Date post: | 15-Jul-2015 |
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Growth Opportunities
for Computer Vision in Commercial
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)
Dave LitwillerAeryon 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 sUASdepends 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
sUAS: This is just the beginning
Further Information
Dave Litwiller
Vice President
Aeryon Labs Inc.
Waterloo, Ontario Canada
Telephone: 519-489-6726
Email: [email protected]