Jean-Sébastien Landry, Director, Product Management, recently attended XPOTENTIAL 2022, where the world of drone and robotics technology took center stage.
The recent XPOTENTIAL was full of commercial drone manufacturers, component suppliers, potential partners and interesting conferences. It’s a place where professionals come together to make business connections and share the latest advancements. XPOTENTIAL is hosted every year in Florida by AUVSI, the largest non-profit organization focused on unmanned aerial systems and robotics.
Here was our take on the latest drone trends at the show.
Drones need to avoid obstacles
One thing that became evident as we visited booths on the large show floor, is the need for ultra wide-angle lenses. Few companies have navigation cameras for object avoidance and are hoping to integrate them in the near future through partnerships with component suppliers.
Drone cameras need human-like vision
While speaking to customers, partners and suppliers, one theme kept creeping up: Drones are being used in a wide variety of situations and they need to be able to handle all types of lighting demands. From flares caused by the sun affecting navigation, to misdetection of objects and distances caused by changes in lighting, drones manufacturers need components with the technical sophistication to handle the challenges they are facing.
Size matters
All drones, whether big or small, are faced with the same problem – they need to fit as much technology possible in the smallest space, with the least amount of energy demands. As Moore’s law states, we can expect the speed and capability of our devices to increase every few years, so too the battle over technology advancements and energy consumption will continue.
Software Advances are key
One last drone trend coming from the AUVSI show is that software suppliers are offering advanced capabilities. Vision-based navigation is a key element in the software development, and the quality of the optics and camera modules can greatly improve the solution for autonomous navigation.
Learn more about Immervision’s latest navigation camera module for drones, including computer vision wide-angle camera and image processing technology being developed under the initiative of the USA Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) for its Blue UAS Architecture: https://www.immervision.com/drone-uas-uav/solutions/
