Growth Opportunities for Computer Vision in …...Current Opportunities for Imaging and Vision Industry • Roughly 1/5th of the merchant value of a sUAS is its imaging subsystem (visible,

Growth Opportunities for Computer Vision in Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

Dave Litwiller Aeryon 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 sUAS depends 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 X322 Email: [email protected]