Spaced-OoooO-Out ::

I attended the Commcerical UAV Show last month at the Excel Centre, sharing a slice of the vast area with the Robotics Show. Last year the show was upstairs at Olympia and whilst relatively small there was quite a buzz with mixing between the seminars, the conference and the trade floor. There was also a very wide range of exhibitors with some really big UAV manufacturers and smaller players, as well as software and services. Its an exciting sector and you couldnt fail to walk away not feeling the palpable excitement.

This year my overall takeaway was one of disappointment. The show seemed smaller and there were certainly fewer major operators there. That said they had a live demo area which was impressive and the stands were generally bigger with more space between them. Yuneec continued the impressive showing from the Chinese manufacturer whilst there were an innumerable number of insurance services… we can see where that one is headed! This year also saw DJI - its consumer drones becoming good enough for a range of commercial applications outside photography. There was also a surprising number of empty stalls and those which were unmanned which made for a poor impression.

Perhaps the one stand that sticks in my mind was the French manufacturer Delair-Tech. This is the first (and I believe only manufacturer) to have government approval (in France) for “beyond line of sight” (BLOS) operations. This is something that brings palpitations to any FAA executive but that Amazon (amongst others) is really pushing for. For regulated airspace this is really moving the potential for UAVs in geoscience much further.

An upcoming rival to the Commercial UAV Show is the SkyTech Event at the Business Design Centre 27-28 January 2016. This is a great space for a show so it’ll be really interesting to see what this is like. Tickets are free so no excuse not to book up!