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I'm not really surprised by this. At a drone conference in 2016, I first saw presentations from them among many other interesting technology vendors. They had a

I'm not really surprised by this. At a drone conference in 2016, I first saw presentations from them among many other interesting technology vendors. They had a "vision" that they carefully presented on stage of what they would do, but everyone else at the show was either demoing technology or taking orders. Airware had a "call us for pricing" kind of attitude. Meanwhile, its been a year since Verizon acquired Skyward - which was a force in the drone industry pushing for better flight management tools, better collaboration with ATC, and an affordable product for small-time commercial operators that got most of their money as contractors/service providers. At the enterprise level, Drones just didn't solve a lot of problems. At the small farmer, construction contractor, gravel pit, etc, drones solved a lot of problems, but drones were the anti-scale solution. They Reduced the work so drastically, and improved the result so much that there was no need to scale up software licenses. In many cases, it just did the work better, in a 10th of the time, at a much lower cost. But, there was not a giant amount of work in the queue for those companies. Just a steady flow of the same jobs that used to take longer. Now, beyond visual line of sight (BVLS) flights might change that for the enterprise eventually, Power lines, rails, pipelines, and roads are all good candidates for remote, automated drone inspection. But, I suspect that it will be either DJI hardware, Custom Hardware, and some amount of custom software that really integrates drones into the enterprise process. Flight planning is only part of the picture. Maybe Airware had it all, but, if so, they were too early - they couldn't outlast the slow (and rational) pace of aviation regulatory change.

hef19898 8y ago
One other usecase with a lot of potential is inventory control and counting in warehouses. Not small articles, but for industrial warehouses and larger products drones combining bar code scanners and visual artical identification can improve things considerably. Fraunhofer ran some first test like two years in Germany. No idea what came out of it.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  Does that really benefit from a drone vs a wheeled vehicle with a bunch of fixed cameras on it? I would think a gigantic planar environment is pretty much ideal for an industrial SDV; a lot of things get easier when you're no longer worried about weight— you can carry a full day's worth of batteries, not to mention having higher quality optics and safety lasers. (disclosure: I work for OTTO Motors, which has customers in this space)
  - fludlight 8y ago
    Why not both? A large, wheeled vehicle that also carries a small flying drone for the occasional inspection from above.
    - rarrarrarr 8y ago
      This is the approach I've been thinking about recently. The landing pad on the wheeled vehicle could have an inductive charger to recharge the smaller multirotor vehicle(s).
  - elvirs 8y ago
    wheeled vehicle parked in the isles to take a picture of a space on top shelf would be blocking pallet jakcs and other vehicles that need to move between the isles. may be a railed solution hanging from the ceiling would be better.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      Rails are a lot of infrastructure to install and maintain. People complain that sticking down magnetic tape is a pain in the butt.
      - hef19898 8y ago
        Exactlly, also a drone is much more flexible in case you change your layout.
    - rasz 8y ago
      other way, you mound cameras ON pallet jacks and other vehicles
  - hef19898 8y ago
    I could imagine both. In the case I mentioned the warehouse was euipped with highracks up to 13 meters if I remeber well. Also the drone flew during non-working hours, so yeah some ground based solution would work too.
- elvirs 8y ago
  I don't know why this is getting downvoted. years ago when we had multiple warehouses our employees would upload pictures of shelves into the cloud at the end of every shift and if a product goes missing we would look at the pictures and inventory record to find out when exactly the real quantity of items on the shelf and inventory level in the system became off. if a drone could fly thru shelves on schedule and AI could count the items that would be amazing
- bpirruccello 8y ago
  I always hear people raise this point but there are better solutions than a flying robot inside of a warehouse.
  - Aeveus 8y ago
    Out of interest, could you name a couple? I just happened to come across a couple students that are tackling this problem via drones.
    - 1stcity3rdcoast 8y ago
      A vehicle on wheels or a track is orders of magnitude more efficient. It’s not sexy but it’s more effective than having to power a flying vehicle and control it autonomously. If you really want something more drone-like, hang it from the ceiling.
      - hef19898 8y ago
        What kind of solution is best depends to 100% on thr warehouse you are looking at. Take you standard Amazon warehouse for small articles as an example. Maximizing untilisation, meaning the ratio between space used und spa e available, in that case you end up with a never ending mixture of differwnt small articles in the same location. Without RFID chips on every article, which is as of now prohibitively expensive, the only feasible way to count the inventory is using people. For other warehouses and articles, like white goods or other large stuff that easily identified with out touching it whether a drone, a ground vehicle or something running on rails is better suited depends on a couple of factors. If you might run into situations that require a chenged warehouse layout, which occurs much more often than you think, fixed installations add a lot to the fix costs and rwduce flexibility. Using ground based solutions runs into issues with high warehouses, storing up to 15 meters in height is not uncommon. Again, density is the main reason for this, getting more inventory at the se number of square meters. In that case a drone is both more flexible and can cover the heights as well. But thats theory, not sure what came out of the Fraunhofer trials covering white goods.
flyinglizard 8y ago
Back in 2015 Airware was pushing for its own technology stack, coupling an autopilot with mission management/ATC. Only later they pivoted into a software-only solution. Same goes for 3D Robotics.
crubier 8y ago
Agree with your point, this is the vision we are developing at Sterblue !
chris11 8y ago
I think automated drone inspection may be a more profitable niche than it first appears. My school had a couple grad students start up doing NDT analysis with drones. There seems to be a lot of interesting problems that could be solved with drones when they are treated as a platform for specialized equipment. And the specialization in equipment and analysis is good protection against commoditization. But I do agree with you that a lot of these problems don't really scale.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  NDT - Non destructive testing? So coupled with "specialised equipment" I assume something like scanning the steel in a bridge for corrosion? Is that feasible - the noise in any feed from distance / stability must mean "usual" specialised equipment cannot be used?
  - bsder 8y ago
    You are probably overthinking this. Simply being able to fly a high resolution camera with a bright light up underneath a bridge probably saves an enormous amount of time.
    - brian-armstrong 8y ago
      assert numBridgePieces == 1
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Do you have a view of Airmap?
- abakker 8y ago
  I’ve not personally used it, so I can’t comment on that part, but, it appears that they have gone with the open, extendable, and most critically - actually for sale - route. That would bode well in my book. On my soapbox, the big missing piece in drones is a real platform for managing the concept of time series map data for a layperson. There is a lot of dimensions in the data that drones generate (lat, long, alt, color, time, camera stuff, angle of image, etc). Tons of data, and nobody has convincingly showed anything that goes into trend analysis. I’m not sure that any company is really delivering on the concept that this data needs to be controlled and analyzed. Especially in farms, the time series part is important, but it is mostly snapshots and intuition right now.
anonairwavedev 8y ago
It has less to do with the space, and more to do with the odd engineering decisions and multiple pivots. There wasn't a SDK or platform to build on and we didn't take any actual orders for anything (so we had minimal success stories or $$$). The hardware we showed was built by us, and ran a custom OS (not based on linux) that was nearly impossible to work with. We had a very talented engineer rage-quit after spending a week attempting to figure out how the OS handled the internal message bus system to debug an issue. The hardware was also crazy expensive. We built literally everything: the vehicles, autopilot, the autopilot OS, the comms board that connected to motors (and enclosures), the sensor boards (GPS, gyro, etc), the radio that talked to the autopilot, the flight planning software, and later an entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers. The team often decided to do things such as not use off-the-shelf processors like the Nvidia TK1 or existing embedded software solutions -- nothing was 'good enough' so everything was invented. Oh, and did I mention we also cycled through recruiters like candy?
- romwell 8y ago
  So, a death by NIH?
  - BigJono 8y ago
    Certainly sounds like it. I find this bit pretty funny though: > entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers I'm of the opinion that the JS ecosystem is one of the few spaces where a healthy dose of NIH can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. And it seems like the only place where they didn't go for a custom solution.
    - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
      That people are choosing js for drones boggles the mind.
      - crubier 8y ago
bpirruccello 8y ago
I'm not sure what conference you were at/what you saw presented, but there is drone software that creates a lot of value for construction, engineering, and mining companies. BVLOS may create a lot of value some day, but there are a lot more technical hurdles that will need to be cleared before it becomes safe and mainstream, just like Level 4/5 self driving cars. (unless you're talking about doing FPV inspections.) Disclosure, I originally was the product manager for 3DR's flagship software product, Site Scan, which drove our transition from a hardware business to a software business, and I am currently VP of Marketing and Business Development here. Each mine that deploys our software saves, on average, 6 figures per year (after the product cost). This is on man-hour costs alone - the value is greater if you look at the increased safety of taking individuals out of active mines and increasing topography capture that enables analysts to identify issues before they turn into safety hazards on site. That's just for one industry we serve - cost savings/time savings/improvements in project pursuit are all high for construction and engineering as well. I think it's likely you saw some presentations from companies that had not done enough customer discovery or they were perhaps just very early in the process of identifying real problems and building the right solutions, but it's not representative of the industry.
- F_J_H 8y ago
  >Each mine that deploys our software saves, on average, 6 figures per year (after the product cost). Where do the savings come from?
  - bpirruccello 8y ago
    They come from man hour savings from generating a topography of the mine and stockpiles. Our mining customers have found our product gives results within 1.1% of the accuracy of laser scanning the mine and is more accurate than the results from traditional methodology performed by an average ~3 person survey crew. It requires only a single person to capture the mine, and customers get the data back in a single day rather than 3 to 4 days later. Thus, they can capture the mine topography far more inexpensively and far for frequently than they could previously.

hef19898 8y ago

One other usecase with a lot of potential is inventory control and counting in warehouses. Not small articles, but for industrial warehouses and larger products drones combining bar code scanners and visual artical identification can improve things considerably. Fraunhofer ran some first test like two years in Germany. No idea what came out of it.

mikepurvis 8y ago
Does that really benefit from a drone vs a wheeled vehicle with a bunch of fixed cameras on it? I would think a gigantic planar environment is pretty much ideal for an industrial SDV; a lot of things get easier when you're no longer worried about weight— you can carry a full day's worth of batteries, not to mention having higher quality optics and safety lasers. (disclosure: I work for OTTO Motors, which has customers in this space)
- fludlight 8y ago
  Why not both? A large, wheeled vehicle that also carries a small flying drone for the occasional inspection from above.
  - rarrarrarr 8y ago
    This is the approach I've been thinking about recently. The landing pad on the wheeled vehicle could have an inductive charger to recharge the smaller multirotor vehicle(s).
- elvirs 8y ago
  wheeled vehicle parked in the isles to take a picture of a space on top shelf would be blocking pallet jakcs and other vehicles that need to move between the isles. may be a railed solution hanging from the ceiling would be better.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    Rails are a lot of infrastructure to install and maintain. People complain that sticking down magnetic tape is a pain in the butt.
    - hef19898 8y ago
      Exactlly, also a drone is much more flexible in case you change your layout.
  - rasz 8y ago
    other way, you mound cameras ON pallet jacks and other vehicles
- hef19898 8y ago
  I could imagine both. In the case I mentioned the warehouse was euipped with highracks up to 13 meters if I remeber well. Also the drone flew during non-working hours, so yeah some ground based solution would work too.
elvirs 8y ago
I don't know why this is getting downvoted. years ago when we had multiple warehouses our employees would upload pictures of shelves into the cloud at the end of every shift and if a product goes missing we would look at the pictures and inventory record to find out when exactly the real quantity of items on the shelf and inventory level in the system became off. if a drone could fly thru shelves on schedule and AI could count the items that would be amazing
bpirruccello 8y ago
I always hear people raise this point but there are better solutions than a flying robot inside of a warehouse.
- Aeveus 8y ago
  Out of interest, could you name a couple? I just happened to come across a couple students that are tackling this problem via drones.
  - 1stcity3rdcoast 8y ago
    A vehicle on wheels or a track is orders of magnitude more efficient. It’s not sexy but it’s more effective than having to power a flying vehicle and control it autonomously. If you really want something more drone-like, hang it from the ceiling.
    - hef19898 8y ago
      What kind of solution is best depends to 100% on thr warehouse you are looking at. Take you standard Amazon warehouse for small articles as an example. Maximizing untilisation, meaning the ratio between space used und spa e available, in that case you end up with a never ending mixture of differwnt small articles in the same location. Without RFID chips on every article, which is as of now prohibitively expensive, the only feasible way to count the inventory is using people. For other warehouses and articles, like white goods or other large stuff that easily identified with out touching it whether a drone, a ground vehicle or something running on rails is better suited depends on a couple of factors. If you might run into situations that require a chenged warehouse layout, which occurs much more often than you think, fixed installations add a lot to the fix costs and rwduce flexibility. Using ground based solutions runs into issues with high warehouses, storing up to 15 meters in height is not uncommon. Again, density is the main reason for this, getting more inventory at the se number of square meters. In that case a drone is both more flexible and can cover the heights as well. But thats theory, not sure what came out of the Fraunhofer trials covering white goods.

flyinglizard 8y ago

Back in 2015 Airware was pushing for its own technology stack, coupling an autopilot with mission management/ATC. Only later they pivoted into a software-only solution. Same goes for 3D Robotics.

crubier 8y ago

Agree with your point, this is the vision we are developing at Sterblue !

chris11 8y ago

I think automated drone inspection may be a more profitable niche than it first appears. My school had a couple grad students start up doing NDT analysis with drones. There seems to be a lot of interesting problems that could be solved with drones when they are treated as a platform for specialized equipment. And the specialization in equipment and analysis is good protection against commoditization. But I do agree with you that a lot of these problems don't really scale.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
NDT - Non destructive testing? So coupled with "specialised equipment" I assume something like scanning the steel in a bridge for corrosion? Is that feasible - the noise in any feed from distance / stability must mean "usual" specialised equipment cannot be used?
- bsder 8y ago
  You are probably overthinking this. Simply being able to fly a high resolution camera with a bright light up underneath a bridge probably saves an enormous amount of time.
  - brian-armstrong 8y ago
    assert numBridgePieces == 1

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

Do you have a view of Airmap?

abakker 8y ago
I’ve not personally used it, so I can’t comment on that part, but, it appears that they have gone with the open, extendable, and most critically - actually for sale - route. That would bode well in my book. On my soapbox, the big missing piece in drones is a real platform for managing the concept of time series map data for a layperson. There is a lot of dimensions in the data that drones generate (lat, long, alt, color, time, camera stuff, angle of image, etc). Tons of data, and nobody has convincingly showed anything that goes into trend analysis. I’m not sure that any company is really delivering on the concept that this data needs to be controlled and analyzed. Especially in farms, the time series part is important, but it is mostly snapshots and intuition right now.

anonairwavedev 8y ago

It has less to do with the space, and more to do with the odd engineering decisions and multiple pivots. There wasn't a SDK or platform to build on and we didn't take any actual orders for anything (so we had minimal success stories or $$$). The hardware we showed was built by us, and ran a custom OS (not based on linux) that was nearly impossible to work with. We had a very talented engineer rage-quit after spending a week attempting to figure out how the OS handled the internal message bus system to debug an issue. The hardware was also crazy expensive. We built literally everything: the vehicles, autopilot, the autopilot OS, the comms board that connected to motors (and enclosures), the sensor boards (GPS, gyro, etc), the radio that talked to the autopilot, the flight planning software, and later an entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers. The team often decided to do things such as not use off-the-shelf processors like the Nvidia TK1 or existing embedded software solutions -- nothing was 'good enough' so everything was invented. Oh, and did I mention we also cycled through recruiters like candy?

romwell 8y ago
So, a death by NIH?
- BigJono 8y ago
  Certainly sounds like it. I find this bit pretty funny though: > entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers I'm of the opinion that the JS ecosystem is one of the few spaces where a healthy dose of NIH can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. And it seems like the only place where they didn't go for a custom solution.
  - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
    That people are choosing js for drones boggles the mind.
    - crubier 8y ago

bpirruccello 8y ago

I'm not sure what conference you were at/what you saw presented, but there is drone software that creates a lot of value for construction, engineering, and mining companies. BVLOS may create a lot of value some day, but there are a lot more technical hurdles that will need to be cleared before it becomes safe and mainstream, just like Level 4/5 self driving cars. (unless you're talking about doing FPV inspections.) Disclosure, I originally was the product manager for 3DR's flagship software product, Site Scan, which drove our transition from a hardware business to a software business, and I am currently VP of Marketing and Business Development here. Each mine that deploys our software saves, on average, 6 figures per year (after the product cost). This is on man-hour costs alone - the value is greater if you look at the increased safety of taking individuals out of active mines and increasing topography capture that enables analysts to identify issues before they turn into safety hazards on site. That's just for one industry we serve - cost savings/time savings/improvements in project pursuit are all high for construction and engineering as well. I think it's likely you saw some presentations from companies that had not done enough customer discovery or they were perhaps just very early in the process of identifying real problems and building the right solutions, but it's not representative of the industry.

F_J_H 8y ago
>Each mine that deploys our software saves, on average, 6 figures per year (after the product cost). Where do the savings come from?
- bpirruccello 8y ago
  They come from man hour savings from generating a topography of the mine and stockpiles. Our mining customers have found our product gives results within 1.1% of the accuracy of laser scanning the mine and is more accurate than the results from traditional methodology performed by an average ~3 person survey crew. It requires only a single person to capture the mine, and customers get the data back in a single day rather than 3 to 4 days later. Thus, they can capture the mine topography far more inexpensively and far for frequently than they could previously.