#45: India Johnson (UAVistas)

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:00:00]:
There are drones that can do this. They have computer vision, technology built in. They can identify faces and colors and things like that. But, you know, what does it look like when, you know, a drone has the same technology as a Tesla vehicle that can drive on its own and identify people and make decisions. And I think that's kind of the leap I'm really excited about. It's a little scary, but, you know, it can identify a face. It can find somebody that's on a wanted list. It can find a lost child.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:00:32]:
They can identify a rare species on a less scary note, I guess.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:37]:
Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today, I had the pleasure of speaking with India Johnson, who among many things is an unmanned aerial systems pilot, a public servant, a geospatial developer, and an entrepreneur. She currently is responsible for flying, processing data from, and maintaining the Cleveland Metroparks drone fleet with a focus specifically on natural resource management and geospatial development. In parallel, India is the founder of UA Vistas, where she focuses on conservation, inspection, mapping, and photography while incubating her drone product application, working to survey, detect, and remediate invasive plant species. This really was a fascinating deep dive into the world of drones, their growing importance in our everyday lives, and their implications for the future. So I hope you all enjoy my conversation with India Johnson.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:53]:
So I'm glad we were finally able to connect here. I know it has taken us quite a while to find the availability, but I'm glad that we have found it and can showcase your story and the work you are doing with drones, which I am deeply fascinated by and excited to hear and and learn about. So thank you, India.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:02:14]:
Yes. No. I'm really happy we were able to finally connect too. Yeah. It's been it's been busy. The nature of the work, it's like I have to be out there flying them. I can't just, you know, let them fly themselves. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:28]:
Right. Right. Anyway. And we'll get to automation of drones maybe. But but where did your interest in the world of drones and and aviation come from?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:02:39]:
So it kind of started out of nowhere. So I initially was not interested in drones. Like, I barely knew, like, what a drone was when I was in college. My interest was in biology, ecology, the environment, and how that intersected with technology. There was an ecology class I took where we had a sort of career day and someone that worked with, ironically enough, Cleveland Metroparks and flew drones, talked about what he did. And he liked to fly drones. He even had a drone in his hand. You know, we look at natural areas, we look at forests And I thought, oh, wow.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:03:19]:
That's really cool. That's a really awesome intersection between conservation work, the environment, and technology. So then fast forward, gosh, 3 years, 3 years, I think, maybe 4. And I saw a position open with keeping Metro Parks. I'm looking for full time work of a GIS developer. And I applied and I'm applying for a lot of jobs at the time of Mona College. So I'm just thinking, okay. You know, it's another job to

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:47]:
apply for. Sounds interesting.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:03:48]:
And what does GIS mean? Oh, sorry. Geographical information systems. So you'll see like, ArcGIS a lot there. Esri, that's one of their softwares. QGIS is another GIS software. But generally, it's just kind of all the systems that come together to sort of map areas, gain knowledge about physical areas. And I was looking to do dev work, and it was with an organization that, you know, had a lot of natural area. So I said, sure.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:04:18]:
Got the position, found out after the fact that it was actually the same position that the guy who presented in my class, was in a few years before, and that's when I started learning to fly drones. So, yeah, it was a lot of steps before actually getting to the flying of the drones and applying them to certain problems.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:41]:
Yeah. And what is the process of learning to fly drones professionally? Like,

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:04:49]:
how how

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:49]:
is, you know, is there a parallel to the other aviation paths? What is what is that process entail?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:04:55]:
So it actually is parallel to other aviation paths in the sense that there's a test. So a lot of people have drones. A lot of people have drones. You know, they fly them recreationally. To fly commercially, whether it's your own business, whether it's for a company or whether, you know, you just want to make a little money, you have to have a part 107 certification. So it's the, issued by the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. And essentially, you take a test. So you study for the test, take a test.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:05:23]:
I think you have to pass it with 75% or higher, I think. And have your license for 2 years. Yeah. You just have to get, like, a c, like a mid range c and you're good. That was the first thing I did when I was hired on. You're like, hey. You know, you need just get your study, get your test, get your certification. And that was the first thing I did when they hired me.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:05:44]:
I think that's pretty much it. There's no practical. There's no, hey, Do a loop with a drone. And it's similar in that pilots learn about a lot of the same things. There's a lot more. But when I took the test and studied for it, I was surprised at how much we needed to know about airports.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:01]:
Yeah. And we'll get to your your own business that that you've built out of out of the space. But I kind of want to set a little bit of context here when we talk about drones as I don't think yet as a society, we've like fully appreciated where they are, how far they have come, and maybe some of the implications that they have it and really how much they're being used in in so many different industries. And so I'd love you know, we can start focusing with the work that you were doing at the time with the metro parks. But what is the drone space look like today, and and what are some of those applications, and what do they unlock that formerly we couldn't even do or, like, contemplate before their their Advent and and mass kind of usage?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:06:46]:
The type of data collection that we can get with a drone is probably the biggest innovation there. So before, you would either be on the ground or you would get satellite data or you would get data from a plane or helicopter with the helicopter probably being the lowest elevation aerial data you can get. But what the drone allows us to do is get relatively low elevation data pretty safely and also go into areas where a helicopter may not be able to go. You know, ideally and with the right drone, you can even go below the canopy If you're looking at a natural area and you need to get under the trees, helicopter ideally wouldn't be trying to do that. Right. For

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:31]:
obvious reasons.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:07:32]:
Yes. And that's another thing too. Like, drones allow us to do all these things relatively safely. So even if something goes wrong with the drone, something, you know, it crashes, it's fine. It probably crashed into a tree. Tree is fine. Drone might be fine, but nobody's hurt. So it allows us to do a lot of things safely and to get more detail when we're looking at aerial data.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:07:55]:
So, like, I can fly, depending on the area, as low as 20 or 50 feet depending on what we're looking at. And I think that's one of the biggest uses of drones, in recent years. Like, people have found that especially for natural areas, also for looking at erosion. So, like, cliffs and stuff, which you can probably get that data with a helicopter, but you know, how close does it have to fly to a cliff to get that image data? And then also looking at more creative uses. So drone use has extended to, search and rescue, has extended to evaluating disaster areas, to swamps. You know, all of these being places that are inherently dangerous to, like, walk around in potentially. And so that's another big use is going into areas that aren't safe for people to walk around in to get data.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:44]:
When you say data, I'm just trying to, like, imagine, you know, the feeds you're getting. Like, how much of it is qualitative data? Just like the the visuals that you're pulling back in? What what of it is quantitative? And like, how does that compare to, you know, were you doing this work with a helicopter, with a satellite? How how is it different, in those ways?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:09:05]:
So the qualitative data usually takes the form of images and video. Pretty much, as far as I know, that's mostly it. At least in the work that I've done. The quantitative data can either be gathered by the drone and then processed later, and that can include, like, GPS data, elevation data. So one of the things that's really or 2 of the things I guess really popular to put on drones are, lidar and then other forms of like elevation sensors. So I think RTK is, real time measurements and then PPK is post processing elevation measurements. Usually the quantitative data comes into play, you know, after a flight. And there may be some systems out there that, you know, give live feeds of the data that the drone is collecting the quantitative data.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:09:53]:
But you sort of fly it. You get this visual qualitative data, and then you pull the quantitative data from it. And one of the benefits of using a drone is that a lot of that quantitative data, like the elevation data, for example, is usually more accurate than, say, a satellite or helicopter, unless the helicopter is equipped with lidar, which can be really expensive. But I guess if you have a helicopter, you're not as worried about it. But because they can get so low to the ground compared to, say, a satellite, they can get measurements that are accurate to a centimeter or less depending on what it's equipped with. Whereas a satellite might be a meter depending.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:33]:
Got it. So you mentioned kind of the the safety elements as well, but how much more affordable are these expeditions via drone versus via helicopter or the other methods out there? I imagine it's a pretty extraordinary, like, an exponential difference in in what it actually cost to aggregate this data now.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:10:55]:
Yes. So the interesting thing about so satellite data, for instance. A lot of satellite data is readily available, like through the, USGS. Like they have satellite data you can easily access and parse and it's free. Helicopters, usually you get data from that. It would be more accurate, yes, than a satellite, but it can cost in the range of a few thousand at best to 10,000 or so dollars, especially depending on what they're equipped with. Whereas a drone, you get the benefits of accurate data depending on how you fly and how you process it. And the cost to fly really just being the cost of the drone, which the drone I fly most of the time is under $2,000.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:11:40]:
So you pay it once and you fly for as long as the drone lasts. And that's your investment. And then there are cheaper drones as well that can do really great work for 500, 600, $700. So you're not paying tens of 1,000 of dollars to collect data, and the data is quite accurate.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:59]:
I I imagine the implications for just the amount of data that we can now collect as a consequence of the affordability of these drones is gonna just allow for some really cool creative projects at a societal level. Like, I I don't know what those are, but it seems to me that when you unlock a technology like this, that historically the the cost is just prohibitively expensive. It it just opens up this whole world of of possibilities for things that people can work on and and businesses that they can create on top of this data, which maybe is a a good segue to to introduce UAVistas and the and the business that that you built there. Maybe we can just start with an overview of, you know, what UAVistas is and work backwards through the founding story of of how you came to identify the problem and and work towards, building this business.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:12:51]:
Yes. So UAVisa started off as, I guess, a moonlighting type gig. So I said, you know, I have a certification. I can fly a drone, and I'm gonna make some extra money on the side because I have student loans to pay off soon, hopefully. So with that goal in mind, you know, I bought a drone. And I said, okay. So how do I get work? And so I was working on that. And I had this idea because I have all of these kind of ideas rattling around in my head that, you know, I didn't really have an outlet to research or to test out.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:13:27]:
And I said, well, why couldn't my business be that? Why couldn't I turn my business from something that I have, you know, just to make money to something that I can use to work out all of these tech ideas and work on this intersection between technology and the environment that I've, you know, kind of wanted to work on since I was in college. And, you know, some of the things that I couldn't do in my day job, I could do at my business. And so that's kind of where the direction for UABistas came from. So, you know, how do I test all of these ideas? And from there, I started working with, tech accelerators. 1st jumpstart and then I went through a few entrepreneurial programs to sort of validate some of these ideas that I had or invalidate them and, like, start over, whatever the case may be, and kind of build up this business. And currently, I'm in the process of building a minimum viable product. So like the first tech product, I guess, that is kind of the culmination of these ideas that I have. And it's been very interesting journey.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:14:38]:
But I had started my business in 2019. So that's when I started getting everything together and then was officially incorporated in early 2020. Then the pandemic really hit and, I didn't know what to do. I, I was a brand spanking new business owner, and, they had to try to navigate a pandemic. It's like, you know, how do you pivot when you literally have nothing to pivot on? Matter of fact, I finished my first contract, which was a video for a YouTuber the day before everything shut down in Ohio. And so I spent a lot of that time in 2020 just kind of fleshing out a lot of my ideas and figuring out next steps and getting a lot of, like, paperwork and registrations done. And in 20 late 2020, I started picking up operations again. And it's been an interesting back and forth, internally with my business.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:15:35]:
It's like, hey, do I want to be more of a business and have like business contracts or do I want to be more of a startup? Because over those are ideas that I had kind of around like the same time of the formation of the business. And you know, when you're working full time too, it's like, okay, how much time can I really, you know, squeeze out of a day? And I ended up actually getting more interest in the education sector than I had expected. And so when that started happening, I kind of added that on as part of UA Vista's mission to sort of work with kids, adults, you know, anyone interested, do STEM education type programs. That was unexpected. That was one of those random unexpected things that came up as I started talking to people about the business. But, yeah, it kind of started just as I need to make more money because I have bills to let me grow this thing that I can use as a vehicle for, like, all of these ideas that I have and things I wanna test out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:44]:
Yeah. What are some of those ideas that you were working to validate and have since validated or or disproven? What were some of those things floating around in your head?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:16:55]:
So one of them was, and this is what I'm currently working on, is using drones in the environmental space to detect invasive species. So because we can fly so much lower than, you know, plane or helicopter and, see in more detail than a satellite, there's the possibility that we can use a drone to automatically detect an invasive plant from the air, potentially animals, but, you know, moving targets are a whole another thing. But, you know, how can we use drones to sort of map out how things are well, where they're located and then how they're spreading. And can we predict that, you know, based on that data? And what does that process look like for getting us from either randomly finding invasives when, you know, someone in a natural resources department is out or getting a report or, you know, thinking maybe invasives might be somewhere based on the characteristics of an area to being able to fly, you know, 4, 5, 6 acres plus and being able to just pick them out from a reconstruction of the area. And so kind of bridging that gap is where I'm at with this current project.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:11]:
What is the process of identification of invasive species look like today? Like, what what is the kind of improvement or or the problem rather that bringing drones in this in this creative way to the space would work to alleviate and and make make easier about the whole process?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:18:31]:
So one of the ways is so the current way that that's approached is boots on the ground approach. So you take someone who knows a lot about plants or someone who's familiar with local invasives, and they go out and they're either looking or they stumble across them and report them. Depending on the area, it can be somewhat of a hassle. It's a slower way to do things, but it's the way things have always been done. And the natural evolution of that was to go to citizen science. So there are certain programs that allow people just, you know, random people in parks and forests to report if they see something that is invasive or harmful. So if they see and whether it's a plant or a pest or a tree disease, there's an app out there where they can say, hey, I saw, you know, these peach leaf trees with weird leaves, and I think it's peach leaf disease. Or I saw spotted lanternfly in in their port location or garlic mustard or any number of things.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:19:36]:
And then they can send that data to, you know, whatever organization is hosting the app. But the problem with that is not a lot of people, oftentimes including myself, know what those things look like. And usually to find them or recognize them, you have to very intentionally look up what they look like and how to identify them. So the average person, like myself, would be in a forest, like, oh, hey. That's an interesting looking bug or that's an interesting looking plant, and not know that it's, like, ravaging the countryside. Right. So never report it. But then, you know, a person in natural resource department knows exactly what's going on.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:20:16]:
So they may be out there and say, hey. I know what this is and document it, but it would be a lot more it'd be a lot easier and a lot more effective to fly an area, a large area, and say, hey, this is how much we have. This is what we have in this area and this is what we can do. And it also makes it easier to translate into GIS because you just have more data to work with.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:40]:
It's come together in my head. I I have a bunch of questions here. One is it's not just the application of drones that affords for this kind of, solution, but it's it's really the combination of a few technologies where you have to identify the species itself and and the drone is the mechanism for that visual detection. But visual detection has developed enough where it's able to pick out those kinds of species from from one another in the field?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:21:08]:
Yes. So one of the big difficulties, I guess, in using aerial data is getting enough detail for these programs to identify them. So there are a good number of apps and programs and APIs that, like you said, can identify these plants from pictures. Usually the pictures have to be sort of close-up, but if you get a picture, you can say, hey, there's you know, a 90% chance that this is this plant or that plant based on your location or the properties of the plant. And they can be very accurate from what I saw up to like 90 or so percent. So the challenge is how do we get to that level of identification when we're 50 feet above a plant? You know, we have a picture 50 feet, technically 50 feet from it or 100 feet from it and not, say, a foot away. And that's sort of the big challenge right now that I'm facing in building this and that I think organizations that use drones have when trying to apply them to various problems. You know, it's how can we get the data to be good enough to actually process it in a way that's helpful.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:22:28]:
And, yes, it's leaps and bounds better than satellite imagery and it's more detailed than helicopter imagery, but there's a gap between it being good enough for, say, a machine learning algorithm or an API that's already out there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:43]:
How are you working to surmount that gap?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:22:48]:
So there are a few things. I'm currently in the process of, like, building it. I don't know if I wanna talk about it on air. Oh,

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:57]:
that's that's fair. That's fair.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:22:58]:
I don't know if it's proprietary or not or how that works. But well, one of the ways in which we can kind of combat this, this is pretty standard. Get closer. Get as close as we can to the planet. Fly under the canopy. And there are drones out there that are quote unquote crash proof, or at least very difficult to crash. They have really good systems for detecting what's around them and so can more easily fly underneath the canopy and get closer to things without crashing into a tree or anything else. And so when we get that closer image with that higher detail, it makes it easier to actually run it through an algorithm and figure out what it is.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:23:40]:
And there are a few other things I'm working on where we can fly hopefully a little bit higher and still get the detail that we need to figure out what a plant is. And it's yeah. I'm very much in the process of seeing if it's feasible or not. It's gonna be an interesting journey.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:00]:
Yeah. I can imagine. If you have a sense, what is the the, like, scope of this problem? Like, if if you came to market with the the drone product that that solves this problem, in the way that that you have envisioned it, both in, like, the cost that invasive species afflict in nature around us, but also from the business perspective, you know, like the Cleveland Metroparks and and other, you know, nature organizations. And I imagine many other organizations that I'm not even thinking about, like, what is this market opportunity look like and how do you think about it?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:24:35]:
So the market opportunity is is interesting. That's why I'm so focused on building this, minimum viable product. So I guess I'll tell you a tale, that I heard someone tell me. They started their work with, farmers. Similarly, it was the intersection of tech and the environment. So in this case, like agriculture and when they talk to farmers, farmers were like, oh yeah, we would love this technology. We would use it. It would be great.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:25:02]:
It would be so helpful. So they built it and the farmers used it, but they wouldn't pay them what they needed them to pay for it. And so in my course of going through a few entrepreneur programs and doing customer validation and talking to people, I'm at that space in between. So a lot of natural resource managers, a lot of organizations that have lots of land, lots of acreage that manage areas or are land stewards are very interested in the technology and would use it, and it would be helpful for them. But I don't know if or how much they would pay for it and if it's actually a viable business model based on that. And so then that got me to thinking, well, okay, it's currently a service. So it would be, hey, I build this thing, I fly it, I, you know, map your data out for this area that you're interested in. But, you know, if that's not a viable model, you know, what would be? So would I look at potentially building out the software component and having it be a SaaS service or software as a service? And would that be better? Or do I shift entirely, you know, and take this tech and pivot it into something else? So right now I'm at the point where there's a lot of interest, there's a lot of excitement.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:26:24]:
People will use it. But, you know, does that actually translate to people paying for it? And until I get the proper thing built out, I don't really know yet. But in terms of the damage that invasive species do, it's kind of twofold. So well, 3, 4. I'll talk about different points, I guess.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:42]:
Yeah. Yeah.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:26:43]:
So the most obvious point is that, you know, if an invasive species is there, a local species is not, a native species is not. And so they crowd out native species. And part of that is just by taking up space. In addition to that, they can actively harm or kill particular, native species. And we saw this with emerald ash borer, well, one of several beetles, but it decimated, decimated our area's ash trees. I actually lost a tree in my front yard to it, and I was younger. I didn't know what was going on. It just suddenly started to die and then it fell over in a storm, but our ashes were hit really hard.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:27:23]:
Now we're concerned about another beetle. I think it's Asian longhorn beetle that attacks, I think it's another tree. And then there's a few diseases that aren't necessarily pest based, but like fungal based or parasite based that can really wipe out a species in an area. And it can take a really long time for the trees to bounce back to trees to bounce back to build resistance. So invasives take up space from native species, but they also can actively kill them. In addition to that, the treatment of native species or invasive species can be harmful. So we don't have too many ways of getting rid of an invasive species, whether it's a pest or a plant, without using some sort of chemical. So there are physical methods, but they usually aren't very effective and hard to do wide scale.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:28:17]:
So we use pesticides, insecticides, herbicides. And I found out through my interviews that they're using very, very, very large amounts. And in terms of invasive species programs, that's actually where a lot of the money goes to just buying all of what we need to treat areas for invasives. And that's another serious harm that they do. So in treating them, we can actually do more damage to native species or to the ecosystem as a whole just by trying to get rid of them. But then if you don't do anything about them, they could potentially wipe out what's already there. So it's kind of a catch-twenty 2, I guess. And we don't really know all the effects that these chemicals have.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:29:04]:
That's another part. That's kind of, I guess, the next phase, hopefully, of my business. It's like, say, how do we reduce pesticide and herbicide usage in your treatment? So if we can map them and figure out where they are and maybe predict how they're spreading, we can potentially get ahead of the game and maybe come up with a plan that would help us use less chemicals to actually treat these things. But, you know, what's something that's a little more direct where we can

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:32]:
Right.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:29:32]:
Not hurt the things around the invasives.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:35]:
Right. I imagine having just a better picture of the lay of where these invasive species are would just let you be more surgical in trying to combat them versus just broad applications of things that are supposed to to get rid of them.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:29:53]:
Yes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:55]:
So in your development of this invasive species product application under UAVs does, How would you kind of just outline the the other current state of the business? I know you have work in conservation with the metro parks inspection, the mapping work photography, But how do you kind of think about the current state of of where you are today and then where you're taking it? Is it is it limited to and really just focused on the work you're doing right now to develop this idea, or are you thinking about other things as well?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:30:26]:
Oh, I have quite a few ideas knocking around in my notebooks. Like, one of my primary interests was in so I guess it's a UAV as well or UAS. So it's unmanned aquatic vehicle. So another name for drone is UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle or unmanned aerial system. So there's also unmanned aquatic vehicles and systems. And so especially looking at, you know, our one of our primary resources here in Northeast Ohio, Lake Erie, you know, how could potentially getting something that's, you know, unmanned in the water at various depths for data collection or for exploration be helpful? You know, could that be helpful? And one of the things I'm working on on the side is kind of learning about lakes. Learning about lakes, learning about Lake Erie and seeing where quote unquote drones could be used in that space. So that's one of the areas where we kind of see the drone industry expanding.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:31:29]:
It's expanding in terms of where we can go with drones and what a drone is. So commonly we think of it as, you know, machine that flies, But there are underwater drones that people have developed. There are drones that operate, you know, indoor spaces. And you know what an unmanned aerial or I guess unmanned vehicle in general is is one of the areas we're sort of expanding. And in terms of application, one of the areas I've looked at recently was search and rescue and disaster evaluation. I'm seeing increased use in those areas. You know, tornado goes through an area and you want to evaluate the damage. Say it goes through, you know, mostly natural area, no houses or anything like that.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:32:17]:
But, you know, how do you assess the tree loss? How do you assess how much, you know, lumber that was that cost you? That's another one of the areas. And I think expiration is going to be one of the ways in which drones are utilized. Now, one of the difficulties in using drones in, you know, a wide array of areas as freely as we can is, visual line of sight. So typically, you have to keep your drone within visual line of sight. So it limits what you can do with drones. You know, if I want to fly, I don't know, a 200 acre area, chances are unless I'm in a really, really high up place, I'm not gonna be able to see it for that whole 200 acres. So I can't fly it. Whereas if I didn't have to, you know, I can map 200 acres.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:13]:
And that's a a regulatory restriction, not a technological one.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:33:17]:
Yes. That is mostly regulatory. Depending on the drone, there are limits to how far the, controller can actually broadcast to the drone. And it could be anywhere from, like, 1 mile to 3 miles depending. But typically, you're gonna lose sight of it long before that. And so that's one of the regulatory restrictions that the, FAA seems to actually be moving toward getting rid of or reducing, at least, with their tracking measures they're putting into place later. I think it's later next year. But, yeah, I think expiration and the types of drones that we see are going to be where things kind of expand.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:33:57]:
Then of course, there's delivery. Like everyone talks about delivery, parcels and packages and stuff. And that might be the next big thing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:05]:
Maybe this is just a good place, out of my own curiosity to ask about kind of the second order of unmanned vehicles being just fully autonomous vehicles, and your perspective on these unpersoned vehicles just kind of operating themselves. How far away are we from that? Is that happening already? What is what does that look like?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:34:28]:
So I've seen it, like, it's already happening. It's mostly happening in, I think, a research context just because in most places legally, I don't think it can happen in any other context. So what you have, I've seen swarming drones and now probably people I've probably seen shows where drones sort of swarm and they communicate with each other to coordinate. And, you know, that's a sense, that's a type of autonomy on your part. And I think it can really be done now, just like with, you know, robots on the ground, vehicles like cars, regulatory restrictions, safety concerns, especially kind of limit what we can do right now. But I think with the advent of, you know, fully autonomous vehicles like cars and then more advanced robots, we're gonna just be like, hey, you know, that that the drone's gonna do their own thing, have this, you know, AI on board, do what the drone is programmed to do. Whether that's detect invasive species, whether that's find people in rubble, whether that's evaluate, a disaster area, or inspect a roof, which honestly, most of those things we could probably program a drone to do on its own right now. It's just a matter of the regulatory situation not being quite there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:48]:
Of the applications you've seen and have learned about and read about, what what excites you most about the the future of drones?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:35:58]:
Oh, okay. So this might sound a little scary. It might sound a little big brother y, but, computer vision. And it's still sort of in the realm of what I'm doing, but it it can be used in so many other contexts. So, you know, if you have this drone that is controlled, like, by its own AI, you know, you don't really have to have a person controlling it, moving it, looking at a screen, but rather and there are drones that can do this. They have computer vision technology built in. They They can identify faces and colors and things like that. But, you know, what does it look like when, you know, a drone has the same technology as a Tesla vehicle that can drive on its own and identify people and make decisions.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:36:41]:
And I think that's kind of the leap I'm really excited about. It's a little scary, but, you know, it can identify a face. It can find somebody that's on a wanted list. It can find a lost child. They can identify a rare species on a less scary note, I guess. But and then when we get underwater, like, when we care are capable of actually identifying things underwater, which has its own challenges. Water and cameras have a lot of their own challenges. But if we can equip an AI and it has this ability to identify things on its own, what would we be able to do and find? And I think that area is currently being explored, again, more in a research context and a commercial one, But I think it'd be really cool to see where that goes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:29]:
Yeah. It I am excited to to see where it goes as well. It has both these Black Mirror kind of dark future elements, but also some pretty inspiring and, and promising applications for the really positive positive things. I imagine is you think a lot about kind of that that whole world, and it it seems very cool to be working on on something really at the forefront of of, like, technological innovation like that.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:37:57]:
Thank you. I appreciate that. I I wish I was a little further ahead, though. But there's just there's just so much to take into account because, like, computer vision and then the sensors, like, sensor technology is getting better And that adds a whole another level to it. So not just a computer vision component, but what a drone can actually detect and sense. Like when we get to the point where it can detect certain chemicals in the air and detect spills and chemical leakages and not just in the air, but on the ground and in the water. Like there's so many ways that the technology can go. And so I really like drones as a tool to be used to solve various problems in various industries.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:42]:
Yeah. I I'll tie it back into to Cleveland for a sec as we kinda work work towards, wrapping up here. But what what has been kind of your favorite project working in the metro parks?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:38:57]:
So the natural property store, I'm out in a forested area and natural resources would either want a like reconstruction of an area or to look for a pest or tree disease or a particular plant that might be aquatic and in a pond. Because those are the types of requests that sort of push the limits of, you know, what a drone can do. And my ability to, like, process that data and figure out what's going on. So, any requests where it's like, hey, we're curious about this area. Get out there with a drone and get some visual data. And I go back and then I reconstruct it, into a ortho photo or a 3 d point cloud and get elevation data. And and I can do that over the course of a few years. It's really cool because you can really see how an area has changed, And you can just find out a whole lot of things like, hey, did the tree canopy increase? You know? So is it greener? Are there a wider variety of plants? And may not be able to quantify everything, but sometimes just the visual is really helpful.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:40:09]:
And I learn a lot. I learn a lot about, you know, what they're looking for in these places and what they need to know and being able to go back and try and figure out a solution, especially when there's not like there's not just like a book. Just like, hey, you just do this to find this and to find this species. And, yeah, that's not there. So I kinda have to figure out if there's a way to do it with, you know, materials that I have. But I think just that exploration of that critical thinking, that problem solving, and the exploration was out there. I like those projects the best.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:44]:
Yeah. It is uncharted territory, like almost literally. Well, the the final question that that I have one that we ask everyone who comes on the show is for hidden gems in Cleveland. Not necessarily your favorite thing in Cleveland, but things that that you appreciate that other people may not know about Cleveland.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:41:05]:
So one of them is Asiatown, actually. And it's not I guess it is not well known, but a lot of people, like, don't go there. And I guess because it's not as noticeable maybe as the Asian town in, like, San Francisco or something like that, but it's so cool. Like, there are so many places just with cool stuff, places to eat, you know, awesome food to try, events, And they have the night festival there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:34]:
Mhmm.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:41:34]:
And a lot of people, you know, don't go and check it out like they should. So I would say that's one of them for sure. And then trying to think of natural areas.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:44]:
Yeah. Spots only accessible via drone.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:41:48]:
Like, only if you have a drone can you go here. I would just say, honestly, in general, kind of all of Cleveland's natural areas. Like, we have Cleveland Metroparks, we have Summit and Lake Metroparks, and then we also have Lakefront Nature Preserve. And we have all these little pockets like forest heels of green and of trails and of really cool things to explore. Forest Hills Park, honestly, like no one ever talks about it, and I'm not too far away from it. And it's a combination of, like, managed and, like, really unmanaged area. Mhmm. And seeing the contrast is really cool.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:42:28]:
And sometimes just going walking around in the unmanaged part. Like, I've lived there once, and I went on a new trail, and there was just, like, a bridge slash road slash trail that was looked like an earthquake had hit it. And I'm like, how? And how did I miss this for so long? And the deer were just, like, out just checking it out, I guess, just chilling. It was just a really cool experience that I had there. But I think Cleveland's underrated in general for how much green space we do have and, like, how well it's maintained. Like, people don't think of us when they think of natural areas, especially, like, you know, we're on the east side of the United States, which I think people don't give enough credit to anyway for having, like, nice green spaces. So I would say, yeah, just finding out the nearest green space and going to it and seeing what's there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:19]:
I think there there is a lot to that. Well, India, thank you very much for coming on and sharing your story and the work you're doing. It's, it's truly fascinating. So I really appreciate you coming on.

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:43:32]:
Thank you so much. Enjoy being on.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:35]:
If folks have anything that they would like to follow-up with you about, where is the best place for them to contact you?

India Johnson (UAVistas) [00:43:42]:
It would be my email, india.johnson@uavistas.org. So my name and then the company name .org. Email and LinkedIn. I'm fairly active on LinkedIn. I would say those are probably the 2 best ways.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:00]:
Perfect. Well, thank you again, India. Thank you. That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm, or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or @sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:32]:
Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast