Drone Bubble Bursts, Wiping Out Startups and Hammering VC Firms
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
There are occasionally bursts of genius in the field though. A few years ago I met a guy (Sergei at Fotokite, I believe), who was developing a tethered drone for photojournalism. Solves many problems at once: you don't run out of battery, you could control the drone via a stick or just pulling it around by the tether, people don't hate the drones as much when they can see the operator. He demonstrated it by deploying it in the reception area of an office building, probably 15x15ft. Now apparently they're developing a tethered drone for first responders that automatically deploys and gives you a 150' vantage point for situational awareness.
BTW: No relation to Sergei or Fotokite, just impressed with their tech.
You’d be dependent on the capacity at the exchange, might that not need to be upgraded too?
I was sitting there saying "with a little bit of thought we can automate this stuff, go down the pub and watch the money roll in". It lasted about 2 years until everyone lost their jobs and everyone (VCs included) lost their noney.
/s
There's probably other use cases too.
If a drone could bring your electrical vehicle some extra charge by docking on the roof and then going back to closest charger... well that would be a true value added feature.
Because the milling machine and the profile lathe were invented in America, they were built around the American measuring system, and accounted for America getting a head start in the Industrial Revolution. Those two inventions enabled rapid and consistent manufacturing of innumerable other inventions and tools at the time. By the time the Treaty of the Metre was adopted in 1875, America's manufacturing infrastructure was already 50 years old.
The benefits offered by a decimal-based system of measurement were not and still are not significant enough to justify throwing out an entire interconnected structure of tooling, tools, and machines.
I work for a custom fabricator (we focus on making highly customized one-off products that are either prototypes or highly specialized), so I have some insight into what it would take for just our shop to convert.
We have milling machines that date back to the 1950s. They still work really well and hold tolerances as well as any similar mill on the market today. We would have to replace them and all the tooling that goes with them. Actually, we couldn't just get rid of them. We'd have to keep them and also double (at least) the size of our facilities to hold the new equipment. Why? Because we have long-term support contracts with many of our customers. That means we'd have to have two sets of equipment and two sets of tooling. Some of our contracts are more than 40 years old, so we would have to plan on having both sets of equipment for at least another 40 years.
Also, we'd have to reprogram all our other CNC machines to work on metric units only. We also have to convert all of our drawings to metric, and many of those conversions aren't elegant. Try reading 38.5 millimeters on a measuring tape. Try marking it accurately and consistently.
Now, I also have to consider that my employees now need to know two sets of measuring units, and be able to switch between them, because there's going to be a long period where some customer drawings are in US units and some are in Metric. That means that sometimes they'll make mistakes, because humans are very good at switching. So now I'll have more re-work and scrap.
In short, we may be "insane", but while the SI countries were trying to figure out how to measure things, we were busy inventing and using the machines we needed to actually usher in the Industrial Age. By the time the metric system was finalized, we already had a 50-year head start on building things. Too late to switch. It will never make financial sense to change.
The truth is that you likely have to deal with metric units in your machine shop every now and then, just as we deal with imperial units in some places (in my country, pipes and fittings are often in inches even in new residences.)
Furthermore, the lathe has been around since at least Egyptian times, and the modern industrial lathe is thought to have been invented in France or the UK.
In SI world there are still small pockets of old units. Like pipes measured 3/8, 3/4, 1/2, 1. The thing is they are isolated enough that almost nobody cares what the number means. Everybody just know that you need a 3/4 to fit with 3/4 you have. It becomes just a label.
Please do, I’d love to learn more about the American invention of the steam engine in 1825.
You could add drone-like control mechanisms to a balloon (or a balloon to a drone -- same difference, I guess), but that adds complications, so doesn't seem worth it.
The "unlimited power" comes with some major asterisk from my experience although it is with a different system.
* Tethered power works great when plugged into a stable AC source, generators can be less than ideal. * Weather conditions limit your altitude even more so, higher wind requires more power to stay up. * The tether often works against a lot of the stabilization systems built into the drones, so flying them can be a handful under certain conditions * The tether can get bound up on the spool * The higher you go the heavier the tether is
Overall though, it's awesome technology with interesting potential. I have kept ours in the air for over 3 hours continuously and only landed so I could take a break.
A couple of years ago I went to UAV expo in Las Vegas and even then it was clear that a lot of drone companies were technology looking for a use case. And there were demonstrations of drones that did things much better (like mapping a traffic accident scene) than existing technology that saved both time and got the highways re-opened faster.
Racing them with PoV cameras continues to be a lot of fun, it just isn't the multi-billion dollar sport yet, give it time.
Did someone say blockchain?
I wonder what percentage of those transactions are generated by people trading in cryptocurrencies vs them actually being used as a 'currency'.
The current number of transactions is not constantly rising. The current short term trend (https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.ht...) is downwards. It's now about the same or less than it was in peaks of 2017 and early 2018, and whatever the growth in 2018-early 2019 was made of, it doesn't seem to be in consumer purchases of goods and services (i.e. being used as a currency).
This actually is a currency use case. It's an illegal one, but it's a really useful one.
It's not clear to me that it's a use case that requires a blockchain, but i don't think there are currently any viable competitors.
You know what I have seen being used, that surprised the hell out of me at first? Venmo.
Turns out people buy their friends a lot of sushi.
Apparently nobody cares because only a small fraction of gold is used for that purpose. Most is used to sit on it.
Stable... hard to tell, let's see after a millenium or two. Gold had a pretty good run till now, but hauling one asteroid towards earth or figuring out how to cheaply filter it out of ocean water will drop its value to dirt cheap.
More liquid... probably. Market for gold is still larger for now. Let's check that after a decade or two. Trends don't look too optimistic for gold when compared to btc.
It's better for electronics than copper, so there's that.
> but hauling one asteroid towards earth
Seems impractical, expensive, and the yield isn't clear.
> or figuring out how to cheaply filter it out of ocean water will drop its value to dirt cheap.
You should check your math on this.
342,600,000 pounds of gold have been mined[1], but the oceans hold 20,000,000 pounds[2].
1: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21969100 2: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gold-ocean-sea-hoax-sc...
And quite a few tried pushing that a little too long an ended up with crashed drones. So my half cent is that batteries need to get better before people like me even consider them. Mentioned 0 times in that article.
Alternatively, drones need to get efficient enough to be solar powered, which is maybe the intent behind the acquisitions by PrecisionHawk Inc.
https://www.precisionhawk.com/blog/media/topic/precisionhawk...
More or less, they said they had given up on putting money into drone R&D until battery technology caught up, as they had plenty of ideas that they believed in but were unfeasible due to battery life.
Given the line of sight limitation for drones, gas power does not add much value. Batteries are usually sufficient to map/photograph the area within range of the operator. Given this legal limitation, it is often more economical to hire a small plane like a Cessna with an avionics package and a 400 mi range.
They exist, but they are expensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS0Hr2lw604
You're looking at a fixed wing aircraft though with one of those. What's made the quadcopter drone possible is the high torque and instantaneous throttle response of small electric motors, combined with fast control electronics. The conventional way to fly a small helicopter is just like a full sized helicopter, with a main rotor and a mechanical swash plate.
With the right control electronics, these can easily be made into drones, but people tend to not like them as much anymore because they're mechanically complex and finicky. The electric motors are simple, and when one goes bad you just drop in a new one.
I think that’s a more impossible goal than increasing power density in batteries is.
This guy tries to make gasoline powered generator for large drone.
This is hard to do with petrol engines, without costing a lot of extra weight or mechanical complexity, in a system where any single failure means a crash
There's differential based continous variable transmission that varies according to resistive torque on a control shaft: https://makezine.com/2012/08/10/lego-continuously-variable-t...
This might enable electronic control witout using any motors just one simple coil per propeller. Energy generated through this way of control could be stored to power onboard devices.
I don't really want to take it out into nature environments. That seems obnoxious where it's even allowed.
I suppose I could find clubs that fiddle with the things but I don't really have the interest.
So, basically, I have trouble imagining how I'd use them for more than a couple days.
If you're in an open area. And if there is only one drone.
A couple of years ago I was in a serene canyon in Utah enjoying the peace and watching nature when three drones decided to scare away the bighorn sheep.
People don't hate drones because they hate drones. That's why many seem to like the idea of Amazon/UPS drone deliveries. They hate drones because of what the drone pilots do with them.
I don't mean to be a dick; I've been flying R/C for ~25 years and I know how difficult it can be to find fun places to fly and how frustrating when other people get in the way of that. But I also really appreciate quietness and because I live in a city it's a rare gift for me when I do get out into nature. Please have some consideration for others and don't unilaterally decide what noise level is acceptable for them unless there are already significant sources of noise present or you're really sure nobody else is around.
Really very loud then for the people around you in a nature environment.
Last time I heard a drone fly overhead, I definitely felt anoyed. People tend to overlook the impact their toys have on other individuals
This just started in the last year or so, where virtually every time there's a drone off in the distance.
I don't have great hearing either (especially in one ear), after playing some musical instruments that you hold close to one ear to play. Those things are just loud and stand out when the other noises are the wind in the trees, birds, and the rustle of small animals in the underbrush.
If people can spend thousands of hours playing flight simulators on the computer, surely there's a lot of replay value of doing the same thing with an RC quadcopter through a forest or around your home/neighborhood w/FPV.
I havent bought one yet, but have flown a cool DJI/FPV setup around a local mountain. It was really fun
I bought a Taranis QX7 remote controller (~$100), which is amazing and I love it and you can use it with any other RC vehicle you want. I even hook up the receiver to my hardware projects so I can control them remotely.
You also need an FrSky XSR or R-XSR receiver (~$10), a Beitian BN-220 GPS (~$10), a motor and ESC (be careful, get a plane ESC, not a quad ESC, the plane one is larger and has better heat dissipation, ~$30). You need two small servos for the elevons, those cost about a dollar each. You also need a good soldering iron (the TS100 is $35 and is amazing.
For the controller, the Kakute F7 is fantastic and costs $45ish. It can fly in modes ranging from manual to completely autonomous (you get a Google Maps interface and mark where you want it to go and it just flies to those points). This may be a bit overkill, as it's the best board around, you can get a cheaper one (or maybe one that is made specifically for planes) no problem, but it's only $10 cheaper.
The FPV goggles can cost around $30 for some cheap ones, adjust those to taste.
I think that's it for components, although I should probably do a proper writeup if people are interested. There's much info out there already, but it might not be concentrated in one place. Let me know if you have any more questions!
Photography drone pilots will do all kinds of stupid shit that horrifies me, like fly near people, near obstacles, under trees, in crowded places, etc etc.
I blame it on the fact that a Mavic is super easy to get and requires no knowledge, whereas it took me two hours of reading just to figure out how to start my racing drone.
I’ll stick to writing code.
Fun enough for a few hours punctuated by recharging but not really something I see myself spending $500-$1000 on. I don't have kids. I can see them being fun toys. I spent many hours as a child playing with balsa wood gliders for example.
The main two types of flier before quadcopters were fixed-wing model airplanes, and helicopters. They are both riskier to use than quadcopters: fixed wings can't be stationary and need a large area to fly around, while helicopters have large dangerous blades. This is why either of these are less attractive to the mass market.
On the flip-side, I think converting a quadcopter to use an engine is expensive because controlling 4 blades at once is not as simple as with 4 electric motors. Either they need to have 4 gas engines (expensive, not as responsive as electrics) or they need to have a variable pitch mechanism (now you need an intricate/expensive mechanical system of levers and servos to transfer the control).
It's a scaled up version of his stingray.
The issue is that stability and control is easier to do with 4 blades rather than with one that has a swash plate.
The only cases where needing more time would be a big deal would be for filming something that lasts longer than the battery.
They are noisy, however. Drone buzz now is simply from spinning fans. Adding a reciprocating motor to the mix is all the louder.
The alternative is lighter airframes and solar power. For quads / octos, probably not viable, but for a prop-driven fixed-wing craft, a very small amount of thrust to counter gravity could be quite effective. Expanded polystyrene or similarly light body, solar cells over all horizontal surfaces, and an ultra-lightweighted controls and imaging payload. That would allow for long-duration flights at least in daylight.
The low-energy use would also make battery-powered night flights more viable, certainly beyond 15 minutes.
The principle cost is loss of hover capabilities.
also I believe if you want to be pedantic, if it runs on combustion it's a engine. if electric then a motor.
I think that might be less general than you think: General Motors hasn't exactly been known for their electric motors the last few decades.
Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_rocket_motor_classificat...
However "reciprocating engine" has a clear usage preponderance over "reciprocating motor":
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=reciprocating%...
They exist and are used for long distance drones.
Now, that's for small scale drones flying 15 minutes. For, say, commercial airplanes that can fly 18 hours, energy density becomes a major factor.
Build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yB49G756OI
Generator tests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zMPodObo-Y and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf78udpz3aI
Not sure how well it'll work in practice but fun build.
I’m sure I would love them if I tried them, but I don’t want to be seen as the type of guy who owns a drone (like how I don’t want to be known as the guy who uses Linux or the village Libertarian, even though those words might describe me reasonably well).
* Federal regulation of the aircraft has been slow to catch up, and is holding back many businesses from expanding.
* Non-drone companies across industry pull their unmanned aerial operations in-house
In short: there is no drone bubble. There is a short-term investment bubble.
So yeah that and the battery was never good enough. Now I look at drones and it seems like you have either really really cheap, subpar options or incredibly expensive DJI-quality drones. Something that costs around $300.00 AUD and that could fly for half an hour at a time would be a great toy, but I get that the tech isn't there. So I end up feeling like they're great tech that's ultimately killed by a thousand little tradeoffs. At least for me; if I was into video then one would be great for some things. That's a limited market in the end though, I think.
I always assumed it was just pilot error that the pilot blamed on the drone. Certainly saw enough of those situations that it's more believable than a phantom software issue.
Skydio - https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17195622/skydio-r1-review-...
Shield AI - https://www.shield.ai/nova
Battery life is certainly an issue but even before a major breakthrough happens 10-20 minutes is a long enough flight time for a lot of autonomous tasks. Plus what if they dock and charge themselves?
I think they're going to continue getting smaller, more power efficient, and cheaper and it will continue to open up possibilities.
They're releasing a new product soon and if it's better than what they had before DJI or anyone else won't be remotely close to having a similar product.
Maybe a lot of the weaker companies have folded, hardware is hard, but would be very sad to see the innovation happening there collapse at this point.
Just waiting for the same to happen with AI.
Previous times the hardware was not there, now it is.
They do B2B drones though, maybe this article was too focused on B2C companies.
What's the use case for this data?
Good news though, it's going incredibly strong overseas such as in Yemen where they've bought Chinese made drones and rapidly upgraded them into a domestic high tech military drone manufacturing capability... with 1000 mile ranges and bomb carrying capability.
So drone fans might not be able to do their thing in the US, and the US might thus not have anyone locally that has a passion for drones, or is able to advance US drone technology, but the tech advances ... elsewhere.