Imagine carving your way down a particularly challenging slope, your
skis kicking up clouds of snow, trees flying by, your death-defying
stunts captured perfectly on camera. And you're all by yourself.
How would you pull off such a feat?
Short of those with a film crew on hand, or at least a buddy with a
GoPro camera tracking your every move, it's hard to imagine it being
possible at all, let alone while you're alone.
But you may not have to imagine it for long...
Next week, a startup called Universal Air will finish shipping out its
entry level R10 quadrotors, a drone whose advertised combination of low
price, reliability, and durability inspired more than 400 people to fund
the company's Kickstarter campaign
to the tune of almost 15 times its financial goal. UAir, as it's known,
had hoped to raise $15,000 and ship 30 R10's, according to co-founder
Max Bruner, but ended up bringing in $220,000 and facing one of the
problems many super-successful Kickstarter projects experience: the
inability to quickly satisfy demand.
Bruner said that the R10 was initially
meant to be a prototype, but with so much interest, UAir had no choice
but to ramp up to a production-quality drone. And now, those who ordered
the UAV will soon be getting their hands on an aircraft said to be
ideal for allowing amateur photographers and videographers to shoot from
the air, yet which users can fly with an
Xbox controller or an RC transmitter.
Cool as the R10 might be, though, it's not up to the task of autonomously tracking you while you barrel down a ski slope.
But while the R10 is meant to appeal because of its low price and its
durability, UAir is hoping that initial UAV is just the beginning. The
company is readying its next drone, a slick and easy-to-use aircraft
expected to go on sale in July that stands apart from competing consumer
products like the Parrot AR Drone, and a number of expensive hobbyist
kits with more functionality, by offering both a low price and the
ability to carry a payload like a GoPro camera. The Parrot, by
comparison, shoots HD video with a built-in camera, and Bruner believes
users are going to want better optics than that, but without paying the
hefty prices of more sophisticated but harder-to-use hobbyist rigs.
Yet UAir's ultimate product isn't its next drone. Rather, it's the UAV
the company hopes to get off the ground sometime in the first half of
2014. That, said Bruner, will be a fully-autonomous quadrotor aimed at
the adventure sports market. The idea? Allow someone to go skiing, or
rock climbing, or high-diving, and know that their drone is following
them the whole way, thanks to an on-board tracking beacon, shooting HD
photos or videos the entire time.
As with the current-gen Parrot AR Drone 2.0, UAir's future UAV is
expected to feature Wi-Fi connectivity that allows a user to take the
drone with them and count on it staying close by, regardless of whether
or not there's an accessible Internet connection. As long as a user can
establish a Wi-Fi connection between their mobile phone and the drone,
"you're good to go," Bruner said.
Surveillance but not invasion of privacy
Like many drone makers, UAir UAVs make surveillance easy. But Bruner
said a combination of U.S. Federal Aviation Administration restrictions
and the company's own concerns about privacy invasions led it to focus
on Wi-Fi as a connectivity technology. That's because, he said, using
Wi-Fi means that the drones are limited to being within line of sight of
the user. That doesn't fully preclude snooping, of course, but it makes
it a bit harder.
Still, even with that limit on how far away a user can be from the
drone, UAir thinks its products are going to be popular with industry.
Although UAir is clearly planning on being a player in the consumer
drone market, Bruner said that another big part of its business is to
provide surveillance services to a wide range of industries. That's why
Bruner said UAir's real business isn't selling drones, but rather a
platform built to make it easy for the startup to nurture relationships
with commercial partners.
Clearly, the company wants to make inroads with the photography and
videography communities, but UAir is also hoping it can convince those
in other industries -- such as mining, farming, or insurance, to name a
few -- to get on board. And part of its pitch is that the drones, while
designed to carry cameras, can also carry a range of sensor packages
purpose-built for industry. So, for example, Bruner imagines the
company's drones being used for things like overflights of mines to look
for environmental impacts; low-cost home roof inspections; and even
crop fertilization. "We think there's a whole [software as a service]
market," Bruner said.
Others think so too. Airware,
a recent alumni of the prestigious Silicon Valley incubator, Y
Combinator, is also pursuing a drone platform strategy. But that company
doesn't plan on selling UAVs itself.
As such, UAir could have an advantage selling on both sides of the
business. And it's also considering a series of data analytics tools
that can help its clients better understand their businesses. "We might
be giving a farmer more information about when and where to fertilize
crops," Bruner said. "Drones are the beginning of the autonomous
services market. There's a whole new market out there. We're just in the
infancy of service robotics."
Source: CNET
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