DroneZone Insights - CUAV, Innovations & Regulations

Regular readers may have noticed that #DroneZone took a well earned break earlier this year. As part of our drive to create informative but also unique content we've taken the step to move to a twice monthly format

DroneZone News: Summarising events, M&A, funding, product releases, partnerships and news from the sector.

DroneZone Insights: Featuring entirely exclusive content and commentary from leaders in the UAV and Robotics space.

*Incase you missed it, the below features full transcripts of those abbreviated in my article published on Circuit earlier this week (which can be found HERE).

Navigating the Future

The 2024 Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas recently came to a close, attracting a record-breaking attendance of nearly 4,000 people from over 70 countries. The event brought together industry leaders and regulatory groups such as the FAA to discuss the evolving landscape of the UAV market. With such a densely packed venue, CUAV gives the perfect platform to discuss and reflect on the broader topics of market sentiment, progress, technological innovation, regulatory restrictions, challenges facing the industry and the importance of collaboration for growth. I took the time to sit down with various leaders within the space to get their perspective on the current state and future of the UAV market.

Featuring:

Junio Valerio Palomba , Managing Director at Flyability

Laurent Zimmerli , VP Customer Experience at Voliro

Bentzion Levinson , Founder & CEO of Heven

Dennis Krause , Co-Founder & COO at Angel Aerial Systems

Denis Grab , CEO of Manta Air. | UAS Parachutes & AirBags for recovery systems.

Could you give the readers a quick summary of your business for those not familiar?

Junio: Flyability is a Swiss company that turns 10 years old this year. We are the leader in the inspection of confined spaces and have successfully launched three products, the Elios 1, 2 and 3. We fly almost exclusively in confined spaces where there's no GPS. The value proposition of the solution is built around three pillars - reduced risks, as confined spaces as inspections tend to be inherently difficult and dangerous, ; reducing costs associated with infrastructures inspection and rope access and significant reductions in downtime.

Laurent: Voliro developed a purpose built drone that can be deployed to perform contact based interactions, which means the drone is capable to apply a constant force against an object or a surface in a very stable way, which cannot be done with a conventional multicopter. The main innovation behind the Voliro T is the tiltable rotor system, which allows the drone to move or apply that pressure without tilting the drone.

Bentzion: I founded HevenDrones five years ago after understanding that almost the whole drone industry is making drones that can be flying cameras or flying sensors. While those are great, they're very limiting. At HevenDrones, we build drones that are flying robots with a combination of heavy lift and long endurance. We were able to achieve long endurance by using hydrogen as our energy source giving us around five times the amount of energy density versus batteries, giving multiple flight hours between refuelling instead of the battery average of 30 to 40 minutes.

We're using a very small amount of hydrogen, a few 100 grams, less than one pound of hydrogen per flight. You don't have to solve the full chicken egg challenge of hydrogen production and hydrogen use; we have the capability to produce hydrogen wherever we are, in a small amount in the field.

Dennis: Angel Aerial Systems is a US based drone start-up that is designing and manufacturing a unique windmilling drone that hovers more efficiently, allowing for up to 2 hours of flight time on a single battery charge.? It is designed to solve the problem of shorter flight times seen in typical quadcopters.

Denis: Manta Air design and manufacture recovery systems for UAVs. Our systems can be fixed to military drones or commercial multi rotors, some of these based on a parachute system, floats, airbags etc. We help to recover any valuable product or payload that would otherwise be lost or damaged in a UAV failure situation.

How has your business changed in the last 12 months since CUAV 2023?

Laurent: A year ago, we were about nine months after general availability of our product and had a lot of early adopting customers jumping on the product. In the last 12 months we’ve really seen how these existing and new customers have started to use the product on a regular basis, and this provided us with a lot of feedback and data. It helped us to make the product more reliable, more stable and integrate that real life feedback into the product to provide even more value to the customer.

Junio: We have launched this incredible new payload for NDT testing using ultrasonic technology. Not a market first, but definitely a first for confined space inspections. This has been something that was at the top of every major client's wish list pretty much since the company was launched. It was a tremendous amount of work in terms of R&D, and we're very, very happy to see it finally on the market with tremendous success so far.

Dennis: We're still in the R&D stage and about a year away from going to market, but what has changed most significantly for us is our product design focus. When we started out, we put a lot of emphasis on versatility and trying to build one drone that can serve many different missions, such as. a quick inspection, or flying straight over a longer distance for mapping, or hovering for extended aerial observation over a relatively small area.? The most efficient airframe for each of those applications is so different though, and we realized that to best solve a specific problem, we needed a drone airframe purpose built for one specific application.? We’ve focused on hovering for aerial observation as the application most in need of a new solution that solves the flight endurance problem.

Denis: We have traditionally dealt with military applications but as the commercial industry has moved from hobbyists to what it is now, we have transitioned to do a lot more high volume multi rotors. There is a huge industry with a lot of applications. In the last 12 months, we developed new products for drones specifically that fit any kind size or class of drone from 5kg up to 100kg drones.

Do you believe the industry is progressing or regressing in terms of innovation and adoption? Why?

Denis: Look, we are definitely progressing as an industry. Every day we are finding new applications for this UAV technology which will change from inspection of power lines to delivery of food or medical supplies. The world is going to change due to this technology, like it's has been changed by the internet invented or the smartphone.

Bentzion: I think that the industry is consolidating but also maturing. Sometimes when we mature, it takes some time, and we let go of bad habits. I think we're seeing a realization of business models, of technology, of the understanding that to scale drone technology, you have to have the ability to scale. I think the mindset is there, the FAA is talking about approving BVLOS at scale. I do think the industry is moving forward to a healthier place.

Laurent: I think we're stagnating a little as, especially on the adoption side, I don’t see the level of scaling and adoption as the industry would have hoped. I had these conversations with other people from the industry recently, and what I think is one of the bigger problems is that in the past few years, there have been a lot of immature solutions. As a result, people lost a lot of trust in the tech and this has led people to be more hesitant in adopting these technologies, even those that have been around for quite a long time, and that's the frustrating part.

What are the biggest challenges the UAV industry faces today, and how do you think they can be addressed?

Bentzion: I think one of the big challenges industry has had is that there's hundreds of drone companies. But how many of them can deliver an order of 100 drones tomorrow in a way that is scalable, with regulatory approvals? The answer is really not that many, especially when you go beyond 1lb payload to the larger payloads. The challenge is that technology isn't there yet. There really aren't that many sensors you could actually work into a platform to make this platform approved to fly at scale. The business case with many applications isn't there yet. How do we build an ecosystem in a way that is price sensitive, especially under the regulatory framework. We need to ensure as an industry we start with use cases where there's clear added value to customers and from a regulatory perspective, ones where we can actually fly the mission today in a way that's cost effective.

Dennis: I think flight endurance is the big one. Something that lasts 20 to 40 minutes can't fundamentally change the way organizations such as those in Public Safety operate on a broad scale when many their most critical missions can last up to a couple hours.? Battery technology is going to play a big role in solving this problem, but we also think the traditional quadcopter airframe, while versatile, is just not efficient enough to be the mainstream choice anymore.? Right now, law enforcement and other public safety organizations are going out to the field with a suitcase full of spare batteries and chargers and requiring multiple pilots and multiple drones just to do a simple mission. I wouldn’t want to leave my house every day with my phone needing a bunch of spare batteries or having to carry multiple spare phones just so I can utilize it throughout my day.? Better flight endurance is going to simplify integrating drones into regular operations, and really unlock their potential.

Junio: The number one concern seems to be this new wave of protectionism that seems to be taking the market by storm. The issues arising from the presence of Chinese components in drones reflects how pervasive UAV technology has become and how sensitive the information that is being collected can be. There is a sense that nobody has got a silver bullet to the situation. It is definitely and inherently a political situation with a political solution most likely, I think, the industry has a responsibility to come up with market-based solutions. The hope is that we'll be able to address this based on market needs and not sort of a magic wand that's going to suddenly rescue OEMs solution providers and other market participants. The biggest challenges can be addressed through collaboration, cooperation, thought sharing; bringing down walls rather than building more.

Laurent: We have to do a lot of market education still, a lot of thought leadership and explain to people why these solutions are actually providing the value that they promise. We need to get this confidence back and educate the end user. Their reactions to these initial, not perfectly working solutions was even increasing their requirements. The expectations are now often way too high and we need to manage this whilst bringing the confidence levels back through demonstrating the technologies actual value add and then delivering reliably working solutions. Over time we can build more value on this through more features and greater capabilities.

How has the regulatory landscape for UAVs affected your business and your operations?

Dennis: The market that we're looking to serve, at least initially, is Public Safety, which includes Law Enforcement, Fire Departments as well as Search & Rescue.? While emergency situations can allow for some regulatory flexibility, regulations limiting flight beyond visual line of sight (“BVLOS”) flights have limited what drones can do, and I think just the presence of the regulation has slowed the rate of technology development as well. In the US the FAA is granting more and more BVLOS waivers and we expect the FAA will soon move towards a system where manufacturers can certify their own products as safe to fly BVLOS, taking the burden off the operator. I think that's going to simplify applications like drone as a first responder, which is a concept you're already see growing rapidly in terms of popularity and interest.

The idea that you can remotely deploy and operate a drone from a centralized location is really, really powerful. One of the things I think many people don't realize - and we even see this in traditional aviation - is that the limiting factor in aviation operations trying to scale quickly is often people, particularly licensed pilots.? Adding more drones is relatively low cost and easy,? but if you don't have enough pilots to fly them and if the regulations say you need a pilot for every drone - that's a huge limiting factor.? I think upcoming regulatory changes are going to really open that up.

Which markets or applications do you see as the most viable presently for drone adoption?

Junio: When I think about the conversations that I've been having for the past eight months with potential customers, it's crystal clear to me that there is a tremendous demand for infrastructure inspections. Everybody knows that the state of the US infrastructure is poor, especially in the water sector, there is a tremendous demand for this kind of solution. This technology has already been successfully deployed in the UK, 7 or 8 years ago. Nuclear power plants and other assets like mining and critical infrastructures, municipalities and other public institutions.

Bentzion: In drone delivery I believe that it's not replacing an Uber Eats driver but it's more things like replacing helicopters or replacing ship to shore and other use cases which UAVs can add significant value to as an alternative. The type of industries that we see that enter those boxes are defense, public safety, border security and then more the industrial use cases like in inspection and replacing parts on power lines. It's focusing on these use cases that are high value and can be applied in today's current, current regulatory environment.

How do you see the UAV industry evolving in the next 2-3 years?

Laurent: What I hope is going to happen in the next two to three years is that drones and robotics in general becomes a more strategic topic of conversation in big companies who can adopt the technology. Right now what I see are many of these companies have their own robotic teams but they aren’t necessarily delivering strategic value. So they don't have the appropriate budgets or C-Level attention to actually demonstrate the value they can deliver. I really hope that this changes over the next two to three years as the technology shows tangible and measurable impact to the end users.

How important is collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the UAV industry, and how has the Expo facilitated this?

Laurent: I personally think CUAV is probably the most densely packed event for people from the UAV industry. I think collaboration is vitally important, because there is a lot of commonalities to the challenges we face as an industry that we can work on together. These need to be tackled as a collective before we can actually get more competitive. Talking about adoption, talking about strategic value, we need to address these as an industry. I think at the early stage that the industry is in, and it's ever evolving, with lower than optimal adoption rates, collaboration is key.

Dennis: I view startups as having a really important role in driving innovation, because startups typically focus on a very specific problem and try to solve that problem. What I've learned about drones, though, is that they're so multidisciplinary. To develop a great drone platform, you need expertise in aerodynamics, communication systems, camera and sensor technology, and so on.? Customers expect a certain level of autonomy and artificial intelligence built it to the control systems and software.? It is hard for a startup on a bootstrapped budget to build a team of real experts across those disciplines all on their own, so collaboration with external partners is critical.? Collaboration lifts the whole industry up and CUAV is a great place to meet new partners and share technologies.?

Denis: It's a great opportunity to have the global leaders of this industry all together in one place; the most capable manufacturer and designers, the innovators. It is important to meet these guys to understand the broader problems we are facing as an industry and exploring how collectively we can overcome them. It’s tough to understand the needs of your customers without having open conversations and CUAV helps us to do this.

The discussions highlighted a clear theme: while the UAV industry is progressing, it's navigating significant hurdles. There is a real desire by startups and scaleups in this space to innovate and develop new technologies, but the industry as a whole is still in its embryonic stages despite CUAV celebrating their 10 year anniversary. Regulatory challenges, such as BVLOS restrictions, continue to limit widespread adoption however the FAA are being more vocal and working with a broader range of businesses on exemptions. With continued strategic partnerships, advancements in technology, wider adoption rates and some inspiring conversations with industry leaders I couldn’t help but come away from the event without optimism for the future of the industry.

?? Do you agree with the feedback and sentiment from the leaders featured? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!

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