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This could be really cool for drone/fpv application.

We already have helical antennas and most fpv is done at a high enough frequency that the antennas fit in your hand. Might be nice for 1.2ghz or lower but even there I can't see it folding down much lower than a VAS crosshair or pepperbox.

A long-range directional base station that automatically tracks the drone (and can switch to omni at short range) would be cool.

As I understand it this new antenna changes frequencies in the collapsed/omni states so you would then need multiple transmitters/antennas on the drone which would be weight prohibitive.

Antenna tracking ground stations and diversity receivers have been around since the early fpv days, although tracking isn't very mainstream because its challenging to set it all up. I'd still prefer my dual antenna / diversity RX setup since it provides some redundancy.

Ahh thanks, I hadn't seen that detail.

I thought the tracking could be mostly automated between GPS (outdoor) and direction finding + dBm (indoor/canyon), but I guess not.

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