Mike Isted Email & Phone Number

I joined Manna at it's inception in 2018, drawing on my previous expertise in UAV design-and-build gained at my own company AIsymmetrix.With Manna, I architected our delivery aircraft which has now flown over 100,000 missions and continues to deliver real products to the public in Ireland on a daily basis, partnering with Tesco among other well-known brands. This phase involved the following expertise:- Avionics. Triple redundant flight controllers based on Linux with Robot Operating System middleware. Image recognition based on image classification with stereo vision.- Airframe. A space frame which is mechanically stiff, light and optimised for delivery, enclosing the payload within the aircraft.- Power and Propulsion. Optimised for endurance and minimal acoustics.- Delivery system. A simple, reliable delivery system which critically allows our aircraft to be re-supplied and powered in seconds, not minutes.- Aerodynamics. Designed to enable flight in challenging conditions and to keep your coffee cups level even when flying into the strongest of headwinds. Check out our beer delivery video on Twitter!We now have a talented team of Engineers who continue to optimise this aircraft. In October 2021 I took up the role of Lead, Aircraft performance, recognising that to scale, it would be essential to progress from the theme of functionality to the themes of Reliability and Regulation.During the last year, this has involved:- Creating comprehensive automated analytics to monitor fleet and tail number performance;- Supporting all engineering functions with advice, evidenced by flight data;- Developing an innovative Tiered Testing system that continuously drives up reliability;- Developing a unique system of continuous reliability monitoring that directly maps to the requirements of Regulators, such as EASA.Together, these provide Manna with a world class approach to Reliability, Testing and Verification in ways that seamlessly interface with the needs of regulation in order to scale for the future.I am something of a polymath. My initial career was in technical IT. I then retrained into education in order to achieve a better work-life balance to raise a family (not sure the work-life balance aspect worked out, but it was a great thing to do!). In 2014 I returned to the technical world, most latterly in extremely demanding roles with Manna as a venture capital backed start up.

Listed skills include Sharepoint, Educational Technology, Management, Governance, and 31 others.