Uncrewed Views

Our free report, titled Transitioning Commercial Drone Applications into the Millitary Defense Market: What You Need to Know details what commercial drone solution providers need to know about how the defense market sector operates but also highlights what it can mean to enter a new market. What kind of a mindset is necessary for this sort of market transition? How should stakeholders look to rely on experts when doing so? We connected with Ed Hennessey, CEO of PMG-Results and the author of this report, to discuss these specifics, how connections between the commercial and defense sides of drone technology have evolved, and much more.

Pacific Triangle is a drone service provider in San Diego, California delivering integrated platforms and end-to-end solutions for commercial applications in geospatial, oil and gas, mining and electrical utility industries. We wanted to learn more about how they used drones for bridge inspections in Georgia, so we connected with Ian to explore the efficiencies they enabled for the project, how value was measured by stakeholders, what opportunities this application will open up for others and much more.

In a very special episode of the podcast, Danielle Gagne sits down with Carla Lauter, Conference Chair of Geo Week, to discuss the opportunities and possibilities that innovations like drones, lidar and more have opened up in various sectors. The two explore how they approach covering the value these tools create for both Commercial UAV News and Geo Week News, how their careers have been shaped by the conversations they've had with experts on every side of the technology, and an announcement about the future of the podcast.

An interview with Luke Fox, Founder of WhiteFox

When incidents with drones capture national, or even international, attention it can pull the entire drone industry back. These incidents impact public trust in the capabilities and value of drone technology. How can we flip the script and reframe this conversation to focus on the ways we can ensure airspace safety today? Commercial UAV News sat down with Luke Fox, Founder of WhiteFox, to discuss what we can and should be doing as an industry to increase security and trust, how we can build better airspace aware today, and why it is vital to the future of our industry.

Commercial UAV News has often talked about providing solutions for real-world problems, rather than having a solution in need of a problem. But how do companies put that solution first and what does that look like? We spoke with Naya Choi, Director of Product Marketing at Qii.AI, who specializes in end user experiences and end user interfaces, about why putting human-centric design at the center of product development is integral to avoiding the pitfalls that leads to creating a product nobody needs.

The relationship between technology and farming is complex. To really understand the challenges of bringing drone technology into the agriculture industry, it requires a deep look into the history, culture, and legacy of farming and farmers and their relationship with the government. As a heavily regulated industry with a lot of government oversight and dependencies on government funds, breaking into this industry can be a challenge. But as Robert Blair, Owner of Three Canyon Farms and Advisor at Aigen, talks about in this episode of Beyond Part 107, technologies like drones are becoming a game changer for those who are adopting them.

Interview with Arjun Garg, Former FAA Chief Counsel and Partner at Hogan Lovells

Regulation and type certification has always been recognized as a necessary element for commercial drone operations to provide meaningful return on investment for industries. Yet, the process in getting landmark regulations enacted has been historically slower than what the industry has wanted and needed, despite federal mandates to the contrary.

In an article written for Bloomberg Law, Arjun Garg, Former FAA Chief Counsel and Partner at Hogan Lovells, emphasized that regulators, like the FAA, need to establish regulatory frameworks to "Unleash the Commercial Potential of Drones." Commercial UAV News talked with Garg to discuss potential alternative regulatory frameworks for getting the commercial drone market to operate at scale faster, as well as what it means to appropriately assess risk, how industry and regulators can facilitate a smoother type-certification process, the current and historical challenges with regulators and the drone industry, the BVLOS ARC, and more.

What does it mean to define, build, and then scale a drone program in energy and utilities? Demonstrating value isn't always a clear one to one correlation—there are intangibles such as increases in safety, efficiency, and time. We reconnected with the speakers at this year's Industrial Facilities panel from Commercial UAV Expo Americas to talk about what a successful drone program looks like. Zacc Dukowitz from Flyability, John Delp from AECOM, and Larry Barnard from Chevron discuss how they presented the benefits of using drones from an end user and manufacturer's perspective to key stakeholders to initiate a drone program, how they measure and communicate the value of their drone program, and the use cases they see are the most valuable in the Energy and Utilities sector.

Diversity is vital for everyone in the drone industry on multiple levels—it is essential for growth and innovation, and it is good for business and public perception. Yet, this topic can get easily overlooked for various reasons. In this podcast, I have a candid and in-depth conversation with Jason San Souci—Chief Architect at Juniper Unmanned, Co-Founder of Neurodiversity Works, and host of the podcast, Do You Know Drones? (among many other things)—about what is at stake if we don't look to bring diverse minds and experiences into our industry and what we can do to attract diverse talent.

With Zipline celebrating 5 years of drone delivery in Africa, Commercial UAV News reached out to learn what that process has been like, what we can learn, and how having just-in-time medical supply delivery is impacting populations, supply chain stability, and the very structure of healthcare.