With the new relaxing of the SEC rules on public solicitation of investment, there have been a flood of startups seeking funding on sites like AngelList. Here are the current drone-related startups raising funds there now.
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
Any other ideas on why "drones" happened now?
Convergence of multiple technology evolutions. Cheaper electronics manufacture, minaturisation, mass manufacture of Lipo batteries, cheaper and small sensors, open-sourcing of software implementations of PID's, brushless motors, manufacturing reliance on China.
Doubt it will slow down either. 3D printing (inc carbon-enhanced PLA), CNC machine "affordable", Flight controllers will soon be able to make situational decisions on their own, telemetry and control over 4G (and with it, the integration of commercial flight data, currently the preserve of augmented reality apps), Graphene as a conduit enhancer and a construction material, advancements in brushless tech, etc
An epiphany, " an experience of sudden and striking realization". Of course this is just how people feel when it happens. Epiphanies actually come after significant work on behalf of the discoverer.
My question is - what was the epiphanic trigger for commercial drones? I used to think brushless motors and lipo batteries. But brushless motors are really old (like clothes washer and dryer old), lipo batteries have been in RC aviation for over 10 years now ( and they currently have only 1/33 times the energy density of gasoline by volume)
For NuvAero the tipping point s was merely figuring out the process to obtain Special Flight Operation Certificates to operate UAV's legally in our country. We all could have carried out much valuable work in the past with gas as the fuel and film cameras as the payload in a Kadet, Telemaster, or a Miniature Aircraft heli. I was told by many people in the aviation industry that UAV's were illegal and that was enough to stop me trying for years.
I'm going out on a limb and suggesting that maybe the current media craze over drones is the only actual recent change. Maybe even bad news is good news for us right now?
Any other ideas on why "drones" happened now?
Gary, you know as they say... "An overnight success, 95 years in the making." ;)
They have taken a while so far starting as they did in 1918 ;-)
I have a feeling, that drones will be common thing faster than we think.