As drone applications continue to grow, this is creating new markets for startup companies to cater to. Thus, the challenge for these companies is to come up with a good product and match it with the appropriate customers. One way to do these is to focus on a particular market segment and figure out what specific needs or requirements are not being met.
Startup companies are different from regular companies due to the fact that they are not run based on established business models or products. They are commonly found in young markets, such as the drone industry, where there is much potential for rapid growth and success, but they are also more likely to crash and burn. Startups should be careful to determine their focus early and use this to develop products that will appeal to the market.
Addressing Specific Needs With Unique Technologies
As drone applications continue to grow, this is creating new markets for startup companies to cater to. Thus, the challenge for these companies is to come up with a good product and match it with the appropriate customers. One way to do these is to focus on a particular market segment and figure out what specific needs or requirements are not being met.
Risk Assessment & Inspection
For Sky Eye, they decided early on that they would like to focus on creating solutions that would help with dealing with dangerous situations. Primarily focused on risk assessment and inspection applications in industries such as agriculture, forest management, and the oil and gas industry, they partnered up with several companies to create drones that can provide thermal imagery and gas detection.
"We are currently the only manufacturer in the world supplying optimized solutions for FLIR SYSTEMS A-series, T-series and OGI camera segment. By, for example, integrating FLIR's Camera G300a we made it possible as a world first to detect gas leaks from the air using our platform," said Daniel Sällstedt, CEO of Sky Eye Innovations.
Another company, Flyability, has drones that have been used in many industrial inspection applications such as in energy, maritime, and heavy industries, where people are often required to operate in dangerous and difficult-to-reach areas. Drawing from one of the founders' background in robotics, particularly in mimicking insect flight capabilities, the company created a drone that can be used for close contact operation.
"It is the first collision-tolerant drone, which allows it to operate in complex and confined spaces that cannot be reached by other technologies that require human access at a high risk and cost. Current drone solutions are focused on outdoor, open-area flight, Flyability's UAV is uniquely designed to reliably operate in indoor, complex environments," said Patrick Thevoz, CEO of Flyability.
For Ramon Haken, Director of Avular, their primary concern is a little different. "Our primary focus is on safety and precision. This makes our system very suitable for industrial inspection applications. Our industrial vision cameras are also popular in the agricultural research market and in security." The PrecisionScout drone has a triple redundant autopilot feature which makes it capable of handling autopilot hardware failures and enhances the stability of the drone.
Beyond Safety Applications
As drone technology and applications continue to evolve, it has slowly gained the attention of the general public, who are interested in using drones to capture memorable or important events in their lives. Since most mainstream users are not professional pilots, companies are now focusing on making their technology as user-friendly as possible.
EHang is a drone startup that is angling to capture a wider customer base, targeting both private users and commercial enterprises. As such, it has developed a smart drone that can be operated easily by anyone through smartphone or tablet apps. All the person has to do is touch the map on the screen to pilot the drone. They have also added additional features to make things even less complicated for the general user to operate.
"The highlight of our GHOSTDRONE 2.0 is the AVATAR tilt mode and VR goggles, you can control the drone simply by shifting the mobile phone in your hand, The built-in head-tracking sensor can track the up and down movements of your head, changing the angle of the camera," said Derrick Xiong, Co-founder and CMO of EHang.
What Lies on the Drone Horizon
The drone industry is still a young one. Currently, there are no set of regulations or standards that companies have to abide by when designing and constructing their products. That is why companies are thinking that the next big thing would be the standardization of the industry. "More detailed regulation will be published in the future to normalize the whole industry," commented Xiong.
Another significant development that can happen in the near future has to deal with data management. As drones are continuously being equipped with better sensors and cameras, the information that they can gather will increase significantly. Thus, there would be a need to outfit them with software and solutions that can better analyze the data. “The use and availability of data is expected to evolve into more adapted software for asset management and predictive analysis will be simplified. In the coming years. The development of automated flight planning will facilitate the use of these software for effective periodical inspection," commented Thevoz.
Companies are also optimistic about the market opening up even further due to expectations that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will relax their regulations on the commercial use of drones sometime this year. The proposed changes wouldn't require drones to stay within the sight of the operator and can be permitted to fly up to 500 feet, as well as not requiring operators to have a pilot license.
Drone Startups will Continue to Fly High
The drone industry is set to grow at a rapid pace in the next few years, owing to greater professional application of drones. Startups are poised to get a huge piece of the pie and gain significant returns if they were able to develop the right product that is aimed at the right market.