Growth Opportunities for Computer Vision in Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Systems - Dave Litwiller - Jan 16 2015

Growth Opportunities

for Computer Vision in Commercial

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

Dave LitwillerAeryon Labs Inc.

Overview

• The rise of the sUAS industry

• Market size, growth, and main applications

• Picking partners

• Vision technology drivers

• Immediate opportunities for imaging and vision

• Even larger mid-term growth for imaging and vision in sUAS

About Aeryon Labs

• Founded 2007 in Waterloo, Canada

• First shipments in 2009

• 2010 breakthrough, used by BP to combat the Deepwater Horizon gulf oil spill

• Global market share and performance leader in professional VTOL sUAS

— Flight time, flight dynamics, gimbal-camera

• 100% y-o-y growth

Recent UAV History

Year 2005 Year 2015

Time• Runway scale• Fixed wing

• Remotely piloted• Large team operation

• $$$$

• Backpack scale• VTOL

• Robotic flight control• Single person operation

• $$

Enabling sUAS Technologies

Longer Term

• Moore’s Law

• Small image sensors and optics

• Wireless communications

Most Recently

• Monolithic GPS receivers

• Inertial MEMS sensors

• LiPo batteries

Commercial Business Catalysts

• sUAS vs. Manned Helicopter

— Five times cheaper per hour, fully loaded cost

• Safer and faster than ladders and ropes

• Greater ubiquity, speed, accuracy, repeatability, quality and flexibility in inspection and surveying

• Ability to put airborne imaging tools safely and widely in the hands of experts from outside of aviation

Applications

• Oil and gas – refinery, flare stack, pipeline

• Power generation (solar, wind turbine), power distribution

• Transportation infrastructure – airports, rail lines, roadways

• Building inspection, industrial facilities

• Photography and cinematography

• Agriculture

Global sUAS Market

US$ million

Sources: Teal Group, Frost & Sullivan, Dow Jones, and manufacturers’ securities filings

Selecting sUAS Partners

• Integrated R&D players

• Early leader path dependency

• VTOL opportunity >> fixed wing

• Business opportunity in small systems >> large UAVs

Selecting sUAS Partners

• Media footprint ≠ sustainable business model

• Precision agriculture caution, hardware pricing pressure

• More favorable regulatory environment outside of the US for now in commercial uses

— Dramatic industry expansion when US and Europe re-regulate commercial uses of sUAS

Current Opportunities

for Imaging and Vision Industry

• Roughly 1/5th of the merchant value of a sUAS is its imaging subsystem (visible, single sensor)

• Automation of imaging and computer vision in sUASdepends on capability in

— Natural and varying lighting

— Object occlusion and perspective changes

— Shadows from objects and surroundings

— Twilight and night imaging

— Aggregating contiguous discrete images

— User designated object tracking

Future Opportunities for

Imaging and Vision Industry

• Integration of more sensory data than just visible and IR imaging, with corresponding expansion of pattern analysis and decision making— Depth sensing (near field)

— Visual odometry

— Digital image stabilization

— Hyperspectral

— UV

— LiDAR

— Chemical sensors and spectrometers

— Microphones

— RFID readers

Future Opportunities for

Imaging and Vision Industry

• Beyond Line of Sight operation (BLoS, a.k.a. BVLoS)

• Master work of sUAS: Far Field Sense & Avoid

Source: Military & Aerospace Electronics

How Big an Opportunity?

• Consider results to date in France

— Effective date of onset for legal commercial operation of sUAS in April 2012

— 2014 UAV sector revenue US$200M, 700 registered commercial operators at year end

— 2015 UAV sector revenue US$360M(F)*

• France is 1/5th the size of the US, and 1/8th of the EU

* Sources: Xerfi, DGAC

Summary

• sUAS industry is hot and getting hotter, built upon a foundation of sustainable and growing value in many large industries

• The role for computer vision and imaging is already significant, and about to get much larger

• Pick partners wisely. Thinly substantiated hype is rife among some sUAS vendors and ecosystem players

sUAS: This is just the beginning

Further Information

Dave Litwiller

Vice President

Aeryon Labs Inc.

Waterloo, Ontario Canada

Telephone: 519-489-6726

Email: [email protected]