Chinese drone maker DJI unveiled the M200 family of commercial drones. Credit: DJI

February 20, 2017 – February 26, 2017

At the Center for the Study of the Drone

Dronescapes is a collection of vibrant, mystical paintings of drones by Australian artist Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox. In a conversation with the Center for the Study of the Drone, the artist shares the meaning of her work, explains her use of traditional Australian motifs, and shares her views on the rise of autonomous technology.

News

The Federal Aviation Administration released a new set of reports of airspace incidents involving drones, including close encounters with manned aircraft and drone use over airports. The dataset includes 1,274 reported incidents that occurred between February and September 2016, around 400 more than occurred during the same period in 2015. (Recode) For our analysis of previous drone sightings and close encounters, click here.

Commentary, Analysis, and Art

At the National Interest, Elsa Kania argues that China could soon overtake the U.S. in the development of autonomous drones.

At the New York Times, Scott Shane examines newly-released documents related to an FBI investigation on Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical U.S.-born cleric who was killed in a drone strike in 2011.

At Al Jazeera, AlHakam Shaar and Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick look at how drones are being used to document the destruction of Aleppo and other Syrian cities.

At Popular Mechanics, David Hambling looks at Ukrainian efforts to develop drones in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

At Inside Unmanned Systems, Maj. Gen. James Poss considers the challenges posed by insecure data links that connect unmanned aircraft with pilots.

During arguments for Hernandez v. Mesa at the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. discussed a hypothetical overseas drone strike. (Law.com)

CBS News examined how ISIL is increasingly using drones to drop bombs on Iraqi civilians and military personnel in Mosul.

At ArsTechnica, Sean Gallagher looks at how ISIL has adapted the DJI Matrice 100 to carry little bombs.

At the Washington Post, Joby Warrick writes that ISIL’s use of drones is raising fears that drones may be used in a domestic terror attack.

Also at the Washington Post, Avi Selk examines how the French military is training golden eagles to take down drones.

At Military.com, Oriana Pawlyk provides an inside look at a U.S. Air Force strike against an ISIL drone cell.

At Defense Systems, George Leopold writes that the battle for Mosul is fueling the development of counter-drone systems.

At the Palm Beach Post, Kristina Webb looks at how Trump’s visits to Palm Beach impact local drone operators and businesses.

At Automotive News, Keith Naughton writes that Ford is bypassing semi-autonomous vehicles and will instead develop fully autonomous systems.

At War is Boring, Joseph Trevithick examines some of the U.S. Army’s first drone bases.

At Forbes, John Goglia argues that the latest FAA drone incident data proves that the FAA “should just stop tracking pilot drone sightings.”

Know Your Drone

The U.S. Air Force announced that it plans to fully phase out its fleet of MQ-1 Predator drones in 2018. (UPI)

Delivery company UPS tested a new delivery drone system, delivering a package to a customer in Lithia, Florida from the roof of an electric cargo van. (Business Insider)

Researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University have developed a drone that can steal a computer’s data. (Wired)

The Royal Canadian Navy issued a Request for Information for surveillance and reconnaissance drones that could be deployed aboard frigates. (CBC)

Ukrainian defense firm Ukroboronprom has unveiled the Phantom, an unmanned ground vehicle equipped with an anti-tank missile system and a machine gun. (Foxtrot Alpha)

U.S. company NXT Robotics unveiled the Scorpion, an unmanned ground vehicle designed for physical security operations. (Press Release)

The Desert Research Institute announced that it has conducted a successful flight test of its Drone America Savant cloud-seeding drone. (Unmanned Systems Technology)

A team at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis is developing a drone that takes off vertically and then unfolds itself into a fixed-wing system. (New Scientist)

Serbian defense firm EDePro unveiled the X-01 Strsljen, a surveillance helicopter drone. (IHS Jane’s 360)

Chinese drone maker DJI unveiled the M200 family of commercial drones. (CNET)

Chinese drone maker China Eagle is building the country’s largest production facility for industrial drones. (Economic Times)

Technology firm KB Radar Design Bureau has unveiled a portable counter-drone system, the Groza-R Counter-Multicopter Radio Electronic Rifle. (IHS Jane’s 360)

Nano-drone maker Prox Dynamics has added a night vision sensor to its Black Hornet surveillance drone. (Defense News)

Pakistani firm Global Industry and Defence Solutions is exploring the possibility of developing a medium-altitude long-endurance drone, and is planning to develop a new variant of its Shahpar reconnaissance drone. (IHS Jane’s 360)

A team at Utah State University has developed a long-endurance battery-powered drone. (Cache Valley Daily)

Defense firms S-Plane Automation and Stemme AG are partnering to develop optionally manned aircraft. (IHS Jane’s 360)

India’s CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories unveiled the Suchan, a small autonomous surveillance drone. (IHS Jane’s 360)

Chinese unmanned systems maker Poly Defence unveiled the Xbot 520, an unmanned ground vehicle. (Shephard Media)

Canadian security firm Med-Eng unveiled the Avenger, an unmanned ground vehicle. (Shephard Media)

German technology firm Rheinmetall is looking to develop an armed variant of its multi-mission unmanned ground vehicle. (Shephard Media)

Autonomous drone firm Exyn Technologies has unveiled a software system that allows drones to autonomously navigate complex environments. (TechCrunch)

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati are developing a system to allow drones to land autonomously on moving vehicles. (Phys.org)

Robotics firm Roboteam is developing an unmanned vehicle called Rooster that can both roll on the ground and fly. (Defense Update)

Drones at Work

Iran has banned private drones from Tehran’s airspace after security concerns. In recent months, Iranian air defenses have targeted drones flying near the capital. (Associated Press)

An Israel Defense Forces fighter jet shot down a drone allegedly operated by Hamas over the Gaza Strip. (Jerusalem Post)

A GoPro consumer drone crashed through a 27th floor apartment window in New York. (New York Post)

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has received approval to operate drones for search and rescue missions. (Marketplace)

The Menlo Park Fire Protection District and drone delivery firm Matternet are partnering to work on a delivery system for urgent items such as defibrillators and life vests. (Mercury News)

The Madeira Beach Fire Department in Florida has obtained a drone for search and rescue operations. (ABC Action News)

The Crestview Police Department in Florida has acquired a drone for operations. (Nwfdailynews.com)

Meanwhile, a fire department in West Memphis, Arkansas has obtained a drone for a range of operations. (KATV)

A drone reportedly flew within 90 feet of a commercial airliner near East Midlands Airport in the U.K. (The Sun)

Firefighting efforts near Fort Worth, Texas were interrupted by a rogue drone flying nearby. (KXAN)

A man in Jackson, Wyoming caused a herd of 1,500 elk to stampede after flying a drone too close to the animals. (CBS News)

Meanwhile, tigers at a tiger farm in China caught and wrecked a drone that was being used to film the animals. (Fortune)

Industry Intel

U.S. Special Operations Command awarded Precision Integrated Programs a $2 million contract for a vertical take-off and landing drone. (FBO)

AirMap, a startup developing an air traffic management platform for drones, raised $26 million in a funding round led by Microsoft Ventures. (Reuters)

The European Defence Agency awarded Défense Conseil International a contract for a flight simulator for training medium-altitude long-endurance drone pilots. (Shephard Media)

DARTdrones, a Pennsylvania-based startup that trains consumer and commercial drone operators, was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank. (TechCrunch)

An Alphabet subsidiary is suing Otto and Uber for allegedly stealing secrets to self-driving car technology. (Recode)

PrecisionHawk selected Sierra Wireless for its Low Altitude Traffic and Airspace Safety platform. (Press Release)

Leonardo will outfit Patroller drones with PicoSAR AESA radars for the French Army. (UPI)

For updates, news, and commentary, follow us on Twitter. The Weekly Drone Roundup is a newsletter from the Center for the Study of the Drone. It covers news, commentary, analysis and technology from the drone world. You can subscribe to the Roundup here.

Toy and entertainment drones, camera drones for professional and business use, moon-shot drones and military drones are all becoming more and more distinct as much of the drone industry gets commoditized. Prices are dropping even as impressive new features are added. It’s a difficult time in the drone business.

UPDATED 1/13/2017: SF District Attorney files false advertising suit against Lily Robotics. Details added below.

Commercial drones

The commercial drones market consists of consumer products like toys, games and camera drones for photography and action selfies, and the professional market (called the pro-sumer market) which serves the construction, surveying, mapping, utilities, telecom, ag, public safety and insurance industries where the drone is matched with speciality software to provide package solutions unique to those industry groups. Many feel that a saturation point has been reached in the consumer marketplace and that after reaching that point it then becomes a race to the bottom in terms of price and profitability, hence the shift to the pro-sumer market by almost all drone makers.

Parrot SA – layoffs

Parrot SA is a French wireless products manufacturer based in Paris, France. Parrot invented and manufactured the AR.Drone and initiated a drone division which now represents 1/3 of their business. Parrot just released its Q4 2016 report which showed a 15% drop in revenue. The company had revenues of €85 million but targeted €100 million. Revenue from drones was €60 million, with €11 million coming from commercial, and €49 million from consumer drones. As a result, Parrot announced plans to reduce its drone workforce by 35%, laying off around 290 people.

Parrot plans to focus on a reduced number of consumer products, redeploy product offerings, realign resources and adjust its support teams. Conversely, Parrot will continue to invest in its commercial drone business which has been doing well and is steadily growing.

3D Robotics – layoffs

3D Robotics and their Solo quadcopter were media hits until their product stumbled and their ambitious inventories didn’t move. Like Parrot, 3DR laid off hundreds last year, had to shut down facilities, and has since been scrambling to keep afloat by refocusing on commercial operations in the pro-sumer marketplace.

Lily Robotics – refunds and failure

Lily, a Silicon Valley startup with a stylish camera drone and presentation, announced that although it had $34 million in pre-sales, it couldn’t get additional funds to meet production demands and was closing down. What remains of the company is focused on handling refunds.

“After so much hard work, we are sad to see this adventure come to an end,” founders Balaresque and Bradlow wrote on the Lily website. “We are very sorry and disappointed that we will not be able to deliver your flying camera, and are incredibly grateful for your support as a pre-order customer.”

In a late development which portends difficulty for other over-exuberant marketing types, the San Francisco district attorney’s office filed suit against Lily Robotics over claims that the drone maker engaged in false advertising and unfair business practices. Lily said it would begin shipping drones to customers who had placed orders by February 2016 but failed to live up to that promise. The office alleged that Lily lured customers with a promotional video that was actually filmed by a “much more expensive, professional camera drone that required two people to operate.”

“It does not matter if a company is established or if it is a startup,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Everyone in the market must follow the rules. By protecting consumers, we protect confidence in our system of commerce.”

Google – moonshot shutdown

Alphabet (Google) has closed down the Titan Project to fly high-altitude drones that would beam wireless Internet access back down to the earth. More than 50 project members were let go – some have moved to other Google X projects. Titan Aerospace was acquired by Google in 2014 and was reformed into the Titan Project which competed with another Google X project, Project Loon, which also has problems. Loon is temporarily mired in an IP infringement suit with Space Data.

GoPro Karma – layoffs and refunds

Although GoPro had a big presence at CES, their Karma drone wasn’t there and the sales people said that they hope it will be re-released in a few months. Karma was high-profile, long-anticipated, and late. The Karma was supposed to be the company’s hope to pull up diminishing revenues. Karma had mid-flight power failures and GoPro recalled all the devices shipped and offered refunds. GoPro cut its staff by about 200 people in November. Karma’s relaunch, if it happens, will need to compensate for product and price improvements offered by DJI that outperform and underprice the Karma in all but camera lenses.

SZ DJI Technology – 2/3 of the market

DJI is the elephant in the room. Their products have outperformed, outpriced and been faster to market than all their competitors. Their marketing has emphasized integration with pro-sumer software, GoPro cameras and mounts, and other accessories. They keep on inventing and they are headquartered in Shenzhen where all their suppliers reside, hence their ability to be quick to market.

“What we realized is that it’s inherently much more difficult for a Silicon Valley-based, software-focused company to compete against a vertically integrated powerhouse manufacturing company in China,” said Colin Guinn, 3D Robotics’ former chief revenue officer.

Founded in 2006 as a company that built flight controllers for remote control toy helicopters, DJI unveiled the Phantom in 2012, an off-the-shelf drone that became the standard for consumer drones.

DJI seems to have a rhythm to their products: launch, then 6-10 months later lower prices, then launch a newer upgraded product at a price point halfway between the previous product and the discounted price, then repeat the process.

Even DJI has recently begun to feel the heat from fellow Chinese drone makers Xiaomi and Yuneec both of which undercut DJI with similar products at lower prices. Hence DJI’s stressing their collaboration with and integration of software and accessory vendors focusing on the pro-sumer marketplace.

Defense drones

In the defense sector the Predator, Reaper, and Global Hawk drones that have done their work in two wars have become popularized by movies that exposed their expense, their vulnerabilities, and their Las Vegas-based human pilots and sensor operators controlling them remotely. Now DARPA and the DoD are introducing new robot war machines. Their latest is drone swarms, where several small flying robots work together to do jobs previously done by the larger craft. An anti-air missile can shoot down an $18 million Reaper, but firing that same anti-air missile at a swarm of drones wouldn’t work.

With every Predator, there’s a joystick and flight controls for a human pilot who maneuvers it. That format changes entirely with a group of autonomous swarming drones.

“They are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature,” according to Strategic Capabilities Office Director William Roper. Unlike the Predator, where the machine responds to the pilot’s joystick, this swarm receives objectives from a human controller, and then directs itself to that location. Presumably, the swarm could still fly to a preset list of objectives even if it loses contact with a human controller, giving it the freedom to operate in the face of jamming as well as anti-air weapons.

Drones to protect and defend are a necessary part of government’s province and a steady source of research, invention, and income for the military industrial complex. In the next four years, at least in the U.S., the defense/security segment of the drone industry is expecting significant growth.

Credit: Aeryon labs inc.

Key executives leaving (or were requested to leave) Goggle’s drone delivery Project Wing; GoPro recalls all of its newly launched Karma drones and doesn’t offer a replacement; DJI slashes prices. What’s going on?

Funding for drone makers has bottomed out although new applications using drones are still getting funded, e.g., home and business security drones. Consumer purchases are weak with DJI and Parrot’s line of products capturing most of the market, and DJI’s aggressive lowering of prices forcing startups and other makers to focus on specialized tasks. There’s turmoil in the drone industry.

GoPro’s Karma

GoPro Inc recalled about 2,500 drones – all of their shipments thus far – for a refund – after just a couple of weeks on the market. Units had sudden power outages. GoPro didn’t say when or if it would offer a replacement product. GoPro’s much-delayed Karma project is also threatened by competing and lower-priced camera drones from DJI and many others.

DJI lowers prices

Part of DJI’s strategy exhibited over the past few years is to offer newer and better products faster than the competition and reduce prices of previous versions in conjunction with the new launches. Their price slashing has enabled them to dominate the market. DJI discounted its popular Phantom 3 drone to about $300 today from $1,000 at the beginning of the year.

3D Robotics offers new product

3D Robotics – an early drone startup that raised more than $125 million, has seen its consumer business all but crash and had massive layoffs shortly after releasing its Solo consumer drone – a competing product to DJI’s Phantom 3 – at a price ($1,500) higher than the Phantom 3. Co-founder and CEO Chris Anderson said:

“It’s no fun watching prices fall by 70 percent in 9 months”  [referring to DJI’s price-cutting].

In a retrenching effort, 3DR unveiled a new commercial camera-equipped drone (the Solo) with imaging software designed for construction companies. 3DR’s plan is to outfit the Solo with new technology to capture 3D images that show the shape, size and volume of items at a construction site.

“It might be too little too late for 3DR,” said industry analyst Patrick Egan. “They aren’t the only company that is going to have problems.”

Google’s Project Wing

From a recent Wall Street Journal article:

“Alphabet, Google’s parent, has been developing delivery drones in its research arm since 2012 with the hopes of transforming logistics. But the drone project—dubbed Project Wing—has had a bumpy ride, with its original head departing in 2014.

Alphabet last month pushed out the project’s chief, Dave Vos, and its top commercial executive, Sean Mullaney, in large part because of conflict between the group’s engineers and its commercial team, according to the people familiar with the matter. It also issued notices to several other Project Wing workers, giving them 90 days to find other positions within Alphabet, one former employee said.

An Alphabet spokeswoman said the company is committed to Wing and the concept of delivery drones. Astro Teller, the new temporary head of Project Wing, has spoken recently about the potential for delivery drones to not only upend logistics, but also, reinvent the concept of ownership by giving people access to some goods in minutes versus having to keep such items on hand for the rare moments they are needed.

“We believe that opening the skies to faster, more efficient transportation of goods is a moonshot worth pursuing.”

Lofty goals indeed for Google and Teller. But turning the corner from research, testing, and product engineering to a functioning product that conforms to FAA and other governmental regulations and is secure from pranksters, children and thieves is another matter altogether and there’s a ticking clock of competitors hoping to get to market first.

Many, many companies, including Amazon, DHL, Walmart and UPS are aggressively developing drones and landing/delivery systems for same-day and/or speedy delivery.

senseFly, DelAir and other B2B providers thrive

While many drone-makers overestimated demand from hobbyists and other consumers, they now see big opportunities selling to businesses. There is strong interest in software and services that can make aerial imaging useful for industries including insurance, construction, agriculture, and entertainment. senseFly, a Parrot company and DelAir, the new owner of Gatewing (a drone and service provider to Trimble’s global agricultural division, join startups and others (see chart below) that are focusing on software to make sense of images, whether it’s the angle of a pipe laid at a new construction site or damage to a roof from a hurricane or collision-avoidance. The drone itself is just a tool in the overall objective.

Parrot, whose stock has plummeted from $25 to $8 so far this year, predicted that 2016 would be a “bloody year” for drone makers. Parrot CEO Henri Seydoux, in an interview in Forbes in November, 2015, predicted 2016 would be a year of reckoning for the consumer drone space and that 2016 would be a ‘bloody’ 12 months for any company designing and selling unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for hobbyists. It’s just the nature of the consumer electronics business, he said, noting that increased competition will see a commoditization of the flying robots and perhaps even the collapse of some of the weaker companies.

“There are now a dozen companies doing these types of drones. It will put a lot of pressure on the market.”

Bottom line

Delivery drones will happen someday soon; drones in agriculture and construction are already happening; drones for governmental and defense/security purposes will continue to happen. What we are seeing today is a consolidation process: commercial makers are separating into consumer or business providers; although the Drone Industry Insights chart shown below is already outdated, the big makers, Parrot, DJI and Ehang are hanging in there with substantial sales. Not shown on the chart are all the defense contractors that produce drones for the military; these vendors have pretty much given up on finding niche commercial markets and are, instead, focusing on improving their products and systems.

Source: Drone Industry Insights

Certainly 2016 is living up to Seydoux’s predictions. Even the recent spinoff by Trimble of its Gatewing division is indicative of the consolidation and refocusing of efforts toward providing meaningful services using drones rather than selling drones. They’ll leave that – selling drones to hobbyists and consumers – to the few companies that are able to emerge from the dropping prices of the commoditization of this type of camera drone.

The broad market will continue to grow in all three segments (consumer, commercial and military) as will the variety of end-to-end business models. Quoting Drone Industry Insights:

“There are plenty of niches waiting to be discovered and occupied. Hardware will become more capable allowing new applications. Advanced drone operation regulations will allow new use cases with a high grade of automation. The drone ecosystem is strongly technology driven and market growth will additionally be catalyzed by developments outside the drone market environment (e.g. mobile phone industry, etc.).”

It was clear that DJI was winning the drone commoditization war by the end of 2015. Today’s best sellers are mostly DJI products. Other makers (Parrot, 3D Robotics, Autel, Yuneec et al) haven’t been able to capture any significant portion of the camera drone market. Most saw the writing on the wall and began switching to becoming drone service providers in other marketplaces.

Shenzhen DJI Innovations

Shenzhen-based DJI has thousands of employees and access to capital, talent and components. They are nearby to all their component suppliers. They have a domestic as well as international market. They move fast and have continued to improve and professionalize their products. They help their clients private label their drones. Their two biggest competitors, Yuneec and Parrot, have amassed less than 5% of the market – combined.

DJI’s latest product is the Mavic Pro, a novel compact and foldable drone that has every feature of earlier DJI drones with the addition of more advanced collision-avoiding computer vision. It is forecast that the Mavic Pro will be the hit of the 2016/2017 Holiday Season. According to Drone Flyers, a news portal focusing on the drone industry, it’s likely that 80% plus of the $300-$1,500 drone market will go DJI during the 2016 Christmas season.

The GoPro Karma, long anticipated by GoPro fans worldwide, was introduced in September with shipments promised in time for the Christmas season. It’s now been pushed back to Spring 2017.

The commoditization war

Today’s drone makers are fiercely competitive and all are re-jiggering their business plans. With two new deep-pocketed competitors (GoPro and Xioami) entering the market – and all competing in the consumer camera drone marketplace – it’s hard to see how a non-Chinese provider can succeed in that particular mass market. Niche markets, yes; camera drones, no.

In this fast-changing market, the time lag between design, manufacturing, selling and feedback is one major reason. But another is the Shenzhen climate for electronics manufacturing… there’s nowhere else like it; nowhere else that can move as quickly; has so much manufacturing talent; and no place where costs are the lowest because all the major component manufacturers are there.

3D Robotics’ demise

3D Robotics was a bit behind in coming to that conclusion. They had visions of becoming the great American hope with their Solo product but, with a combo punch of being late and buggy during a period when DJI launched two much better and cheaper products, Solo never took off and 3DR was stuck with a significant inventory of unsold product – another hazard of buying product from China.

Early this year 3DR initiated a serious retrenching with a series of layoffs and office closures and is refocusing on becoming a professional drone service provider for the agriculture, surveying, construction, security, infrastructure and other verticals. Their staff has gone from 350 to less than 80. There is no way to determine what today’s head count is.

Last year, 3DR’s cofounder Jordi Munoz also left the company. He’s now running a robotics startup in Chula Vista, CA, Mayan Robotics. Co-founder and CEO Chris Anderson said the company would be shifting its focus towards the corporate market and attempted to raise $45 million (but were only able to get $27 million earlier this year).

See also: 3D Robotics undergoing layoffs and other challenges

Source: Youtube/Mi Drone By Xiaomi Inc

Xiaomi, one of China’s star Internet, phone and electronics startups, develops cut-rate but reliable phones and consumer devices and markets them directly to consumers online. Their new HD drone starts at $380, and the 4K video model at $450. Both directly compete – at half the price – with DJI’s popular Phantom drones.

Source: The Robot Report

The new Mi Drone can fly for 27 minutes and has a range of almost 2 miles. DJI drones fly for 23-28 minutes depending on the model. The Mi Drone includes a 360-degree camera that can shoot 4K video, and handheld remote which has the option of attaching a smartphone for a streaming view from the drone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgDcrpGkuA

Similar to other Xiaomi products, the company didn’t actually create the Mi Drone itself. Instead, it is working with a China-based startup, Flymi, which designed and developed the UAV. Xiaomi is arranging the manufacturing and branding and selling it via its channels, which include its Mi.com online store. Any information on Flymi would be appreciated, particularly a link to their website.

Xiaomi recently bought 1,500 technology patents from Microsoft in a deal that may smooth potential legal tangles over intellectual property as Xiaomi begins selling outside of China. The IP covers wireless communications, video, cloud and multimedia technologies. The acquisition came as part of a broader agreement under which Microsoft Office and Skype will come pre-installed on Xiaomi smartphone devices.

[Note that many of Xiaomi’s executive and technical team previously worked for Microsoft China.]

No wonder rents are so high in Silicon Valley. Companies from around the world are setting up research facilities and grabbing talent from the area.  The most recent announcements are that Chinese drone maker DJI and Japanese car maker Toyota are creating large R&D centers in the area.

SZ DJI Innovations, the China-based tech giant with a line of successful drones, will open a new 12,000 sq ft R&D center in Palo Alto and plans to hire up to 75 engineers. The center marks DJI’s first major effort to take advantage of American engineering talent. DJI currently has around 100 employees in the U.S., but up until now they have mainly focused on customer support, marketing and business development. DJI received $75 million in funding in May from Palo Alto-based Accel Partners to help it expand globally.

Toyota will invest $1bn over five years in a new 200-person Silicon Valley facility near Stanford University and a R&D center near the MIT campus in Cambridge. The announcement, last week, follows Toyota’s September alliance with the AI labs at MIT and Stanford to develop auto-related sensing and perception, navigation and human-centric learning systems, automated decision making, and human-machine interaction technologies from a new facility in Silicon Valley.
The two new labs will be part of Toyota Research Institute and will be led by Gil Pratt, who until recently headed the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Toyota said that, in addition to autonomous driving, they plan to develop AI technologies for everyday use, delivering a safer lifestyle overall. The company’s President Akio Toyoda added: “This is the first small step that allows us to go beyond automobiles and make use of the Toyota group’s potential by utilizing artificial intelligence.”

Quoting from a NY Times article on Toyota’s plans:

International corporations like General Electric; Baidu, the Chinese search engine; Samsung, the South Korean conglomerate; and all the major automakers have been establishing research outposts in or near the region [Silicon Valley] to take advantage of its engineering talent… Artificial intelligence technologies were disappointing for decades, but they have finally begun paying off, leading to systems such as Siri, the personal assistant from Apple, and rapid improvements in self-driving vehicle technology. And in recent years, there has been a rush to recruit talented researchers in so-called machine learning, many of them produced by Stanford and the nearby University of California, Berkeley. Toyota plans to hire 200 scientists for its new research center.

In another announcement last week from the University of CA San Diego, a new Contextual Robotics Institute was unveiled, with major support from Qualcomm and Northrop Grumman. The new institute is aimed at developing machines that can interpret such things as facial expressions and walking styles and size up people’s thoughts, actions and feelings.

“Our plan is to do the research and development that are needed to realize robots of the future — robots that are safe, useful and autonomous in any environment,” said Albert Pisano, dean of UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “That means pulling together our engineers and our social scientists to focus on both the robots themselves and how people will interact with them.”

image: InterDrone

Intel Capital invested $60m in Chinese drone startup Yuneec last month. At last week’s InterDrone conference and expo, one can readily see why: lots of interest, lots of people, and products that are becoming commodities.

Intel and Yuneec will work on developing future products. Yuneec makes drones for consumers and industrial users, as well as manned electric aircraft. Intel has also invested in drone companies Airware and PrecisionHawk. These drone relationships fit with Intel’s strategy to make investments in companies developing products with the potential to expand the market for semiconductors, as the company searches for new devices for chips.

Hong Kong-based Yuneec Electric Aviation is one of the Big 3 of drone manufacturers exhibiting at this week’s InterDrone International Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas. The other two being SZ DJI Innovations and 3D Robotics. Yuneec and DJI are Chinese companies; 3D Robotics is San Diego based. DJI recently received $75m from Silicon Valley VC, Accel Partners. 3D Robotics got $64m so far this year. A study of the 700+ FAA exemptions for commercial drone use shows that the overwhelming majority of them are for companies using DJI quadcopters.

Sixty million dollars for Yuneek, $75m to DJI and $64m to 3D Robotics adds up to a lot of money and interest.

That interest was apparent at the InterDrone event at the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas. It was the first such event for InterDrone, yet from my walk around the show and attendance at a few of the packed conference sessions, it seemed to be successful. 99 exhibitors and over 3,000 visitors. I heard the latter group asking very cogent questions about how drones’ capabilities, their data and mapping software could be used for various applications. The appeared to be a high number of foreign visitors (as can be seen on the pin-board map.)

Another observation from the show was the number of secondary exhibitors: GoPro and GoPro accessories, makers of carrying cases, lenses, sensors, mapping software, retail stores carrying multiple lines of drones, cameras and cases. Samy’s Camera, a large West Coast camera and printer provider, was showing off the fact that they’ve been selling all brands of drones for photographic purposes for years.

BOTTOM LINE: The commercial drone industry is maturing in a similar way to industrial robots: a few major manufacturers are providing their arms (drones) to thousands of integrators, resellers and value-added service providers, which extend the sales reach of the drone (robot) manufacturers.

CyPhy Works raises 230K in first two days of the crowdfunding campaign for their new autopilot drone, LVL 1.

Competition is fierce in the world of consumer drones these days, especially among companies marketing products than can produce pro quality video and photography without having to hire a drone operator or a camera person.

April saw the launch of new Phantom UAVs with suped up cameras from DJI as well as the Solo drone by 3D Robotics, whose products will be available on the shelves at 400 locations of retailer Best Buy starting in May.

Also just launched is a new Kickstarter campaign by CyPhy works for their new LVL 1 drone, which they hope will have you filming “right out of the box”. Launched only two days ago, the campaign has already reached more than 90% of its ambitious $250K goal. All 200 early bird packages are sold already, and are slated to ship in February 2016 (unfortunately just a bit too late for holiday shopping). The crack team at CyPhy is lead by Helen Greiner, who co-founded iRobot with Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle, and co-designed the first version of the Roomba.

Aerial photography simplified

The idea behind LVL1 is clever and simple. The norm on multicopters is to have the propeller discs on the same plane. This simplifies construction and dynamics, but in order to move sideways a multicopter must apply differential thrust and tilt its thrust vector (and body), and so most have a lateral thrust component. Keep in mind that a small UAV must make micro corrections continuously just to stay in the same place. This is very troublesome for aerial photography, and especially videography: the image will be jittery unless an expensive gimbal is used to counteract this motion. Otherwise the brushless motors and very high disc loading of most multicopters make up for a very stable platform.

CyPhy bypasses this problem by placing each rotor of its hexacopter in a different plane. Each rotor creates a thrust vector with a lateral component; by applying the same thrust across all the rotors, each lateral vector counteracts the others. Altering the thrust distribution between two sets produces the same vertical component (thus retaining the same altitude), but disrupts the balance of the lateral vectors. The result is lateral thrust without tilting the aircraft. The difference is obvious in the following animated GIF:

The trade-offs to this system are a slightly lower efficiency and the need for more advanced control algorithms.

Other systems have used a different approach to solve the problem, with the DJI Inspire being the most obvious. With the Inspire, rotors are on intersecting planes, but this introduces only a slight instability that counteracts the very low center of gravity when the rotors are raised (similar to the anhedral angle on high mounted wings of airplanes).

DJI Inspire

In their newest report on drones, Texas research firm Markets and Markets, projects that the global commercial drones market will grow to $1.27 billion by 2020. Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, expects that the gradual lifting of regulatory roadblocks to commercialization in the US will see the market for drones expand significantly.

“The ability to film from the air is incredibly useful in a wide range of industries, from utilities and agriculture to forestry and mining. But I’m very excited about the potential new technology users out there,” says Keay. “In the near future, we’ll think nothing of every realtor, maintenance or yard crew lifting a drone out of their trunk to get photos of your roof, your gutters or trees. We’ll know that robots are mainstream when a drone is just an accessory for your smartphone.”

Photo: Faungg via wikimedia commons.

April has seen Chinese VCs acquiring robotic ventures, buying out competitors, seeking funding to scale up production, and shoring up industry gaps.

Look at these four transactions:

1. Beijing-based Ninebot, a Segway competitor, acquired Segway;
2. Chinese venture fund Cybernaut plans to invest $200 million into Russia’s Skolkovo Center to incubate Russian inventions manufactured and marketed in China;
3. China South Rail paid $190 million to acquire SMD, a UK deep-sea robot manufacturer;
4. and Chinese drone maker DJI is forecasting global 2015 sales of $1 billion and a market value of $10 billion as it seeks funds to scale up it’s operations.

Ninebot acquires Segway

Ninebot, a Beijing-based 2012 startup, markets their device as a personal transportation robot. Segway has sued and accused Ninebot of patent infringement but all that is now water under the bridge because Ninebot acquired (for an undisclosed amount) all the intellectual property as well as the company and facilities of Segway. Although the two companies will retain their brand identities and separate locations, the transaction was an acquisition nonetheless and all Segway’s IP are now owned by Ninebot.

Bedford, NH-based Segway’s press release calls the transaction a “Strategic Combination”; Ninebot’s website calls it an acquisition. Included in Ninebot’s announcement of the acquisition was notice that Ninebot had raised $80 million from Xiaomi, Shunwei and Sequoia VCs.

Segway was launched in 2001 by Dean Kamen’s group. It struggeled to live up to all the ballyhoo from its launch when it was called the “future of transportation.” In 2009 Segway was purchased by British entrepreneur Jimi Heselden who was killed in 2010 while riding a Segway off a cliff. It was then bought by Saint Louis, MO-based Summit Strategic Investments in 2013 and it was that firm that did the deal with Ninebot. Certainly the real prize is Segway’s 400+ patents related to personal transportation devices being transferred over to Ninebot.

According to TechCrunch, “Ninebot plans to use the purchase to expand its product line. Founder and CEO Gao Lufeng said ‘After establishing the alliance, the company will apply a series of technologies into its future products, covering electric driving, mobile internet, and man-machine interaction. This combination creates great opportunities for the development of the short-distance transportation industry.'”

Commenting on the transaction, Robots Dreams blogger Lem Fugitt said, “While Segway management is positioning the take-over as positively as they can, in the long term it appears to be a major loss for U.S. technology, intellectual property, and manufacturing. The most telling comment from Segway’s president Rod Keller, as reported in the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, was, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’”

Cybernaut to invest $200 million into Skolkovo robotics startups

The Skolkovo Foundation outside Moscow, a large campus being constructed to focus on transferring Russian science into tangible products and to incubate Russian startups to make that happen, has signed a strategic partnership with Cybernaut Investment Group for Cybernaut to invest $200 million with Skolkovo in IT, space, telecommunication and robotic products that can be manufactured and marketed in China.

Hangzhou-based investment firm Cybernaut Investment Group will also create a new Chinese robotics center in Hangzhou to supplement Skolkovo’s efforts. Cybernaut is one of China’s largest VCs.

An in-depth review of the Skolkovo Cybernaut deal can be found at here.

China South Rail acquires SMD for $190 million

SMD, a UK based provider of underwater ROVs and ROV systems, tractors and trenchers for laying cable, sub-sea mining and oil and gas operations, was sold to Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric, a subsidiary of China South Rail (CSR), a state-owned conglomerate, for $190 million.

According to the Want China Times, the acquisition is expected to help China obtain core deep-sea robotic technology and equipment, andl will also help CSR absorb the mature industry platform and global sales network of SMD, supporting it to enter the global deep-sea market. This will complement CSR’s existing businesses in offshore wind energy, shipyard, marine engineering and drilling and help the Chinese company build an industrial chain for marine equipment.

A recent article in The Economist analyzed and charted the number of Chinese mergers and acquisition transactions in the EU.

Chinese deals in Europe as a whole rose from $2 billion in 2010 to $18 billion in 2014. Europe is attractive because it has lots of businesses going cheap — privatizations, cash-strapped firms and a weak euro. Chinese firms are following an edict to acquire advanced technology and high-quality brands from abroad that the government laid down in its five-year plan of 2011. Until recently most outbound dealmaking was by state firms buying up raw materials. Now high value-added businesses are the main target, and private capital is flowing.

SZ DJI Innovations seeks scale-up funding

SZ DJI Innovations expects their revenue to exceed $1 billion this year. That information is part of the material being shown to raise funds for the company. The Wall Street Journal reported that DJI has set a valuation as high as $10 billion and that several Silicon Valley VC firms have offered to invest. The Shenzhen company has sold hundreds of thousands of their drones to hobbyists, journalists, photographers, real estate agents and other business people worldwide. According to the WSJ, DJI has taken minimal outside capital and instead has used cash flow to fund its rapid expansion which recently was reported to include three factories and 2,800 employees.

One quote by Chris Dixon of VC Andreessen Horowitz is particularly interesting:

Companies like DJI right now have good momentum, but they’re hardware makers… Next year or the year after that, you’re going to see hundreds of DJI clones. I don’t think long term that’s a good bet. Software is going to eat drones.

I disagree. I see a parallel to the robotics industry of today where 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 just as mapping, data mining, sensor manufacturers and aerial service providers are beginning to do today for the drone industry.

• Video describes accelerating robot deployment in China
• Sino-Russian robotics boosted as Skolkovo signs $200M deal with Chinese investment fund
• Cars in the UK, China, LA, CES and here : Robocar news update
• Foxconn begins selling noodle-making robot
• 40% annual growth forecast for Chinese robotics

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

The Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) surrounding Washington, D.C. Source: Wikipedia.

Shortly after a Phantom crash-landed on the grounds of the White House, its maker, DJI, announced that it would release a mandatory firmware update that would restrict flights within 15.5 miles of downtown Washington, D.C.

On Friday, Senator Schumer’s office released a statement urging the FAA to mandate that manufacturers impose technical controls to prevent drones from flying in high risk areas including near airports, other aircraft and the White House.

Whether drone manufacturers enforce “No Fly Zones” on their initiative as DJI has announced it will do, or whether they will be required to do so by the FAA at a later date, there are legal liability issues that should be considered.

If a manufacturer has not imposed technical measures to enforce No Fly Zones, and an operator enters a restricted area, liability is fairly straightforward. Assuming there is no design or manufacturing defect that causes the drone to fly into the restricted area, it is unlikely that the manufacturer would be held liable for any physical injury or property damage that may occur if the operator enters a No Fly Zone.

However, if a manufacturer implements technical measures to restrict drones from entering No Fly Zones, and such measures fail, they may be opening themselves up to legal liability if an operator flies into a restricted area and causes physical injury or property damage. Although it is unclear how liability may be allocated between an operator and a manufacturer in such a case, unless manufacturers are granted immunity from such lawsuits, they may be opening themselves up to liability by attempting to enforce No Fly Zones.

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.”

Spreading Wings S900 is an improved hybrid of Spreading Wings S800 and S1000. It borrows its hexacopter layout from the S800, and its collapsible arms feature from the S1000. Its arms and landing gear are made of carbon fiber, reducing weight and improving strength at the same time. Foldable arms enable easy transport and portability, something valued by aerial filming professionals. It can be assembled and ready to fly in 5 minutes.

The upper center board is removable, allowing easy access and a convenient way to set up power distribution system or to install DJI Lightbridge video downlink. The S900 fully supports the Zenmuse Z15, GH3, GH4, and BMPCC gimbals. The gimbal bracket is separated from the main frame by specifically designed dampers, reducing unwanted vibrations.

The S900 weighs 3.3 kg and has a maximum take-off weight of 8.2 kg. Simple math gives a useful payload capacity of 4.9 kg, allowing it to carry most cameras and gimbals. 6S 12000mAh battery allows a flight time of up to 18 minutes.

The price of the new DJI flyer is up to $3800, depending on flight controller and gimbal options.

Detailed  information about DJI Spreading Wings S900, user manual and S900 release notes can be found on official DJI webpage.

An awesome article and an interview with the first UAV pilot to fly S900 in the US can be found at Drone Girl‘s blog.

Video and images courtesy of DJI.

Their consistent effort to improve the safety of their aircraft and to decrease the risk they pose already brought us No Fly Zone software, which prevents DJI copters from flying around airports and other prohibited areas. This time they are introducing a “Drop speed reduction system”, a complex name for something that is in essence a parachute.

http://youtu.be/8CPIvtut0LE

The system weighs around 500gr (~1.2 lbs), can be mounted on top od DJI S800 or S1000, and is deployed in half a second, in case of emergency. It also includes automatic power-off function, and is compatible with WooKong-M and DJI A2 flight controllers.

Though the DropSafe system is designed to minimize damage to the drone and onboard camera in the event of an accident, it is not guaranteed that there will be no damage at all. And with a parachute, there is also the possibility that the drone will be blown away or get stuck in a tree. Still, it’s better than having your drone and camera smash into someone.

As with the above mentioned “No Fly Zone” firmware, it is reasonable to expect that the DropSafe and similar parachute systems will become standard UAV equipment in the near future.