Unmanned Systems Technology 004 | Delair-Tech DT18 | Autopilots | Rotron RT600 | Unmanned surface vehicles | AMRC | Motion control | Batteries

15 took away from that – and it’s a lasting impression – was that building all the technology yourself is a distraction to meeting the customer’s criteria.” So after working at Boeing on autonomous helicopters, and a stint as a commercial pilot, Downey set out to build an enterprise-grade system. This would be suitable for large businesses to use and allow them to add capability over time and change the way the craft flies. He says, “We started with the electronics and the software on the UAV, and then expanded to the user interfaces, as all the existing interfaces assumed the operators would be pilots or engineers. This was true in the early market, but if there are tens of thousands of operators around the world then they are going to be telecoms engineers or oil and gas surveyors or agronomists, not pilots. The UAV will be an addition to their toolkit so it has to be easy to operate, so we’ve designed it to be used like a video game.” The system also had to be highly configurable, so it has a plug-in architecture that enables it to be customised with hardware and software modules for specific applications. “We then developed a cloud back end that is now live and allows for the management of the entire workflow and aggregating all the data, and brokering that to industry-specific tools,” he says. Regarding the software and the cloud facility, Downey says, “We have often drawn an analogy between the software on the UAV and in the cloud and MS- DOS, as both are examples of a new operating system in a new space that enables software to run across multiple types of underlying hardware, which was previously difficult to do. Prior to DOS you had a lot of companies that had built point solutions, and eventually they were all taken over as people saw the value of a common platform where you could take a piece of hardware and add capabilities just by adding software. I think that is how the UAV space will evolve.” This he says will change the way the industry operates. “The custom UAVs for a single application will be outpaced by platforms that grow from the inclusion of additional software. That means the software is developed by an ecosystem of suppliers, which could be machine vision for vegetation encroachment on power lines or algorithms to detect the health of crops. That’s why we have used that analogy and structured our technology to enable that ecosystem.” Unmanned aerial systems are going to be a very significant piece of many industries and markets over the next few years – particularly in the oil and gas sectors, industrial inspections and agriculture – as the regulations evolve, and this is a key challenge, he says. Current rules limit operations to the line of sight of the operator, but the real challenge is operating beyond line of sight in an autonomous mode. “We are seeing a lot of smaller businesses using the technology, and I think that over the next two years, as the technology matures and the Jonathan Downey | In conversation Operators are going to be oil or gas surveyors or engineers, not pilots. The UAV has to be easy to operate, so we’ve designed it like a video game Unmanned Systems Technology | Autumn 2015 Although Airware is a start-up it has also set up its own fund to invest in other UAS technology companies. The Commercial Drone Fund will be able to make ‘dozens’ of investments of about $250,000 to $1 million in interesting ventures, says Downey. The first two deals saw backing for Paris-based UAS data processing start-up Redbird and London-based Sky-Futures, which builds sensors for UAS systems for monitoring oil and gas infrastructures. “We were swamped by opportunities [to invest] but there’s a mix of propositions,” Downey says. “There are companies with really interesting technology, like the investments we have already made in Redbird and Sky-Future, then there are others out there that have a long way to go. “Luckily there was a lot of interest from investors when we created the fund,” he says. “What I was seeing was that, with Airware’s success and our ecosystem approach, we had a lot of investors coming to us to say that if they can’t invest in Airware then what else should they look at? We also had other companies asking who the good investors are, so this fund is a way to catalyse that.” The fund invests in sensor hardware, software applications to make UAVs safer or enable new and innovative uses, as well as cloud-based software that makes analysing and using sensor data easier, more accessible or more useful. Investing in UAS technology