If there is a keystone species in the push to open up national airspace for small unmanned aircraft, it has to be the DJI quadcopter, beginning with the Phantom series. DJI (Dà-Jiāng Innovations, based in Shenzhen, China (www.dji.com)) recognized the market for easy-to-fly multirotors when founded in 2006. DJI sold about one million of their products during the 2015-2016 holiday season and sales continue to be hot.
Bringing the technology to the user:
As with many amazingly sophisticated technologies (your car, your cell phone, your computer) smart companies take the technology to the user rather than expecting the user to come to, and completely understand, the technology. The DJI multi-rotors are not simply plug and play (I have seen many crashes, even with by very experienced operators), but they are simple enough to make flying accessible to inexperienced operators. And, DJI has equipped their multi-rotors with video cameras for the better part of their production history, with first person view options.
The Big Picture:
A few years ago I visited Utah State University's drone programs, managed in part by the Utah Water Research Laboratory, with a separate exploratory effort managed by Cooperative Extension. Extension's efforts showed the value of the big picture view, based on a short survey flight to examine turf health and water distribution on the agricultural college quad. Even a short flight with a DJI Phantom 2 at about 30 feet above ground level showed the value of the quadcopter as a qualitative survey instrument. This image from October, 2014 (courtesy of Google Earth) shows some of the watering patterns that we saw when we conducted a 10 minute flight. While observers can see dry spots and patterns in turf by inspection on the ground, short periodic flights can provide physical plant managers with quick, accurate and complete assessments of what happens on the ground. The key? Bringing the technology to the user and making sure that the product meets the users needs.
Utah Water Research Laboratory's effort has become AggieAir (http://aggieair.usu.edu/) and their design and construction philosophy focused first on the payload (cameras and sensors) and next on the airframe and powerplant. This differs immensely from some companies that focus on airframe and powerplant first and work on function, including payload, later. Successful applications of sUAS technology start from the perspective of solving a problem rather than looking for an application once the airframe and powerplant are perfected.
Back to DJI:
To me, DJI's approach has been very similar to that taken by AggieAir, albeit for a much broader purpose. The difference lies in DJI's perfect read of the consumer market. Although the market was initially depressed by a strict regulatory environment, the recent part 107 rules will boost their sales and make these machines a common sight in our airspace.
In fact, I have seen Phantoms in three places lately that really surprised me--more on that later.
