Interviewee
Jack Wu, Co - Founder and CEO of Nightingale, the robotic aerial security company that's changing the industry by making drones and fleet management software that their clients deploy to help protect their assets and integrate with their existing security teams.
Transcript
Jack Wu: My name is Jack Wu. I'm the Co-founder and CEO of Nightingale Security. Our company's mission is to automate the world of physical security. We are a robotics company. Our first platform is a security drone. It's an automated system with a drone and a bay station. Basically some of them are being called drone in a box solutions. So the drone lands in the base station and is able to perform missions by itself. It's an edge based computing system, so all the data we collect is at the edge. So we can be completely air gapped and still be able to operate. We have multiple industrial commercial defense and emergency response customers. We've been around for about eight years.
Elisa Muñoz: Were you always interested in robotics?
Jack Wu: Yeah, so when I was a kid, well first of all, my, my background is internet software, UI, UX. So I've always liked robots since I was a kid and I'm a big fan of military history. So I've always been fascinated by, you know, defense. After I had my stint with the internet, I started my career with a bunch of startups. Also worked for some very large internet companies. I started my own business. First I went into gaming, that's where I was first exposed to gamification. Also tracking user behaviors, anomaly detections. So a lot of that is actually very applicable in robotics as well in terms of training the robot with a drone, how to behave a certain way in order to perform a specific task. So I sort of combined my passion for military hardware, military history with the software background. And I enlisted my co-founder, John, who is one of the first engineers at, I think it's like the first 20th engineer at SpaceX.
Elisa Muñoz: How many prototypes did you start the company with, or how many prototypes have you guys built in order to have what you have right now?
Jack Wu: Yeah, so like any new technology, we believe in evolution. Evolution means that you need to evolve the hardware and the software to a state that is stable, reliable, and commercially viable. Our philosophy is always the focus on one platform. So we started off with the intent of creating only one product, and that is true still today. It may not be tomorrow, we may not, you know, just have one platform. But until we perfected this platform, until we've truly satisfied the needs of our customers, we're gonna continue just to have one product, one airframe, one drone, one bay station, and a single application of physical security. Cuz one of my favorite aircraft is the A 10 Warthog.
It's a, it's, it's a, it's an aircraft that's been around since the seventies, but is still in service today because no one can do its mission better than that airframe. It, it, it still does its mission better than anything else out there. So you can't just have new technologies cuz new technologies might be too expensive, New technologies might not be reliable. So you can't roll out a successful product unless you can bring the cost down to the point where it's commercially viable and then there's maturity. Does it work all the time? You can't introduce a new technology that only works. Sometimes imagine if your car only starts, sometimes people would not be driving, they would do something else, right? Because it's not reliable, right? So robotics is at a phase where certain platforms like drones have been around for over a decade now and humans know how to fly. We've been flying for more than a century. So the platform itself to make something fly is really not a mystery.
So that removes some of the technical risks and allow us to focus on other challenges, other technical challenges other than flying, like how do we make it more intelligent for instance, how do we make it so we can integrate with perimeter sensors so we could automatically respond to the threats, make it more useful, not make it more complicated. Complexity doesn't necessarily equal quality. And also to focus on one single platform allows us to be able to have a platform that's highly reliable and rugged because of the experience that we've gotten from our customers in terms of feedback and operating in areas that are like minus 15 Fahrenheit all the way up to 125 degree Fahrenheit.
Understand that the majority of your time and money is going to go towards making the platform viable if you want to deal with hardware and understanding that RO robotics as a whole, is really a combination of software and hardware.
Elisa Muñoz: What would you say it's your key differentiator from other companies in the industry? I think you said that simplicity is the key, right?
Jack Wu: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of folks in the robotic industry want to show how smart they are by developing platforms that are very complex and they like to demonstrate it at conferences, you know, maybe in their PhD visitations, look how smart this thing, it is easy to make something work a few times at a lab or at a conference where the environment is completely ideal, right? Where you have control over everything. It is very difficult to make something that works all the time under a variety of operational environments, but it is something that eventually, you know, other vendors will get there as well.
It's just that we decided to focus our efforts on making sure that the product does its job by meeting customer expectations and exceeding some of the performance index that they're looking for. That's number one. That's, that's, that's really the baseline. So our goal is to utilize the drone to rapidly respond to these threats. To do it faster and to do it cheaper. We can respond for pennies at a time. Whereas if you hire, you know, a human guard or install a lot of cameras, you're going to have to trench, meaning you have to add power and network. So the main cost is not just the camera, it is also the cost of networking. The cameras provide power to the cameras. So our job is to look at the gaps in their physical security, especially for these large areas and become the camera on demand. We are the camera anytime, anywhere and we can respond to threats, do it cheaper, better, and faster. So the drill's job is to respond, to utilize its superior mobility, to be able to respond and be able to provide a live video feed and be able to essentially have situational awareness in areas that was previously un un unable to have situational awareness because there's no cameras where the guards simply don't patrol the area.
Elisa Muñoz: You mentioned drones. I wanted to ask whether it is fully automated or where is the video stored or how long do the drones fly? Is there a specific time specific limit?
Jack Wu: Yeah, so it flies currently for 30 minutes, but we have a program called Maintenance Repair and Upgrade. So all our customers actually get upgraded as part of the contract for free. So basically we will send them a new drone if, if we need to maintain the old drone and they just keep the new drone or we send them a new drone that's upgraded, our new drone will fly for 45 minutes. Video storage, as I said before, is an edge based computing platform, which means that all the data that we collect actually gets stored on the bay station behind me. So you can see from the background, that's the bay station. The drone is on top of it. The drone actually streams the video through the base station. So the base station, the drone has a 4K camera, it streams an hd but it stores in 4K as well. So you'll get the 4K video, HD video, and the thermal video all stored right in the base station itself. We do not, I repeat we do not need the cloud in order to function the software, the command and control software is also inside the Bay station. So you can just completely air gap the bay station and have nothing. I was connected to it and it will still work. Yeah, as long as you have a local network, you're good.
Elisa Muñoz: Impressive. And what about automation? Does it need any kind of human direction?
Jack Wu: Well, humans should be in the loop at this stage, mainly due to regulations. But the technology itself is capable of pre-scheduled patrols. So basically you can schedule it and tell it where to go, how to fly, where to fly, and what to look at. And the drone will automatically do that for you. The drone takes off automatically, Patrols land automatically. But the human can be in the loop by interrupting the mission anytime they want. So it's automation level is really to just take over the repetitive tasks cuz you know, what's the purpose of a robot, right? The purpose of a robot is to reduce human workload and to make operations more efficient. Really that simple to reduce human workload while we take over the repetitive tasks. Tasks like take off and landing are the same every time. Don't have the human do that, have the robot do that task like patrolling the perimeter all the time, have the robot do that, it's repetitive. Anything that's repetitive, potentially dangerous is a good fit for a robot to take over. So our drone is the robot, we are a robotics company. We focus our efforts on automating that platform, making us smart so security can be enhanced.
Elisa Muñoz: Talking about challenges, you guys survived the pandemic. Did you have any critical challenges when it comes to the procurement process ?
Jack Wu:I think the toughest part during the pandemic was that we couldn't get to our customer location because they wouldn't let us, you know, they wouldn't let people in to be able to make installations. So that was the toughest part. But you know, other than that it's, you know, really, really pretty much, you know, same supply chain issues everybody else have. It was really bad earlier in the first half of the year. It's getting much better now. So we see that as something that is temporary. But there's one benefit that came out of this whole thing is one, it, during the pandemic, it allowed us to focus on testing and product improvement and start working on some of the features that we always wanted to work on, but we were too busy servicing the customers, so we got had no options.
So that was actually quite good. And then we were able to, when, when, when the supply chain issue happened, we started looking at alternatives to, to what we have. And by looking at alternatives, we were able to discover things that were actually better. They're not necessarily more available, but they're actually a better solution, a better component than a component that we used previously because we started looking due to the supply chain interruption. So we basically look at it as, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a speed bump but it's also an opportunity to discover new roads as.
Elisa Muñoz: What would you say has the biggest technical challenge that you have that you guys have managed to solve in these eight years?
Jack Wu: Reliability. Reliability. Reliability. Reliability. Yeah, if you want me to pick, because it's not sexy, Reliability is not sexy. Having somebody that you call all the time will answer the phone, usually get people bored. But for a robot, that's what we expect of them. So when they don't do what we say anytime we want, that's a failure. So reliability number one is to be able to be, be always ready. So mission readiness is important and reliability also leads to more efficiency. You can count on it, you can use it more often. So you can really, really maximize the benefit of this drone, maximize the benefit of it, patrolling automatically and helping you save money on perimeter sensors and guards and reliability also leads you to have the confidence to be able to say, Hey, you know, what else can this thing, right?
So the ability to develop additional applications on top of this platform now it, it's a reality for us. Finally, you know, we have a yard management software that is currently running. We have other software that we are testing that might not be our software. We, we partner with third parties because we know that we're best at doing what we do and they're best at doing what they do. We don't wanna reinvent the wheel and we're also not greedy. We believe that this is a team sport to to, to be number one in this space, you need to work with others. You don't become number one by by excluding others. So we want to be a team player. So we have a lot of, you know, software that we're currently integrating, a lot of perimeter sensors that we've already integrated. Radar cameras, kinetic sensors, you know, you name it.
So a lot of the challenges are just how to make things reliable so it's more useful and cost effective. When you make something reliable, it becomes cheaper. Why? Well because you don't have to maintain it as much if, if you cannot have a platform that is dependable, reliable, that works all the time, you have nothing. That's the basic mantra at our company.
Elisa Muñoz: Do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs at starting on this path?
Jack Wu: Yeah, don't underestimate the capital necessary. Don't underestimate the edge cases. Things you don't know or things that don't happen very often. Understand that the majority of your time and money is going to go towards making the platform viable if you want to deal with hardware and understanding that RO robotics as a whole is really a combination of software and hardware. Both are equally important. And testing, testing, testing fails often and fails at home. If you don't fail at home, you'll fail at your customer's location, you will fail. The only choice you have is where do you want it to fail and how soon do you want to learn the lessons? There are no other choices cuz if you don't get those problems today, trust me, those problems will find you tomorrow. So, so, so testing is extremely time consuming, time consuming, money consuming, but at the same time it's incredibly important.
Elisa Muñoz: Well thank you so much Jack for sharing your experiences, for sharing your story.
Jack Wu: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
