sUAS News Podcast — 2015-01-27
Transcript
Welcome to the next installment of the SUS News Podcast Series where we interview newsmakers and discuss the news and applications relevant to the global unmanned technologies community. This week's episode is Superdrones. I'm your program host, Patrick Egan, and let me introduce to you our guest, Professor Tony Dyson. Hi everybody, hi, hi, hi.
When it comes to robot technicians, Tony's quite unique as well as building one of the most famous robots ever, R2D2, and you kind of have to be hiding under a rock not to know who that is. He has also designed and built robots for some of the largest electronic companies in the world, for example, Sony, Phillips, and Toshiba. So I think I'd like to launch right in here, Tony. How did you first become involved with robotics?
Well, that's a good question actually. Accidentally, because I wanted to work in the studio, I didn't have ideas of working in special effects, which is of course what I ended up doing. I was really thinking about anything because my mother got me weaned on film when I was very, very young. And I used to go, oh, oh God, I want to work in films, I want to work in films, like millions of people around the world.
And so I kept on trying to come up with something to get me into the studio. And what happened is I just pushed, pushed, pushed. And at the end, I got a break. I knew that Alien would be made at a studio in the UK called Bray.
And I rang them up for three days running. And they felt sorry for me. And they put me through to a division doing special effects. And they said to me, have you got a green card?
And I said, nope. And I said, how do you get one?
He said, you work on a film. I said, how do I work on a film?
He said, you have to have a green card. Great stuff, eh?
So anyway, that's how it went. And I got there. I did Jane Bond, Moonraker was one of my first films I worked on. I had my own studio outside of the film studio.
And the second film I worked on was, guess what? Star Wars. That's interesting. It was kind of fun.
I was going to ask you how that connection came about. And it's very interesting. I mean, I remember the movie itself when it came out. I was pretty young.
Of course you were. Of course you were, sir. Nice plug. Yeah.
Well, you know, I still got the t-shirt. I kept it all these years. My mom kept trying to throw it away. But anyway, so you kind of stumbled across the scene.
Well, I was at the time I was making a rocking horse, a large rocking horse of fiberglass. And it was a close, it's called a closed mold. This means that it's empty in the middle and you actually mold the bits together and put them together. And it's a very difficult process to do, closed mold.
And people at the studio were very young. They were very young. They were very young. They were very young.
And I was very young. And I was very young. And I was very young. And I was very young.
And people at the studio were very impressed. My first rocking horse actually I sold to Brian Johnson, who was a special effects guy. He was working on Space 1999, Alien, and a few other things down there. And he bought my rocking horse and said, look, if I ever get something, and he was working with John Sears at the time, I will tell you.
And that's what came up. George Lucas came to the UK to build, to make the film. The first Star Wars, well, actually, what, seven, five Star Wars. Most of them are made down there, but now people know that.
They didn't know that in the past. And it showed me the idea of a robot, which turned out, of course, to be R2-D2, and said, can you make this?
Because it had to be very strong to carry the motors and the batteries and all the stuff that goes along with it. And I could use my technique, my closed mold technique. And that's how I got it. I showed it to my patent makers, because we were making industrial patents as well for phone trucks and people like that at the time in my studio.
And they went, no, no, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're going away now. And they all walked out on me.
I'm not joking you. They did actually walk out, because it's a very complicated robot. I mean, too complicated. It should never be that complicated.
But it was the way that they wanted it to be. Anyway, at the end, I coax them to come back in again. And after the film, I decided robots was the thing to get into. Because everybody, you know 3CPO, the golden Android, his buddy?
Well, that was a suit with an actor inside. And I thought, I can make that without the actor. And that's exactly what I did. And as a matter of fact, I formed a company called Android Limited.
And I built the Philips robot, Android, which was remote controlled and computerized, proper robot. And I sold it to the Philips Corporation for their commercials. Interesting. And from there on, I just kept on making robots.
But you weren't afraid of the Screen Actors Guild Union goons coming over. They didn't actually bother me, because I was outside the studio. Oh, OK. Good.
That was the whole point. I was trying to make, because we haven't got much time, I was trying to make it a short abbreviation of my storyline. But that was the secret. I could do it without having to have a green card at the time.
I got a green card later on, because I worked on a film, so I could apply. Right?
I could see the goods coming over. You're taking jobs from union actors making these robots. But it's pretty interesting. So, you know, OK, so you came into that.
And how close to the idea was it, which you created, how close to the idea was it that they brought you? Was it pretty close?
Or did you say, hey, you know what? I'm going to have to make these changes to make all of this work. Yeah, there was a lot of changes, especially on the inside of the legs or the arms, whatever you want to call them. They were way too complicated.
Not too complicated to actually do given time and money, but it was a very small budget. And I had very small amount of time to do eight robots on the moles. Right. Yeah, I've always say that, you know, nothing's impossible if you throw enough money at it.
Exactly. And that's exactly how the film industry works. You give me more money. I get more studios.
I get more men. And we're working all nighters as well, by the way. We had two shifts. I had a day staff and night staff working on R2D2.
That's interesting. Well, it's kind of funny, too, you're talking about the end of the patent people walking out. And that's like one of the last things I wanted to touch on. When you were first approached about like this movie, the concept and things were happening.
You know, I know when I first went to see it, people were kind of like, yeah, there's this movie. There's this thing and it's this war movie in space or something. And nobody really kind of understood the concept. But we all sat there mouth agape.
What was your take on this being part of it and kind of being able to have an insider's view of it? It wasn't as strange as it would have been to you, let's say, because I'd just been working on Alien. You know, Alien turned out to be space. 99 was a little bit similar. That was from a Muppet kind of puppet show.
It wasn't actually a puppet show, but it was from the makers of it. And so that was also a little bit way out. That was a space station on the moon broke away from Earth. So that was again a little bit comic like, you know, comic time.
I was into DC Comics as well, by the way. I've always collected them. A bit of a geek when it comes to that kind of thing. So for me, it wasn't that strange.
And also they split up the film around three studios. So to get the total picture, you really had to be the director. Now we could see the spaceships and of course the robots. And I worked on a couple of other robots on the film as well.
But we were so engrossed in making it work, you know, the way that George wanted it. We didn't get much chance to see too much else. Interesting, interesting. So you just kind of approached it as a section of a job that you were contracted to do and you just performed that job without too much, let's say, thought in the overall picture, I guess.
No, yeah. It gave me the script of the scenes that were necessary. It told me about all the interactions of the actors and who they were. I mean, I had the basic idea of the rebels and the Empire and everything else, of course, because we had the script for that.
But to actually see it visually, you know, that was more to do with having to be there. Also, remember, George rewrote it as he went along. So was there multiple redesigns on your product or do you pretty much said, hey, here we are, this is what we came up with?
No, they never changed anything, actually. They gave me the basic ideas and drawings. We turned those to blueprints and then we just produced it. All right, nailed it yet.
Well, that's excellent. And I like the, you know, I mean, of course, you know, all of us are robotics and all the rest of us. We love all that stuff and I'm glad we got a little bit of time to hear some insight on that history. OK.
You know, they're making some more movies, I guess, and we'll probably see more of your creation. Oh, definitely. Good. We're all looking forward to that.
So, you know, you're still into robots and as the title of the podcast would suggest, you're interested in other robots now. Yeah, I always have been, actually. As I told you just then, I actually worked on the Philips Android. I got a naming nomination for the Sony robot, the Shiba robot and quite a few more.
You know, I haven't listed. So I've never gone off robots. I worked as consultant on robotics really for the last 30 years. I've been involved with robotics.
Now I'm incredibly fascinated with drones because they are the last frontier of the cowboy. Well, it's funny that you got caught up in. I mean, you know, it's a very, you know, let's say passionate niche or sector. And, you know, a lot of us are, you know, been doing this and we're, oh, wow, you know, and the the dream of flying and all the rest of that.
But, you know, the title of this podcast is Super Drones and you would suggest that you were into Super Drones. And when we're talking about Super Drones, what do you see?
Is it a complexity thing, a size thing or a capability thing? It's a capability thing. It's two sides to it, in actual fact. One, I'm publishing a very special and different kind of directory for robots.
It's called 21 Amazing Robots. And the first Kindle directory will be about drones. Now, no one's ever done this before. And I've actually brought it forward because I know there's so many of the public want to know what's really at the edge of science.
And they don't always do the searching on the web. And so to bring that in for any age, but mostly for STEM, because I'm very involved in educational programs in America and in Australia. So it will be very good for the students to get involved with robotics by using this system. So that's my first thing I'm publishing very, very soon, in actual fact.
And I think as a directory, it's going to be very unique. I think we need to have a choice of seeing 21 of the best ones out there. That's one side of it. The other side is I'm putting together a think tank where we can actually work out a better design on the drones and more uses for them.
Because I've already found four users which no one's actually producing them for. So that's pretty exciting. It's a great challenge, you know, because it's just a matter of thinking outside the box. Which is something I love doing.
Yes, outside of the mold. Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that because, you know, people talk about I, you know, talk to people from all over the world now, including yourself about drones and hear lots of different applications. No one has really thought about, you know, I had one guy who was a undertaker who wants to get out of that business. And he asked me, he says, well, you know, what what businesses do you think that these things can can augment?
I said, well, really almost all of them except possibly yours. But besides that, although I did have another idea for him, too, but we won't go into that now. You know, anyway, the I don't think that we're going to fully realize what these can do and robotics and unmanned systems can do for us until there's a widespread regulatory framework. I believe that robots are going to do more work for us in the future and the flying ones will do also do a lot of work for us in the future.
Like you know, I know you you your stem or steam advocate. Yes, stem or steam. I mean, I put the A in the stand and steam because that's exactly right. The A should be in there shouldn't it?
For well for art, you know, I definitely believe you know, I talk about stem and you know, that's good. But I always think that there the art part of it is the design part. And there's those people that use that side of their brain who come up with a design that is also appealing kind of like the the the you know, almost the R2D2 model. You know, it could be a hunk of something or it can have a personality and a design that fits that personality.
Yes, I agree with you. I actually have that on my side as well. I'm sorry. I have that on my side as well.
But the reason why I always say stem is because that's the one the government's been pushing so much. And if you say, you know, they lack imagination. That is your country, not mine. I want to believe.
But anyway, that's another that's another podcast. But the steam thing is good. And, you know, that's another thing that I really like about the robotics and the technology now is it's not let's say fixed in one country. You can live anywhere and the technology is available to you and that opportunity is available to you.
So I think we're in, you know, we're in the same probably the same choir here. But, you know, so OK, are you are you are you building any drones yourself?
Yes. Well, as I said, I'm putting together this thinking to think tank to actually solve some of the problems on them. Robotics, we know robotics is the in thing. We've known that for quite a few, few years.
The public got promised them in the 80s. In the 80s, I was actually building robotic arms for schools right back then. Very fashionable in the UK to come out with robotic arms. We had the exact same problem in UK as you had in America later.
You had it more in the 90s where teachers were totally unfamiliar with the science. So you could make an arm, it could be sold to school or a number of them. But the teachers would basically back off. Now that happened in America in the 90s, 95, where they couldn't push robotics at all.
The schools and most of the teachers came out in a bit of a strike and said, look, if you don't train us, we're not going to do it. So the government came out with a ton of money to send all the teachers to training school or courses on robotics. And I think I was about 98, probably round about then. And again, later on in 2000.
And that's always been holding back. So we've had ups and downs of robotics being in fashion. The other side of it, of course, is that the media promised we'd have a robot in every home by 2000. And of course, that never happened.
And so the public was sort of going, yeah, yeah, right. The problem with the public, it's getting clear now, but the problem for the public, I should say, is that they're confused. They see all these fantastic robots in films. They believe them because the films are so well adjusted and well put together and written.
And then they believe there's much better robots around than there was. So when they see a real robot, they come along and go, not that good, is it?
I mean, I've had that said to me so many times because I've built quite a few robots, by the way. And they'll say, no, no, no, that's not as good as the Sunset film. I'm going, it's a film. It was a film.
So we've had this confusion for the last 15 years. Now everything's caught up. And it's incredibly exciting because you can do so much more. And the other thing I tell you that's really fantastic is that in the films, you don't see the drones.
And that's really capturing the public's imagination. Because there they are, guided by films, sci-fi films, and they never were there. Now in real life, we've got something that never existed in the movies. Well, it is an interesting thing.
And all over the world, I talk to people all over the world. They go all over the world. And it's interesting to get people's takes on drones and the different people. And really, this was kind of a, people were thinking of it as kind of negative and military.
But man, we are just leaving that in the dust. And I've always been a commercial drone guy. I mean, I've been at this for about 12 plus years. And I've always said, man, this is a great promise.
Self-guided data collection, whatever else. And it's starting to change. And now, I was saying that the other day. I walk over to the field and fly my drone.
And people used to pay never mind to me. Now everybody, hey, housewives, kids, old people want to see the drone and see me fly it and all the rest of that. There is an excitement in robotics. And I think that unmanned systems are going to be more and more of our future.
I know I'm waiting. I've got a bunch of menial jobs that I'm waiting for these robots to do. So get cracking, Tony. Will do.
But I'll tell you something interesting, Patrick. One very interesting thing. To get people to even understand about the robots. I saw a zombie TV movie recently.
And there was a little robot driving around. And one guy turned around and said, oh, it's a sweet little robot. I said, yeah, it's like a drone, but it goes on the land. He was referencing the other way around.
And so then a robot that flies, it was saying this little robot really is one. It's exactly the same as a drone. Oh, it's like a drone. All right.
Well, share a lot of the same similarities. I mean, I'm definitely I will say that people talk to me about this. And I've been kind of proselytizing about this, that the land, sea, air and space commercial space all share. Many of the same, let's say, components, hardware, software, firmware.
And I believe in all of them. I think commercial space, I got to be honest with you. I mean, I think Arthur C. Clark and Kubrick nailed it in 2001.
I mean, we're not there yet. You know, we aren't there yet, but there are people that are thinking about that commercial space and space. You know, most of these systems are unmanned. You know, and my thing is, is, yeah, do you want to, you know, do you want to carry men into space or do you want to carry payload?
And I'm more about the payload and getting things done. Not that I wouldn't love to go to Mars in my, you know, for vacation or something, but it's currently a long trip. And I haven't figured out how to beat the radiation thing yet myself. Maybe that's another thing you can work on.
OK, so you're building and flying stuff right now. Yeah, simply because the easiest way to explain is this. Too many people that design even drones are looking at one particular aspect. You can't actually make them modular.
It is possible to get rid of the problems using white sound, make them totally silent. You can mock them so you can't see them. They're marvelous for the police force, of course, as you know, they can recognize of bandits carrying a gun. They can do search and rescue with them.
We can use them for sports. They follow you around all the time and film it. I mean, it's just fantastic. I saw a beautiful one the other day.
There's actually checks out an aircraft to find out if it's got dents and the dents are dangerous, you know, for passengers. And it goes on and on like that. All we need to do is to make the batteries better, lighter, longer flying time, more efficient on the motors, especially the prop. The props need redesigning, which we're doing at the moment.
And also got an automatic picking up of batteries so it can come down, swap over with another drone, pick up its battery and swap over places and so on. There's so much improvement can come. Even though you I mean, I saw a film you were made around the exhibitions and you look at them, it's a bit like a sweet shop. You walk around, you say, I want that little bit from that robot.
I want that little bit from that robot. I could see your face thinking what could do with that. I like that one over there as well. And I'm like exactly the same.
And so that's why I said I said to myself, we need a robot. We need a drone that's got that, that, that and that all in one. This is the time to do it because we can put more senses than we're actually seeing at the moment or because the cameras are so brill and transmission is so fantastic. I mean, the first Harry Potter films were actually using a drone to follow the car when they were flying.
That's from years back. The batteries and the motor is basically matters. The batteries, the motors and the camera. The other three things that made drones happen, but there's so much more can be improved.
And so that's what I'm really into at the moment. And I think it's going to be the area where robotics should really take off. Seriously, I'm not joking. It's the biggest area going in robotics and it's not going to lower.
It's not going to lose its impulse. It's going to grow much, much bigger. People get their imagination going. I mean, if we get licenses to take them up in the air.
Well, I concur with you. Everything you just said. I am a firm believer in that and I do. I get excited.
I'm passionate about it. And I do see these and I'm like, wow, that's cool. This is good. Yeah, we go on and on.
Now, you know, if I did impersonations well, I would probably do a Peter Laurie or maybe a Sydney Green Street for suggestion for your company name. But I don't do them very well. Do you have a name for your company?
This drone company of yours? Robot World. Robot World. No, no, no Blackbird.
No Maltese Falcon. You can't beat that one, can you?
It's the top one. No, that one's good. So, you know, the other thing then is, do you currently have a website up where people can see and learn more about what you're doing?
Or are you kind of are you kind of doing that in the silo? Well, Robot World is being redesigned again because I used to have it for different kinds of robots, more to do with the film industry. Now I'm changing it. So it's a little bit dead on there, but they can go to RobotWorld.com.
I think I've had that domain name for about 20 years and also have actually and 17 and a half. And they can come to TonyDyson.com where I have a bit of everything, robots, film work. Yeah, that's the place that they can come. But can always contact me at TonyDyson, especially if they're involved in manufacturing drones, because I said I'm bringing out this directory.
Twenty one amazing robots. So I want people to come back to me. Well, yeah, well, you know, what did you do?
Hopefully they'll send over your way and look at what you're doing. And, you know, as one of the early adopters and a guy who's had some experience in this field, it's definitely a place to go. Now, the other thing, I don't know if you get out to, you know, California very often, but we are we do put on the S.U.S. News puts on a small unmanned systems business exposition Silicon Valley Drone Show.
We'd love to have you come out if you want to come out and meet the let's say the cream of the crop of the drone world. I love to. That's the end of April. I'll send you the information.
You know, we'd love to have guys like you thinkers out here. This is this is kind of where the thinkers come and meet and talk and share with people what they're doing and what this technology can mean for the future and for the world. OK, yeah, definitely. And interesting conversation.
I had a great time. This is one of the this is one of the fun ones. This is something that you when you when you do a podcast, you're like, oh, you know, you got to get these guys on here and talk. And this one was really fun and I appreciate it.
Thank you, sir, for coming on. Good luck in the future. And I'm sure we'll be talking. Thank you very much, Patrick.
Lovely talking to you. Ciao, ciao. Bye bye.