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SmartDrone AI: Enhancing Efficiency Across the Board

Written by Team SmartDrone | Jan 23, 2025 9:49:59 PM

Artificial intelligence is transforming industries worldwide, from healthcare to finance to manufacturing, by enhancing efficiency, solving complex problems, and enabling innovation. At SmartDrone, we’ve embraced AI to optimize our operations, improve customer support, and scale more effectively. Our AI-powered systems are not just about technology—they’re about leveraging years of expertise to create value for our customers and drive the future of drone solutions.

What is SmartDrone AI?

At SmartDrone, we focus on:

  • Making our Discovery drone a comprehensive solution for aerial LiDAR and photogrammetry mapping
  • Establishing standardized processes that enable our field crew to deliver high-quality data consistently.

Our customers know and love these two aspects. Behind the scenes, a third component makes both possible while keeping engineering and support costs low—allowing us to offer our services and products at market-beating prices: our SmartDrone AI and its vast documentation database.

How Does SmartDrone AI work?

Since beginning the development of Discovery and our services workflow, our engineers have meticulously documented and created instructions for every aspect of our operations—from drone mechanics and data processing to data collection. They're so thorough, and they even document how we make coffee for the office. 

We undertook this thorough documentation because our products and services span multiple fields of expertise and demand precision and repeatability. This comprehensive approach not only enabled development but also accelerated our manufacturing quality improvements through process mapping and Digital Andon implementation. Using Digital Andon, technicians could identify unclear instructions and collaborate with manufacturing engineers in real time to refine them—all while enriching our documentation database with detailed instructions and solutions.

We then applied the same approach to field collection techniques, where our Field Application Specialists achieved ongoing improvements—reducing field time while increasing data quality for customers.

Our database encompasses repair orders, troubleshooting solutions, equipment tracking, engineering studies, and stage-gate development documentation. This comprehensive digital system has created such a vast knowledge base at SmartDrone that it has become impossible for any single person to know it all.

As AI tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) matured in the market, we saw an opportunity to feed our documentation into an LLM, enabling it to learn from our accumulated expertise and give us a powerful tool.

How Does SmartDrone Use It's AI?

At SmartDrone, onboarding support staff has traditionally been a long and expensive process. With SmartDrone AI, we provide support staff with a powerful resource that accelerates their ability to help customers and field crews resolve issues.

For example, a support technician might ask the AI:

“I'm having trouble connecting the Herelink controller to the drone. What could be the issue?”

The AI searches through our database of Herelink troubleshooting solutions from the past 4 years and provides the technician with relevant answers:

"💡 Based on the search results, here are some potential solutions for Herelink connection issues:

  • Check if you need to update the Herelink Settings app and set the baud rate to 115200 in the airunit tab
  • Make sure to follow this connection sequence:
    • Allow the drone to fully boot up before turning the controller on
    • Open Herelink Settings App and wait for RID indicators (if equipped)
    • Open QGC App and allow parameters to fully load

If you're still having issues, try these additional steps:

  • Check the physical connections:
    • Verify the Herelink harness connection to the airunit
    • Check the connection to the HVPDB
  • If the app freezes or has issues connecting, try rebooting the QGC app by closing and reopening it
If these steps don't resolve the issue, you may need to check for software compatibility or consider updating your firmware and apps to the latest compatible versions."

This answer demonstrates several powerful advantages:

  • It provides clear troubleshooting steps before escalating to the engineering team or requesting drone repairs.
  • It generates solutions automatically without requiring engineers to write documentation, saving valuable time.
  • It allows technicians to ask follow-up questions about specific steps.
  • It cites the source documents, enabling technicians to research further if needed.

What is the future of SmartDrone AI?

With our AI overseeing this knowledge database, we are implementing exciting new applications. 

For example:

  • Our engineers are accelerating design timelines by using AI to generate test criteria based on previous design challenges.
  • Quality control data is analyzed to identify trends between repair/maintenance history and flight performance metrics of shipped units.
  • AI assists in process mapping to identify redundancies and sources of accuracy-related rework.
  • Software updates are deployed efficiently through serial tracking and automated CRM customer reminders.
  • New service and sales personnel are onboarded more quickly as we expand operations.
The productivity gains from AI will parallel the revolutionary impact that computers have had on business efficiency. SmartDrone's extensive database is key to maximizing these benefits. As we grow, our AI will continue to become more sophisticated, valuable, and productive.

Final Thoughts

At SmartDrone, our commitment to innovation drives everything we do, and AI has become an integral part of our success. By leveraging AI to streamline operations, improve customer support, and accelerate design processes, we’re setting new standards for efficiency and precision. As we continue to integrate AI into more aspects of our business, we remain focused on delivering exceptional value to our customers and building a scalable model for future growth.

Together with our investors, we’re not just advancing drone technology—we’re creating a smarter, more efficient future for the industry. Join us on this exciting journey to revolutionize what’s possible.

 

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