Every one has a useless Drone WTF?

How is it that any narcissistic teenager can have a flying robot which is capable of tracking them in real time to take the perfect adventure shot for their next Facebook post, yet a soldier is still required to carry almost half their body weight across difficult terrain in a complex warzone? A first responder still has to enter a potentially lethal area to ascertain risks and a farmer still has to drive a tractor for hours on end whilst spraying toxic chemicals. The answers to this conundrum and hopefully the solutions to this problem can be seen by studying the rise of the recreational drone.

The rise of the recreational drone

Converging Technologies

The rise of the recreational drone can be traced back to four converging technologies, the smart phone with digital camera, the indestructible and highly portable adventure camera, the FPV (First Person View) video systems used in the remote control hobby industry and the emerging DIY quadrotor systems. We probably should also mention the rise of the Social Media platform for creating the demand (and in the process turning a large part of the face book generation into a bunch of narcissistic twats).

Micro Computers for All

Potentially the greatest unsung hero of this hacker and backyard entrepreneur age has been the Arduino micro-computing revolution. The Arduino eco system made it simple for almost anyone with small amount of electronics experience to make tiny computer controlled devices. This spawned everything from DIY drone autopilot boards to 3D printers and CNC milling machines.

Micro Manufacturing

One of the other key drivers for the rise of the recreational drone was the sudden proliferation of low cost 3D printers and CNC milling machines (thanks Arduino) and the associated open source and freeware CAD / CAM software. Suddenly any hacker enthusiast could convert a garage into a rapid manufacturing facility. This lead to the explosion of new technologies, all of which made it possible for DIY enthusiasts to produce inertially stabilised, GPS guided quad rotor drones; capable of streaming wireless HD video several kilometres to small portable ground stations comprised of mobile phones and small video display units. It is important to note that a comparative Military Quadrotor system at that time cost approximately $100,000 USD and had a flight time of between 30 – 40 minutes, whereas the emerging hobby grade quadrotor had a similar capability with 12 -15 minutes flight time at a cost of around $1500 USD.

Rise of the Phantom Menace

Without a doubt the most iconic and disruptive drone manufacturer is DJI (Dà-Jiāng Innovations) and there would be very few people on this planet that don’t associate the rise of the drone with the 2013 release of the most successful consumer drone on the planet: the DJI phantom.
DJI was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang. He was a model plane enthusiast who enrolled in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2003. Two years later, the university granted him $2300 USD to conduct research and design a drone. Wang and two class mates rented a small office in Shenzhen and initially the company focussed on making drone parts for the DIY and integrator market (autopilots and camera gimbals). DJI released the original Phantom drone in 2013. The original phantom leveraged off the GoPro camera system and WIFI and sold for a retail price of $700 USD. They were able to produce a drone which almost anyone could fly out of the box with an endurance of up to 28 minutes. Since then
DJI has become the worlds most dominant drone manufacturer, a large part of DJI’s success has been attributed to its location in China’s manufacturing hub and their ability to do rapid manufacturing, they can design a part in the morning and build it for testing in the afternoon.

Impact of the Phantom Menace

Since the release of the original Phantom, DJI turned to other segments of the market, building expensive drones for professional users, while churning out smaller and smarter models for consumers. I remember the release of the DJI Mavic, I myself was working on a small fold out drone designed specifically with Special Forces and First Responders in mind, the Mavic released and I threw all my work in the bin, there was no way I could compete at the same price point. Far from viewing this in a negative light I saw it as possibly the biggest shake up of the military VTOL UAV market. Prior to the Mavic a man portable rugged VTOL UAV for the Military or Emergency Response market would probably have cost around $100,000 USD, at that price point they were reserved for an elite few. Then suddenly anyone could buy a tiny off the shelf, pocketable drone with awesome video capabilities, kilometres of range, a tiny and very simple control unit and no real training requirements (works out of the box); all at a price point where you could smash 50 of them for the same price of the original military grade system. Suddenly almost any soldier or first responder could have an expendable eye in the sky. Since then every Military in the World has been struggling with how to capitalise on this revolution and manage the associated risks of the drone age.

Where are the Unmanned Ground Vehicles?

Given the proliferation and availability of airborne drones we need to ask where are the ground vehicles; those capable of carrying heavy loads and performing the dirty, dull or dangerous jobs? Unfortunately we are still at a similar point just prior to the rise of the Phantom menace; there are amazing UGV’s available but like the pre-DJI Drones, they are principally a specialist product which costs several hundred thousand dollars. So currently we are sitting at the old Chicken or Egg stalemate: if we had volume in the market the price would come down, but if the price doesn’t come down we cant have volume in the market. Unfortunately I doubt we can convince the Social Media Obsessed that they need UGV’s for the perfect selfie, thereby massively increasing the demand for UGV’s …….. or can we?????

We at Guerrilla Technologies believe its time for the UGV revolution (all men hate mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage); the solution is there if you study the rise of the drones.

I hope you enjoyed this post and please join us for part 2 – Rise of the UGV’s (couldn’t find a star wars reference, and the Terminator one is not confidence inspiring) where we elucidate the lessons learnt, and what we see as our path forward towards me never having to mow the lawn again.

P.S Hopefully no Face bookers or Social media moguls were hurt (or overly offended) during this post. In fact society owes you a great debt, without your dedication to the perfect selfie from an airborne videography drone soldiers and first responders / rescuers would not have access to off the shelf, cost effective life saving equipment 🙂