How Do Military Drones Fly Without GPS? | Ian Laffey, Theseus

so okay you do a hackathon 2 weeks later

you get into YC roughly a month later

you're flying a drone what we've seen in

Ukraine in the past 2 years that drones

and like being able to just throw a

thousand of something at somebody is

extremely useful but now we can't run an

autonomous Mission because we don't have

GPS what if we just use like Google Maps

and what if we fingerprint the maps and

and match them when you buy better

sensors what you're buying is less noise

AI is very good at D noising just take a

cheap sensor and just noise it and you

can do something for like a 100th of

price I'm Ian lafy I'm the CTO at

thesias and we're building GPS denied

drone navigation tools so basically

we've got a little triangle you put it

on the bottom of your drone and it lets

it fly without GPS well thank you so

much for joining me here this is going

to be fun you came here to the astronic

office we got our epic industrial

Machinery in the background very fitting

for this kind of conversation but the

the point of that of course is that GPS

is not guaranteed I mean it's on all of

our phones we're used to it you're used

to being able to navigate with it just

like as a person walking around the

world but I don't think people know

those are literally the same satellites

that the Department of Defense uses

there's not like another GPS

constellation out there there's just 31

satellites and with those satellites

both we navigate around cities and

drones navigate a battlefield that's

exactly it and um I mean GPS is really

really good um and it's it's really

cheap recently we've seen that

commercial drones are able to do like a

lot and so all of those commercial

drones were built on the backbone of

having GPS uh so you can get a $500

drone off Amazon um and that's really

really useful um but it relies on like

this $25 GPS chip uh and previously um

in the US and in the defense industry

we've built these large like Exquisite

systems that okay if you're spending 3

million on a on a plane you can have a

$500,000 like Boutique GPS replacement

and so we've actually had that

technology since the' 70s um really the

difference now is that okay if you can

go on Amazon or you can literally 3D

print something that has like this

incredible use and is really really

cheap

then like you need something that can

drop in on that and and serve that need

that was previously just like reserved

for these like custom belt systems

meaning meaning because drones have

gotten so cheap and so good and

basically like uh just cost effective

enough that you can have dozens hundreds

thousands of them deployed yep you need

all the components of that to also be

cheap like you can't just have cheap

electric motors and you can't just have

cheap whatever like batteries and things

like that like very compact batteries

like that that by itself is not enough

you also need to be able to navigate

these things and and that is too

expensive or just not good enough to

stay uh active in like a wartime

environment yeah and I mean what's

really incredible is like what we've

seen in Ukraine in the past two years is

like real like uh peer powered conflict

and so it's not just like America we've

we' got these big bases and we're set up

in Afghanistan and we can just like

project our power um this is like

literally trench warfare and so what you

see there is that the drones and like

being able to just throw a thousand of

something at somebody is extremely

useful and it's even useful without GPS

um but then people people come to this

problem and it's like oh my gosh like my

drone can do all of this awesome stuff

at home or like we would like it to do

all of this but now we can't do that

because like we can't run an autonomous

Mission because we don't have GPS like

we can't um if we're doing like Intel we

don't actually know where the Intel is

coming from and so people are going back

to like very old school techniques a lot

of the time where you know you're

literally looking at at some video feed

of tank in the battlefield that you

you'd like to know where the enemy's

tank is um but then you're like doing

terrain matching it's like oh I know

yourself like you're looking at a

picture and you're like oh I remember

that tree literal person is like looking

there and then going on a map on their

computer or like their tablet um and so

in a lot of ways it's like very new tech

and very old Tech because you've got

this tablet but then you literally have

to like look at a picture and say like

oh I'm here um and so so we're enabling

is like basically stuff that you could

do in California today with a drone

because GPS isn't denied and we're just

making it so that you can do that uh in

in a battlefield do you want to talk a

little bit about just the different kind

kinds of drone that are out there like

on battlefields today because it's not

just like you know I'm sure people are

familiar with a DJ DJI like you know fly

up and have a camera and whatever um

what what are the different ways that

they're deployed today and what do those

different requirements mean for

something like your product yeah it's a

really good question I think they like

coolest like flashiest kind of drone is

like the kamakazi like the oneway attack

drone and are those usually fpvs yeah

okay um and so you can make those really

cheap you can make them for like under

$500 um you can 3D print them then

there's also and this is what the DJI

get used for a lot like ISR drones so

like intelligence surveillance

reconnaissance um those are really

really useful actually like just

Gathering Intel um they can be very

useful in like telling you where your

artillery has hit um yeah th those get

like a ton of use and then I think what

what we're seeing more of now in in

Ukraine as well is like these kind of

one-way long strike attack drones that

can go hundreds of miles and those are

like effectively like a missile

basically and so so those are kind are

those like carrying payloads that they

drop and fire separately or they're not

kamic cazis they're not you see people

are literally filling up like basically

cesas filled with like explosives and

like sending those like very long

distance um and I I I think that that's

like a capability that we need to we

need to further develop um it's it's

kind of just like when you can do that

so much cheaper um and have so much like

Intelligence on board so for for those

different types of drones I imagine that

they are built differently they're built

different sizes they're more or less

expensive they're more or less capable

of doing certain missions of course so

which types of those are you guys

focusing on most for for the nav yeah

it's a good question um I I think what

we like what we focused on initially are

like ISR drones um because you typically

spend a little more money on on these

like surveillance platforms um and so

you know our stuff is cheap it's like

under $10,000 uh well under $10,000 and

um because of that like I if you're if

you have like a $500 drone like that

that might be like a little tougher to

make work um and so just starting on

like platforms that do repeatable

missions um and so like it's more cost

effective basically makes sense you you

want to start on the higher end

basically and then work your way to get

the product cheaper and cheaper as you

have more scale yeah and the like the

autonomy is is really flashy and really

cool um like the full end to-end

autonomy and like the idea of like oh

you put something up and then you know

it just strikes a Target no human in the

loop um that being said like you know