Drones take flight into a world of possibilities
Like a well-trained dog, the HEXO+ follows you faithfully wherever you go. But it doesn’t walk beside you— it’s airborne.
Developed by a French start-up, Squadrone System, the six-rotor HEXO+ — which handily totes a GoPro video camera — is billed as the first autonomous small drone for the mass market.
It’s also a prime example of the many ways in which automation will take to the sky as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, become part of daily life in the not-too-distant future.
Due out in May 2015 with a planned retail price of $899, the HEXO+ is targeted at extreme sports enthusiasts looking for a way to immortalize their every move.
Users activate it with a smartphone app, then let it fly a few meters behind them, recording their every twist and turn, up to a top speed of 70 km an hour.
“Making snowboard films is my main activity, so essentially I started using drones a few years ago,” says Squadrone System’s co-founder Xavier Delerue, a former world snowboard champion.
“At the outset, it was great. It was easy. It was going to change everything— and then I quickly realized taking good images involved a lot of logistics when it came to using a drone,” he says.
Delerue, whose venture has attracted $1 million in Kickstarter funding, plays down concerns that small drones could have a more sinister use, like peering at small children at play in a park.
“Regulations are in place that guard against abusive use,” he says.
In North America and in Europe, advances in drone technology have caught lawmakers on the back foot. They are now scurrying to find ways to regulate the skies.
Unlike military drones, drones for civilian use can only operate for up to 20 minutes and usually cannot carry much more than a small camera. But big business is looking to boost that capacity.
In the runup to Christmas last year, Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, caused a stir with its proposal to use small drones to deliver packages.
Russian fast-food chain Ilya Farafonov isn’t waiting. In June it unveiled its first pizza-delivery drone, an idea it hopes to extend to the 18 cities in which it operates.
Raptopoulos envisions a network of drones that can ferry food and medical supplies into conflict zones or areas hit by natural disaster.
Matternet has already carried out trial flights in Haiti, and in September, it aims to shuttle blood samples in conjunction with international medical charity Doctors Without Borders.
Since December, the United Nations has used drones in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to monitor rebel activity along the borders with Uganda and Rwanda.
News media are meanwhile scoping out the possibilities of drone journalism, with Canadian journalism schools already offering specialized courses on UAV news gathering.
There’s a cultural side to the drone revolution as well.
A group of Australians recently launched the I-Drone, which with its powerful video projector has turned outdoor walls in Melbourne into movie screens after dark.