Airware CEO Jonathan Downey

Founded in 2011, the Newport Beach, Calif. startup builds the autopilot or the “brains” that drive drones. One current Airware customer, Deltadrone in France already has drones conducting skier search-and-rescue and for open-air mining operations, said Airware CEO Jonathan Downey.

Downey, an MIT grad who knows about aircraft having spent a few years at Boeing, sees upcoming commercial applications including prevention of wildlife poaching and agriculture although to date, commercial use is limited until the FAA comes up with regulations on and requirements for their use. Congress has mandated that this be done by 2015.

Airware clearly thinks demand will be huge once the regs are in place. A survey by  the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) — admittedly a non-partial observer — projects that the manufacture and use of drones built in the U.S. could create 70,000 jobs in the first three years, adding $13.6 billion to the economy.

Potential competition for Airware could come from the big aerospace companies but so far, drones have had “only one customer and are only used for one purpose — military surveillance, ” Downey said in an interview. “We started this company because we think  there will be a wide variety of applications on the commercial side and those drones will probably be flown by people who will not be as trained or skilled so the hardware and software have to be customized for various users.”

The company will furnish APIs to allow that customization of the autopilot which is an integrated bundle of sensors, computer and communications gear and software — thus also be adaptable for specific uses and power fixed-wing, helicopter or multi-rotor drones. “We provide the APIs to allow companies to customize the autopilot for their needs,” he said.

The initial applications will probably require that the person with responsibility of the drone stays within sight and in low-population areas, he said. Agriculture could be big. “We could provide imaging to determine which areas are over- or under-watered, what is the ideal time for harvesting, and what areas need pesticide,” he said. By letting farmers pinpoint where water or pesticides should be applied, drones could cut the use of both.

Airware osFlexQuad inserted into Delta Drone.

Downey said that the drones to be built will cost between $20,000 and $40,000.

Other applications could include the inspection of large buildings or power lines; mapping; and perhaps even sports or event photography. Hey, if a blimp can do it … Other companies propose the use of drones for news gathering. And, as GigaOM’s Amanda Alvarez reported recently, David Lester at U.C. Berkeley helped create a hack group to investigate the use of small drones for commercial purposes.

Prior to this round of funding, Airware which is a Y Combinator and Lemnos Labs graduate, netted about $3 million in seed money from First Round Capital, Firelake Capital, RRE Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Promus Ventures, brings total funding to date to $13.7 million

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The big thing this year — 4K television. Here are a few factoids that Roberts, clearly having been educated by his peers in the Sony family, shared:

• The storage footprint of 1 hour of 4K video is 512 gigabytes.
• That’s a lot of data to move across IP, so 4k cameras just send everything straight to production storage systems over fiber-optic cable.
• The picture is so detailed that it’s difficult for one person to shoot scenes and focus at the same time. The answer: new two-person camera setups where one guy shoots and the other stands next to him focusing the shot on a larger screen.

Oh, and there were drones, too:

The Schiebel Camcopter S-100.

This is the civilian version of the Schiebel Camcopter S-100. There’s a military version, too. Its sticker price of several hundred thousand dollars probably isn’t surprising.

For the more cost-conscious aerial cinematographer, Freefly Systems had its own booth:

The Freefly Cinestar helicopter

Or for those who prefer the ground:

A video rover, I guess.

This all kind of makes me wish I shot video for a living. If I had a flying, rotating video camera or an off-road setup, I’m sure I could find some way to use them.

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Drones — already used by the Pentagon in Afghanistan  – could have many other military and civilian uses if they are able to fly and maneuver in congested air corridors. That’s the problem the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Operations Challenge (UAS AOC, for short) would address.

If this effort – part of NASA’s Centennial Challenge series - proceeds, NASA would request designs that use “sense-and-avoid” techniques to fly safely. Current drones are typically operated at least in part by remote “pilots” on the ground. Here’s NASA’s official Request for Information (RFI). And, NetworkWorld has more on the proposed competition here.

The challenge would help NASA and its partners – the FAA and US Air Force Research Lab – assess the level of interest among manufacturers, get feedback, and identify possible partners in the effort.

There’s already considerable research and commercial effort around drones:

• An unmanned vehicle designed at MIT’s Robust Robotics lab that uses on-board sensors to avoid collisions in constricted areas — including an MIT garage — might be something NASA would look at.
• Rotary Robotics, a Mass Challenge participant, is working on “drones for peace” — small unmanned vehicles that reporters could use to research stories or farmers to get a bird’s-eye view of their land.

The use of drones in military and law enforcement contexts is controversial:

• For example, some Oakland residents are outraged at plans by the Alameda County Sheriff’s office to deploy drones for “unspecified law enforcement purposes.”
• And the Obama administration has taken heat over the use of drones both by the military and intelligence agencies.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Jordan Tan

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A B-52 will carry the the X-51A WaveRider “scramjet” unmanned test craft on its wing from Edwards Air Force Base out over Point Mugu.  At about 50,000 feet over the ocean, the B-52 will drop the craft which, if all goes well, will reach speeds of about 3,600 mph (or Mach 6)  if only for about 300 seconds, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, DARPA, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Boeing are collaborating on the project to show the feasibility of hypersonic flight. Obviously, the military would love to have hypersonic missiles and other fast-and-stealthy hardware.

But hypersonic commercial flights are not outside the realm of possibility over time. EADS has been working on its own vision of hypersonic commercial flights promising Paris-to-Tokyo journeys of under 3 hours.  But they’re not expected any time soon. The European Commission has set aside $6.15 million  to test out high-speed planes.

Commercial supersonic flight is not unprecedented. The Concorde aircraft flown by Air France and British Airways hit speeds of up to Mach 2 or about 1,350 mph, and could fly from New York to London in about 3 hours. But they were notoriously inefficient and expensive — and cramped.  The program was not economically sustainable and was discontinued a decade ago.  Cost and efficiency will be factors to consider for airlines evaluating hypersonic flight going forward as well.

Still, I’d be willing to bet there’s a market for high-cost but extremely fast cross-country flights. As The Times reported, a coast-to-coast trip at X-51 speeds would take 46 minutes. And, at that clip, who cares about airline food or if the Wi-Fi works?

Check out the video simulation of WaveRider

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user MultiplyLeadership

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