Airware also just announced the launch of its new generic autopilot, control station, and operating system for unmanned fixed-wing and multirotor aircraft. The two red Airware boxes comply with government and insurance requirements and will work with most drone builders’ devices. Airware hopes to become the standard for commercial drones by enabling customers to select drones and then mix and match hardware and software components to create unique devices for different jobs; they provide hardware, software, and cloud services that enable reliable and scalable enterprise drone operations.

With Airware focusing on their autopilot boxes and software systems, global drone makers and startups can quickly build safe and reliable drones, pop in the Airware boxes, and supply their special application-specific software. Thus drone manufacturers can tailor and focus their drones to any commercial application by connecting aircraft, sensors, payloads, and application-specific software, and not have to develop extensive piloting and navigation software themselves.

COLLISION AVOIDANCE AND TRANSPONDERS

Other companies are also developing autopilot systems. 3D Robotics offers their open source DroneKit; ArduPilot has an autopilot as does MicroPilot. A couple of defense contractors also have autopilot products and some are working on collision avoidance systems. Mitre and Aerialtronics are two such companies. But Airware’s proprietary software is more commercial-based and is already being field tested for mining surveys, precision agriculture, industrial inspections and forestry. And it is likely that they will add collision avoidance and a transponder once those systems get miniaturized and approved by the authorities.

“Airware provides the market with a full spectrum of products that bring real added value to our systems,” said Christian F. Viguie, chairman and CEO of Delta Drone, “they are building a powerful ecosystem that unites this growing market.”

General Electric announced that they will become Airware’s first large enterprise customer. Alex Tepper, managing director at GE Ventures said “We are currently developing drone solutions for our customers … drones have the ability to reduce downtime, increase safety, and provide more reliable operations for our customers. We believe that Airware is going to be a key partner in helping us deliver these solutions.”

There is much interest amongst the VC community to be invested in the emerging and exponentially growing drone industry as can be seen in these two articles:

• Consumer and B2B drone making is big business
• Commercial drones market to grow at 109% CAGR

Many research reports forecast exponential growth such as the one referenced above. Thus it is easy to foresee the drone industry splitting into maker and service provider similar to the robotics industry of today. In robotics, a few big firms make the basic industrial robot arms but thousands of independent global consultants, distributors, integrators and engineers add value through software and add-on devices. In the drone world the service provider segment is growing as fast as the maker group. Mapping, data mining, autopilot providers (with or separate from collision avoidance systems), data analysis, sensor manufacturers and aerial service companies are beginning to do today for the drone industry what integrators, distributors and consulting engineers have done for the robotics industry in the past.

https://youtu.be/mh9cYgWdKIY

https://youtu.be/q8o_R0WAwGE

Evollve, Inc., a Southern California start-up, has received $2 million in a Series A round of funding. The money will be used to scale up manufacturing for the company’s first product: the Ozobot. Ozobots are able to read colors, flashing lights and patterns on game boards, tablets and smartphones. It recognizes them as code that can be programmed to perform specific actions such as speed up, slow down, turn right or left and stop. Ozobots are programmable learning devices as well as toys, and retail for $49.99.

Ozobots launched earlier this year at both the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the American International Toy Fair after getting off to a rocky canceled Kickstarter campaign. But it won both Best of CES and Best of Toyfair awards, and USA Today and Popular Science also named it one of their Best Tech Toys of Toy Fair 2014.

HiBot, a Tokyo-based startup, developed what looked to be a great invention to inspect high-voltage transmission lines and was progressing nicely until the earthquake and subsequent disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. HiBot’s sponsor was KEPCO, the operator of that plant; funds for HiBot dried up, progress came to a halt, and the project has been on hold ever since.

HiBot went on to develop a snake robot for pipe inspection and components, sensors, cables and software – focusing on using robots to do dangerous jobs and improve safety for humans. Earlier this year HiBot entered into an agreement with Hitach High-Technologies, whereby Hitachi will manufacture and market the Expliner overhead transmission line inspecting robot, and Hibot will support and continue to provide development solutions for KEPCO and Hitachi. And just the other day HiBot secured a $3.1 million equity investment from Draper Nexus Venture Partners. Funds will be used to accelerate development and product launch for their new pipe inspection robot, which is expected to be released next spring.

Airware, a San Francisco-based inventor of a customizable autopilot drone operating system and platform, just received a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount from GE Ventures. [Airware was formerly known as Unmanned Innovation, an Orange County start-up.] Airware has already raised $40.4 million. GE Ventures will not only get an equity interest but they will work closely to “make sure the platform can address a number of their use cases”, said Airware CEO Jonathan Downey. Some of those use cases include checking power lines for downed cables; monitoring pipes for leaks and inspecting wind turbines for breaks and other problems.

Airware has grown to more than 70 people since their July $25 million Series B funding infusion led by Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and First Round VCs.

Knightscope, a Silicon Valley security and robotics start-up, closed a $3.7 million Series A financing with an impressive list of strategic investors: NTT DOCOMO, Konica Minolta and Flextronics. Funds will be used to help the company accelerate deployments (as will be done for Microsoft by providing Knightscope security and K5 robots for the MS Campus).

Knightscope is marketing their start-up as a platform developer of autonomous technology that fuses robotics, predictive analytics and collaborative social engagement to predict and prevent crime. They’re even trying to coin a new term: ADMs – Autonomous Data Machines – for their K5 roving robots.

The $3.7 million funding round brings total Knightscope funding thus far to $5.2 million.

Knightscope is making the K5, available now for preorder on a MaaS (Machine-as-a-Service) basis to select customers in Silicon Valley at $6.25 per hour, per machine in 24/7 deployments for terms of one, two or three years. According to Knightscope, deploying K5 machines in outdoor environments on corporate campuses, around data centers, shopping malls and where private security guards are stationed will free humans to address strategic tasks while the machines handle the monotonous and sometimes dangerous tasks.

Correction from the editors: The title of this article originally suggested that Ozobot, HiBot and Airware all received funding from GE Ventures. In fact, only Airware received funding from GE Ventures. We apologies to the author and our readers for any inconvenience the error may have caused.

In addition to contending with the FAA, the group must also gain traction with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which manages the communication frequencies that drones would use, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which will be ruling on privacy issues. With multiple government bodies to lobby, Drobac believes it makes sense to work together in a concerted effort.

According to Drobac, there was already an appetite for a coalition among those in the small UAV business, whose needs differed somewhat from the larger UAV firms with aerospace and defence contracts. “The coalition members are all extremely consumer-focused,” he said, pointing out that the first priority of the group will be to lobby for clear safety and privacy guidelines, both of which are key concerns for consumers. The coalition has already filed several petitions for exemption with the FAA, and hopes to influence and educate policymakers and consumers about the commercial opportunities of small UAVs.

Patrick Egan from sUAS News thinks this consumer focus makes the coalition’s lobbying needs distinctly different from the needs of the UAV “old guard” of Department of Defence (DoD) vendors. “Previous lobbying efforts have been working to regulate 10-year-old aviation technology,” he says, pointing out that, by contrast, members of the Small UAV Coalition want to invest in new technology and new applications that haven’t even been discovered yet, and for that they will need extremely broad and inclusive regulatory definitions.

It therefor matters that they have their own representation. “If you’ve successfully lobbied to have the standards built around your product or business needs, you will have an edge,” says Egan, pointing out  that while current regulations tend to focus on the fixed wing products common to DoD vendors, the regulations don’t even consider the multirotor devices that are common to the small UAV industry right now.

Image is another factor that may be drawing the coalition together. “A lot of small UAV companies have avoided aligning themselves with DoD vendors because of their military focus,” says Egan. “They just don’t need the controversy.”

Amazon retained council from Akin Gump when it filed its petition for exemption with the FAA this past July to begin tests with drones that weigh less than 55 pounds and fly below 400 feet. In its letter to the FAA, Amazon said that so far it has only been able to test its drones inside its Seattle R&D lab or in other countries, but would “prefer to keep the focus, jobs, and investment of this important research and development initiative in the United States by conducting private research and development operations outdoors near Seattle – where our next generation R&D lab and distinguished team of engineers, scientists and aeronautical professionals are located.”

Earlier this week, the Economic Times rumored that Amazon will begin testing drone delivery in India. If true, Amazon is pulling all punches. The threat of losing talent, R&D and investment to other countries is one of the key arguments of commercial drone advocates in the US. Andra Keay of Silicon Valley Robotics says, “Going to India sends a strong message to the FAA, and it makes so much sense. India is well-known for the high calibre of their roboticists, engineers and developers. And yet parts of the country still have very rudimentary infrastructure, which actually makes it easier to do disruptive innovation there. It’s harder to patch existing legacy building and transport technologies than it is to start afresh.”

Drobac says that allowing private testing facilities is key to keeping UAV innovation in the US: “Sure the FAA has some test sites, but it’s much more pragmatic to have testing near to where your headquarters are.”

For companies that are pushing innovation in this space, distance is not the only issue with testing facilities. New technologies such as sense-and-avoid will need to be peer reviewed to meet (as-yet unspecified) safety regulations, and private companies like Amazon don’t want to go to public testing facilities. Says Egan: “Even though they might need an independent 3rd party to review their safety record, they still want to keep their proprietary data safe. We don’t know how safe that data is at a public site.”

The high cost of using the FAA testing sites (according to Egan, $5-10K per day) presents another obstacle. “I’m not sure that the FAA took into account how prohibitive these costs could be to a small company that is just getting off the ground,” said Egan. “This is really a hold-over from the days when most UAV operators were Department of Defence vendors.”

According to the US Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks lobbying expenditures in the US,  Amazon has significantly increased its lobbying expenditures in recent years (see chart). In the USA Today article, Chris Anderson from 3D Robotics was quoted as saying that Amazon’s interest “lets people realize how big it can be … They have a well-established presence in Washington and they were able to kick-start the mechanics of this coalition so we could quickly join and get moving.”

Egan agrees that the influence of a big player is critical to the future success of the coalition, saying that “Amazon has a lot of horsepower and the White House has now renewed its interest in the issue,” however he points out that in the longer term it could be difficult for companies with such different applications and financial resources to keep their interests aligned.

Drobac could not comment on the price of entry for joining the coalition, and would not speculate on how much money would have to be spent to smooth the way for the small UAV industry in the US. “It’s not about how much money will be required to change lawmakers’ minds, ” he said. “The question will come down to whether we can educate people about the tremendous benefits of UAVs to society, and we’re confident that we will because technology always wins.”

So far in 2014, Amazon has spent $40K on lobbying for Prime Air – a number that is likely to increase now that the coalition is official.

Whatever future challenges may exist between coalition members, Drobac insists that their focus will be on their common objective of opening up US airspace to small commercial UAVs: “If we can crack that door open, all boats will rise.”

“I just hope they don’t get frustrated at the pace the FAA operates at,” says Egan, who has been advocating for commercial UAVs for over ten years. “The movement towards the integration of US airspace has been slower than glacial.”