Skydio

Last updated
Skydio
Company type Private
Industry
Founded2014;10 years ago (2014)
FounderAdam Bry, Abe Bachrach and Matt Donahoe
Headquarters
San Mateo, California
,
United States
Key people
Products Unmanned aerial vehicles
Website www.skydio.com

Skydio is an American manufacturer of drones headquartered in San Mateo, California. The company manufactures drones for use in battlefield situational awareness, policing, and inspection. Skydio drones are designed for autonomous operation through the use of computer vision, [1] and can complete fully autonomous missions with the use of a dock to automatically recharge the drone. [2]

Contents

As of February 2023, Skydio drones are used in every branch of the US Department of Defense, by over half of all Departments of Transportation in the US at the state level, and by more than 200 public safety agencies in 47 states. [3] [4] [5] Skydio drones are also used by allies of the United States, including the UK Ministry of Defence, [6] the Israel Defense Forces, [7] and the Indian Armed Forces. [8] Skydio drones are also sold in the commercial market, where they hold a 4% market share as of 2021. [9]

Skydio drones can also carry payloads, such as grenades. [10] However, they have been criticized for failing to fly at the distances advertised or carry substantial payloads, compared to drones designed for the consumer market such as those manufactured by DJI. [11]

The drones integrate directly with the Android Team Awareness Kit, an Android application used by the US military and police. [12] Skydio also develops software applications for their drones. Subject tracking enables following enemy combatants or other persons of interests. [13] A scouting application enables monitoring military convoys for threats from enemy soldiers. [14] The crosshair cooordinates application enables 3D positioning of targets for scouting and weapons targeting purposes. [15] A 3D reconstruction application can also be purchased, which has been used to document war crimes in Ukraine [16] as well as inspect ships for the Royal Canadian Navy. [17]

History

Skydio was founded in 2014 by Adam Bry, Abe Bachrach, and Matt Donahoe, all of whom had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [18]

Adam Bry and Abe Bachrach were in the Robust Robotics Group, researching ways to build aircraft that could fly themselves without GPS, culminating in a fixed wing drone with a laser range finder that autonomously navigated its way around a parking lot. In 2012, Bry and Bachrach helped develop autonomous-control algorithms that could calculate a plane's trajectory and determine its location, physical orientation, velocity, and acceleration. [19] After graduation, in 2012, Bry and Bachrach took jobs at Google working on Project Wing, an autonomous drone project. Seeing a need for autonomy in drones, in 2014, Bry, Bachrach, and Donahoe founded Skydio to fulfill a vision that drones can have enormous potential across industries and applications. [20] Early investors included venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz. [21]

The Skydio X2 drone Skydio X2.webp
The Skydio X2 drone

In March 2021, the company became a unicorn, becoming the first US company that both manufactures and sells its own drones to exceed $1 billion in value. [22] [23]

In February 2023, Skydio announced a $230 million Series E that fund-raised round and the construction of a new manufacturing facility in America. The company said that it has seen a 30x growth over the last three years and is now the largest drone manufacturer in the United States. The Series E round was led by Linse Capital, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Next47, IVP, DoCoMo, Nvidia, Lockheed Martin, Walton Family Foundation, and UP.Partners. Hercules Capital, and Axon, the company behind the Taser and police body cameras, also invested in Skydio. The company claims that its drones are used in every branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, by over half of all U.S. State Departments of Transportation and by more than 200 public safety agencies in 47 states. [24] [25] [26]

In August 2023, Skydio exited the consumer drone market to focus on military, police, and industrial use cases. [27]

Products

Skydio R1

In 2018, the company introduced its first consumer product with the Skydio R1, which cost $2,500. The Skydio R1 had 12 cameras around the body of the drone and a gimbal stabilized 4K main camera. The drone had subject follow mode and obstacle avoidance. [28] The R1 was powered by a Nvidia Jetson on-board computer. [29] Controlling the R1 was done from the Skydio app, using on-screen height and directional toggles. [30]

Skydio 2

The Skydio 2 model came out a year later in October, 2019 and was priced much lower at $999. [31] Skydio 2 combined better obstacle avoidance, a smaller form factor and had 6 navigation cameras instead of 12 compared against the R1. The Skydio 2 also had a gimbal stabilized main camera that was capable of 4K at 60 frames per second, 3.5 kilometers of wireless range, and a 23 minute flight time. The Skydio 2 was powered by the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 and it could be flown by the Skydio controller, Skydio Beacon, or with the Skydio app. [32]

Skydio X2

In 2020, Skydio announced it would design a drone for military and corporate use, which would be named the X2. [31] The third-generation drone from Skydio had folding arms, a thermal camera, and a new touchscreen controller. [33] Flight time was improved from the previous generation to 35 minutes and on the front, there's a 12-megapixel 4k color camera and a 320 x 256 resolution FLIR Boson thermal camera for seeing heat. [34] The Skydio X2 uses the same Skydio Autonomy engine with 6 navigation cameras located on the outside of the drone but now with a thermal camera, [35] 35 min flight time, range, and foldable.The X2 platform offers a 14° to 109°F temperature operating range. Additionally this drone has increased supply chain security with its NDAA [36] compliant certification allowing it to be used at the Federal level.

Skydio X10

Skydio X10 in flight Skydio X10 in flight.jpg
Skydio X10 in flight

The Skydio X10 is a professional autonomous drone announced in September 2023 at the Skydio Ascend conference. [37] It is designed for a wide range of applications, including public safety, inspection, and mapping.

The X10 is equipped with custom-designed high-resolution cameras, including a 64MP narrow camera, a 48MP zoom camera capable of reading license plates at 800 feet, a 50MP wide field of view camera for detecting minute details like 0.1 mm cracks in concrete, and a 640x512 Teledyne FLIR Boson+ radiometric thermal camera for measuring temperature differences during inspection missions or finding a missing person in total darkness.

The X10 is powered by the NVIDIA Jetson Orin processor, which gives it 10x more compute power and 10x higher-fidelity custom-designed navigation cameras than the previous generation. This allows the X10 to navigate with more confidence, avoiding thinner obstacles, in more challenging conditions. The all-new NightSense enables autonomous flight in zero-light environments, so operations can run 24x7. The all-new X10 Spatial AI engine enables real-time environment mapping and fully automated modeling at the edge with 3D Scan and Onboard Modeling.

The X10's airframe is open and modular, featuring four payload bays, replaceable gimbal sensor packages, and an IP55 weather resistance rating. It also includes Skydio Connect, which offers connectivity options for a redesigned point-to-point link, a multi-band radio designed for contested and jammed environments, and a 5G radio for infinite range wherever there is cellular coverage. The X10 is also highly portable, capable of going from folded up in a backpack to in the air in less than 40 seconds.

Government programs

In February 2022 Skydio won the U.S. Army Short-Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Program production agreement. This contract has a first year value of $20.2 million and a total value of $99.8 million over 5 years. [38] The Skydio X2D (RQ-28A) was integrated into the Army at the platoon level. [39] The SRR program, which is described by the service as an effort to develop an inexpensive, rucksack-portable, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) small unmanned aircraft to provide rapidly deployable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. [40]

Controversies

Lobbying issues

Government employees have been accused of an improper relationship with the company. [41]

Skydio CEO Adam Bry posted a statement on LinkedIn claiming Skydio had “nothing to do” with the DJI drone ban bill, and blamed DJI for the “extreme levels of hate” directed at Skydio. [42]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unmanned aerial vehicle</span> Aircraft without any human pilot on board

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forward-looking infrared</span> Type of thermographic camera

Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, typically used on military and civilian aircraft, use a thermographic camera that senses infrared radiation.

iRobot American technology company that produces consumer robots

iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. The company's products include a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners (Roomba), floor moppers, and other autonomous cleaning devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teledyne FLIR</span> U.S. technology company

Teledyne FLIR LLC, formerly FLIR Systems Inc,, a subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies, specializes in the design and production of thermal imaging cameras and sensors. Its main customers are governments and in 2020, approximately 31% of its revenues were from the federal government of the United States and its agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tegra</span> System on a chip by Nvidia

Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), northbridge, southbridge, and memory controller onto one package. Early Tegra SoCs are designed as efficient multimedia processors. The Tegra-line evolved to emphasize performance for gaming and machine learning applications without sacrificing power efficiency, before taking a drastic shift in direction towards platforms that provide vehicular automation with the applied "Nvidia Drive" brand name on reference boards and its semiconductors; and with the "Nvidia Jetson" brand name for boards adequate for AI applications within e.g. robots or drones, and for various smart high level automation purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arm Holdings</span> British multinational semiconductor and software design company

Arm Holdings plc is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England, whose primary business is the design of central processing unit (CPU) cores that implement the ARM architecture family of instruction sets. It also designs other chips, provides software development tools under the DS-5, RealView and Keil brands, and provides systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip (SoC) infrastructure and software. As a "holding" company, it also holds shares of other companies. Since 2016, it has been majority owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambarella Inc.</span> Fabless semiconductor design company

Ambarella, Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor design company, focusing on low-power, high-definition (HD) and Ultra HD video compression, image processing, and computer vision processors. Ambarella's products are used in a wide variety of human and computer vision applications, including video security, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), electronic mirror, drive recorder, driver and in-cabin monitoring, autonomous driving, and robotics applications. Ambarella's system on chips (SoCs) are designed to deliver a combination of video compression, image processing, and computer vision performance with low-power operation to enable cameras to extract data from high-resolution video streams.

ArduPilot is an open source, uncrewed vehicle Autopilot Software Suite, capable of controlling:

Lehmann Aviation Ltd (France), designs and manufactures professional civilian drones/UAVs since 2005. The company has two lines of UAVs: L-A series line of fully automatic drones designed for high precision mapping; construction/mining and precision agriculture; and L-M series line of both automatic and ground-controlled drones for long-range real-time surveillance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DJI</span> Chinese drone manufacturer

SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. or DJI is a Chinese technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, backed by several state-owned entities. DJI manufactures commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for aerial photography and videography. It also designs and manufactures camera systems, gimbal stabilizers, propulsion systems, enterprise software, aerial agriculture equipment, and flight control systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phantom (unmanned aerial vehicle series)</span> Popular prosumer series of UAVs marketed to photographers, surveyors and filmmakers

The DJI Phantom is a series of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), typically quadcopters, developed by Chinese technology company DJI. DJI Phantom devices were released between 2013 and 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Movidius</span> American computer processor chip design company

Movidius is a company based in San Mateo, California, that designs low-power processor chips for computer vision. The company was acquired by Intel in September 2016.

Nvidia Drive is a computer platform by Nvidia, aimed at providing autonomous car and driver assistance functionality powered by deep learning. The platform was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2015. An enhanced version, the Drive PX 2 was introduced at CES a year later, in January 2016.

A vision processing unit (VPU) is an emerging class of microprocessor; it is a specific type of AI accelerator, designed to accelerate machine vision tasks.

Wang Tao, better known as Frank Wang, is a Chinese aerospace engineer and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of the Shenzhen-based technology company DJI, the world's largest manufacturer of commercial drones. As of December 2020, he has a net worth of US$4.8 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DJI Mavic</span> Series of teleoperated compact quadcopter drone models

The DJI Mavic is a series of teleoperated compact quadcopter drones for personal and commercial aerial photography and videography use, released by the Chinese technology company DJI.

PrecisionHawk was a commercial drone and data company. Founded in 2010, PrecisionHawk is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with another global office in Toronto, Canada and satellite offices around the world. PrecisionHawk is a manufacturer of drones (Lancaster) and has more recently focused heavily on developing software for aerial data analysis (DataMapper) and drone safety systems (LATAS). PrecisionHawk is a member of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Pathfinder Initiative and the NASA UTM Program. An angel investor in the company, Bob Young, founder of Red Hat, became CEO in August 2015. In August 2016, PrecisionHawk became the first U.S. company to receive an FAA exemption to commercially fly drones beyond the operator's visual line of sight.

Nvidia Jetson is a series of embedded computing boards from Nvidia. The Jetson TK1, TX1 and TX2 models all carry a Tegra processor from Nvidia that integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU). Jetson is a low-power system and is designed for accelerating machine learning applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DJI Ronin</span>

DJI Ronin is a series of motorized camera stabilization gimbals and digital movie cameras manufactured by DJI, a Chinese drone manufacturer.

Autel Robotics Co., Ltd. is a Chinese aerial drone manufacturer.

References

  1. ↑ "Asymmetric Advantages for the Free World: Skydio X10D and the Next Evolution of Human-Machine Teaming". 9 November 2023.
  2. ↑ "This is the dock that lets Skydio drones truly fly themselves". 7 December 2022.
  3. ↑ "Skydio soars to a $2.2 billion valuation after raising $230m Series E . The company says it is seen". www.selligence.com. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  4. ↑ Burns, Matt (2023-02-27). "Skydio soars to a $2.2 billion valuation after raising $230M Series E". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  5. ↑ "Skydio Raises $230M in Series E Funding Round, Becomes Largest US Drone Manufacturer". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  6. ↑ "MCL and Skydio Awarded £3 Million Contract for MOD Spiral 4".
  7. ↑ "Israel's appetite for high-tech weapons highlights a Biden policy gap". Politico .
  8. ↑ "US drone major Skydio ties up with Aeroarc of India". The Times of India. 21 February 2024.
  9. ↑ "How Has 2021 Changed the Drone Industry?". 14 September 2021.
  10. ↑ "Modernizing the Fight from Above: Testing and Training on Critical Capability Using New Technology". 28 February 2023.
  11. ↑ "How American Drones Failed to Turn the Tide in Ukraine".
  12. ↑ https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/22838103434907-How-to-set-up-ATAK-with-the-Skydio-X10-Controller.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  13. ↑ "Skydio X10D".
  14. ↑ "Improved Situational Awareness with Drones for Military and Law Enforcement".
  15. ↑ https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/23710736220699-How-to-use-Crosshair-Coordinates-DTED-on-Skydio-X10D.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  16. ↑ "USAID Delivers Skydio Drones to Ukraine to Document War Crimes".
  17. ↑ https://dronedj.com/2023/03/17/drone-inspection-royal-canadian-navy/.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. ↑ Manjoo, Farhad (13 February 2018). "The Autonomous Selfie Drone Is Here. Is Society Ready for It?". The New York Times .
  19. ↑ "The Autonomous 'Selfie Drone'". cacm.acm.org. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
  20. ↑ "The autonomous "selfie drone"". MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 13 March 2018. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
  21. ↑ Popper, Ben (2015-01-15). "Meet the tiny startup building self-navigating drones". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  22. ↑ "Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz". TechCrunch. March 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  23. ↑ "American company Skydio becomes first U.S. drone company to reach $1 billion valuation". CNBC. 2021-03-11. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  24. ↑ "Skydio soars to a $2.2 billion valuation after raising $230m Series E . The company says it is seen". www.selligence.com. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  25. ↑ Burns, Matt (2023-02-27). "Skydio soars to a $2.2 billion valuation after raising $230M Series E". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  26. ↑ "Skydio Raises $230M in Series E Funding Round, Becomes Largest US Drone Manufacturer". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  27. ↑ Roth, Emma (2023-08-10). "Skydio is pivoting to enterprise — its consumer drones are dead". Verge. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  28. ↑ "Skydio R1". Drone Rush. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
  29. ↑ kangalow (2018-02-14). "Skydio R1 - Jetson TX1 Based Self-Flying Camera". JetsonHacks. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
  30. ↑ Statt, Nick (2018-04-05). "The Skydio R1 autonomous drone is an action sport enthusiast's dream come true". The Verge. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  31. 1 2 French, Sally (2019-10-05). "The Skydio 2 is here - and it costs less than $1,000". The Drone Girl. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
  32. ↑ "Inception Spotlight: New Skydio 2 Drone Powered by NVIDIA Jetson". NVIDIA Technical Blog. 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
  33. ↑ "Skydio X2 Drones Get Folding Body, Thermal Camera, Longer Flight And A New Controller". SlashGear. 2020-07-13. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  34. ↑ "Skydio X2 Autonomous Drone - Skydio Inc". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  35. ↑ "Skydio X2 FLIR Thermal Drone Palette Options". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  36. ↑ "DIU's first wave of policy compliant commercial drones". www.diu.mil. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  37. ↑ "Ascend 2023: Unveiling Skydio X10". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  38. ↑ McNabb, Miriam (2022-02-09). "Skydio Wins US Army SRR Program Production Agreement". DRONELIFE. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  39. ↑ Helfrich, Emma (2022-12-07). "Army Fields Its New RQ-28A Quadcopter Recon Drone (Updated)". The Drive. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  40. ↑ "New short range reconnaissance capability begins fielding to Soldiers". www.army.mil. 12 October 2022. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  41. ↑ "Blue SUAS Problems and DMS Secretary Pimping for Skydio". 31 March 2023.
  42. ↑ "Testifying for the China Select Committee and Policy Restrictions on Chinese Drones".


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.