Drone racing, around for years, has grown into a professional sport. Elite pilots wearing goggles get an FPV (First Person View) of their drones zipping at 90 mph around obstacle courses, either virtual or physical ones.
Spectacular crashes are inevitable, a proven crowd pleaser. It’s simple: the fastest racer to survive is declared the winner.
Drone Racing League, started in 2016, promotes a slate of a dozen proven racers with names like Phluxy, Mewo and Headsup. Fourteen races in recent months saw regular media coverage and big crowds with a championship finale Feb. 20 on NBC and Twitter. (The winner for a second year in a row was Headsup, aka Evan Turner, 18, of Maryville, Tennessee.)
In an era when mass audiences will watch other people compete in games (think Twitch livestreaming), it’s no wonder big media wants in, all to the betterment of drone fandom, technology and field research.
That’s why this racing season, Draganfly became a sponsor, which seems ironic given the company has built its 20-year reputation by not crashing its sophisticated drones like those being used for rescue attempts and carrying packages into remote areas.
Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell sees the bigger picture with the sponsorship. It’s not only about popularizing drone racing but using DRL Labs to develop next-generation drone technology to advance the sport--as well as industrial drone use.
In one example, Draganfly’s advanced Vital Intelligence AI with cameras monitors pilot endurance with their vital signs such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, a testbed for wider real-world applications.
DRL racing offers Draganfly field testing in “the extreme racing environment” which is difficult to simulate in a lab, Chell told Fierce Electronics.
“Working with DRL is proving to be a fruitful platform, providing DraganFly access to top talent like pilots and engineers,” he added.
The partnership is not much different from how major auto brands have relied on pro auto racing to improve engine and vehicle speed and efficiency, while buffing up their product marketing. Working with DRL has also helped build “overall brand awareness and credibility,” Chell said.
Drone package delivery
Draganfly’s partnership comes amid a strange time for the drone industry, particularly for drone package delivery, which some say has been strangled by a confusing net of regulations from governments around the world. “Regulation is now one of the biggest market challenges,” wrote analyst Zehao Li in a recent report from IDTechEx, a firm based in the UK.
In many countries and regions there is no regulation for autonomous delivery drones, while regulations generally do not allow drones to fly out of the visual line of sight of a pilot. As a result, someone must monitor the flight in the field “making it impossible to largely scale and commercialize the drone delivery business,” Li added.
Safety is the primary concern. “Any component failure, mid-air collision, battery disruption, or loss of communication could potentially lead to drones falling to the ground, causing serious damage to people or property,” Li said.
Another concern is privacy, amid worries that cameras and scanning sensors often used on autonomous drones will unavoidably collect unauthorized data. And, there are worries about aerial traffic, requiring more regulations.
Even against this backdrop, Li said the the future of drone delivery is “still very promising.” In the U.S. the Federal Aviation Administration has published criteria to certify 10 different unmanned aircraft, seven that are used for healthcare, retail, or food delivery, which allows them to be operated in restricted areas.
Drone delivery will see healthy growth in the short-term, “but actual market take-off may happen after this decade,” Li concluded.
In an email to Fierce Electronics, Li said it will be "very difficult to use drones at a scale in the future unless the current barriers solved." Among the barriers are technology concerns about operation time, flight range and capability in carrying equipment as well as regulatory concerns, he added. For package delivery, "drone manufacturers need to show high-performance and cost saving products."
Chell partly agreed. “As it relates to drone delivery, the overriding factor for timing and business economics is regulation. It is complex, as it involves considerations related to airspace, infrastructure, economics and sociological considerations.”
However, he added, “The regulators are moving as fast as I think is reasonable. The end result is inevitable as to the prolific use of drone delivery across commercial, retail and consumer, public safety and more.”
We should take a lesson from how commercial travel unfolded, he believes. “It took longer than hoped and expected but the net result is an industry that is ten times larger than anyone imagined,” he said.
Recent mid-air stalls in corporate drone delivery programs don’t deter him either. DHL announced last year it would not continue its parcelcopter delivery drone testing project and Amazon Prime still has not launched a drone delivery service after announcing in 2013 it would be ready in five years by 2018. (A soft launch is reportedly happening in third quarter 2022.)
“My view of anyone backing off implementation of drone delivery, such as DHL, is simply a matter of their internal resourcing plus timing and not a matter of doing it or not doing it,” Chell said.