00;00;00;06 - 00;00;02;20 Alex Technically speaking. 00;00;02;22 - 00;00;05;18 Chelsie Welcome to our technically UN technical Technology talk. 00;00;05;20 - 00;00;14;20 Alex A NIWC Atlanta production Joe And an award winning podcast with your hosts, Chelsea Holloway and Alex Jackson. 00;00;14;23 - 00;00;18;18 Chelsie Alex, are you a fan of the show survivor by any chance? 00;00;18;19 - 00;00;24;21 Alex Yes, I'm a big fan of survivor of watched it for several seasons and excited for this new season this year. 00;00;24;23 - 00;00;25;27 Chelsie So you haven't seen. 00;00;25;27 - 00;00;28;02 Joe I was there for the beginning? Just so you know. 00;00;28;05 - 00;00;32;08 Chelsie Joe. Yeah, you probably were there from the beginning. You're like old grandpa now, aren't you? Joe I am 00;00;32;10 - 00;00;34;20 Alex you should be on survivor, Joe. 00;00;34;21 - 00;00;36;14 Chelsie You should be on survivor, Joe. 00;00;36;15 - 00;00;38;23 Alex Yeah, I'm a survivor. 00;00;38;26 - 00;00;43;21 Chelsie But anyway, so season 50, you haven't seen the first episode then yet? 00;00;43;22 - 00;00;46;18 Alex I missed the first episode, but I'm going to go back and watch it. 00;00;46;19 - 00;01;07;06 Chelsie Okay, no spoilers here, but I'm get. I do have a point for bringing this up, so I am loving seeing in this latest, season, the old players and the new players get together again because they're bringing some old players back, and the show survivor has just, like, changed like crazy as far as, like how the game is played. 00;01;07;08 - 00;01;40;26 Chelsie So blending that is so interesting to me and seeing like how they come up with strategies and I'm segueing into the fact that here at Navigate Clinic, we have so much technology, we have these things called legacy systems that are older technology, and we're constantly updating them and then figuring out how to blend in new technology and some new technology that we are working on here at Network Atlantic that is super exciting, is our involvement with the use of drones and robot dogs. 00;01;40;26 - 00;01;59;10 Chelsie So unmanned types of systems and our engineers and scientists are developing technology that allows these robot dogs and drones to communicate with each other and help with some very important tasks in both military operations and natural disasters. Cool stuff right, Alex? 00;01;59;11 - 00;02;25;14 Alex It is very cool and I'm really excited we're talking about it. And coming up we've got Gwen Steele and Donovan Lamb with our. Now we get Planet Chaos team, who explains how the team creates unmanned technology for drones and robot dogs and how that technology has been used. Then we have our military moment with Petty Officer First Class Caleb Donaldson, who works with our cloud hosting team in New Orleans. 00;02;25;16 - 00;02;29;19 Alex So get comfy, turn up that volume, and let's get started. 00;02;29;21 - 00;02;37;26 Chelsie Welcome. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Just to start, can you please introduce yourselves and let us know what you do here and how we get clinic? 00;02;37;28 - 00;02;45;14 Gwyneth Yeah. Of course. Yeah, I'm Gwyneth Steele. I'm a software engineer here and I wickedly Nick and I am the project lead for chaos. 00;02;45;17 - 00;02;49;13 Donovan Donovan Lamb. I'm the hardware lead for the chaos team. 00;02;49;13 - 00;03;00;20 Chelsie Awesome. Yes. So chaos. I'm so excited to talk about this. We aren't talking about literal chaos. It's an acronym. Can you please tell us what this acronym stands for and what your team does? 00;03;00;23 - 00;03;31;02 Gwyneth Yeah. So Chaos is an acronym that means the coordinated hardware agnostic operating system. So we are a, collaborative unmanned systems team. So it's group autonomy. So the acronym, the coordinated piece is that we have a group of unmanned systems. We have both aerial systems. So, quadcopter drones and we have ground systems. We have our quadruped or dog robots and those systems work together as a team to complete missions together. 00;03;31;04 - 00;03;51;07 Gwyneth So the hardware agnostic part of the acronym means that while we're designing both our software and the hardware that we install on the systems, we try as much as we can to abstract away from the specific system that we're going to be running on. So this means that we can pretty rapidly take in new types of systems, like new drone frames. 00;03;51;09 - 00;04;01;07 Gwyneth Or we could add in those ground systems, and we don't have to change much about what we have developed to be able to bring a new type of unmanned system into our group. 00;04;01;08 - 00;04;12;26 Chelsie That sounds very cool and amazing. And how many of these systems has your team have? Like and you mentioned you also have dogs, right? So how many of each of the types of systems that you're working on. 00;04;12;29 - 00;04;21;02 Donovan So we currently in our inventory have ten aerial systems. We have two smaller quadrupeds and one larger one. 00;04;21;04 - 00;04;28;16 Gwyneth Yeah. And the larger one that we have, is for Boston Dynamics spot. So that is one that, listeners at home are probably more familiar with. 00;04;28;19 - 00;04;32;29 Chelsie It's so interesting. I call them robot dogs, and you guys call them Quadro. What? 00;04;32;29 - 00;04;40;10 Gwyneth Quadrupeds. That's I think that just means that they have four legs. So. Yeah, but we call them robot dogs too, right? 00;04;40;12 - 00;04;42;05 Alex And that's really cool spot. 00;04;42;07 - 00;04;42;15 Donovan Yeah. 00;04;42;21 - 00;04;44;27 Chelsie We also. Okay. Awesome. 00;04;44;29 - 00;04;47;05 Alex What are their names? 00;04;47;07 - 00;04;55;10 Gwyneth The smaller ones are being in bacon, and we've had those ones for longer at the spot we haven't named yet, so we're still open to ideas. If you have any. 00;04;55;13 - 00;04;59;02 Alex But you should do a naming contest and see what people come up with. 00;04;59;04 - 00;05;04;02 Chelsie We'll let you know if anyone comments and things have any names to send into the podcast. 00;05;04;05 - 00;05;06;02 Gwyneth Any ideas? We're happy to take in. 00;05;06;09 - 00;05;13;08 Alex So what makes chaos unique as opposed to drones you see at 4th of July that are coordinated doing like fireworks demonstrations. 00;05;13;12 - 00;05;35;15 Donovan So most of the drones you see at a large scale like that, each individual drone has its own mission plan. So it's just following a predetermined path, which is why sometimes I've done this show, you'll see like ten, 20 drones for the sky, because they're not avoiding each other, they're just flying. So they're subjective to wind and other variables. 00;05;35;18 - 00;05;52;18 Donovan Our systems know when they're in the air. They're actually speaking to each other and telling their current position. So if they're on a path and they see that another drone's going across their path, they'll actually talk to each other and one will stop before the other one so that they don't just run into each other. 00;05;52;18 - 00;06;19;09 Gwyneth Yeah. And not only are they communicating with each other, but they're also making decisions in real time. So, all of those almost firework like shows, there's no decision making. They know exactly where they need to go at each moment. But with our systems, they are taking in information from the environment and then deciding, oh, that is, an object of interest, or I've detected a signal over here, I might move closer to investigate or be able to make those choices in real time. 00;06;19;12 - 00;06;20;00 Alex It's really neat. 00;06;20;01 - 00;06;24;13 Chelsie And can you describe a couple of scenarios that this technology would be used for? 00;06;24;15 - 00;06;51;28 Gwyneth Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So a few different scenarios might be, to prepare and investigate an area for a team of warfighters before they move into an unknown area. So they might, a lot of what we've done is surveillance and reconnaissance work. So they might be doing visual scans, but the cameras onboard the systems for objects of interest, like a vehicle or like personnel walking around on the ground. 00;06;52;01 - 00;07;09;29 Gwyneth We also have worked a bit with some DARPA programs that have to do with, cyber reconnaissance and cyber effects. And so we might be scanning for Wi-Fi signals in an area, determining if those are bad actors, and then seeing if we can disrupt that signal in some way. So those are some scenarios that we've worked on in the past. 00;07;10;05 - 00;07;27;11 Gwyneth You could also apply the work that the systems do to things like search and rescue. So that goes beyond the Navy and Marine Corps, use case and goes out into it. That can be used for any natural disaster situation or any, event where that would be needed. 00;07;27;14 - 00;07;57;11 Chelsie That is amazing. What these drones and these robot dogs that they're doing, and you guys are creating the technology to help do all of that. It's awesome. So when they're scanning, landscapes, WiFi signals or even natural disaster areas for, you know, recovery and rescue, is it like a live feed to either the warfighter or the civilian on the other end, or is it like, they just send the data back and they kind of are able to like look at it later? 00;07;57;14 - 00;08;20;24 Gwyneth Well, you can do either. We have live camera feeds back to our ground station, our user interface. And then we also have where they send data back. So like the you can pull up a live feed of the whole area. But if the system detects an object of interest, it'll also send back like that coordinates where that was detected and a specific image that shows where that happened. 00;08;20;27 - 00;08;43;12 Donovan Something that also helps with that is that our drones, while they're in the air, create a mesh network. So it's not everything's not talking directly back to the ground station. The drones are talking to each other. So we've had, an environment that was an urban city. So we couldn't talk to our quadruped because buildings were in a way. 00;08;43;14 - 00;08;52;11 Donovan So our solution to that was to send a drone in the air above the building, and we were able to talk to the dogs through the drone and collect data that way. 00;08;52;12 - 00;09;01;16 Chelsie Oh, wow. Look, good problem solving. Okay, cool. When it's versatile like that, you have a lot more options to problem solve for sure. Like that's very cool. 00;09;01;18 - 00;09;07;14 Alex So what are the benefits and why is it important to the warfighter to have these solutions while they're out in theater? 00;09;07;16 - 00;09;36;01 Gwyneth I think any of us, when you're going into an unknown situation and potentially a hostile situation, you want as much information as you can get. And so what our systems are able to do is to collect a lot of information and send all of that back to the warfighter in a way that doesn't put any personnel at risk, because these systems, they're unmanned, they're able to, collect information and even do some preparation work, before the warfighters enter the scene or in tandem with them. 00;09;36;07 - 00;09;44;18 Gwyneth But they're able to get some of that work done, in a way that doesn't involve, the human operator being in that hostile environment. 00;09;44;20 - 00;09;51;27 Alex So the benefits are very helpful in terms of making sure that they have what they need before getting into a dangerous situation. 00;09;51;29 - 00;09;59;05 Chelsie Is it also faster? Does it provide like a faster way to get reconnaissance versus the warfighter trying to go out and survey everything? 00;09;59;05 - 00;10;23;17 Donovan Yes it does. The drones, since they're flying through the air, we can fly them as high as you want to fly them. They can go over buildings instead of having to go through different streets and go pass obstacles. Real use case that we're seeing now, for this type of work is actually for security forces. 00;10;23;19 - 00;10;45;02 Donovan They're able to send drones now and scout out. Is this alarm a person? Is it just an animal is a threat? What type of threat? It is and says sending a civilian or someone in a uniform out there and put their life at risk or even waste time, they can send a drone, figure out what's going on before they allocate resources to it. 00;10;45;04 - 00;11;06;29 Chelsie Awesome. It's just another tool in the toolkit too, so I love it. So to work on create this type of technology and work with these drones and these robot dogs, what type of degrees and skills does your team have in order to to do this? So anyone listening who might be interested in someday doing this work, what type of degree and skills should they get? 00;11;07;01 - 00;11;13;27 Gwyneth Yeah, I have a computer engineering degree. A lot of our software team is computer science or computer engineering. 00;11;14;00 - 00;11;39;13 Donovan And then I have a mechanical engineering degree. But I would like to note that my drone experience, was nonexistent before joining the group. So it was a lot of learning on the job. So being able to adapt, being willing to learn is what we look for. Because anything's possible if you're willing to put time and effort into it. 00;11;39;16 - 00;11;40;20 Chelsie Good to know. 00;11;40;22 - 00;11;53;11 Alex And how does that make you all feel that you're able to do this work? And it's helping the mission of the warfighter. Contributing to how we support the Navy and other branches of the military. 00;11;53;14 - 00;12;14;24 Gwyneth Yeah, it feels great. I personally have family members who are veterans. I'm sure a lot of us either have family members or our active duty or veterans ourselves. And it feels great to be doing such fun work because really, it is really fun to be out there. We get to spend a lot of time in the field testing these systems, so that's really exciting for me. 00;12;14;24 - 00;12;19;15 Gwyneth And then also to know that it's going towards a really important mission. 00;12;19;17 - 00;12;35;14 Donovan For me personally. It makes me feel good that we're playing another tool out there that can ensure the safety for our troops, for our first responders, so that their life is less at risk, in whatever environment that they're going into. 00;12;35;15 - 00;12;52;25 Chelsie I learned so much speaking with you guys about this capability, and I'm so impressed. I love that we were able to explain how different it is versus just the drones. You see, for entertainment and how important your work is. So thank you so much for coming on for the podcast. 00;12;52;25 - 00;12;54;08 Gwyneth Yeah. Thank you for having us. 00;12;54;10 - 00;12;56;07 Donovan Thank you. 00;12;56;09 - 00;13;05;18 Chelsie I was so impressed when they told us that this technology not only scans for people, but can even pick up other Wi-Fi signals. Awesome. Very cool. 00;13;05;18 - 00;13;26;19 Alex Yes, this technology is really amazing and it's cool how it all works together and it helps out the warfighter. So that's even better. And speaking of the warfighter, I was able to talk with an impressive person, Petty Officer Caleb Donaldson, who spoke with me about the work he does as part of our cloud hosting operations team in New Orleans. 00;13;26;21 - 00;13;49;13 IT1 Donaldson I am It1 Caleb Donaldson, and currently I'm working on the cloud hosting operations team down in New Orleans. And how did you get interested in joining the military graduate or my senior year of high school? Didn't really know what to do. Some sparked my interest, couldn't pinpoint what it was, but Navy specifically, my grandfather was in the Navy, so I chose that aspect versus the other branches. 00;13;49;15 - 00;14;10;21 Alex Very nice. He kept it in that family tradition. And what do you get out of serving and why is that important to you? IT1 Donaldson I enjoy doing it. The People Travel is my fourth duty station, so fourth place, I've lived outside my hometown is just enjoy doing it. I enjoy the IT perspective, learning, do new systems and talk a little bit about that. 00;14;10;21 - 00;14;34;20 Alex What, specific systems are you working on or what? What are the sort of overall I.T things that you're doing? So started off back in high school, just that interest in computers built my first one and then went up to recruiters like, hey, what do you have for it? Like, well, I got you so enlisted as an it went through learning the, system administrator side of it all the different aspects. 00;14;34;20 - 00;14;53;22 Alex And now it's the Amazon Web service learning that for, cloud hosting. And now that you've been at Network Atlantic, have you seen how important the work that network Atlantic does in terms of helping the warfighter? How does that translate to what you've done in, in your previous, duty stations? So now I see the back end of it. 00;14;53;22 - 00;15;16;11 Alex I see what the struggles are creating and supporting. I've been used to operating the systems. So talking with specifically New Orleans, the people that develop and work on in-service. So seeing what they do on a day to day, how and then how that translates to the warfighters and all the other sailors utilizing the systems. Or you could say the same thing for most of them. 00;15;16;11 - 00;15;44;08 Alex What would you say to someone who's interested in joining the Navy or the military? Why should they join? For me, is the best decision. If it wasn't for the Navy, I don't know if I would have left home in the capacity of going to live somewhere else with the Navy. I got to go and they're going to pay for housing, whether it be a barracks room or as you climb higher in the ranks of getting VA to live out in town and then just meeting all these new people, different walks of life and lifelong friends, well, that's excellent. 00;15;44;08 - 00;15;58;19 Alex Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. I liked how you share his experiences of seeing the technology from the back end being here. And now we get LingQ and learning what all goes into it as opposed to being on the fleet side. 00;15;58;19 - 00;16;19;10 Chelsie Yeah, that collaboration between active duty and civilian is super important to what we do here at Network Atlantic, and it's what makes us so unique. So love that as well. I could also relate to him, as far as being in the military and joining that kind of, extra edge you get not just with experience, but finances. 00;16;19;10 - 00;16;37;27 Chelsie When he talked about, you know, how they help with housing and stuff like that. I did the same thing in my early 20s when I joined the military. So that is so helpful. If you are ever thinking about joining. That is one perk that especially nowadays, with, you know, finding a house or getting rent, it's a great perk to have so I could relate to him. 00;16;38;03 - 00;16;41;09 Chelsie Lots of good reasons to join the military that we're finding, Alex? 00;16;41;09 - 00;16;44;19 Alex Yes, indeed. It was really great talking to him and our other guests with the episode. 00;16;44;21 - 00;17;04;13 Chelsie Super impressive episode, talking about all the wonderful things as far as I.T. drones, robot dogs, all these unmanned systems. I love it, and as always, to learn more about anything we've mentioned in the podcast, check out our social medias under Nav War or our Narvik Atlantic website. Links are in the description. 00;17;04;13 - 00;17;16;24 Alex And this wraps up another episode. Thank you, as always for listening. If you have a story that you think should be included in this podcast, please contact us at our Public Affairs email address, which is listed in the description. 00;17;16;26 - 00;17;33;29 Chelsie Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic, also known as Violet, is the East Coast branch of the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command within the Department of the Navy, we develop a range of technologies that provide state of the art capabilities to the United States military.