Episode 191: Collaborative Control: How TurnRock Labs is Innovating in Robotics & Automation with Brenan Lundquist

Episode notes

A peep into a robotics revolution:

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

Thanks for joining our 16 part FRST Challenge Mini Series recorded at the competition! Tracking and situational awareness has long been a problem for first responders. That's why the FRST Challenge competition is designed to pinpoint 3D tracking technologies that provide one-meter accuracy for first responders in indoor environments, crucial for enhancing their safety during rescue operations.

The 6 finalist teams competed in localization and ruggedization tests at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center from October 23-27, 2023. Winning teams gain access to funding, business support, and live field testing opportunities to evolve their solutions for real-world application.

In this episode:

Insight into TurnRock Labs ' innovative approach to harmonizing human skills with robot learning

Learn about the ethical, people-focused ethos driving TurnRock’s cutting-edge technology

Explore the potential of TurnRock’s product development in revolutionizing robotics, automation, and cyber-security

Get the scoop from Brenan Lundquist - the Founder and Managing Partner of TurnRock Labs .

TurnRock's team is made up of engineers and technologists who are striving to build the future of robotics and automation.

Their innovative control systems and robotics platforms provide greater resilience, safety, and mission capability for teams of robots. TurnRock provides product development & engineering services and help their customers find and secure government contracting opportunities through SBIR and other R&D programs.

So click play now to hear what he has to share, and stay tuned for the rest of our mini series!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro
2. 1:07 Meet Brenan Lundquist of TurnRock Labs
3. 1:24 From the Commanding Tech Challenge
4. 2:31 Making sense of sensor data
5. 4:46 Turning data into decisions
6. 5:17 Coming at it from the defense side
7. 6:32 Adoption is the hardest part
8. 7:15 Working with a public safety advisor
9. 8:39 What NIST makes possible
10. 9:22 Indoor sensors at this challenge
11. 11:01 Different approaches among the teams
12. 12:05 How TurnRock works as a company
13. 13:11 What's next for TurnRock Labs
14. 15:10 Final thoughts
15. 16:40 Outro

Questions answered in this episode

What NIST challenge was TurnRock Labs originally part of?

Brenan Lundquist says TurnRock Labs participated in the Commanding Tech Challenge run through PSCR. The challenge focused on helping incident commanders solve problems using live CCTV feeds, building models, indoor sensors, and other information.

Hear it at 1:37

What is TurnRock Labs' core focus with their technology?

Brenan Lundquist explains the company focuses on helping machines do what machines do best and humans do what humans do best, finding tasks that waste time or are difficult for humans and letting computers handle them quickly so people can do more things.

Hear it at 3:04

How did the Commanding Tech Challenge help TurnRock Labs understand first responders?

The challenge required each team to have a public safety advisor. Brenan Lundquist says they met with a fire chief every week, sometimes twice a week for one to two hours. That access was invaluable and doesn't come around in many other avenues.

Hear it at 7:15

What are the two main types of indoor positioning sensors Brenan saw at the FRST Challenge?

Some teams used an iPhone 14 with LIDAR in a hardened case doing simultaneous localization and mapping with optical and LIDAR imagery. Other teams used smaller pucks, similar to a GPS device, that follow the user around. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages.

Hear it at 9:22

What is next for TurnRock Labs?

Brenan Lundquist says they are releasing products related to co-pilot and AI agent concepts to build sustainable commercial revenue. They plan to use that traction to raise defense and first responder funding and are leveraging challenge results to raise larger contracts for development dollars.

Hear it at 13:23

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 191 transcript

Collaborative Control: How TurnRock Labs is Innovating in Robotics & Automation with Brenan Lundquist

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Brenan Lundquist

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new Smart Firefighting mini-series created during the phase five of the FRST Challenge, hosted at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. The FRST Challenge focus is to produce marketable prototypes that demonstrate indoor localization tracking of first responders within one meter accuracy without any pre-deployed infrastructure. Many of you heard stories from phase four, and here in phase five, the challenges were increased by including multiple responders, longer durations, and longer distances. In these conversations, you will hear from many of the entrepreneurs, first responders, and team members involved that address these challenges and opportunities of X, Y, and Z axis tracking from multiple perspectives around scalability, usability, affordability, and more. This challenge is administered by the Indiana University Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab and funded by the NIST Public Safety Communication Research PSCR Division. Also, consider putting the NIST 5x5 Conference on your calendar, located in Chicago, June 25th to 27th, 2024. Enjoy this deep dive into first responder tracking technology, and please reach out with your thoughts. We are chilling in HQ, phase five of the FRST Challenge, alongside Brenan Lundquist, the founder and managing partner of TurnRock Labs. Brenan, what's going on?

[1:22] Brenan Lundquist: Hey, good to talk to you. Excited to be here.

[1:24] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, so I mean you came from a different NIST challenge, not necessarily focused on the indoor localization challenge. What NIST program were you in and tell me about sort of the technology that you're working on?

[1:37] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, we were in the commanding tech challenge that was also run through PSCR. The whole purpose really was to look at a set of these sort of discrete problem areas and come up with ideas of how we would help an incident commander solve those problems in a world where we have access to you know live CCTV feeds in the building and the ability to have models of the building and indoor sensors and all this other type of information so it was important for us to come out here because it was we're able to for the first time really use these accurate good indoor position sensors without having to have you know smart buildings instrumented buildings I literally showed up yesterday pulled out my laptop and just hit a button and you know we're up and running so it was It's pretty great to be able to come out here, and I really appreciated the vision and the ability for people who ran this demo to recognize the value it would be for our teams to come out and participate as well.

[2:31] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, we'll say that I saw a couple of different companies that, in addition to yours, are all kind of taking in data and showing it in different ways. And whether it was an AR headset, a VR headset, or what I saw from you today was on a nice – I mean, it was on a 2D screen. talk me through a little bit sort of like what is the tech doing it I mean in summary for me it seems like it's taking in a bunch of data and making it sort of understandable and coherent as you're trying to look at all this during a real-time incident that's maybe a very short version of it but like what break that down a little bit more

[3:04] Brenan Lundquist: yeah I mean the basics right is you need to display the information from all the sensors and what you have access to in a way that the human there can understand it and do things about it but really for us our focus as a the company and what we do is not just in like, in how we display that data, it's how can we help you act upon it in new ways? So our core focus is how do we help machines do what machines do best and humans do what humans do best, as opposed to trying to find out what it is a human's doing and automate it's how do we find those elements where that person's wasting time or where it's difficult for them to do? How can we find a place where, you know, took you 10 minutes to do this, but a computer can do it in two seconds so that it frees you up to do more things. And so we really use the challenge as a vehicle to show that. We don't necessarily wanna be a company that's creating a whole instant command system if we don't have to be, but we had to create a version of one in order to show how we can jump onto one and provide you with those additional capabilities. So what we focused on was not just showing you the problem, but then trying to help you find a solution. So when these problems are detected, one of the examples and the challenge is what happens when a first responder goes down. There's a lot of different ways that you can get that information based on what you have access to, and then you can make it very obvious what's going on. You can flash all these things, but then how do we also provide solutions? Like who do you have on StandBoy? What other resources do you need to request? How do we interface with your CAD system and your department systems and then provide the capability for you to act upon that information in sort of new ways and sort of experiment with how you can change the way that you operate.

[4:46] Kevin Sofen: A lot of what you said to me boils into of just taking all the available data and turning it into a way that allows you to confidently make a decision without kind of being overloaded. And I liked what you said. I mean, there's all these different data points, but of some of it, you may not know what kind of data you're getting. So being able to take in whatever's available and using that to make a decision. And from your perspective and kind of working with first responders, like why has this been a challenge and why is the problem that you're working to solve like so important that we address?

[5:17] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, so for us it's always difficult because we're coming at this more from the defense side and this is our first exposure to first responders and from our side of things, one of the things that's so difficult is it's just so diverse. There's just so many different types of departments and so many different ways and so for us, it's hard for us to really even understand what the problems are that you guys wanna solve and then to develop something in a way where it solves as many people's problems as possible because that's what's required in order to have a company that doesn't go under, has been a big problem. So what was good about this is groups like NIST can kind of put requirements together. They can go and do the work of talking to all these different stakeholders and try to figure it out. And then that helps us kind of work on things. But I mean, in general, I think a lot of the issues relate to things like connectivity and connectivity to your data systems and what you have access to and what you don't have access to. And then there's also kind of elements of like training, you know, so we can take your PDF of your floor plans of a building and just have a system that just converts that right into a 3D stack model. And it goes into a 3D system and can represent that. But to get people to be willing to adopt that and start to go down that pathway is something that I don't know how to solve yet.

[6:32] Kevin Sofen: I mean, that adoption part's arguably, now arguably, my opinion is the hardest part of all this new tech within public safety and talk a lot about with entrepreneurs of needing to go and break bread with first responders and sit at the table and even doing competitions like this are good to be able to get face time with first responders on positioning, the placement, the color, the overall user experience. I mean, if you don't actually sit down and really hash through that and kind of above the double click into that with you more, kind of that customer discovery and engagement with public safety. I mean, you mentioned that maybe this is your first foray into public safety, but how are you approaching, like really understanding the customer and figuring out how not only to develop this tech, but how to really deploy and implement this tech?

[7:15] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, what was great about the Commanding Tech Challenge was that you had to have a public safety advisor. So they kind of helped you find them. And then, you know, you can go out and find whoever you wanted, but you had to actually come to them during one of the phases and say, this is my advisor. This is our plan to work with them. So we had a fire chief that we met with every week, sometimes twice a week. You know, we'd set schedule an hour, sometimes go two hours, right? That's a lot of time for a very important individual, right? Right in their city and for them to be able to help us with that process and teach us these things was so invaluable. That type of access just doesn't really come around in a lot of other avenues, but because this is being orchestrated under a government contract with the federal government, they're able to kind of convince people to have a little bit more patience with us or they see it more as giving back to how people can try to develop future solutions rather than these people are just trying to make a buck off my time. But the customer discovery side, it was once we were able to get that basic understanding, the great thing about these challenges is in order to compete in them at the end, you have a demonstration. And so you demonstrate your score on that demonstration and you can take that demonstration and go to other events and use it in order to perform that customer discovery and bring people in. NIST also had a conference, the five by five conference. So we were able to go and like speak there and kind of showcase what we did, so.

[8:39] Kevin Sofen: So NIST is, I mean, if you haven't heard all these stories about NIST brings a lot to the table and has really continued to advocate and push the needle and create incentives for companies like yours to bring a solution to life to address these sort of moonshots out of problems. From your experience at the commanding tech, we're both a little brain fried in terms of words not coming out. I'm officially been in Muscat Tech for three full days now, but your experience in the NIST program, the Commanding Tech Challenge, and then kind of what you saw here with the FRST Challenge in the SCAD Tech and the indoor localization, what were maybe, not necessarily comparing the two, but what were some sort of things you saw that were similar or maybe what was some of the unique nuances that you saw going on today with this particular challenge?

[9:22] Brenan Lundquist: What I thought was interesting was I didn't realize how many of the teams from doing the indoor sensors, their sensors basically just, it's an iPhone 14, you know, wrapped in a case that helps make it more robust and theoretically tolerant, and you can take it into a building that's on fire. It was interesting to see all the different ways that people have approached this. Of course, we've thought a lot about how do you build an indoor positioning sensor, and we've looked at building our own, and we have all various components lying around, right? What I thought was interesting was seeing the different approaches, how those approaches have different advantages and disadvantages and how everyone seems to be away. of how their approaches have advantages and disadvantages. So for example, using that iPhone, there's a big disadvantage in cost, right? If you were putting an iPhone in that case, you're having to pay the Apple premium, right? And you're having to pay for all these software features on the iOS that if you've got the phone locked away in a hardened case, you're never gonna use. But on the flip side, if these responders are already using these devices and they can just put that device in some sort of case that they have with them, right? You've got that advantage to go through. And I guess I should mention why it's relevant that I said 14. It's just because that phone has a LIDAR scanner on it's just a phone that has optical and LIDAR. And so they do simultaneous localization and mapping and they generate points and you gather all that imagery. Whereas the more traditional teams were doing just little pucks, imagine like a little GPS guy that's following you around. And they all have these advantages and disadvantages. And I guess I'm coming away from this thinking that all the departments probably need to have both types of sensors, right? And so how does that add to complexity, so?

[11:01] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I noticed that, I mean, there were six teams and there were three teams that were doing that stereoscopic photogrammetry, what you just communicated, and then three doing that more of the gate tracking and movement tracking. And from what I saw, looking over the shoulders of both teams or the two different styles, they both worked in their own context and going in very kind of, comms denied environments and deep in the tunnels and up and down big steel concrete buildings. And I think I'm in the believer, and I love the phrase, and not or, and I truly believe that this solution, the technology is here today, and now it's a matter of this sort of last mile in terms of the integration, logistics. I mean, there's some first responders who are like, I hate having stuff on my head, I don't wanna have stuff on my waist, but it's sort of how can, ideally, I see something, there's some component that's integrated to the boot that no one thinks about, and something that's integrated to either the FCBA or the PPE or the helmet. Granted, that's gonna take time and effort to like negotiations, all the OEM partners and maybe startups will disrupt it. Don't really know, but what are your thoughts on that sort of and not or philosophy or conversation?

[12:05] Brenan Lundquist: I mean, that's just how we are as a company, kind of our experience, I guess my entire career has been sort of in like the defense startup, you know, these different accelerators and incubators and how do we work together? And so I've sort of developed a mindset that it's a mindset that's easier to have in the defense industry because there's so much money that there's enough for everyone, right? And so everyone feels like they can work together because at the end of the day, like there's always something for you to do. And it's different in I think the first responder tech community sometimes because there's just less of that, you know, it feels more like you need to capture the market share or do all these different pieces. So it might be harder to work together, but in terms of, you know, everybody I've met, every company I've met, virtually every company I've met, has been very open to talking with us and working with us. And we all seem to be on the same page of, here's all the problems, here's how we can make a difference. Either one of us is probably not gonna solve all those problems ourselves, so how do we come together and find that solution? And yeah, so I don't know, I'm pretty excited. I think there was a lot of good opportunities and just bringing all these people together in sort of one room has resulted in a lot of that.

[13:11] Kevin Sofen: Great, and there's that magic in the air when everyone gets together. And so it's October, 2023. What's next for TurnRock Labs and the roadmap and kind of deployments and what's going up next?

[13:23] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, so we have some other work on the commercial side and then we're trying to release some products related to sort of the whole co-pilot and AI agent concepts. And so we have some of that stuff coming very soon and that takes a lot of focus. But our goal with that is to build some more of that sustainable revenue on the commercial side that we can use that traction to raise defense dollars and raise some first responder dollars or pivot those defense projects into that. What we've been working on, and we've got a number of teaming partners from our previous challenge, it sounds like we'll probably get some from this challenge and from the other people we've met at different conferences. So really what we're doing is leveraging this traction from this challenge, from the other work we're doing in order to raise those larger contracts because we just need those development dollars in order to get something out into the hands of end users. So we're doing a lot of demonstrations. A lot of what we need is good conversations with first responders, like people who can take a look at what we're doing and we can see the wheels turning in their head and then they can start to tell us how do we convert our tech demo into usable technology. And then what we can also do, and we're in the process of, is bring together these stakeholders who can say, yes, you know, like here's a letter of support. We would appreciate to use your system in our department and we can take those stakeholders to other organizations like DHS. There are some avenues in this, but also even to defense and use that traction in order to raise bigger funds to get these projects completed so we can then start spinning out these products into the first responder industry.

[15:02] Kevin Sofen: Just breathing, eating, sleeping, all things, bringing something to life.

[15:07] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, trying to, you know, trying to pay your bills.

[15:10] Kevin Sofen: Trying to make it happen. I respect and appreciate, just admire what you're doing, and again, you may hear some background noise. We're in HQ and actually staring at some supper that's being laid out for tonight. I wonder what's tonight. Maybe Sloppy Joe's, who knows? But if I could kind of ask you one sort of final question of sort of the token of this podcast series, but a mic drop of sorts of a comment, a question, an insight, a challenge, or anything that's on your mind that you could leave us with here today.

[15:41] Brenan Lundquist: Yeah, I think that the world is changing dramatically right now in the sense of the landscape of technology. I think people are, AI has been around a long time, and a lot of people have been using AI for a long time, but it has entered the public conscience in a new way. ChatGPT was the fastest growing product in history, and it's now been topped by something else I can't remember. And we're now understanding that these types of technologies are just permeating every aspect of life and it's sort of you need to get on board or you're going to get left behind in various ways and so we need to have the ability to learn to understand these technologies to learn how to live with them and you know first responders are not exempt from that right you guys need to figure out how to adopt these technologies because you can save lives with them.

[16:31] Kevin Sofen: Brenan, well said really respect and admire the work your company is doing and keep going.

[16:37] Brenan Lundquist: All right thank you.

[16:39] Kevin Sofen: Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's episode. What did you think? What'd you learn? Hopefully something, right? Please reach out on social media with your thoughts on this episode and any other suggestions for future content. We look forward to capturing more important stories across public safety and are here at your service.