UNMANNED AIRCRAFT & SYSTEMS
World’s largest UAS conference ushers in a new commercial focus by Bill Carey The Unmanned Systems conference in the U.S., traditionally the largest event of the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry, is no longer your father’s military-focused trade gathering. As of next year, it will also have a new name. The sponsoring Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) has rebranded the annual trade show as “Xponential.” The new name reflects the robotic aircraft industry’s “tremendous growth and innovation…as well as the broad societal benefits of the technology,”
explained AUVSI. Indeed, UAS– more popularly called drones– have evolved relatively recently from military and model-aircraft roots into a promising new commercial industry. AUVSI has also evolved. The association traces its start to 1972 as the U.S. disengaged from the Vietnam War, a conflict that saw drones used extensively as decoys and for jamming radars and reconnaissance. This year, AUVSI elected a new slate of directors that includes representatives from Amazon and Google, Internetage companies that aspire to use drones for package deliveries
and telecommunications. The association’s chairmanship still reflects the old order; it changed hands from John Lademan of Northrop Grumman to John Burke of Airbus. In January, Brian Wynne, who previously led the Electric Drive Transportation Association, succeeded longtime former U.S. Department of Defense executive Michael Toscano as AUVSI’s president and CEO. This year’s Unmanned Systems conference, held May 4-7 in Atlanta, Georgia, drew nearly 600 exhibitors and 8,000 attendees, roughly the same numbers as
3DR Solo quadcopter
Special Report in recent years. But the opening general session spoke to the new face of AUVSI. Moderated by Colin Guinn, chief revenue officer of small drone manufacturer 3D Robotics (3DR), it featured a “visionary commercial UAS panel” consisting of David Vos, the leader of Google’s Project Wing effort; CyPhy Works CEO Helen Greiner, an MIT-trained roboticist who co-invented the “Roomba” robotic vacuum cleaner; and David Vigilante, chief editorial counsel for cable network CNN. CNN later figured in the conference’s highest profile announcement, which saw Federal Aviation Administration administrator Michael Huerta traveling to Atlanta to announce that CNN, BNSF Railway and dronemaker PrecisionHawk will participate with the agency in a “pathfinder project” to explore beyond-lineof-sight and other operations of small fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones. Expanded flight envelopes are considered critical for the package delivery plans of Amazon and Google, as well as for other types of operations. Legacy UAS manufacturers such as AeroVironment, Boeing Insitu, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Textron Systems and L-3 Communications remained prominent in the exhibit hall. Sikorsky displayed the event’s largest aircraft: a Black Hawk helicopter the manufacturer used for its UH-60M upgrade effort, with markings from its “Matrix” program to develop an autonomous helicopter. Sikorsky hopes to interest the U.S. Army in an optionally piloted Black Hawk. In the age of small multi-rotor drones, the manufacturer wanted to demonstrate the scale of what is possible, an executive said. But the American public will sooner see a small unmanned helicopter that has already flown for two decades in Japan as well as in Australia and South Korea.
On May 1, the FAA granted Yamaha Motor Corp. USA an exemption to fly its 200-pound Rmax agricultural helicopter over private or controlledaccess properties to treat crops. The Rmax, which Yamaha displayed in Atlanta, at the time was the largest unmanned platform the FAA had authorized to operate in the U.S., and the first approved for crop spraying.
Different Market Approaches
Other companies that exhibited at the conference are taking different approaches to the burgeoning commercial market for unmanned aircraft. Drone designer Jordi Munoz and former Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson co-founded 3DR in 2009. Guinn joined the company last year after heading the North America branch of Dajiang Innovation Technology Co. (DJI), the Shenzhen, Chinabased company that is on track to become the first billion-dollar manufacturer of consumer drones. In an interview with AIN, Guinn recalled drawing attention at the Unmanned Systems 2012 conference in Las Vegas with DJI’s Zenmuse Z15 three-axis stabilized camera gimbal, an industry first, mounted under a Spreading Wings S800 hexacopter. “We made a big splash because we had a system that you could get for $6,500, that shot perfectly stable imagery, that you didn’t see anywhere else at the show,” Guinn said. Next came DJI’s popular Phantom quadcopter, which, among other feats, made news in January when one crash-landed on the White House lawn. “With the Phantom being the success that it was, AUVSI realizes that it needs to bring in companies like that,” he added. “I don’t know for a fact, but I would venture to say that the numberone commercial drone being used today is the Phantom. That’s the drone that people have.”
Few Paris show attendees took much notice in 2009 when Austrian manufacturer Schiebel first flew its S-100 "Camcopter" during the flying display. Back again in 2011 with a high-visibility paint job, right, the pioneer unmanned aerial system had to pass stringent safety standards and secure an EASA flight permit to leave the ground. The Camcopter had a three-meter main rotor span, a maximum takeoff weight of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and could fly for more than six hours. According to a company statement, "The drone meets all preconditions for its participation in the Paris Air Show." n
PHOTOS: MARK WAGNER
First of the Many
30 Paris Airshow News • June 15, 2015 • www.ainonline.com
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