Getting big and gearing up for Iris and Pixhawk production runs! Look for a Pixhawk release announcement in the next day or two (shipping should start next week) and Iris will follow a week or so later. They're going to be busy...
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The Drone User Group Network's Drone Social Innovation Award is a $10,000 prize for the most socially beneficial, documented use of a drone platform costing less than $3,000. Through this prize we hope to spur innovation, investment, and attention to the positive role this technology can play in our society. We believe that flying robots are a technology with tremendous potential to make our world a better place, and we are excited that they are cheap and accessible enough that regular people and community groups can have their own. The Drone Social Innovation Award is sponsored by NEXA Capital Partners.
How do I submit an entry?
Please send a link to a 2-4 minute YouTube video along with a 1-2 page write up about your project to prizes@dugn.org . The video and write up should both address who you are, what your project is, address the evaluation criteria listed below, and include some comments from people who have benefited from your work. It should also show your drone in action doing whatever it is you are talking about. Submission materials should be in English. Video quality is not an evaluation criteria, but we hope that your submission will effectively tell the story of the great work you have done. We will acknowledge receipt of all entries, and we may ask you for additional information as we narrow down our list of possible winners.
If you think you might be interested in submitting an entry for the award, we ask that you send us a quick email at prizes@dugn.org by December 31, 2013. This is not a requirement, but it will help us to gauge interest and support our community of participants.
When can I submit an entry?
Submissions will be accepted from October 31, 2013 - March 10, 2014. We expect to announce a final winner in May.
What are the evaluation criteria?
There are three tiers of evaluation criteria. In order of importance they include:
Tier 1
Depth and type of impact: Did you help a community to better manage their natural resources? Expose government corruption? Assist first responders in a disaster situation? Protect endangered species? Tell us what your drone does to change the world.
Breadth of impact: How many people benefited? How many acres of land were impacted? How many animals or plants were positively affected? Tell us how we might quantify the impact of your project.
Tier 2
Cost: In addition to the $3,000 cap per drone, we have a preference for less expensive solutions. If you can accomplish for $500 the same thing it takes another group $3,000 to do, we'll select the people using the less expensive equipment.
Replicability: How easily could another person or community do what you did to benefit their own area?
Tier 3
Coolness: We like things that have a little bit of a wow factor.
Popularity: Try to get as many people as possible to like your video. There will be a "people's choice" award for the most popular project, and popularity might factor into the cash prize choice as well.
Is this prize for an idea, something already done, or a project in progress?
This is a prize for impacts already achieved. The work can be ongoing, but you will be evaluated on the good that has already been done.
What do you consider a drone?
Any flying device that doesn't have a person in it and is computer or remotely controlled will be considered a drone for the purposes of this award.
Who is eligible to win the prize?
Any individual, community group, non-profit, or business anywhere in the world is eligible as long as we are legally allowed to send you money from the U.S. For example, a farmers cooperative in Zambia would be eligible. A group operating out of a country that is sanctioned under US law may be recognized for their work, but would not be able to receive the prize money.
Why is there a price cap on the drone platform?
We wanted to focus the award on platforms that individuals or community organizations could afford to acquire themselves. Also, we wanted the prize amount to be meaningful relative to the cost of equipment.
What do you include in the $3,000 count?
We are including the cost of the aerial platform, sensors (such as a camera) on that platform, control equipment, and any ground station. Labor, travel, software used for post processing of imagery, and other costs not related to equipment are not included in the tally. You may use multiple flight platforms that together total more than $3,000, but the most expensive unmanned aerial system may not cost more than $3,000.
How will you verify the total cost of the platform?
We ask that you give a general outline of your costs in your video and written submission. If you are selected as a finalist, we will ask you for a bill of materials.
Will there only be one prize awarded?
In addition to the grand prize winner who will receive the $10,000, there will be a "people's choice" award for the video with the most likes. We may also recognize second and third place winners and/or category prizes. However, we currently only have funds for one cash prize. We are continuing to raise funds to be able to provide additional cash awards. If you are interested in being a sponsor for this award, please contact us at prizes@dugn.org .
Who is doing the judging?
The leaders of the drone user groups in our network will be evaluating entries along with a panel of expert advisers. No one involved in the judging is eligible to receive an award.
What can I spend the prize money on if I win?
Anything you want. There are no strings attached. This is a prize to recognize good works already performed, and it incurs no further obligations nor should it be considered compensation for services.
Aren't drones dangerous and/or illegal?
Drones are usually flown in a safe manner by responsible operators. However, as with any vehicle, safety is up to the person deploying the drone, plane, car, or bicycle. Any submissions that include unsafe practices such as flying low/hovering over a crowd of people will be automatically disqualified. We reserve the right to decide for ourselves what constitutes unsafe flying. In the US, it is against federal regulations for individuals or private organizations to charge money for services performed with a drone. However, the use of unmanned aerial systems for non-commercial purposes is currently allowed. If you have questions about the law in your state, city, or country, please consult someone with legal training in this area.
I'd like to stay up to date on the progress of this initiative. How can I do that?
Follow us on twitter at @droneusergroups, like our Facebook page, or subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of this page.
HONDA is introducing "Smartphone Case N" that has small six air bag to protect Smartphone in the case.
Sorry, the video is Japanese. Followings are some essence;
The engineer is start development this case by his loss of his own smartphone, drop and damage.
He start drop test and found the critical height of damaging phone is 1.67m from the flower.
After several design of protection case, he reached to 6 air bag concept that is took from N-wagon Air Bug system.
The nice Nitrogen gas inflated air bag is shown at the end of the video.
Hope to have something similar on our Quad.
sUAS News introduces one more platform to bring the news and current events to the community and public at large. Originally envisioned as a series of 60 second Public Service Announcements (PSA) “This Is My Drone” where civilian end-users would talk about some of the positives unmanned technology is capable of providing. For example, I’m farmer Brown, and I grow the food your family eats, etc. The idea is to try something new and focus less on people that already understand the potential and are proponents, but to get this information out to the wider public audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1-g1yxpUT3g
A quick documentary of my FPV flight to Robben Island, where Mr Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years.
Back then I was very worried about flying over water...
This was before Cruize mode :)
About 16km and 35 minutes, safe touch down!
While it is no big revelation the FAA’s successive FAA administrators have been fiddling while the UAS/RPAS airspace integration Rome has burnt to the ground, but here we will examine how far ahead the rest of the world is and why?
The graphic aptly illustrates who is leading the way and how the U.S. as a country has fallen by the UA technology wayside to last place. All of this glory was accomplished with the political and bureaucratic prowess of some third world government. With all chagrins aside, it is only getting worse. If you’re not first… well, you get the picture.
Most folks don’t realize that this is the case as most reports paint a rosy picture of progress through 
diligence and hard work. Two limited type certificates hardly justifies all the public jubilation or even meritorious mention beyond a glaring watermark of a grossly ineffective agency. Smart guys are even getting bamboozled. Amazon’s Bezos will be delivering DVD’s packages by drone in 4 years. To be honest, he is a smart guy with the publicity stunt. Bezos has probably already made more money with drones than most other folks will dream of in a lifetime. All without having to deal with the FAA.
We’ve heard the same tired excuses over the last 10 years about manpower and budgets and why the FAA just can’t seem to move anything forward. “We need data” is definitely plausible, but has outlived its shelf life as there is tons of data folks have wanted to share. The unsophisticated ruse in the estimation of the rest of the world community has only produced absolute bewilderment. They’ve been asking for and denying data for that same 10 years all the while sanctimoniously crowing about leading the way. Worse, is the world’s largest advocacy group carrying the water espousing the same obtuse mantra. Credibility and public confidence in that baloney are lower than a proverbial snake’s belly and shame just doesn’t compute in proximity to the Beltway. The whole area could be recognized and designated a UNESCO world heritage scruple free zone. No new tale to tell here.
Silver lining alert…
It’s not all doom and gloom as the FAA has been effective at one thing, silencing critics (except one) by offering either special dispensation or fear of retribution. The old carrot and stick routine. They don’t even have to show the stick just allude to the carrot. Anytime there is carrot talk you can bet the rest of the community is getting the stick and usually the dirty end at that.
I had heard reports that in public FAA folks were saying they’re watching who’s doing what and will remember them when the regulations come out. Boy howdy, is that the textbook definition of representative government or what? Man alive it just makes me well up with inspiration and pride. Do you reckon the FAA’s current administration was cagey enough to hatch this plan in house? Nope, this one is straight out of the accomplish nothing and retire to the private sector playbook. For those outside of the U.S., it is all the rage right down to the city council level. Representative government has devolved into a state sanctioned stand and deliver rebrand with supposed customer service where they pick your pockets with a smile. The teleprompter matched with the right canned goods makes for a potent tool.
Look at the budgets and manpower afforded the FAA by Congress. Nearly a billion dollars requested for NextGen in the $18.5 billion FSY 2014 budget, but no money for test sites or UAS NAS integration. Whoops must have slipped past someone’s watchful eye. Or, maybe their was/is no watchful eye watching managing the UAS integration project?? How many more billions of dollars will it take Mr. Huerta? Maybe if the staff traveled less, worked more, and had real oversight we’d of had or gotten some real progress? It’s all speculation as the sUAS News is still waiting on the UAPO/UASIO budgets and SOPs that were FOIA requested many months ago. Too busy planning the next working vacation in Europe or South America I suppose to get through the everyday paperwork.
On another side note…
Lets look at the rendering used in the DOT Budget Highlights PDF
http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/FY%202014%20Budget%20Highlights.pdf
Examine the rendering (in proximity to the Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo venue) looks very much like it was taken from a low altitude aerial photo. Possibly even shot from a drone. I can’t think of any tall enough buildings in that area where you get that shot.
Now, if we compare it to the budget (both manpower and money) at say the CAA U.K at 130,000,000 + pounds. They had a handful of people who certainly don’t have the budget to go on junkets all over the world. Sure, the air traffic isn’t the same scale either is the area and population, yet they were able to accomplish several stunning firsts in the vicinity of the 3rd busiest airport on the planet.
Disenfranchisement came early…
We, the small business stakeholder group, have been repeatedly and systematically disenfranchised from the public rulemaking process. Actually the process is designed and set up to disenfranchise people without lobbyists and or monetary means to stay in the public rule making process. For insurance, you install people that know as little as possible about the subject matter and drag it out for 5 to 10 years with no tangible results. Folks start falling by the wayside as they lose everything they have invested. Oh, and heaven forbid you bring it up… you should be happy to take your lumps or enjoy the fruits of the orchestrated debacle and suffer in silence.
The handwriting was on the wall over at RTCA. Things looked so bad after 7 years of reshuffled meetings with nothing to show that they had to scrap the whole 203 committee and start over. We are assured the 228 will get the support it needs to make progress. (I think the old script from 2005 was pulled out of the birdcage and trotted out as fresh ink.) But we have enough funding and manpower for this? Do we have a representative from the FAA that knows UAS from a can of Shinola. Or, do we have another new government person that will take 2 or 3 years to come up to speed? It could very well all be for naught. That effort may already be DOA as the scuttlebutt says the FAA isn’t going to support a public algorithm for ADS-B. Basically, that relegates ADS-B to a safety accessory. The Sky-king flight plan survives past 2020. Makes you wonder if that is at the behest of the AOPA. You need to get the “Administrator on the phone after hours” kind of clout. Yes, friends, they have that kind of pull.
He/she will have to take 6 months just to learn some of the acronyms. Then the vendors will all have to train them on the product lines that way when the integration hair shirt asks if they ever flown a UAS they can gleefully parrot… Wasp, Raven, Puma and sometimes ScanEagle. The later cost about $40,000 a head and isn’t as freely dispensed with as the interoffice musical chairs make a bad investment.
I can imagine that there is many an enterprising entrepreneur putting the business plan together. In the expenses column; training everyone in the UASIO, traveling to and fro D.C., following the staff around on the international junket circuit for the next 5 to 10 years. Then there are the dues and subscriptions to various associations, lobbyists, campaign contributions and all of the other trappings of the good old boy network. COA’s to fly out of public airports for commercial purposes don’t grow on trees Laddy. Actually, any and all special dispensation to play in this arena is going to cost you plenty of money. You start doing the math, and you realize real quick that your capital one card better come with an earmark-sized credit limit.
I knew it was all a sham prior to Margret Jenny (another beltway insider and company woman) who did not mention UAS when testifying to Congress about NextGen and what would be making the biggest impact on the NAS in the near future.
The only folks who still think the skies are opening up for UAS in September of 2015 are the mayor of Toronto and maybe Lindsay Lohan. However, post rehab I’m sure the doubts are starting to surface.
After 7 long years, ASTM is publishing documents. We’re fast tracking now as the canned goods have to be out and vetted for the DoD guys to fleece the municipalities out of money they could never hope to have. These same companies call me and ask what are big markets and where/how to invest to hit the jackpot. On the front side, they can’t be seen as associated with me as it would raise the ire of the FAA. No one who’s spent millions of dollars working the system wants to fall into disfavor with the Lords and Ladies of the FAA court.
The new square game includes hedging your bets by working all sides of the triangle…
You’ll hear how the DoD guys are working selflessly to get you into the NAS. I say hogwash and folks buying that malarkey are so deluded or ill informed that they could be beyond the righting of an intervention or re-education. Most reading this tome would most likely chuckle and say, “ I know, who’d buy that hogwash at this point?” Well, you’d be surprised how many people are betting the farm.
This graphic illustrates the money influence dynamic..
And it goes like this…
“I spoke with so and so over at the FAA, or someone at ATSM (they usually can’t remember whom they spoke with or his name) and he/they said in a year or so… we’ll be flying.” After laying out the end game, I get the old “you’re painting a dark picture response and that sounds like a lot of work.” On many occasions, I get off the phone and wonder how does a guy get a job with no experience in the field?
And Congress isn’t much help…
One of the newer go forward plans is to spend $10,000 on a lobbyist that knows nothing about the industry or what it needs. It’ll get the word out that we’re here, and things should work themselves out. Yeah, and then I ask if they read the BBC story about the Predator King, Big Buck’s “Buck” McKeon. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23024462
Now it is estimated that Buck has been on the receiving end of close to $850,000 in campaign contributions from the Drone industry. Now before you go breaking out the checkbook, realize that all they’ve been able to accomplish is for the public entities (the same group that can currently get COAs now) will get to go first. Gee willlikers, what systems will they buy? Most likely those usual suspects on the DOJ/DHS approved vendor list. Oh, they got this deal sewed up so tight, and everyone wants you to believe it all just happened that way. When you hear it’s all about safety, there is some truth in that as it is all about job safety. Do no harm to my career.
A couple more bullets in the back should kill this industry for small business…
Well, what about advocacy, who’s watching out for my patch? Unless your company is bringing down part of the $5 billion dollars a year in government contracts, your concerns may only warrant a chuckle.… Hard to squeeze personal gain out of a small business.
It is up to you to start advocating for yourself. Tell the companies and groups that are making money selling products that you would like to see them quit acting like the DoD blood money guys and put some of those profits into advocating for the small business end-user community.
Ok, you’ve highlighted the problems, what do we do?
Demand (not ask for) accountability from the FAA for public rulemaking.
A sub 2 or 3 kilo bin that is administered by a community based group. This will give people without huge budgets a safe place to operate. A reiteration of some of parameters… Speed under 35 knots, frangible made primarily of wood, plastic or foam. 400’ AGL and 1500’ laterally with no observer with direct pilot intervention. No class 2 medical, or commercial pilot certification.
Demand that the people involved with the rulemaking from the government side must know the technology they propose to regulate.
Demand that the people representing the industry must have industry experience. Not just board members from the DoD vendors and members of the GA groups.
Advocacy groups need to support qualified people (with experience operating UAS and running businesses) represent us to the FAA, ICAO and the Congress. Far too many mistakes have been made due to inexperience.
These existing conditions have added years as well as a hurdle to the airspace integration process.
Great news from the AMA: The FAA has clarified its rules (which were assumed but not confirmed) that private use of drones over their own property is allowed now:
November 25th… In an online news story by Oklahoma City Channel 9 News, FAA effectively endorsed AMA’s safety guidelines for the personal use of sUAS for agricultural applications. As reported by Justin Dougherty…
“Farmers may operate an unmanned aircraft over their own property for personal use … Guidelines for the operation of model aircraft, such as those published by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, may be used by farmers as reference for safe model UAS operations.”
PL 112-95 enacted by Congress as part of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, provides that individuals operating small unmanned aircraft (model aircraft) for personal use may do so within the programming of a recognized community-based organization (AMA) and in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines.
Click the link below to read the Channel 9 report…
Oklahoma Farmers Use Drones To Monitor Crops, Cattle
Mark Mueller from the Flying Machine Arena website and the IDSC presents on Robohub a new failsafe algorithm that enables a quad to remain under control even after the loss of a propeller. The video shows up a quad that intentionally loose a propeller, with and without the new failsafe algorithm:
You can read the full article with more details and photos here:
Quadrocopter failsafe algorithm: Recovery after propeller loss
(don't forget to take a look at the comments below!)
You can also read Robohub's coverage on Amazon's Prime Air and other Quadcopter related articles.
Dr. Charlie Rush and Montana State graduate student Ian Johnson have been using the 3DR Y6 for some foundational agricultural disease detection and prevention research. Their project aims to use aerial imagery to characterize the spread of wheat crop diseases. These pest-caused viruses can lead to poor water uptake, and ultimately wasted water and wasted money. Here's the full story from Agrilife:
Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Charlie Rush, 806-354-5804, crush@ag.tamu.edu
AMARILLO – Dr. Charlie Rush hopes to use a unique method – helicopter drone – to track disease progression across wheat fields to eventually help producers make better irrigation decisions.
A helicopter drone is being used by Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas A&M AgriLife plant pathologist in Amarillo, to track disease progression across wheat fields. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo by Kay Ledbetter)
A helicopter drone is being used by Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas A&M AgriLife plant pathologist in Amarillo, to track disease progression across wheat fields. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo by Kay Ledbetter)
Rush, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant pathologist in Amarillo, has enlisted the help of Ian Johnson, a Montana State University-Bozeman graduate student who is using his work in the university’s Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program to help scientists conduct research.
Approximately 1.1 million acres of wheat in the High Plains are irrigated, Rush said, making wheat the second-largest user of irrigation water from the Ogallala Aquifer. In this same region, mite-vectored virus diseases are the predominant pathogenic constraint to sustainable wheat production each year.
The viruses causing these diseases are transmitted by the wheat curl mite, he said. Infected wheat plants not only have reduced grain and forage yields, but also greatly reduced root weight and water-use efficiency. Therefore, fertilizer and groundwater applied as irrigation to diseased wheat is largely wasted.
Rush’s team is using the helicopter to take remote images of a field study where they are trying to develop an economic threshold for irrigation of wheat infected with wheat streak and other mite-vectored diseases.
A helicopter drone used by Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas A&M AgriLife plant pathologist in Amarillo, flies over a wheat field to track disease progression. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo by Kay Ledbetter)
A helicopter drone used by Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas A&M AgriLife plant pathologist in Amarillo, flies over a wheat field to track disease progression. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo by Kay Ledbetter)
“The problem for farmers is that these diseases develop in gradients over time and they don’t know whether or not they should apply new pesticides or fertilizers or water,” he said. “Most of these practices are done in April, and that is when the disease is just starting to show up. They may know they have disease in the field, but they really don’t know how much damage it might cause.
“So what we are trying to do is be able to go in early in the season and look at the disease development at a particular time and then based on what it looks like, say in early April, be able to give them a prediction of what the crop will be at harvest time.”
To do that, Rush said his team has been going into the field using different types of remote imaging, such as the hand-held hyperspectral radiometer, to measure and quantify the severity of disease development in the field.
A wedge image can be made after the helicopter has made about six passes over the field. The images it captures were stitched together by Ian Johnson, a Montana State University-Bozeman graduate student, for a complete picture.
A wedge image can be made after the helicopter has made about six passes over the field. The images it captures were stitched together by Ian Johnson, a Montana State University-Bozeman graduate student, for a complete picture.
“Now the application and use of this helicopter drone is one more way of measuring the disease development,” he said. “The beautiful thing about this is instead of having to deal with handheld devices, you can come in and fly the entire field in a matter of five minutes and get a very, very high resolution. So we are excited about the possibilities this may provide for our project.”
Johnson said he will use the drone to make four or five flights during the growing season and then generate results that will help Rush. This Y6 helicopter, named for its Y shape and six propellers, is made by 3D Robotics and includes an autopilot.
“That allows us to preprogram flights and fly a grid. As it is flying the grid, it takes top-down photos,” Johnson said. “Once we collect the photos, we stitch them together and build a giant photo mosaic of each field we flew over. We are hoping to provide incremental photo coverage of the fields as the disease progresses through the fields.”
Johnson said using this technology for agricultural research provides a whole list of improvements to the previous services available. Many researchers have used satellite imagery before, but this provides resolution 100 to 1,000 times greater than the LandSat satellite imagery Rush and his team used in the past.
“That’s a huge improvement when you are looking at ground-coverage and trying to pick out diseased plants,” he said. “Another improvement is temporal resolution. We can fly this every day for a couple of weeks or every week for a whole season, whereas with satellite you have to wait two to three weeks for a pass and that is if you can get your slot. So this is a great improvement.”
Another thing, Johnson said, is the drone is currently using visible spectrum only – still photographs – because the project is focused on the yellow band of light, which easily captures the typical symptoms of wheat streak mosaic.
“But this is a modular system,” he said. “We could put near infrared, thermal, any array of multi-spectral sensors on here to capture whatever data it is the project demands.”
Rush said one of the things he is most excited about with this new technology is that although aerial images have been taken before and unmanned aircraft have been used to measure things, “they have never been used to our knowledge to manage irrigation applications, especially in diseased crops.
“This is something that is totally new,” he said. “Obviously, in the Texas Panhandle where water is such a precious resource, anything that we can do to reduce waste or farmers putting on irrigation water when it is not going to pay off for them is going to be a positive thing.”
Rush said he is confident that with the studies currently underway, this new technology will allow them to very quickly provide growers with the information they need to better manage their irrigation.
Thanks to everyone for your feedback and suggestions on our last post about this project. We've decided to go ahead and have just launched a Kickstarter project for it today!
We will offer both a 433 and 915MHz version of the Bluetooth Bridge, each is compatible with its counterpart 3DR Radio. The 915MHz version is also compatible with RFD900 radios. Range when paired with a 3DR radio is approximately 1km, when paired with an RFD900 the range will be approximately 4km. The Bluetooth Bridge has been designed to be as simple and easy to use as possible. The unit comes with an internal, rechargeable battery so you won't need to find an extra LiPo with the 'right' kind of connector. Charging is as simple as plugging the unit in to a PC or laptop with a Micro-USB cable. The unit also lets you know the status of the battery with a green, yellow or red LED.
The Kickstarter page is live now and is currently the only place to make an order. Once the Kickstarter is complete, we'll begin accepting orders through our web store. The price will be $139 which includes the Bluetooth Bridge module in a durable enclosure and an internal, rechargeable battery. You'll still need your old air side radio module, but if you don't have one we'll also be selling compatible packs for $189.
Check out more details on the Kickstarter page and leave us your comments/questions below!
UPS experimenting with delivery drones, set to challenge Amazon's Prime Air.
Full article here:UPS Drone
Christmas special for AUAV3 - just $59.95 !
Sales at www.arsovtech.com for EU and auav.co for US
Best regards
Nick Arsov and Phil Kocmoud
Integration of Civil Unmanned
Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the
National Airspace System
(NAS) Roadmap
First Edition – 2013
Rakesh Sharma
While regulation may delay Bezos’ plans, technology may get there sooner.
“We are not in hyperloop science fiction territory here,” says Brandon Basso, lead researcher at 3D Robotics, referring to Elon Musk’s plans to develop a transit system between LA and SF . According to him, the range and payload (less than five pounds and ten miles) specified by Bezos will become “more possible” with future technology.
The problem is also one of costs. Basso says the absolute best battery and propulsion technology onboard could set commercial drones by at least $10,000. That is a significant amount of money per drone, even for a money-spinning behemoth like Amazon.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rakeshsharma/2013/12/02/that-amazon-drone-not-going-to-happen-till-2020/
Posted on December 2, 2013 |
Amazon made a waves on Monday after announcing that, someday, it will deliver goods via drones, rather than the FedEx man. It’s a fun thought — and no coincidence that it’s right in time for the holidays when the commerce giant wants people remembering its services — but it’s not a new one, especially for one software developer.
Frankly, it would have been ridiculous if Amazon wasn’t putting some eggs in a drone basket. The idea of having unmanned crafts to do our bidding, bellicose or otherwise, has been around for decades. Just ask the people behind the Tacocopter. But there are plenty of technological factors — battery life, rotor speed, payload, regulations, communication and sensory software and hardware — that have to improve before books and other goods are buzzing the skies in a little drone’s talons.
Even still, it’s not hard to spot the promise. You could go out and fly a drone right from your pocket today. Companies like Parrot and DIY Drones make amateur copters and provide apps that turn your smartphone into a remote control so you can zoom around, take a picture or buzz the dog.
But Nelson Paez wants to build something bigger. His company, DreamHammer is building a software platform to build applications for controlling unmanned boats, planes or trucks. His company has beenworking with both Lockheed and the Pentagon to build the software. He’s now looking to bring that platform to the private sector.
But making that bridge away from DoD dollars hasn’t been smooth sailing. We chatted a couple weeks before Amazon’s news and he relayed frustrations on the level of investment in drone technology in the Bay Area. He likens it to a kindergarten’s soccer game, where every child chases the ball (the opportunity du jour) around the field, rather than going to where the ball will be in the future.
“There’s no question Silicon Valley needs to pull its head out of its butt and stop focusing on 140-character tweets,” he says. Nothing will change “until someone shows you can make money with drones, and the soccer ball moves, and everyone follows it.” Perhaps Amazon’s big promises will catalyze some of that. Paez, obviously, has a stake in the game. More investment in drones, the more potential money for his company (and him).
The blame isn’t squarely on the investment community. The Federal Aviation Administration has been drawing up new regulations for unmanned aircraft. Right now commercial use is not allowed; only broad rules exist for hobbyists. Many complain the governing body — despite the sunny projections of the economic impact by interest groups — is moving too slowly to keep pace with demand.
Worries about a surveillance state and careless warfare in the Middle East often blurs the discussion about drones. This can often be diffused by simply changing terminology: quadcopter, unmanned aircraft and even remote controlled planes are usually interchangeable terms. Amazon using the word “drone” will sway that discussion as well — though we shouldn’t let it dull reservations about unmanned crafts in law enforcement hands.
“Drone” really means any remote controlled vehicle. Drone tractors are finding a place on big farms. Drone boats are zipping around the oceans, sometimes way under the water and shooting down missiles. Just about anything that needs a driver, pilot or operator could someday be a drone.
“It’s that convergence that will lead to the next industrial revolution,” Paez says. “When we can start making drones multi-application capable, then it’s going to explode.”
Even outside surveillance concerns, a lot of caution is still warranted. Drones need to communicate so they’re not slamming into one another. And most drones have finite ranges to their controllers; when they go outside of it they either drop out of the sky or head straight until they hit something. And since there’s no way to “manually” fly a drone should the computer go out, stable software and anti-virus safety is a major consideration as well.
The University of Miami is studying oil spills with drifters, UAVs, and a kite! From The Atlantic:
More than three-and-half years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster spewed millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are launching drones and ocean-going sensor arrays off the Florida coast in an effort to map the path of future oil spills before they devastate beaches and coastal ecosystems.
Researchers from the University of Miami and other scientists are placing 200 GPS-equipped “drifters” in the surf zone just off Fort Walton to map where the ocean currents take the devices. Sensors placed on the ocean surface and seabed will track the movement of colored dye that will be released during the three-week experiment that began today. Two drones outfitted with GoPro cameras will also monitor where the currents take the drifters and dye. Since the drones can only stay aloft for an hour at a time, a camera-carrying kite will also be deployed.
All the data collected will be used to construct a computer model of near-shore ocean currents to predict how future oil spills or other pollutants will disperse as the approach the shore.
“Computer models will be able to give us better estimates of where the oil spill will go, and how fast and in which patterns it will spread,” Tamay Özgökmen, a University of Miami professor and the director of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbons in the Environment, told The Atlantic in an email. “This can help emergency responders to better direct their limited resources. In the longer term, models are also helpful to make sense of any ecological damage that may have occurred in the environment.”
For instance, that model can also predict where currents will carry shrimp larvae – crucial information given the importance of fishing to the Gulf Coast economy.
The Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathways Experiment is part of a larger $500 million effort funded in part by oil giant BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Depending on the strength of the currents, the drifters and drones will be deployed over an area that could stretch from hundreds of square yards to many square miles, according to Özgökmen.
And a link to the official PR from the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science:
MIAMI – (Dec. 2, 2013) – A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmsopheric Science-led study to understand the path of oil or other pollutants in coastal areas begins offshore of Ft. Walton Beach, Florida today. During the three-week SCOPE Experiment – Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathways Experiment – scientists will deploy GPS-equipped drifters and other advanced instruments to study the ocean currents along the coast to better understand how oil may move onshore in the event of a future spill.
“In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill it became clear that understanding the ocean currents in the surfzone is vital to improve our understanding and prediction of oil spills,” said Dr. Tamay Özgökmen, UM Professor and Director of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbons in the Environment (CARTHE). “There are catastrophic socio-economic impacts when oil spills reach our beaches.”
UM Professor Ad Reniers and his colleague Professor Jamie MacMahan from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., will deploy a variety of instruments, including 200 GPS-equipped drifters, unmanned aerial vehicles and pressure and dye sensors at the surface and at varying depths, to measure the movement of ocean currents along the coast to study how oil, fish larvae, or toxins in the water are carried by currents close to shore.
“This study will collect important data necessary to understand the ocean currents in the near-shore marine environment,” said Reniers, associate professor of applied marine physics at the UM Rosenstiel School and lead investigator of the SCOPE Experiment. “The information collected will be used to develop computer models of the coastal zone, to improve our scientific understanding of this region in the event of a future oil spills, as well as to better understand how larvae or water pollutants travel close to shore.”
The unmanned aerial vehicles will be equipped with cameras to monitor the drifters and used in a dye experiment, where EPA-approved colored dye is placed in the near-shore waters to collect visual data on the movement of currents. Several of the drifters being deployed during the experiment were designed by students from three Florida high schools, MAST Academy, South Broward High School and Maclay School, as part of a CARTHE-sponsored educational outreach program. This research is made possible by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org
SCOPE is the second large experiment conducted by CARTHE that brings together a wide range of scientific experts and experiment with measurement methods to study oil spills. The first experiment, called GLAD (Grand Lagrangian Deployment), was conducted near the Deepwater Horizon site in the summer of 2012 also under the support of GoMRI. Information collected by scientists from both experiments will be used to model the transport and fate of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in the event of a future spill.
The SCOPE Experiment is a project of the UM-based CARTHE. The CARTHE program includes 26 principal investigators from 12 research institutions in eight states. Together these scientists are engaged in novel research through the development of a suite of integrated models and state-of-the-art computations that bridge the scale gap between existing models and natural processes. For more information about CARTHE, please visit www.carthe.org or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/carthe.gomri
About the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School
The University of Miami is the largest private research institution in the southeastern United States. The University’s mission is to provide quality education, attract and retain outstanding students, support the faculty and their research, and build an endowment for University initiatives. Founded in the 1940’s, the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science has grown into one of the world’s premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. For more information, visit: www.rsmas.miami.edu
In the wake of the Amazon announcement, here's an interesting new concept from our friends at SkyCatch and others: "air highways", which are designated drone zones that would potentially allow their introduction before the FAA is comfortable with full integration into the national air space. A bit like designated autonomous car lanes on the highway, I guess:
Air Highway is a confederation of engineers, entrepreneurs and policy makers catalyzing a future where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) make the lives of people and businesses easier and more efficient. We’re creating a blueprint for UAVs to integrate with day-to-day life and city infrastructure, taking into consideration the technology, regulations and economics necessary to make this feasible. We’re proposing a 10-block pilot program backed by the city of San Francisco as the first implementation of this blueprint.
The Vision
We envision a circuit of aerial “roads.” We envision last mile deliveries unbound by traffic congestion. We also envision networked UAVs that smartly distribute their deliveries. But most importantly, we envision a new platform that sparks further innovation among entrepreneurs and businesses. Our goal is to make sure the sky is no longer the limit.
Technology
UAVs will navigate along aerial corridors lined by transponders to monitor the location of a vehicle at any time. UAVs will be fully automated with sensors to guide them to their destinations and automatic battery replacement.
Economics and Regulation
UAVs will be powered by clean energy and reduce city traffic congestion. Operators of UAVs will be subject to business registrations and tolls in order to support the city’s maintenance of the aerial corridor infrastructure.
From Buzzfeed:
A Senate committee will hold a hearing early next year to explore the potential economic impact of private companies using drones, including Amazon’s proposed drone delivery program, BuzzFeed has learned.
An aide to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said the hearing was in the works before Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo’s Sunday night announcement that the company plans to use drones to make deliveries.
“Amazon’s plans for using drones to deliver packages is just one example of the potential this technology offers consumers, and a reflection of the ingenuity of American business,” Rockefeller said. “As we move forward toward integrating drones into civilian life and capitalizing on the economic opportunities they offer, we must make certain that these aircrafts meet rigorous safety and privacy standards. I plan to hold a hearing early next year to explore the potential economic benefits of unmanned vehicles in our airspace as well as the potential risks they may create.”
In our most recent drone trip to SE Asia, the ConservationDrones team brought along with us a Y6 Multicopter (http://3DRobotics.com). And it was a good thing we did because we were having some difficulty mapping a 1-hectare forest with a fixed-wing aircraft (too small an area for a fast-flying fixed-wing). The 3DR Y6 was perfect for the job as it mapped the plot in a single 1.5 km mission with no problem.
RoverMux R/C multiplexer is on sale for only $6 (buy here, coupon code EB024FC) on Tindie
There are 100+ additional items from many other makers on sale at Tinde today. Tindie is like Etsy for electronics/robotics. https://www.tindie.com/blog/thanksgiving-2013/
