to maintain year over year? So by purchasing Spot Care for multiple years, you have essentially this comprehensive service plan where if something goes wrong with the robot, you call us up or send an email, we'll send you-- we'll try to troubleshoot. But if we can't troubleshoot over the phone, we'll send you shipping labels, you'll ship the robot back to us, we'll fix it within 10 days, and then return the robot to you. So it really does take away some of those actions of getting shipping labels, getting a quote for what the repair could do or diagnostic fees that need to be paid separate from repair fees. It's just one fixed price that really covers some of the repairs that might happen in some of these situations. So that's a good option that we have. Obviously, you can do a la carte so as repairs are needed, you can also just RMA those separately outside of Spot Care. - Cool. I think we have time for one more question. Lieutenant Rego, what for folks that are new on your team, what's training look like? I know when you first got it, you had training with FLYMOTION. But how long do people need on the robot? How do you roll it out with your team? - So actually, again, good question. The unit that really kind of oversees Spot and utilizes Spot and drives it the incident management team, they regularly train on Spot. It was actually a couple of weeks ago there's a local high school here, private school that has a pretty amazing robotics lab. It's part of one of their magnet programs. And we were actually invited to go over there. And when you look at their robotics lab, they have all these sorts of little gizmos and contraptions that you can actually create obstacle courses. And these are obstacle courses that they create for very, very miniature drones. So our guys actually go out there and they test each other, they challenge one another. So they'll create obstacle courses with boxes and PVC pipe, and they'll basically tell one another, OK, you got to get from here to here utilizing Spot. These are your boundaries, you can move things out of the way, whatever the case may be. They'll give each other a time limit, and basically they make it for all intents and purposes, almost like an interactive game where they're basically just like I said, challenging one another. They do robotics integration with that so they'll get Spot. They'll basically tell one another, OK, you need to get Spot from here to here, but you need to move certain objects to get the-- bring the lemur drone through-- you got to find an object, pick it up, and bring it back. When it comes to required training, as of right now, it's typically there operating the robot at least four hours a week. So that would be four hours on a 40 hour schedule. They do that intermixed and a lot of times we have a bunch of facilities here throughout the county that they'll just take the robot, take it through the site whether it's an off site, something at the training bureau, a classroom, whatever the case may be. And they'll just run the robot through try to figure out problem sets. - Amazing. All right, well, thank you so much to our presenters. And if we didn't get to your question, we will definitely be following up. If you're interested, you'll be receiving an email at the end of this webinar. Raise your hand if you'd like to speak with sales a little bit more about Spot. And yeah, thank you again. Thank you again to our presenters, and we'll see you next time.