Industry Leaders Express Optimism About The Future Of The Industry

The market for unmanned systems is poised to explode, and industry and regulators have opened a dialogue as never before, said the opening panel speakers at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems 2015.

Helen Greiner, CEO of CyPhy Works, which builds tethered unmanned aircraft for the military, announced that her company has a Kickstarter project to build a simple but capable drone for the commercial market.

Dave Vos, project lead of Google X’s Google Wing UAS delivery program, showed video of his company’s testing in Australia for package delivery, which he said could be done much faster and more efficiently than relying on an increasingly clogged road system.

David Vigilante, senior vice president for legal at CNN, showed recent drone-shot footage, including dramatic images of the White Cliffs of Dover in the U.K. and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The network is working with researchers at Georgia Tech to use small UAS for news imagery.

The speakers agreed that there is a potentially huge market for unmanned aircraft, and they are able to fly and accomplish more than was possible just a few short months ago.

“We can fly in many, many locations around the United States,” Vos said. “The last month has been pretty inspiring about what’s come up in the NPRM [the Federal Aviation Administration’s proposed small UAS rule]. I think we’re in really fine shape as long as we keep talking.”

Panel moderator Colin Guinn, the chief revenue officer for 3-D Robotics, asked the panelists to name a drone use that hasn’t been considered yet.

Vos said he wants more automation. There’s no point in people having to do drudge work like driving cars, he said, when computers could do it better. Greiner, the new mother of a three-month old, said she would like a drone that could watch over her daughter and even serve as a companion of sorts, such as by bringing her milk if she needed it.

Vigilante said the endless possibilities are what make the industry interesting. He noted that cast iron makers had no idea they would revolutionize the music industry, but that’s what happened when pianos went from having quiet wood frames to cast iron frames.

“An entire new art form was created based on this,” he said, as it enabled pianists like Beethoven to popularize their music.

“That’s what’s more exciting than anything else, is the not knowing of what’s possible,” Vigilante said.

(Image provided by AUVSI)

FMI: www.auvsi.org