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Growth Opportunities for Computer Vision in Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)
Dave Litwiller Aeryon Labs Inc.
Overview
• The rise of the sUAS industry • Market size, growth, and main applications • Picking partners • Vision technology drivers • Immediate opportunities for imaging and vision • Even larger mid-term growth for imaging and vision in sUAS
About Aeryon Labs
• Founded 2007 in Waterloo, Canada • First shipments in 2009 • 2010 breakthrough, used by BP to combat the Deepwater
Horizon gulf oil spill • Global market share and performance leader in professional
VTOL sUAS — Flight time, flight dynamics, gimbal-camera
• 100% y-o-y growth
Recent UAV History
Year 2005 Year 2015
Time • Runway scale • Fixed wing
• Remotely piloted • Large team operation
• $$$$
• Backpack scale • VTOL
• Robotic flight control • Single person operation
• $$
Enabling sUAS Technologies
Longer Term • Moore’s Law • Small image sensors and optics • Wireless communications Most Recently • Monolithic GPS receivers • Inertial MEMS sensors • LiPo batteries
Commercial Business Catalysts
• sUAS vs. Manned Helicopter — Five times cheaper per hour, fully loaded cost
• Safer and faster than ladders and ropes
• Greater ubiquity, speed, accuracy, repeatability, quality and flexibility in inspection and surveying
• Ability to put airborne imaging tools safely and widely in the hands of experts from outside of aviation
Applications
• Oil and gas – refinery, flare stack, pipeline • Power generation (solar, wind turbine), power distribution • Transportation infrastructure – airports, rail lines, roadways • Building inspection, industrial facilities • Photography and cinematography • Agriculture
Global sUAS Market
US$ million
Sources: Teal Group, Frost & Sullivan, Dow Jones, and manufacturers’ securities filings
Selecting sUAS Partners
• Integrated R&D players
• Early leader path dependency
• VTOL opportunity >> fixed wing
• Business opportunity in small systems >> large UAVs
Selecting sUAS Partners
• Media footprint ≠ sustainable business model
• Precision agriculture caution, hardware pricing pressure
• More favorable regulatory environment outside of the US for now in commercial uses — Dramatic industry expansion when US and Europe re-regulate
commercial uses of sUAS
Current Opportunities for Imaging and Vision Industry
• Roughly 1/5th of the merchant value of a sUAS is its imaging subsystem (visible, single sensor)
• Automation of imaging and computer vision in sUAS depends on capability in — Natural and varying lighting — Object occlusion and perspective changes — Shadows from objects and surroundings — Twilight and night imaging — Aggregating contiguous discrete images — User designated object tracking
Future Opportunities for Imaging and Vision Industry
• Integration of more sensory data than just visible and IR imaging, with corresponding expansion of pattern analysis and decision making — Depth sensing (near field) — Visual odometry — Digital image stabilization — Hyperspectral — UV — LiDAR — Chemical sensors and spectrometers — Microphones — RFID readers
Future Opportunities for Imaging and Vision Industry
• Beyond Line of Sight operation (BLoS, a.k.a. BVLoS) • Master work of sUAS: Far Field Sense & Avoid
Source: Military & Aerospace Electronics
How Big an Opportunity?
• Consider results to date in France — Effective date of onset for legal commercial operation of sUAS in
April 2012 — 2014 UAV sector revenue US$200M, 700 registered commercial
operators at year end — 2015 UAV sector revenue US$360M(F)*
• France is 1/5th the size of the US, and 1/8th of the EU
* Sources: Xerfi, DGAC
Summary
• sUAS industry is hot and getting hotter, built upon a foundation of sustainable and growing value in many large industries
• The role for computer vision and imaging is already significant, and about to get much larger
• Pick partners wisely. Thinly substantiated hype is rife among some sUAS vendors and ecosystem players
Further Information
Dave Litwiller Vice President Aeryon Labs Inc. Waterloo, Ontario Canada Telephone: 519-489-6726 X322 Email: [email protected]