So good to see you all today. We have an interesting program and presentation this morning that may very well be appropriate for a lot of the work you're all doing here
So, this morning, first of all, I don't know if she's online yet or not, but Heather Floyd with Valley Telecom Group has stepped up are a new sponsor of the Task Force. So Heather, thank you very much. I appreciate you stepping up to be a sponsor for the organization. And let's see moving on. So Karen, do you want to kick off with kind of an update?
Um, yeah, sure. Steve, I don't have a lot to update this week. As you guys know, Sandip, has been out of the country for a couple of weeks. And he's scheduled to be back in the office on Monday. So sure, we're gonna we've got a lot of catching up to do.
Karen Can you introduce yourself real quick, please?
Yes, my name is Karen Ziegler. I am a an independent consultant currently under contract with ACA to help them with their broadband initiatives. And so like I said, I don't have much of an update this week from ACA. We do have an October roundtable scheduled for next week, October 17. At 3pm, I can put the the link to the registration in the chat. And then we were going to have Candace here today, Candace Amana is the tribal liaison for ACA, and she's been doing incredible amount of work with the tribes across the state. So we're gonna have her come in and do just a briefing on the work that she's doing. And hopefully we can get that scheduled for next week. Steve. Okay. So and then I think we already reported that the Bead initial proposal, Volume One is on the ACA website, and that is open for public comment through November 1 or second. And then the initial proposal, Volume Two, we're working on that right now. That should be up on the website. Right after Volume One comes down, we'll post Volume Two, and that will have a 30 day public comment period as well.
Okay, anything else? Any questions for Karen this morning? So I forgot to do kind of an introduction of anybody who's new to our call today.
Anybody new to our call today?
Hi, I'm new this time. It's Jennifer burns. I'm with the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers.
Cool. Glad you could join us today. Jennifer. Thank you.
Morning, Steve. I've been here before but I have a new role. I'm now with Pima County still, but I'm the tribal liaison. So
Oh Cool. And I'm sorry, who was that? Who was speaking?
Oh, yeah, I haven't seen you in a while. Is your is your email still the same?
Yes, sir, it is.
Can you talk just briefly about what your role is going to be for you?
Well, I'm really excited. It's the first tribal liaison within the county. I'm actually within public health. But you know, community health is a big part of that. And access to care access in in general is is kind of a big driver in Indian country. So I've just started a couple of weeks ago, and I'm looking forward to growing this role and and seeing where it takes me.
So apparent sounds like he needs to connect if he hasn't already with Candace.
I was just gonna say that, Steve. Next week, it would be great. If he can attend and hear Candace's presentation, and then maybe they can connect.
Okay. Sounds good. Okay, moving on. Nicole, I don't believe is here today. Anybody else from your office? Karen, I believe Somebody's here from there. Let's see.
I'm here.
I didn't see you.
Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Perla Lopez Broadband Program Manager with the Arizona commerce authority that I do the introduction before Steve tells me. Yeah, I'm basically on the same page as I was as what Karen mentioned, we are going to have that roundtable next week on October 17. That's really the big the big, the biggest thing on our plate right now.
And I have sent out the information about those meetings that Karen and Perla had mentioned. And Krystal, I believe you're online also.
Yeah, good morning. I'm Krystal Saverse, the GIS analyst for Arizona Commerce Authority. I'm with the broadband team. I work closely with Perla Sandip and Karen. And also Nicole.
That's great, great having you. Great having all of you attending on a fairly regular basis. So
if I can just do a plug for Krystal, she has been spending a great deal of time with the community anchor institution listing. There, we posted the draft preliminary list with volume one, but there is a tremendous amount of work, you know, for clean up and getting the right addresses and all of that. So she's been very busy and active. Cleaning all that up.
Right. Do you want to say anything more about the about the Community Anchor Institutions? Karen?
In what respects do you
Well, can you remind people whether or not those are specific institutions? Are they the general categories that were included in the plan?
There are specific institutions included in the list, NTIA has identified categories. So the probably Krystal can speak to this better than I can, because do you want to take a stab at it? And then I'll fill in?
Yeah, no problem. Okay, so anyone interested in knowing what those categories are, you can fall you can find it those definitions and what NTIA and then ACA has defined as a community anchor Institute, and just a reminder, a community anchor Institute is any sort of organization that brings broadband to many people. So it's for the greater good broadband uses. So you can find those definitions in those categories. And our bead volume one initial proposal posted on our ACA page, and I believe Karen and Mark have included the links to those in the chat. And then there's a pretty large file on our page as well titled community anchor institutions that's going to contain an Excel spreadsheet of all of the community anchor institutions that we've we've collected so far. And our our sources are going to be a couple of federal data repositories, some state data repositories and then collecting it from multiple sources within the state. And so you're welcome to keep sharing those community anchor institutions with us. You can email us at broadband at AZcommerce.com and we'll try to scrub that list and remove any duplicates and add what we can.
Hey, thank you very much,
that and Steve, let me I just have to put my disclaimer in there. Okay, because the CAI list is, you know, included in Volume One does not guarantee funding for any of the community anchor institutions. As we've mentioned before, NTIA requires the states to provide funding or broadband to the unserved and underserved locations first, and if any monies left over, then we can look at the community anchor institutions. So just want to make sure that I say that every time so everyone understands where we are,
it's good to good to remind people. Yeah, you know, billion dollar sounds like a lot of money until we started looking at all the things I've done. And it doesn't sound like so much.
Well, and when you look at the community anchor institution list, there is Krystal, I don't know how many are on there. But it's, there's a lot.
There's 1000s, for one, a specific category. So we're trying to make it and that's a good, that's an important plug here. And we're trying to make it as inclusive as possible. And then once we do some analysis later on, we'll start, you know, maybe possibly defining priorities and who we can actually fund. That'll be way further down the road, though.
Okay, thank you very much for that, for that update. Moving on, Nicole, I don't believe Nicole's on is she, Nicole? Are you here? Don't believe so? Well, let's go ahead and get into our program. Today. I want to introduce Dave Kasner, who is vice president of TrueNorth a nationwide professional services firm. They serve the communications and energy and infrastructure sectors. And so Dave, I'm going to turn it over to you I'm going to stop sharing. I don't know if you have anything to share. And then you have a couple of people on your team that you probably want to introduce also.
I do correct, yes. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Okay, so I'm on the phone. Here. I've got Ryan Kozole, who's our Director of implementation. And Kevin Raber, who's our Director of data and data collection, I guess together will be thanks for the introduction. But we're a professional services group that really focuses on data data collecting, how we manage data, how we can roll data out to our clients, and really be able to structure some really cool ways of how you look at big project infrastructure, things, including GIS systems, including fiber builds, including commercial real estate, including wireless networks. But essentially, we built a whole team that is dedicated to collecting this data in a very tech forward way. And then being able to crunch it, roll it into these new reports that you can look at it in a 3d kind of space. I'll butcher all of this up more than anything. So I'm gonna hand this actually over to Ryan Ryan, is well versed in this stuff, and he'll be able to kind of walk you guys through what it is what it's not. And then Kevin will also add some light to this, and then we'll open it up for questions on the backend. And right,
yeah, appreciate it. Good morning, everyone. appreciate everyone giving us a little bit of time this morning. I'll try and keep this presentation short. But I know there's a lot of people on this call. When I do presentations, I love these to turn into kind of working conversations. So I've got a lot of content kind of packed into this. We could dive into the weeds with examples if people want. But as I'm going through this, please don't hesitate to stop me or raise your hand and ask some questions here. There's a lot of stuff that we're excited about that I could talk for hours on. So with that being said, we'll just kind of dive right into it. Can everyone see my screen? First of all? Yes. Okay. Perfect. All right. So As Dave said, so one of our specialties is data collections and analytics. And with that is kind of the application of how you can use this in industry and in different sectors. So starting kind of with a high level summary here. There's just a handful of the wide variety of inspect inspection services or data collection services that we offer, some of which include aerial mapping for tower and ground facilities, structure and mountain Mapping analysis and engineering, TIA are tower inspections, FAA certifications, one A to C surveys, zoning things like that. Aerial topographic contour mapping, 3d virtual facility tours, LIDAR scanning, asset management in Oh nm inspections, we offer microwaves line of sight inspections, various thermal infrared analysis, some applications as we'll get to here's in So solar photovoltaics. And then just another kind of generalized spread of different specialized and custom data collection, analysis and reporting tools. Jumping into our first page here, I'm not sure who on this call is familiar or if anyone's ever heard of aerial photogrammetry. But in general, what that is, is a technique that gathers hundreds of very high resolution photos and it gets processed and generated into a geospatial data intelligent 3d model. Really, that's some fancy wording for these photos generate a highly, highly accurate and scaled 3d model that not only is accurate to the geospatial surroundings, so it is all scaled very accurately, but it is data intelligent, meaning that you can pull measurements, there's a lot of other tools involved with that being able to mock up conceptual designs, and things like that. With photogrammetry, there are generally two different grades of, of modeling, there's inspection grade, that generally depending on your cameras and sensors to collect the data, you can get within plus or minus about an inch worth of accuracy. And then there's engineering grade, which kind of takes all of these models to an entirely different level. Engineering grades, offers millimeter accuracy, and 99% model coverage. So why this is so exciting is traditionally to be able to perform a structural analysis on a structure, you're typically sending out, you know, engineers into the field, they're pulling measurements, they're doing all the field due diligence that they need to accurately provide structural engineering services or just engineering services in general. The millimeter great accuracy lends us the ability to go out and collect the data on a structure and that data is accurate enough from the desktop to be able to perform structural services. These two photos here are kind of a side by side comparison. The one on the right would be inspection grade, which typically would work for I would say 95% of applications as far as like Construction surveying or inspection grade stuff. As far as engineering services go, the modern photo on the left is an example of what millimeter grade actually or engineering grade actually delivers. So really exciting being able to fly a drone and capture data that that that is that accurate. So like I said, you can we can perform structural and mount analysis, tower inspections and FAA certifications. Switching over to how you can actually integrate that into engineering workflows. So these models give the ability to integrate with the CAD and various other kinds of computer aided design tools. This is an example here of a cell site being able to go out and capture real world existing conditions remotely, and then merge them in with conceptual design or models for conceptual designs. And, again, engineering purposes. Moving kind of expanding on that. So where this gets really exciting, at least for me, is being not only being able to merge this on the conceptual and engineering side of things, but actually implementing it throughout the construction phase or via all phases of construction. So what you're seeing here on the left is a photogrammetry model that was flown by drone. All of the photos are high resolution stitched together. And it is merged with the CAD drawings. I have an example I can switch to in a second. It'll kind of elaborate on this, but one of the many uses with this is one of being able to capture the existing environment and overlay the CAD drawings or designs on top of that, as seen on the right here. And being able to see and verify if those plans that have been designed for this site actually will fit in the space and making sure both sides kind of lineup together. And what we're seeing on the left here is as you are working through the construction phase, one of the many uses of being able to take progress or track progress by taking routine flights and merging that with the CAD models. And you can see as construction goes through, if things are progressing the way they should. Another great use of this is being able to proactively address any kind of potential issues with construction on site before hopefully, it becomes past the point of no return. A quick example of this, just switch over here. Hopefully, this will load for everyone. But this model here is kind of demonstrating what I'm talking about, it gives you not only the real spatial environment of where this is, but you are able to actually slide through and to see how this site is progressing. As you're making it through construction. So lots of pretty cool uses for this. This is just one of many. But the whole point here is integrating the data that is collected in the field via drone or many of these other techniques and merging them with a lot of the newer technology with CAD 3d models, things like that. It really aids in building a an accurate project. Jumping back to the slide here. I know I'm kind of blasting quick yours at any questions so far.
Ryan, there was a question on what kind of drones were used for Bryan Carter. But
okay, I'm sorry, my screen, I just kind of lost the whole roster here. So someone's gonna have to quarterback these questions, what kind of drones we use a wide variety, some, a lot of the brand specific ones we use right now are DJI. We try and stay brand and equipment equipment agnostic. So if there are what what we're finding is there are specific tools, obviously, for specific jobs in different brands have kind of an edge over others for that. So as far as the drones go, DJI is our primary equipment vendor for that right now. Any other questions on that? All right. So aside from just tracking construction related things, aerial topographic mapping is another really amazing use and application for for this type of data collection. So what that means is not only can we map the ground, but we can get accurate ground contours. And being on top of that, still being able to merge our CAD models in with the environments. So another quick example of that would be like this, this is hundreds of acres that were flown all stitched together. And not only does this give you a accurate idea of what the the ground surface looks like, I apologize, it's loading slow. There's literally 10s of millions of data points in here. That's actually something I kind of glanced over the beginning, a point cloud what a point cloud is. And what that means is essentially, the drones are going out. And as I mentioned, they're taking hundreds, sometimes 1000s of high resolution photos. And part of the data processing there is it is taking all of these photos, and it generates a point cloud, which is literally millions of think of just dots or pixels. And those pixels are being overlaid with the high resolution photos. And so in this case, that's why this is a little grainy is there's there's millions of pixels that are trying to load here. Well, one of the other really cool uses is not only being able to have this as a 3d model, but using this I like to call this kind of a glossary of our of our called our model book here. And what I mean by that is you're able to use this model to navigate around to find all of the very high resolution photos that were ultimately Take into the generators model. So one of the things that this really helps out with is doing site inspections or trying to capture existing site conditions. This really ensures that no angle ever was missed at for anyone that's ever had to go out and do sidewalks or try and do fail field data collections. You're always worrying about missing a photo or doing whatever you can to capture the basically paint the best picture possible for the person or people that are not able to get out in the field. And so by generating these models, and also having all of the high resolution photos embedded inside of them, it really gives the best spatial awareness to anyone that wouldn't be able to go out in the field. So another one of many applications. This is really helpful as well, with GIS planning, or locating underground utilities, what we're also able to do is because these drones are GPS enabled, we're able to fly over the surface and act again, this kind of goes back to the previous slide of overlaying CAD drawings and stuff on there. But for example, underground utilities, we'd be able to fly over a neighborhood, for example, for laying fiber or something like that, generate a model like this, and then overlay the fiber designs on top of that, and have that geospatially accurate to the sidewalk or wherever those utilities go. So again, adds a whole new layer of being able to visualize and track where not only how construction was done, but where these things are existing for future planning, quality control, you know, all those things. Okay, so virtual walkthroughs. This isn't, admittedly a great photo of this. But essentially what these are, I think most people here have probably seen virtual, like home tours, on Zillow, things like that. That's essentially what this is, but we are taking it to another level. So there are a couple of different programs out there that offer this Matterport is one of them, which is what we use for this. And essentially how this kind of takes it above just a virtual walkthrough is these 3d walkthroughs are also geospatially. Data intelligent meaning as you're walking through these photos, or through a walkthrough, for example, in this compound, you're able to capture real time accurate measurements, you can also annotate and do some 3d mock ups inside of that virtual space. So again, not only giving us a visual tool, but it actually serves for engineering and design applications as well. So there's lots of really cool and useful applications for that again, at for nothing else, giving someone that hasn't been in there, a full immersive view of that walkthrough and ensuring that really no angle was missed through throughout walking that site. Okay, getting into Lidar and topographic, more topographic mapping. So there are many, many uses for LIDAR. Essentially, what Lidar is it is sending laser beams for all intensive purposes from the camera, and it is bouncing them off surfaces and timing, how long that light takes to get to the surface and comes back to the sensor. And what that does is it generates highly accurate topographic contour maps. This one was actually kind of a cool application that I decided to use for this presentation. This is a landfill that a large solar array was built on top of. And the intent of this mission was, as part of the ongoing maintenance and operations of the solar array. The client needs to track soil compaction to make sure that the array isn't shifting or sinking too far down into the old landfill. So these models, we go year after year and fly the exact same pattern and overlay that data on top of each other, which is what this table is showing here. And from that we're able to analyze the soil deformation and any other kinds of shifting that may occur here. What we found out is this array is vertically syncing by about an inch and a half over a two year span that's within design specs, but there's really no other way that you'd be able to go out and and identify that without the use of Lidar and some of these new technology applications. Some other great uses for it is LIDAR penetrates vegetation. So we're all aware of the Maui fires that just happened. One of the uses for this would be flying like those poll lines to identify where vegetation was overgrowing coming in contact with power lines, things like that, to be able to identify where vegetation mitigation needs to happen, as well as just ongoing maintenance for things like that.
So yeah, that sums up very, very high level, some of the really cool applications you can do with LIDAR. Um, asset management. So within, hey, I'm not gonna hit too hard on this one. But within some of these digital twin program models, we have programs to help analyze and maintain these models. So a lot of these models are generated through an AI processor, this one specifically was tailored towards telecom. So what some of these things are showing here is, after we go out and fly a pattern around these towers and processes data, the AI automatically catalogs assets that are on the tower or on site, such as microwave dishes, antennas, radios, things like that, one to quickly Catalog Catalog them, you're able to spot maintenance issues and flag it. Again, because these are geospatial models. Each piece of tag equipment, we are able to see its real physical characteristics such as the size of these antennas, their Asmus, their down tilts, their altitude above the ground, as well as their Geo coordinates. So some of the cool applications here. Another one is rust or oxidation, identification. The AIS are pro are designed to go through and spot surface rust and other kind of physical issues on the site.
Just more about our line of sight stuff. One thing the drones really help offer here is traditional line of sight. And I kind of skipped over this, as far as microwaves go, if anyone's versed in how microwaves work is they have to have direct point A to B line of sight. You can't typically have trees or other things blocking that. And traditionally, the way that this is verified is you send people to go climb up a tower or get equipment that gets them up to that elevation. What the drones do is one, it eliminates that most of the time the need for people to climb towers. So it is a much safer option as well as a much more efficient. Typically, we're able to do these surveys with one or two people rather than a crew of multiple people in multiple vehicles. So we're able to collect much more accurate data deploy quicker, really increase site safety, as well as being able to get to locations that traditionally would be very challenging for a crew getting a truck such as the top of a very remote mountain site or something like that. Alright, so thermal and IR there, there's just like LiDAR, and pretty much all these other things. There are a lot of different use cases. And this is an example of how you can apply this to renewables and specifically solar. So one thing that this does is it saves a ton of time in the field not only troubleshooting, but actually identifying what is wrong with a solar array and if it is producing how it should be. Traditionally to identify if a solar array isn't functioning properly, requires a team or at least a guy that is very an electrician that is versed in this to go out and do string testing other types of electrical testing to identify faults or where some of these factors might be coming from. For thermal these two top images highlight a couple issues with the array here. These hotspots identify either shorts or issues with the solar panels or the cells themselves. One on the right here is a large ground mounts array. What this is highlighting here is combiners are probably down. So in this case, like three quarters of this array is not producing, which equates to hundreds of 1000s or millions of dollars if this is not identified and fixed quickly. Same thing down here with the IR, it's just another way to view where some of these issues might be coming from, you can see here a string is down, there's also a another row of cells that are burned down. Aside from that, part of the benefit of collecting this information with the drone is we are also able to collect a 3d model. So aside from the solar and everything else, we're able again, like some of these other models, as this one's loading here, to gather full models of facilities, being able to come in mark of measurements. All kinds of again, uses for not only design engineering purposes, but for future use as well.
And that was my last slide. So I know I kind of blasted through this. Are there any questions or anything someone would like me to kind of circle back on?
I actually got a question.
Do actually, it's not a question, comment.
Excuse me. Just a second. Can you stop sharing, so we can get back to our group here? Okay. Oh,
Ryan and also, Kevin, I just wanted to say that thank you for this presentation. This is a really cool piece of software that you've got really loving it. And I just thought I had to share some thoughts for you. One is that it, it, I know that it's built purpose for your domain in your industry, but there are so many future facing applications for what you're doing. And that's just really cool. So thank you for doing that. I mean, 10 years from now, when this problem is completely solved. Your software will be populating entirely new experiences that have that are beyond construction and all that. I imagine that you guys know that. I just want to show it because I'm excited. So I wanted to just
ASH, can you just introduce yourself real quickly of who you are? Oh,
okay. Sure. My name is Ash Black, I work with the University of Arizona as an AI outreach consultant. So I work with student internship placements, and productivity and job job creation with artificial intelligence technology. My other comments are that I think that your, your software's photo library that's integrated with everything so that you can like instantly reference, oh, that's a really inspired software design, and really like that super useful. You know, it's like it's laying there on the table, but you leverage it, it's really helpful. And then I noticed that it looked like your software was cloud based entirely already, in the sense that it was seem to be operating off a URL, which is kind of like, not only good, but also kind of tells you like, what time it is, like, in the 2020s. And everything, everything works really, really, really well in the cloud. That's about it. I just wanted to pass on those thoughts. And and I'm hoping to connect with with you, with you and Kevin, or TrueNorth.
I appreciate all that. Yeah, we're we're really excited about it too. And like you said, there are not just telecom specific uses for this, these applications apply across the board. And pretty much every sector you can think of. This is just what I had together as far as telecom stuff, go for sure
that the telepresence technology will be benefited immensely from that once once the world's acclimated to the volume of data that you're producing, which is what we hear a lot of what we're here to talk about anything today because of the broadband initiatives like makes this possible. Yeah. And then of course, I have to say like the obvious, like archaeologists will absolutely drool over this. And for in historians and people who, you know, social science, who rather not sort of science, but in telling stories about the past. So anyway, thanks.
I appreciate all of that. And at the end of the day, we're not here to sell any services. We are just here as far as education and awareness that this technology exists, it's actively being used, and that is some of our specialties. So we would love to chat with anyone offline about if there's something we can do to help integrate it or I love hearing that you're involved with the university education is a huge piece for us. So especially the upcoming generation here. You know how this can be applied to begin Not only our sector here, but really everything they are archaeology, honestly, that's something I've not really even kind of considered. So that's, that's a very interesting application for a lot of these technologies
and visualization of past environments. Yeah. As well as climate science moving both backwards and forwards.
Absolutely. You're giving me some food for thought I would love to sync up with you on the side and kind of pick up,
I will ping you in chat with my email. And I think that Steve's going to get us connected to but thank you very much.
I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions? Before we started the meeting? Dave and Eric Cole? We're having a little conversation. Eric, do you want to just tell people who you are real quickly?
I think he dropped off, Steve. I'm sorry. I'm
still here. Can you hear me? Yep. Okay. My name is Eric Call, veteran from armed forces, Navy, Air National Guard. The fact that Ryan, and Kevin and Dave are here presenting to us today, it's like, exciting for me, because I was a drone operator in the military on a much larger scale for different reasons. But I also did some I do, I've done a lot of imagery collection in the military, on various different airframes. also did some, some work in California, doing some wildfire mapping, not with drones, but with actual manned aircraft, but with the same kind of technology just on the larger scale. And so like some of the stuff that Ryan kind of, was talking about, what we would call change detection, where where the landscape changes from time to time, we do a lot of that with, we worked with Cal OES, which is the office of emergency services in California. And then a lot of wildfire mapping. So a lot of what they what they do, you know, kind of really hits close to home from from where I'm from. And my my background, you know, besides the military, I'm now transitioned, retired from the military, but I work for Caterpillar mining equipment. And I work in the autonomous vehicle division for for Caterpillar. So what a lot of people don't realize is that caterpillar has been working on remote and autonomous vehicles for over 10 years. Yeah. And, and we've been in that Makerspace for a long time. Something that I I really learned also on the Electric Vehicle Division, hydrogen vehicles. I mean, there's, there's so many different applications that we've we've been working on over the years, I've only been here a year, but I'm learning so much on the mining side, where an application like this would be extremely useful. And that is in use today, but also in the underground space where they do a lot of mapping of underground mines with drones. So so there's a lot of applications, like Ryan said, for technology like this, you know, the safety factor of not having people physically climb radio towers and things like that, you know, you can get something done like that with a drone in a couple of minutes, where it takes a really long process to deal with, with actual physical people. So So I hope I answered some of your what you're wanting me to say, Steve, but also a second to introduce myself to this great group.
I'm sorry. Go ahead. Ryan, did you want to say something?
I was just gonna say thank you for that, that Eric. Mining is also another sector that they were actively involved in doing exactly that mapping, both open pit and underground, using slam LiDAR, and some other techniques. But yeah, it's it's pretty incredible what you can do with all of this technology these days.
So I was gonna say that I had a chance to be involved with Caterpillar a number of years ago, and it's just absolutely phenomenal the stuff they're doing. And as, as Eric mentioned, that they've been in the forefront of doing a lot of autonomous vehicle work long before everybody else was really serious about it. So it's, it's pretty interesting. And I was gonna say, Bryan, I don't know if you have some interest in this and maybe even want to connect with Eric and check out what they're doing with caterpillar. Absolutely. Major is that the is that headquarters? Eric, it here in Tucson.
What the actual headquarters is in Peoria, we also have a big office I think we're going to be transferring to in the Dallas area. But the office here in in Tucson is the main office on the I would say on the West Coast, because we have our proving grounds down here where we do a lot of the research and development stuff. So that's why we have such a big footprint here.
I would love to get synched up with you on the side, Eric, I followed cat for a long time, I was really interested. It seemed like they were one of the forefronts with integrating a lot of augmented reality with at least some of the stuff I was seeing with like their maintenance and things like that really interested me. But yeah, Caterpillar, just mining in general is absolutely a sector we're trying to explore more. And I'm I'm an engineer at the end of the day, I'm interested in all things tractors and heavy equipment. So I would love to sync up the outside of this, for sure.
So Bryan, if you're still there, that you'd be amazed at the facility they have down there, whether you're interested in mining or not really isn't relevant, that the the facility that they have in 3d modeling systems that they have in stone is pretty, pretty amazing stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, anything else? Before we move on?
Steve, if I could, I wanted to take a minute share our macro level presentation. But to kind of show you specific to fiber and broadband and level stuff, something that we're working on right now, if you can spare about five more minutes, this should be a pretty quick. Let me walk you guys through this. First, I guess I should introduce myself as well. Kevin Raber, I work for TrueNorth. I'm essentially the field data acquisition head, I do all the field data acquisition stuff, as you know, we often tell some of our other clients, there really is no limit, or practical limit to what we can collect. If you have a need for data, we probably have a way to collect it, process it and present it to a scale and you know level that it's never been seen before. On the fiber side to take you through kind of more specifically what we're working on in the in that space. If everybody is I'm gonna apologize in advance for jumping around on multiple screens. But I have a lot of projects that I'm currently working and that apply directly to this. So on the fiber design, this is what we're probably all used to seeing at a high level. You're our as built in CAD drawings that lay out, you know, your trunk lines and your branch lines and everything, what we're doing is taking something like this, taking our field data collection, our actual raw real world data in the field and then putting them together. And you could do overlays on something like Google Earth, this is the maximum resolution on Google Earth right now for an area that I was working on just the other day. Whereas we can no take that same area. Collect a bow, I think was about 3000 photos for this particular one. Over here, we'll turn the actual photo overlay off. And then we're able to actually take that same area there, but come down to the point where we can actually see your water access points, your hydro lines, your drainage, your sewer lids, we can actually get down here and see the fiber pedestals. Unfortunately, this entire row is under a tree. But if we come up a little further here, we can see the litter on the ground. See the actual fiber markers and the demarcation lines and everything here. And then we're actually able to take that over into our surveying programs, and start applying actual traces geo rectified to the ground, so not anymore. This is what we predict it will be. But this is what the real world is either. This is where we plan to put it. This is where it was put these are the issues that we had. And then we're able to export that back into these so that you have you know the aspects that you're used to working off of as well. My background for 23 years was in military Special Operations and clandestine intelligence gathering. My whole life is basically dedicated to how to gather better intelligence to inform decision making, whether it's pre planning, whether it's during a project, or whether it's after the project and like you saw with that solar project where we're monitoring the land settlement. I am convinced that there is basically a way to improve our our intelligence gathering our data gathering case, at every single stage of a project, the earlier in the project we get involved and the earlier we can start gathering quality data, the longer term that that quality data will be valid and valuable for everybody. But it knows at every stage of a project, we have something to offer as far as data gathering, data processing and data presenting, which were kind of our big three stages internally as far as where we stand on any given amount of data that we're working. And on the mining thing, Eric, I'll get with you later, for sure I just worked up. About two years ago, I headed up a project to stand up Lidar and drone based modeling surveys for the entire country of the Congo. autonomous navigation, subterranean slam LIDAR navigation. One of the neat things that we're working with right now that I think applies both to fiber. And that is, this is a construction site, I worked recently, but with a few seconds of work, we have the ability to accurately down to a couple of cubic centimeters measure, cut fill volume of a stack volume of negative space that you've taken out, generate contour lines, this is a project for an ongoing construction project on a softball field at a university here, monitor every single week. And then we can do that change detection that Ryan talked about, on a given project that he was alluding to, if I can get that to come up. And then we're actually able to do change detection over time. So that you can compare your side by side projects on a construction project or a mining project like that, as you can see what's been removed, what's been added drainage lines, and everything can be projected in the real world as opposed to just theoretically. So there's a lot of applications there that we're we're currently involved in on the fiber and broadband specific side. Does anybody have any questions? Again, I apologize, we're bouncing around on a bunch of my processing windows, as far as our capabilities in that particular space, or questions about what could be done or what can be added in that particular space.
So hey, this is Crystal Saverse. With ACA. I used to work for a fiber consultant. And I did a lot of permitting unfortunately. That was that was not a fun job. I did that for two years. But anyways, I think this would be really cool application for permitting. Specifically, maybe even measuring those poll heights, when you can't get a surveying team out there, or, you know, other sorts of heights, and pull line obstructions. So I'm wondering, is this like a pretty efficient way for surveyors to collect information rather than having a team go out there?
Yeah, so much, a lot of what we've seen in the telecom space, we're able to do 10 times the work with 1/10, the team. And in this particular case, one of the big things that we're able to do is collect all the data in one fell swoop. And then no matter what you asked for later, whatever your need is, whether it's measuring the vertical telephone poles, whether it's seeing what's already a raid on something, whether it's going back to see something you didn't consider initially, or that there's a conflict that's come up for subterranean, you know, what's already there versus what needs to go in and nobody saw the originally, the data sets are so vast that you can go back and reference that at any time, you can go gather those measurements without returning to the field. So it's really a collect at once and use it for 1000 Different reasons, sort of thing that we're trying to do with most of our large datasets here.
And it kind of dovetail that for one second, as far as on the permitting side, similar to the bottom screen that Kevin's got there with the lines, overlaid. easements, locating property boundaries, things like that. This really takes it to another level, not only on accuracy, but a visual, being able to overlay plat maps and going out in the field and field verifying exactly where those property boundaries are. Something obviously very important, not only in telecom, but for everything.
And then a second question, not knowing as much as my my boss as the wireless broadband and how that works. But could these sort of, you know, point cloud models or like elevation models help with wireless broadband, those 10s models and projecting where a wireless range will reach?
Yeah, one one thing. Usually when we plan out a wireless, say somebody's building a new 5g tower that's going to cover a given area that's all very theoretical. You know, they model it based off the towers just at a generic height, it covers a generic area. But once we go out in the real world that that's obviously never truly the case. And one thing we have with drones is the ability to mount a sensor on there that allows us to fly and sample an area, and then give you your real world data coverage in real world connectivity, strength, and real world connectivity speeds all over that particular coverage area, and then project that overtop of one of our train models. We do that a lot in the television and radio broadcast industry, especially as everybody upgrades to ATSC 3.0. And as the spectrum that's been taken for 5g, a lot of that was removed from all radio and television broadcasting. So there's been a lot of upgrades and deconfliction is going on there. And we're able to go measure, not just where we say the tower covers, but where it actually covers, we can do the exact same thing with Telecom, and sample an area in a much more efficient way than the old drive testing method of just driving up and down every street and getting somewhat unreliable data. You know, at that moment in time, the drone allows us to sample a far larger area in a far shorter time, and gather a far more granular level of data for that, and then projected over top of the 3d models and the terrain models and things of that sort of necessary.
Kevin, could you stop sharing, please?
I'm looking for it. And there you go.
So one question is, have you guys been doing any work on reservations?
Yes, I actually just did a historical preservation job about six months back on the reservation. And touching on something that was mentioned between Eric and Ryan, we have numerous models of old historical sites that are either being renovated or simply aren't ever going to be renovated. But every year, we can capture it and compare the degradation of it over time. Numerous things there, we did a site on a reservation here in Oklahoma, that was a bunch of old reservation buildings that were basically going to be entered in their historical trust. And we were gathering the baseline models for what those look like now. And then as people update them, and all that 3d data is going to be incorporated into a museum presentation down the road. The other thing that we do on reservations a lot, and we've done in Utah and New Mexico, I've seen it done out there is gathering that real world data, because they're just they lacked the survey data that we have. And we see this a lot in Oklahoma and Texas and such as well. They lacked the on the ground accurate survey data that other counties and cities have maintained over time, we're able to go gather that data and essentially update that. And fill in those gaps where accurate survey data doesn't exist. And when we see that a lot on the reservation land out here.
We need to move on any other quick questions for them before we move on? If not, thanks, guys.
I appreciate the time. Please feel free to reach out to us on the side with any questions or follow ups.
As you know, I do send out the registration list. So you know, if you're wanting to connect with people, you should have all their contact information. Okay, perfect. Well, thank
you all again for the time. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks. Thank
you guys. Take care.
So, Erin, do you have any updates today?
I'm sure I can kind of do a little bit of a recap. Some of this was shared yesterday at ATIC. So I apologize for the duplication there. I'm speaking on behalf of many people who are all at SHLB right now. So I'll kind of bounce around a little bit. So first of all, on the telehealth front, I'm happy to report that along with other folks from the State Library and other organizations, Mala and Janet and I went up to Tuba City a couple of weeks back on the 21st of September and helped the library their kickoff their telehealth Equipment Program. So they they were one of the recipients of funds from the state library to expand the telehealth project. And we tried to you know, support that that work with an event for the community. You know, through the library, of course and so, at that event, there were a number of different organizations local to the to the city area as well as statewide resources represented. And we were able to connect with probably close to 175 folks throughout the course of the day. We shared resources from the State Library, of course, connect Arizona resources, telehealth resources etc. And there was also a table there for ACP signups and they reported that they did get five families registered for ACP during the event. So that's a wonderful, Bryan, to answer your question, what sort of telehealth equipment do you distribute? So how this works is, this is a grant through the State Library. And we have, through pilots with Pima County Public Libraries, identified various equipment that works well for this application. So there are things like connected stethoscopes and pulse oximeters, and wave scales and various other equipment that a library could choose to purchase, depending on what they'd like to offer. And these are all bits of equipment that connect readily through a computer to a provider at a telehealth appointment. They could also just be used in their non connected status if the library was so interested in allowing folks to check out let's say, a blood pressure cuff. Because they're, you know, their doctor wants them to monitor for a week or whatever it is, yes, Bryan, we will definitely do that. We planned on it, and then it never happened. So I'll get back with you on that. So in any case, so this is the the next newest site that was able to kick off this work. And we are continuing to expand this telehealth project in this current fiscal year, which just started for us, the beginning of the month. I will also report that I I presented at an NTIA webinar at the end of last month for the digital equity Leaders Network. It was focused on library connections through through libraries. And so we were able to share about our digital navigator program as a kind of a sample of what we're doing here in Arizona, along with libraries and other organizations from across the country. And there were approximately 50 folks attending that which was wonderful. And then last but not least, while I was on vacation last week, the rest of the world celebrated Digital Inclusion week, which is a national celebration, of course, highlighting the work that's happening in the digital inclusion space that's sponsored by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance or NDIA. And if Ilena's still here, I'm sure she will love to talk about her work with with that as well. But from the library perspective, the State Library put together a programming kit that was made available to all of our libraries, with some suggestions on ways to celebrate Digital Inclusion week, and we tracked 206 views of that digital equity page on the Connect Arizona website during the week. So hopefully that helped elevate and, and celebrate the work that's going on here in the state as well. So those are my brief updates. Next week, all state library staff will be absent from every meeting that you usually see us in because the Library Association conference is being hosted in Fort McDowell, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of next week. So we'll all be slow to respond to our emails next week. But we'll be around.
So, Erin, I don't think that the the conference is gonna have anything remotely is that right? I know
it's all in person. Yeah, it's in person. And it is geared towards library, you know, staff, a lot of you know, information shared at that. That kind of, you know, applicable level for for library folks. However, we are doing programs on telehealth, the projects that I just discussed, kind of a recap of what's been going on with those, we are hosting a panel discussion on the state of digital equity here in the state of Arizona, with many folks that usually attend these meetings, we're going to give a high level overview for library staff of the work that's going on, and how they can get involved with the digital equity work that's coming up as well. And then there's also a Well, anyway, there's there's a couple of things that are applicable to this group, but it's primarily for library folks. We do have a couple of groups that I've met here that are presenting or hosting booths as well. So it's a great networking opportunity. If anyone's still interested. I know there is on site registration, but it does get kind of pricey. And again, it is kind of geared towards library folk. So but yes, it's all in person.
Thank you, Erin. Megan, If I can put you on the spot, you're also with the State Library. And we never really hear from you. Do you want to just say hello and tell people what you do?
I am Megan Hammond I'm a library development administrator. I'm Erin's supervisor. So I tryto join the meetings to stay up to date on what's all this happening. And occasionally if she's on vacation, I step in and present for her. So, um, but she is definitely the expert in this situation.
Right. Bye. Thank you. And of course we always greatly appreciate the participation with the state It library.
And as Steve Mark here follow up on Erin's discussion of digital inclusion week, ASU shaping edu is put up the celebration summit from October 3 on YouTube with intermediate links. So you can jump from presenter to presenter, as well as the slides and I put a posting on that up earlier in the chat.
Right. Thank you. And yeah, I have that and I'll share that out. And so that's a good segue to Cindy. Cindy, you want to give us a quickie update?
Sure. Sorry. I can't share my video today. Yeah, I think Erin and Mark covered it pretty well. We had one other event last week that was really successful. We had a fellow who's done, who's with the four h. Tech Changemakers program, and he told us about how he did digital literacy. With up to 2000 people in the Nogales Arizona, it was really good to hear the prototype they have going as something that that we could we could look at if we're looking at doing digital literacy training as part of the digital equity plan. So I really loved I really loved their message. And I, the other I will be speaking at the Arizona Library conference next Friday, on how important how important community outreach is for the digital equity planning and digital inclusion efforts. And so I think that is all from me.
That for Four h program was really pretty impressive.
Yeah, exactly. I'm glad. I'm glad you got to be there, Steve. Yeah.
Okay. Anybody have anything else that they want to share this morning? Going once, going twice, then I believe we are done for today. Those of you who know that we do do kibitzing with colleagues. I'm going to stop the recording anybody wants to stay online and chat for a while and if not, we'll say goodbye for today.