Flight Control and Communication for Autonomous Drone Navigation – An Interview with ModalAI CEO Chad Sweet

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Chad Sweet is the Co-Founder and CEO of ModalAI, a San Diego based provider of AI-powered computing platforms for autonomous drones and robots that communicate via 4G and 5G cellular networks. ModalAI was spun out of wireless technology provider Qualcomm in 2018. Prior to founding ModalAI, Sweet was Senior Director of Engineering in Qualcomm’s Robotics R&D Group. He also held various engineering positions during his 20 years at Qualcomm, with 15 patents granted during that time. In February, Sweet was elected to the Board of Directors of The Dronecode Foundation, a vendor-neutral foundation for open source drone projects.
In April 2020, ModalAI released VOXL Flight, a development platform for GPS-denied autonomous drone localization and navigation, along with computer vision for AI-powered object recognition, depth sensing and obstacle avoidance. The SWaP-C (size, weight, power…