2,000-Plus Successful Tests on One Explosive. What Happens Next?
This Post is disseminated on behalf of Intellistake Technologies Corp.
Two thousand is a number worth stopping on
Since NanoAi began standoff testing against the explosive it calls Targeted Explosive Threat 001, its sensor has logged more than 2,000 successful standoff detection tests. One of them is on film: 10 feet away, 0.80 seconds, nobody touching the sample. [1]
Detecting an explosive at stand-off, with no contact, is the capability NanoAi set out to build.
Its sensor has now done it more than 2,000 times.
Craig and his team opened their Operations Center in the Dallas-Richardson corridor in August and had passed 2,000 tests by October. That is worth celebrating. It also gave the team the confidence to add something I did not expect this soon.
A second explosive, with the first still under test
Laboratory testing has now also begun on Targeted Explosive Threat 002. It is a different explosive, and the sensor has not seen it before. The move came earlier than NanoAi's own testing roadmap had planned, and Threat 001 stays under test alongside it.
Two thousand tests gave the team a strong, repeated result on one threat, and that testing continues. Threat 002 asks the next question alongside it. Now, lets zoom out, what could this mean at a broad scale…
Even a robot needs a nose
Why does a laboratory milestone matter beyond the laboratory? Because of where defense technology is heading. Last week I wrote about what the Army told industry at AUSA: faster technology, more autonomous systems and less on the soldier's back.
This week Defense News reported on the Army's humanoid robot competition, which named five winners last month. [4]
These machines are getting bigger, more capable and closer to the field.
The competition assessed them on small-unit tasks such as checkpoint security, obstacle clearing and firefighting, and on subsystems such as thermal sensors, battery life and autonomy. [6]
A senior researcher on one of the winning teams said the goal is robots that
"remove people from having to do harmful tasks." [4]
I think that is exactly right. But look at what was on that list. Walking, lifting, seeing heat, running for hours. None of it detects whether an explosive is present. The machines are being built to go first. They are not yet being built to know when they have walked up to a threat.
Picture that robot at a checkpoint. It can walk, see, hear and follow commands. An object has been left at the barrier. Its cameras show the shape. Its thermal sensors show the temperature. If that object contains an explosive, nothing on the robot gives it any warning. It can walk right up to it.
Sending the robot first moves the person out of range. It does not change what the machine can sense. A sensor designed to detect that an explosive is present, from a distance and without contact, is what the machine is missing. An explosive may be hidden inside a vehicle. Fentanyl could be concealed inside a shipment crossing a U.S. port. A chemical threat could be invisible to a camera, silent to a microphone and impossible for radar to identify.
That is the sensor NanoAi is building, designed for drone, robotic, vehicle and fixed platforms as well as the soldier. It is also why the second explosive matters so much more than the first.
One threat is an achievement. Multiple threats make a platform.
Back to the lab. A sensor that detects one explosive at standoff is a real achievement, and NanoAi has one.
But the threat an operator meets in the field will not always be the one from the training day. The value of a detector is the list of things it can recognize, and whether it can keep adding to that list.
That is the difference between a result and a platform. A sensor that reads one explosive is a result. A sensor that keeps adding threats, and keeps reading each one from a distance, is a platform. Threat 002 is the first step from one to the other.
How a nose learns
Some of the most trusted detectors in the field are not machines at all. They are dogs.
A detection dog does not smell "a bomb." Trainers describe the dog breaking an odor into its parts and picking out the specific scents it has been trained to find. Those scents are built in through repetition and reward. [2]
Dogs train on samples from the main families of explosives, and newer materials have been added to the training over time. [2]
A good dog's value comes from the list of scents it can recognize, built one addition at a time and tested over and over.
However, dogs fatigue, they take years to train and can only serve for short periods of time, these are drawbacks NanoAis technology is being developed to solve.
Threat 001 was the first on the list. Threat 002 is the second.
The operator's question
Craig spent 12 years as a U.S. Navy SEAL, and he thinks about this the way an operator would. The first test answered whether the sensor could pick up an explosive from standoff with nobody touching it. The second question, as he put it, "is harder and more useful." Does the sensor still do that when what is in front of it changes? [1]
That is the right question, and 2,000 tests are what earn the right to ask it this early. The move to Threat 002 is not a leap. It is the next step from a position of strength, with the first threat still under test behind it.
What this means for Intellistake
The case for acquiring NanoAi rests on one idea: a sensor that becomes a platform. Multiple threats, multiple deployments, and a soldier's hands nowhere near the threat.
Here is where that program stands. Threat 001: more than 2,000 successful standoff detection tests, one on film. Threat 002: laboratory testing begun, ahead of the roadmap. Gentex: NanoAi has the full Ops-Core® RAILINK® rail system in hand and has started development work toward integrating its sensing technology into the helmet. [3] This remains a development story. NanoAi has not yet commercialized the product and does not have a sales contract with Gentex.This remains laboratory work, and results from both threats will be reported as they are reached.
This week deserves marking. Two thousand tests on one explosive is a milestone. Walking into the second explosive early is the start of the next one.
Disclaimer
Intellistake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NanoAi and Intellistake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NanoAi and Completion of the NanoAi transaction remains subject to customary conditions including completion of satisfactory due diligence (including verifying title to the intellectual property of NanoAi), completion of the audit of financial statements of NanoAi, the Company maintaining a minimum cash balance of $2 million and no objection from the Canadian Securities Exchange. Closing is subject to satisfaction of closing conditions in the definitive agreement.
This report contains "forward-looking information" concerning anticipated developments and events related to the Company that may occur in the future. Forward looking information contained in this report includes, but is not limited to, all statements in respect of the Company's growth and development, expectations regarding market growth, the operations and business segments of the Company and NanoAi, the functionality of the Company’s technology, and its benefits, the details of the proposed acquisition of NanoAi, the conditions to completion of the proposed acquisition of NanoAi, the benefits of the acquisition of NanoAi, the business model of NanoAi, the applications of the NanoAi technology, the synergies between NanoAi and the Company, and bridging the gap between emerging decentralized networks and real-world industry adoption.
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Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks related to general business, economic and social uncertainties; failure of the Company and NanoAi to satisfy all conditions necessary to close the proposed transaction; failure to raise the capital necessary to fund its operations; inability to create strategies to mitigate the risks associated with cryptocurrency price fluctuations; the costs of regulation in the digital asset industries increase to the extent that the Company is no longer generating sufficient returns for shareholders; failure to promptly and effectively address cybersecurity threats; insufficient resources to maintain its operations on a competitive basis; and the actual costs, timing and future plans differs expectations; legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; the inherent risks involved in the cryptocurrency and general securities markets; the Company may not be able to profitably liquidate its current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the Company's success may depend on the continued involvement of key personnel, including advisors, whose involvement cannot be guaranteed; institutional adoption of decentralized AI infrastructure remains uncertain and may not occur at the pace or scale anticipated; evolving regulatory frameworks, including those related to AI (such as Canada's proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act) and prediction markets, may impose additional compliance burdens or restrict certain business activities; valuation figures are based on publicly available market data and internal assessments at the time of the referenced transactions and may not reflect current or future valuations; the volatility of digital currency prices; the inherent uncertainty of cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, currency fluctuations; regulatory restrictions, liability, competition, loss of key employees and other related risks and uncertainties; delay or failure to receive regulatory approvals; failure to attract qualified personnel, labour disputes; and the additional risks identified in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators.
Although the Company has attempted to identify factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this report. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update forward-looking information.