UAS News Podcast — 2012-09-26
Transcript
Alright, hello everyone. Welcome to another installment in the UAS News Podcast Series. Looks like we're going to discuss some more issues relevant to the Unmanned Technologies community, which we do every week and people seem to enjoy. The UAS News Podcast Series, we try to interview the newsmakers and the people who are relevant to the technology globally.
And we're going to keep doing that. I am your program host, Patrick Egan, and let's say a big hello to our co-host, Gene Robinson. Gene. Hello out there, Patrick, from the lovely Sierra in the Battle Mountains.
We're out enjoying the fresh, clean air and made the podcast, you know, made it to the internet in time to make the podcast this morning and we're happy to be here. Well, I know we were both in the Sierra. I was in Northern California and you were in Southern California and I was really enjoying it. I like I like to go up to the mountains and hang out, drink a little beer and work on podcasts, show prep and checklists and whatnot.
It's a lot of fun. I hope you and the the missus are having a good time here in California. Well, indeed, and it's kind of funny because my wife made mention that I hardly ever get away from unmanned aircraft. And of course, we're right here by Channel Lake where there's so much going on with the unmanned aircraft industry and we've been keeping our eyes peeled to find one of the little beggars flying around.
And they're pretty tough to spot. But every once in a while, you can see and hear something that you know is up there. But it's very difficult to find in this clear mountain air sometimes. Yeah, it is.
They're hard to spot sometimes. But, you know, that's kind of that's kind of I think part of the charm sometimes. Hey, there goes an email. Anyway.
OK, well, this week's episode is in depth and informative look into AVSI website knowledge offerings. And our guest is going to be Chris Mallee, vice president of knowledge resources for AVSI. And we got him on his on hold. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the last.
Well, you weren't on the last one. We had Ted Wiersbanowski on. He's the chairman for ASTM F-38. And that was a good conversation.
We also got the background into the X-29 program, which I thought was a pretty interesting conversation. I don't know if you got a chance to listen to that, Gene. Did you get a chance to listen to that?
I did. I did. And it was extremely interesting. Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, that's kind of stuff that we bring here to the table.
I mean, you know, you know, where else are you going to go hear about that? I remember, you know, when when it was on the arc, Ted was talking about the program and that they were trying to use the composites. And that was kind of some of the first times they were releasing composites and that forward swept wing and, you know, all the issues with flexing and whatnot. And everything they overcame, I was listening, you know, I was glued to that story.
So here's some more about that. It's pretty good. I did get a little feedback that I didn't beat him up enough about perceived conflicts of interest and whatnot. You know, I got to tell people I can't, you know, bring people on this show.
I like to think of this show as something where we have a nice conversation. What did you create with that that format, Gene?
Oh, yeah. Well, we, you know, we certainly have had the opportunity to kind of beat people up if we wanted to, but we really need to let them give their side of the story and let them tell us what's going on in their world before we get a more right in there and start beating them up. It's not this is not the venue, I think, to do that all the time, for sure. Well, I mean, you know, if you have guests on, I think it's rude to beat them up, you know.
I mean, you know, I want them to get on and tell their side of the story. They can get out here and say, hey, this is what's going on, which is the same thing with the ASTM thing. Part of getting that on there. I mean, you know, people probably read some of my articles and I'm a little harsh, but, you know, I'm harsh for a reason.
And the reason is, is I think that small business is getting the dirty end of the stick. Okay, so I have to kind of say, okay, well, I'm doing this in the, let's say, you know, as the champion of small business. And some people say, well, we don't need that and yada yada. I don't agree with that.
But, you know, changes have been made because of the actions that I've made. And I think they're all changes in the positive. You know, if more daylight is on the process or the citizens of the United States can read the proposed legislation or the laws before they come out. Okay, call me whenever you want.
I know as mission accomplished. But the ASTM thing, I wanted to get Ted on here. I wanted to talk about it. And I think that Gene, you brought up a good point.
Let people get involved and see for themselves. Then they can hear their own horse's mouth right there, right?
Yeah, and that's the main thing. Everybody talks about an informed voter is a smart voter. And that's really what we want to encourage people to do is to go out and to contact their representatives and to contact the people who actually hold or can steer the things that affect this industry the most. And get it from those guys.
They're the ones that will tell you. And we'll get enough opinion together that we will get a complete picture of where we're headed. And that's so important. Yeah, get involved, man.
See for yourself. Don't you know?
It's kind of funny. I go through the numbers of the podcast and they swing wildly. Again, it's like, oh, I think this is going to be a great podcast. And we got this guest on.
And it kind of fizzles. But it seems like the podcast that we do, we get on here. And we rant and rave and talk about the problems and the things that we need to do. Those are the ones that people are listening to.
Who to thunk it? We got to give the public what they want. And that's going to segue right into the next part. Two weeks ago, we did the podcast on the road.
And we were talking about what we were going to go to. And I know, Gene, I saw the picture. You were out there at the Rayburn House office building for the UAV or UA caucus. And I want you to give us a rundown, buddy.
What was going on? What happened?
What did you do? Who did you see?
And did you get one of those fat federal business opportunity, $100 million contracts? Well, I didn't get one of those, Patrick. But to say that we didn't get to talk to the people who could make a difference is an understatement. We met with several congresspeople.
Of course, we met with Buck McKeon, whose district I'm in right now. And with Henry Quayar. And both of those guys are the co-chairs of the Unmanned Aircraft Integration Committee for Congress. And they were very interested in what we had to say.
We were, and it's a very closed venue. There were only 15 people who were there in the foyer, 15 representatives. And of the 15, 14 of them were DOD contractors. And we were a civilian provider of aircraft and services.
And we really kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. But you know, I kind of relished that. And it was very interesting to get comments from those guys as to how we were approaching business and what the obstacles were. And they were very attentive.
I thought that perhaps we might get just kind of an obligatory nod and move on. But these guys were very interested. I met with McKeon's liaison, Major Joe DePorter. And he was very direct and to the point and said, what do you want me to convey to the congressman?
Tell me, you know, give me the management summary. Let's move ahead and get this into him. And I did make those points about small business. I did make those points about the small UAs and commercial possibilities.
And he took it and was very open with me. And he met with me privately. So it's not like we were all jockeying for positions. So in that case, I was very impressed with the fact that they were as attentive as they were.
Now, I've already been notified that Congressman Cuellar from the district in South Texas wants to meet with me again about some of the things that we're doing. We're very encouraged by that. He is very interested in continuing the war on drugs in his district with Mexico. He related a story about how he was visiting Mexico City with one of his counterparts there.
And they had an Elbit model, one of the Israeli UA sitting on the desk. And Congressman Cuellar asked him, he said, you know, we give you $12.5 billion a year, and you're using Israeli UA's. What's up with that?
So I thought that was kind of an interesting little anecdote from the Congressman there. Well, that kind of plays into also the Colombians who bought $50 million worth of Israeli UA's. And how many billions do you think we've given the Colombians?
A couple of bucks. And this is not to denigrate the Israelis because Israelis have been doing this for a long time and they do have good systems. There is no doubt about it. But, you know, if we're given any, we should be given the same opportunity to be able to provide the technology that we have, which is comparable in many ways.
And we're a heck of a lot closer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, you know, no slight on the Israelis. I mean, anytime I bring that up on the show, it's like, you know, good on you.
You're making some money in the field and we need more income streams to support the whole infrastructure and whatever else. I just think like you were saying with the Mexican government, how much money we've given them an aid. Same with the Colombians. But this is symptomatic of the problem that we have here with integration and all the rest of that.
Whatever. There's a long list of problems with that, but that sounds like that was good. I also was in Texas while you were in D.C. and I went down there to Lubbock and I went to the Economic Development Committee Forum.
I got a real good look at what's going on and, you know, I'm pretty impressed. People are gung-ho. They want to get this technology there. I think everyone was looking for me to give them a silver bullet like, you know, here's the answer.
This is how you get this technology and these people to come to your district and set up shop. They did not get that from me. I did tell them that, you know, you're going to need to entice these people. You're going to need to bring it in.
I tried to impart some knowledge on them that we gleaned, say, from Steve from MLB and say, hey, you know, you got to make something here where people want to come here and they'd be foolish not to come here, you know, and they said, well, we don't do venture capital. But you know what?
That's not really true. I think that they need to look at other ways of doing things and bringing people in and the technology and the infrastructure and maybe, you know, give people a break on rent and some other things. I told them the tax credits, you know, tax credits work really good if I'm Occidental Petroleum. That's the match for mom and pop, you know.
I have a corporation myself. I don't have a corporation to pay taxes. Anybody that thinks corporations pay taxes, that's not why you set up a corporation. Instead of a corporation not to pay taxes, instead of paying taxes, you buy equipment or hire people or invest in technology or, you know, do some R&D or whatever.
So I tried to put that on them. Instead of giving, you know, there was a blimp company there from Canada was looking for money. Instead of, you know, giving one guy $10 million or $8 million or whatever, maybe you should spread that out. And that's some sort of park where these people can kind of lean on each other, engineers, you know, business people, artists.
It goes right back to that whole steam thing I was talking about. We're going to have to work on them some more. I don't think people really understand it, but that's kind of the premise for today's show. We're going to talk to Chris Balliere and we're going to bring him on here in just a sec.
And we're going to talk about some of the opportunities here with robotics and unmanned technologies. And so I guess we might as well bring him on. Let's see if he's here. Chris, are you there?
Hey, everybody. I'm here. All right. He's on.
We were just talking. Me and Gene, you probably listened in to what we were talking about and that kind of segues into today's show. You know, I gave a brief introduction of who you are and you're the vice president of knowledge resources for ADVSI. But possibly you could give us a little bio about who you are and how you got to be in this position for the audience.
Do you think you can do that for me, sir? Sure. Real quick, I started robotics, well, really in high school. But in college, I was part of the Duke team and we did the AUVSI underwater robotics competition.
So I owe a lot to AUVSI. And the competition was held out in San Diego on the Naval base there. And they hired me straight out of the competition. In true military fashion or government fashion, the paperwork took nine months.
But I worked there until about just over a year ago. So mainly underwater robotics. I do have a... So mainly underwater.
I'm not an air guy, first off. I do have a patent on launching an air vehicle, but it was from underwater. So it's still an underwater project for me. I did some time at the Pentagon.
Pentagon is a very interesting place, we'll just say that. And I can only take so much of it. So I left to really do my own consumer robotic, consumer robot. It's working in my basement.
Well, it's still in my basement, but I'm working on it. And then Mike Piscano said wanted to bring me on to really help out the entire community and really open up the commercial market for robotics. So you know Mike Piscano, he's a good talker. So here I am.
Yeah, he's a good talker and he's a pretty good LOS impersonator. You know, he was standing next to people talking about Elvis and they didn't realize that was him. They're like, why are you standing there?
I just want a picture of Elvis. And then, you know, so what do you think?
When I saw that first sign, I was like, that guy looks real familiar. And I know it's not Elvis, but it's... So yeah, it took me a little while to put it together. That was pretty funny.
All right, well, for the audience, you know, I first met you came out to one of our Silicon Valley chapter meetings and you were there for the Silicon Valley Robotics Block Party. And then also I saw you the last time I saw you, you were putting your engineering degree to work at the VIP booth at Unmanned Systems North America. I remember you helping me out there, but any reflections on the Robotics Block Party before we proceed?
Yeah, well, it's always fun to mix nerds and alcohol. So you all throw a good party out in California. I think the big thing out of that event is it was it was hobbyist and the commercial side. I heard you all talking before a lot about the defense companies.
And I don't think there was a single defense company there. And then after that event, there was also the Mega Startup Weekend where they're looking at robotic startups and there wasn't any defense talk there too. So very healthy in that side. So it was a very good event.
Well, that's one thing about Silicon Valley or California, I should say, Northern California. A lot of people have like a negative opinion of the DOD. Whatever. There are some vendors there that will not do any military work, which is OK.
Everybody to each their own. I'm OK with that. I was impressed with that whole thing. I think we did a show on it, but it was very interesting.
And I think you were there. We were talking to the guys that came up with the robot that makes drinks. Were you there for that?
Oh, yeah. I remember those guys. They came by. Have you seen the videos?
You know, I haven't watched the videos, but I am intrigued by their product. And someday I'd like to have them on because I think that's something that's totally useful. We put them together making the martinis with the MIT kids with doing the James Bond theme with the quadcopters. And I think we really have something.
I'm shaking that stirds there. Yeah, so that was a good thing. But that was the first time we met. Then you were on Man Citizens North America.
Any reflections on the show, sir? Oh, it was a great show. Always a good show. I don't know if we had record attendees or not, but a lot of cool new products, a lot of people there, a lot of good excitement.
FAA administrator, he was a great speaker. It was very different being in this perspective, being on staff, because I've always been a DOD employee going to this. And it's a hard event to put on, I will say that. We put on a good show and it is not easy, but the staff makes it look easy.
They do. I would agree with that. It's big. I know that I came home from that thing exhausted.
I just talked to a boatload of people. And to be honest, anyone who's listening that was expecting me to follow up, I haven't even had time to follow up on any of the people that I met. It's just been a nuthouse around here. But it was a great show.
I think there's a lot of interest in this technology and the robotics technology. A lot of people there from the press, people making movies, all kinds of action in that department. I thought it was good. And again, you are correct.
The AEBSI staff put on a good show. I know there was a lot of work went into that. And I'm sure you guys came home from that deal just totally exhausted. You know, the other thing that was kind of funny is when they were setting up and the guys that were working at the hotel and helping set up the venue, I remember a lot of them were just like, wow, look at this, does this really work?
A lot of them were looking at models and whatever else. Now that's a model. What about this?
Yeah, that actually flies out. Really?
Wow. They were just blown away. So it's kind of cool to get some layperson insight into that too. And I don't want to spend too much time on it.
We can probably talk about the show for the whole remaining time. But I want to get into a little bit about the website. I know you guys are trying to, let's say, build out the website. And I want to talk about, obviously we have you on for this reason.
I want to talk about the Knowledge tab at aevs.org. So can you tell me a little about that?
Maybe what the philosophy is behind it, that section, education, business, general information. Well, it came out of, the big one was there was a Bloomberg article about crash rates for UAS versus manned aircraft. And we get a lot of media calls asking, they said this, what is your response to that?
And so most of my work has been internal for a variety of tasks, but that's been one of them. And I was looking for a different venue to lay out my response and me actually looking at the data to come to what I think is a better conclusion. So I created the tab because I really didn't have a good place to put that. So that's how it started.
And from there it's just evolved of questions I've had over time or people have brought in over time. If it's a good question, a lot of people have had it, then I try to put a blog about it so people can search about it over time. So I'm trying to use that as a way to engage the community, get them some good information or to make better decisions on the business. So it's another benefit to membership, I guess, also?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's not available to just members. Everybody can access it. So I'm not sure it's a direct member benefit. But if you're a member, you can always call me and ask me questions.
I'm here for the members. Well, that's good. I mean, I was just trying to figure that out. So that is for everyone.
But I think it's a good thing, too. And as we dove into the subject a little bit more, because I do hear a lot of the membership are, what's A-E-B-S-I doing for us?
It's like, well, we had Gretchen on and we kind of talked about some of the directions that A-E-B-S-I is going and things like that. And I think that this knowledge thing, there is, like, say, a big vacuum for information on robotics and unmanned technologies. And I'm glad to see that you guys are moving in this direction, because I think, you know, there are a lot of people out there. And I noticed this, too, at the Silicon Valley Robotics Block Party, that venture capital people came in from around the world.
And they were there to check that show out, which is, I think, pretty impressive. But one of the things was, you know, I talked to some people, hey, you know, what about unmanned technologies?
Oh, we'd love to be in unmanned technologies. We just, we don't really know enough about it to know if we're going to, you know, be successful or not. And I think that this kind of plays right into that. Did you see any of that?
I agree. And again, that's why I came on, is to really push the community into these new markets and provide the information that, and it's really compelling information. I know we're going to talk about the one report. We've got a couple other things coming down that really puts a compelling case of, hey, there's, you know, people should be investing in this because there's a lot of potential money into it.
I know you've talked a lot about using UAVs domestically, and you had the company doing the work, you're making money. But you are one person. So one thing we're doing is taking a big snapshot of it. Once we open the airspace again, what's the market going to look like?
What are the jobs? How much money are we talking about in these different applications?
So you're probably going to want me, have me or somebody smarter on in December because we'll have that coming out and about the Thanksgiving time frame. That would be some big ammo for us. We would like to, you know, a lot of the guests that we have on there, we want them to come back because this is an evolving thing. And, you know, I'm going to draw Gene in on this one.
And, you know, I may be totally off space, but the feedback I get, I mean, I talk to people all week, almost every day, oh, you know, I started a company, I got a product, got it, got it, got it, I'm doing this. Now I want to start flying. And it's almost getting to the point where I think that the technology part, and I don't want to just dwell on the unmanned aircraft systems, but that's, I feel most of the calls because of the regulation part of it. It almost seems to me like building the systems, the easy part in the business equation.
What do you think, Gene? Yeah, well, you know, the platform is, I noticed an article yesterday that it looks like California is probably going to embrace the self-guided automobile here pretty soon. And if you'll remember, we had a pretty good podcast, you know, a few back on the unmanned vehicle as far as automobiles are concerned. And yeah, you're right.
I mean, it's just a tremendous amount of paperwork to overcome to get it out legally and to make sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. I think that we'll probably see that on the ground, and I'm sure, Chris, you'll probably agree now that you've had your underwater experience, that we can't capably navigate a car. It's just some of the other minor details that are going to have to be resolved before they actually get out into the wild. I don't disagree.
One area we're pushing is in driverless cars because we see that as a thing greatly affecting humanity over the next 10 to 20 years. In the market to buy two new cars probably in the next two years, and I'm thinking those are probably the last two cars I'll buy that I may drive, which is kind of cool. And I'm pretty excited about that. Well, that's all very exciting technology.
Just to come back though, too, we keep beating this drum about people getting educated before they get into this business. Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I get a little frustrated. I got to be honest because they're like, OK, well, we've got this product. It works.
It does all this. It can do all that. And I hear all these uses, and I know what they are. I've heard so many uses.
I'm almost sick. And how we're sitting on our hands. But the thing that really starts frustrating me at the end is everybody says, well, I spent all my money on development. And here I am, and now I'm ready to sell my product.
And then I find out that I can't sell my product. Or even where I got another email from a woman this week that bought a very expensive system, over six figures. They used it for about a month and a half and then got a letter from the FAA telling them it was illegal to use it. As far as I'm concerned, if the manufacturer didn't tell those people about the legal ramifications and sold them something for six figures, to me, that's weapons-grade BS right there, man.
And I think that they should give them their money back. And if they don't, I think the community, we need to police ourselves and say, people like that, manufacturers like that, they've got to go. I don't think that that was fair to do to somebody. But the end point with that is, again, please get educated before you get into this field.
And I think that kind of segues right back into the subject today. Let's talk about that paper that's up there now. I want to talk about the home health care background and market opportunities for robotics. There's some staggering statistics and numbers contained there.
And while you were doing that, Chris, what was the big takeaway for you? What did you learn from that paper together?
The biggest thing for me on my side is it's not going to be Rosie from the Jefferson. That's the expectation everybody has since the 70s about robotics in the home. And we haven't gotten there. Yeah, we've got all these robotics, but we've never seen Rosie.
So everybody wonders where we are. There's a lot of potential in just something simple as a Roomba, in helping out within the home. So we're going to see stuff. And if you look at the paper, there's talking about how you can eat better, walk, little things.
I mean, it's amusing in the end, but a toilet seat that moves up and down to lift a person up and to sit them down so that someone doesn't need somebody to help them go to the bathroom. I mean, in the end, technology-wise, it's so ridiculously simple. But if you need that help, you'd be pretty happy to have that toilet. I agree with that.
And the other thing is, too, is that I looked it over and there were some pictures. They had a feeding assist, like arm or robot, that would help feed somebody. And then we talked about regulation. And I don't think that we've got the driverless car thing and there's going to be some regulation.
But did you look at, like, say, any FDA regulation or who's going to regulate these medical robots or even the assisted toilet? I can see an ASTM committee, F something. I don't know what. But we're going to have to come up with standards for the self-lifting toilet and the assisting spoon-fed thing.
You know? What do you think?
I think that'd be a pretty amusing standards committee to be on about how high do you lift the toilet and to walk through that whole setup. When I was government, I was at an FDA meeting and they had a bunch of people in there, not just government people. But the FDA's perspective is if you are marked, and this is what it took me half a day to realize this, most I realized that it all makes sense. If you market your commercial device as a healthcare product, then it falls under the FDA.
And so they may need to regulate it on some level. And this was four years ago. So they've got people looking into this and there's products out there now. If you don't market it as such, then they don't regulate it.
The example they used was Segways. There was a group called Segs for Vets that wanted to buy Segways for veterans and they wanted to use some sort of either military healthcare or other healthcare to help pay for it. And the FDA or in the healthcare side, they wouldn't pay for it because they said the FDA doesn't regulate it. And the FDA says, we're not going to regulate it because Segway doesn't market themselves as a healthcare company.
Well, you know, again, I say this all the time. It's like, look, you're getting the gold right here on the SQAS news podcast. Because you're just giving somebody... Now I'm thinking about this spoon feed assist thing.
And I'm thinking, well, if I was developing that, it would just be like the silver spoon feeding assist or anything, any reference to any medical stuff in there at all. And I think I could probably get that to market probably 10 years earlier than if I was calling it some kind of medical device. Agree?
Disagree? Well, and there's the how do they pay for it?
And it's all about money in the end. When I moved to DC, my father told me something brilliant. And I'll leave you with one smart thing and the rest of the things I say, I can't guarantee. But he said...
He knew I was going to the Pentagon. He said, don't forget this. It's no matter what they're talking about, they're not telling you everything. And no matter what they're talking about, they're talking about money.
So no matter what, it's all about money in the end. Well, maybe we could have like the military assisted toilet seat and we could justify the 800 bucks. Although, from my experience with the military thing, it's like so compartmentalized. And I mean, oh my God, that's a story for another day.
But that sounds like some good insight from the old man. It's kind of funny. It took me a while too when I was around 18. The old man would tell you stuff and you're like, ah, he doesn't know anything.
And about a month later, I was like, hmm, you know, maybe he does know something. It sounds like you kind of have the same type of dad, Chris. Good stuff. Good stuff.
So the whole health paper, back to money. The big thing I focused on when we were doing this research was focus on money. The background business case. We've got the big numbers is a home caregiver loses almost $700,000 over a lifetime.
So there's big numbers. You know, $700,000, if you can build a robot for, you know, 10-stack cost, which is, you know, highly probable, you can make a big difference. There's some big, big numbers. And then we walk through the background about what the technologies are.
So it's that high level of background. But in the end, it's all about money. You could hire a person to do all this stuff. But if you can do it with a robot for cheaper or better, we can make a difference.
Well, and then there's some other things. I mean, I don't know if you've had any experience with anyone in hospice and not to go Debbie Downer here, but there are a lot of, you know, you kind of bring a person in that's a stranger. There's dignity issues for people. You know, there's embarrassment.
There's bringing in a new person. There's some different, let's say, nuances with that. And in some cases, some of these devices that we're talking about, some of the concepts that we're talking about, I think give people a better, let's say, psychological quality of life. And I'm not only saying hospice.
I mean, there's a lot of things as you get older. I mean, I know even myself, I'm like, this isn't going to be pretty. So it'd be nice to have help in certain areas. Would you, did you notice any of that in this report or was it more focused on the opportunities?
And I think you laid out a nice case for people to say, man, we got to invest in this. But did you find any of those things I was talking about?
I think some people are doing some research about, right, that hospice side and to have a robot holding your hand at the end. There's some research stuff you can search on that. But I think it's a serious question about when we die, somebody's going to live in at least another 20, 30 years, a robot may be the last thing sitting next to you as you kick the bucket. And is there, and what's the quality of life during that whole timeframe?
There's a great movie out called Robot and Frank. I don't know if you all have been able to see it. Didn't see it. But it's a health care robot.
I highly recommend it. I was, I thought it was a ride. And it came out like right after we did this report. So I've been telling everybody on staff to go see it to get another perspective.
Highly recommend it. I won't give away the plot, but basically an elderly man gets a home robot to help take care of him. And at one point, it's so funny, where the guy wants to do something and he asks the robot, and he's, you know, robot, are you in?
And the robot goes, as long as you promise to eat a low salt diet after this. The robot doesn't care. The legality of things he does, just wants to eat a low salt diet. So there's a lot of asthma stuff in there that's well worth watching.
Yeah, well, you know, I'll have to check that out for sure. But the other thing with that is I definitely, like, you know, I want to get back to that. I definitely think that you laid out a case that for people to get into robotics, we have seen some news stories where companies, I mean, I thought it was kind of interesting. It was an Indian company, I believe they're pharmaceutical.
And they got into, they invested heavily into an unmanned aircraft systems company, which seems a little bit of a stretch, you know, and that, you know, maybe they should have invested more in some sort of robotics thing, you know, but again, maybe people don't know. I don't think people really know, even the thing I just spoke at in Texas, I was talking about the medical robots and prosthetics and,
you know, go to the doctor and they got this da Vinci system where the guy's in there, the guy, the physician is in there holding actuators and he's flying the robot actuators in your body, you know, it's four incisions that are eight millimeters long, he flies in there, he's doing the work, they say they have more range of motion, everything else, ba da boom, ba da bing, you're in, you're out, you know, less time in the hospital, less chance for infection, cheaper, better, faster, six million dollar man,
and I, you know, I think that that's the not too distant future.
Would you agree with that? Oh, absolutely, and it's not just going to happen in one or two spots, it's going to happen a lot of places, and that's why we're doing these reports is to really get a high level overview, put it at a price point that people can buy. The idea is, you know, your boss walks in and says, you know, we need to get into healthcare robotics, or you can sit on the internet for the next four weeks, or
you can spend a hundred bucks, if you're a member, on this report and get up to speed in three hours, and we've got a couple others coming down the line and very, very similar setup.
Hmm, so, well, now the report is what's on the website, is that the full report, or is that, is there more, or I just heard you talk about charting, is that the, is that, does the report cost money, or is it the membership that you're talking about? The report costs money. I sent it to you because we were doing this interview, so that PDF I sent you, that's the full report. Put that out on the internet, no, I'm teasing.
I'm just teasing you. Well, you know, even still, okay, a hundred bucks, you know, you know, there'll be some people, and believe me, and Gene can attest to this, that don't want to spend a nickel on anything. But, but, you know, it just, it goes right back to what I was saying earlier about people getting educated before they start out. I think you're right, you know, a hundred bucks is not really any amount of money when you're talking about getting into a field that's worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
And like you said, you can, you can set some guy loose on the internet for four hours, six hours, three days, four days, or you can come here and get it in one concise report. So I don't think it's a bad value. How'd you come up with the price point though?
Let's just, let me just ask you that. Oh, I'm an electrical engineer, so asking me about price points is a little tough on that side. I got input from other staff on that price point. I really wanted to keep it low.
There's a lot of market reports out there on a lot of things, defense especially. I'm sure you've paid for some, or at least have seen a lot of them. Those range in the 2000 to 7,000 price range, and that's pretty painful. And so you're talking tens of companies that will really afford something like that.
And I want to, again, something at a much lower price point, a high level overview. I don't do a heavy economic analysis that you get out of those big reports, but it's, again, it's good information, as you say, and will really step someone forward rather than having to spend a lot of time on their own. Well, and I do think the price point's good. And it's funny you say that, you know, there's reports.
I've been looking at those, you know, we may do some, offer some of those here at SUS News for like third party. And I'm really looking at that. And a lot of them, I got to tell you, are just telephone numbers. I'm not really seeing anything.
And then, you know, even going back, the new one that I'm using, and I used during my presentation in Texas, was the quote from the FAA Administrator's speech there at the show. And he was talking about, you know, how GA is worth 1.3 trillion of the economy and how many jobs there are. And that's actually the forecast that I use now. So how much of that $1.3 trillion is going to go to unmanned, you know, when that, like 2015, when the congressional mandate and the FAA, all that, all the UAS go into the NAS, you know, how much of that 1.3 trillion that GA has is going to be unmanned, you know.
And that's where I'm looking at numbers. And I agree with you, a lot of those, they're expensive, you don't know what you really get and what you're looking at. And I think that your price point for these papers, if you keep them there, more to the masses. And so, you know, I guess that kind of, you know, we'll go into the next question.
And, you know, I saw the vault thing, and I wanted to talk about what you thought the concept with the vault is. I don't know if we covered that. Did we cover that?
No, we haven't hit the vault yet. So the vault is a single point, any conference or AUV side that you've ever been to, you should be able to pull up the proceedings. I think back to 2009 or 2008. So all the papers and whatnot that you never get to read, because it's after the conference, you have to download them.
This allows you to search them in one spot. If you haven't gone to the conference, you can, you know, buy the papers or you can buy the whole conference proceedings on that side. The big thing we're trying to tie into that, and I don't think we talked about this at the conference, is we've got a vehicle database coming down the line. We've got about 4,000 vehicles and 1,000 companies of pretty much every robot ever built.
Robot unmanned system, I use them interchangeably, the terminology. So air, ground, maritime, about 2,400 air platforms, 700 companies on that side. So we're trying to get that information out. That will be, we're launching the details, or we're starting to sell that probably first quarter 2013.
We'll get ground and maritime going and then the air side will get out there by North America. And that we have to get a higher price point, just because there's always new robots coming down the line. And we want that to be the single up-to-date source for everyone on every robot that's out there. So we're trying to price that so that we can keep somebody funded to keep it updated.
A lot of people have these lists out there, but it's 50 robots and then they get bored and they never update it, so it's three years out of date. And there's no Rosie in there?
No, I don't think we have Rosie on the sci-fi side. All our stuff is at least developmental. But we keep in things like Dart and the old school 60 stuff. We do keep that in there too.
Well, do you want to give the website address, please? So that's vault.aubsi.org. You can check that out. And again, the knowledge tab is just aubsi.org.
And one of the high tabs on the right side is knowledge. And of course, if anybody, if you have questions for me, I'm Chris Maile. And email is cmailey at aubsi.org. Okay.
Well, or you can email me again here, Patrick, at suasnews.com. And I can forward it from my susnews.com. And I can forward it on to Chris. All right.
Well, we've got about a minute left. But I just want to, you know, when do you think some new stuff is going to start hitting the site?
Should people get over there now? And then how often should they be checking back?
We'll check out now. I'd like to get stuff up there weekly, but that's just not happening right now. But the big stuff, and you'll get much better numbers about what the upcoming market for UAS and National Airspace is. That's November, December timeframe.
That's going to be big. We'll be giving that report out. The goal is to give Congress and decision makers, you know, good numbers about what this market is going to be. And so November, December, you better keep your eyes open.
It's going to be exciting times. All right. The market is going to be big. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's going to be big, equalling the defense market.
Yeah, well, I agree with that. I think it'll be gigantic. We'll probably have you come back on in the future and we'll talk about this more as the site kind of develops and the information gets out there. But I want to thank you for coming on today, Chris.
I like talking to you both. All right. Right on. It was very informative.
Gene, have a good week and we'll see you next week. Okay. Everyone take care. See you.
Thanks everybody.