How effective are drones in monitoring coastal areas?

Mathieu Johnsson is CEO and Founder of Marble, a drone services company in England that provides maritime monitoring using fleets of high speed drones. The drones are used to monitor coastal areas for illegal fishing, drug trafficking, and human trafficking, providing real time data to suit clients needs.

Mathieu Johnsson's passion for aerospace began in childhood, influenced by his family of aviators and skydivers. During his aerospace engineering studies, Mat focused intensely on the future of aviation, from flying wings to hydrogen aircraft, often prioritizing personal projects over formal lectures. His dedication continued into his professional career at Airbus, where he converted his workshop into a makeshift bedroom to devote more time to building aircraft. His innovative work on 3D printing drones led him to a role in Airbus's secretive "Future Projects Office." Eventually, Mat’s ambition to drive change led him to found Marble, where for the past eight years, his company has been developing technology to deploy drones at sea on a large scale.

In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Mat talks about Marble and the use of drones to monitor coastal areas for a variety of marine situations.

How are advanced drone technologies revolutionizing global delivery systems?

For that question, we head to San Francisco to speak with Keenan Wyrobek and Juan Albanell of Zipline. Zipline is the world’s first drone delivery service whose focus is delivering life-saving medicine to the most difficult to reach places on earth. The company designs, manufactures and operates the world’s largest autonomous logistics system. Used every day by businesses, governments and consumers, Zipline’s fully electric and autonomous drones reduce delivery emissions by up to 97% compared to gas cars. It has flown more than 70 million autonomous miles, and has delivered millions of items including more than 15 million vaccine doses.

Keenan Wyrobek is co-founder and head of product and engineering at Zipline. Prior to Zipline, Keenan was a co-founder and director of the Personal Robotics Program at Willow Garage. He was involved in launching and growing the Robot Operating System (ROS) and shipping PR2, the first personal robot for software R&D. Keenan has spent years delivering high tech products to market across a range of fields including consumer electronics, sportswear, and medical robotics.

Juan Albanell is Head of System Engineering, where he has led engineering efforts to scale up Platform 1 across the world and is now focused on getting Platform 2 from prototype to first customer releases. Prior to Zipline, Juan led a small team at Apple working on taking emerging sensing and display technologies from lab bench to automated production lines. He has dedicated his engineering career on taking early stage concepts to reliable customer products through a focus on test and automation.

In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Keenan and Juan talk about Zipline, its long-distance Platform 1 delivery service and the company’s plans to scale short-distance Platform 2 home delivery services.

George Matus is CEO and founder of Teal Drones, a trailblazing U.S. company at the forefront of innovative drone technology for both commercial and military applications. With advancements in air control, data processing, and mapping technologies, Teal is revolutionizing operations for the military, public safety, and various commercial sectors. Its flagship Teal 2 Drone is a model of security, intelligence, and high performance that meets the stringent standards of the U.S. defense industry.

George started Teal Drones in 2014 when he was only a sophomore in high school. By 2023, he was named CTO of Red Cat Holdings, the parent company of Teal Drones. Red Cat is an end-to-end drone solutions company based in the United States that is accelerating the future of aerial robotics to transform the way we live and work.

In Episode 412, I interviewed Michael Robbins, Chief Advocacy Officer at the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International or AUVSI. In that podcast, we explored the importance of U.S. competitiveness in the drone industry. In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, builds on this theme by highlighting the ascent of Teal Drones as a manufacturing leader and sheds light on the expanding opportunities for American drone companies in the global market.