 Drones have been a fixture at CES for about three or four years now and when they first arrived the impressive thing was technology that made it easy for anyone to fly. Being able to fly your own drone is cool but for them to really live up to their name, drones have to be able to do things on their own. We liked them a lot when they were flying cameras in the sky we could control but at CES this year most companies are convinced we'll like drones even more when they fly themselves. Here where you looked on the show floor this year there were drones advertising what's been dubbed the follow me feature. Right now the follow me is usually implemented with your phone which is to say the phone has a GPS, the drone has a GPS and they just talk to each other and it follows you based on the position of your phone. The follow me feature is great but it also has some serious technical hurdles that most companies have not even come close to overcoming. We see that the flight areas where you can actually use a follow me function are pretty limited so you're looking at a desert scenario maybe on the beach but if you're skiing down a hill you don't want to hit a chairlift or a tree or a power line. So we think that there's a lot more work that needs to be done into these systems before they're fully integrated. Taking things to the next level would mean giving drones the ability to see what's around them and respond safely to avoid accidents. Until this year that was something many drone companies talked about but none had really implemented. The most exciting news at CES this year in terms of drones is high functioning sense and avoid technology that is no longer a fantasy. It's here and it's getting better fast. What if I told you that we now have safe, smart, aware robots that can not only move in two dimensions but they can move in three dimensions. Sense and avoid is a hard problem and so a number of us are solving it in different ways. Some people use sonar, other people are starting to use lidar, laser range finding, that's the direction we're going. Some other people like Parrot and their high end drones are using a combination of sonar and cameras which they originally started with the Parrot AR drone to start to look around in all five directions actually and do sense and avoid that way. Sense and avoid is the brass ring for all drone companies at this point. Everybody's working towards it because there's so many applications that start opening up once the vehicles can intelligently and automatically maneuver through complex scenarios. Good news from CES 2015 is that the semiconductor giants are throwing billions of dollars of research and capacity at problems we the drone industry need solved. So between Qualcomm's work on real time vision built into the snap dragging program and Intel's work on real sense vision which is a standalone chip, those things are now going to be driving next year's drones and they're going to be available at a cost and a speed that we as a drone industry could never have done on our own. If you want to put enough sensors to be reliable enough, so far it was all very heavy and with real sense camera that's a quite reliable sensor, it combines a normal 3D camera and a structured light sensor so it's pretty reliable in a lot of situations. With this sensor weighing only eight grams and some very efficient algorithm on our side because still if you want to process the data from six cameras at a time, that's quite challenging. So we have reliable safe behavior. These things are going to be kept in relatively limited locations, beaches, maybe a big park. Once things become more mainstream, then new applications emerge. As someone who has fallen in love with drones, I feel simultaneously excited and terrified. The drone industry today, at least in the US, is balanced on a nice edge. Every year brings units that are cheaper, more powerful and more autonomous. It could be the next multi-billion dollar industry for the gadget world, a piece of our pop culture as common as smart phones and cars. But new FAA regulations mandated by Congress for 2015 could also derail the industry in a significant way. Reports on the agency's plans have signaled they may make it much tougher for civilians to own and fly drones and in the absence of federal rules, local governments are considering banning them entirely. That's another big reason that powerful sense and avoid technology, if it becomes a standards regulators rally behind, is crucial to the continued expansion of the drone industry. It's definitely technology necessary to do stuff like autonomous package delivery or flying emergency medication somewhere into the city, but there are still many more problems to be solved. What we're talking about here is in the recreational use category, so it's already in the relatively lightly regulated category, under 400 feet visual line of sight, all that stuff. Now, you're not allowed to fly over urban areas, you're not allowed to fly around people. If these things had sense and avoid, would the FAA be more inclined to let them fly? Probably, but I never promise timeframes or outcomes when it comes to the FAA. Let's just say it's a step in the right direction.
 Drones have been a fixture at CES for about three or four years now and when they first
 arrived the impressive thing was technology that made it easy for anyone to fly.
 Being able to fly your own drone is cool but for them to really live up to their name,
 drones have to be able to do things on their own.
 We liked them a lot when they were flying cameras in the sky we could control but at
 CES this year most companies are convinced we'll like drones even more when they fly
 themselves.
 Here where you looked on the show floor this year there were drones advertising what's
 been dubbed the follow me feature.
 Right now the follow me is usually implemented with your phone which is to say the phone
 has a GPS, the drone has a GPS and they just talk to each other and it follows you based
 on the position of your phone.
 The follow me feature is great but it also has some serious technical hurdles that most
 companies have not even come close to overcoming.
 We see that the flight areas where you can actually use a follow me function are pretty
 limited so you're looking at a desert scenario maybe on the beach but if you're skiing down
 a hill you don't want to hit a chairlift or a tree or a power line.
 So we think that there's a lot more work that needs to be done into these systems before
 they're fully integrated.
 Taking things to the next level would mean giving drones the ability to see what's around
 them and respond safely to avoid accidents.
 Until this year that was something many drone companies talked about but none had really
 implemented.
 The most exciting news at CES this year in terms of drones is high functioning sense
 and avoid technology that is no longer a fantasy.
 It's here and it's getting better fast.
 What if I told you that we now have safe, smart, aware robots that can not only move
 in two dimensions but they can move in three dimensions.
 Sense and avoid is a hard problem and so a number of us are solving it in different ways.
 Some people use sonar, other people are starting to use lidar, laser range finding, that's
 the direction we're going.
 Some other people like Parrot and their high end drones are using a combination of sonar
 and cameras which they originally started with the Parrot AR drone to start to look
 around in all five directions actually and do sense and avoid that way.
 Sense and avoid is the brass ring for all drone companies at this point.
 Everybody's working towards it because there's so many applications that start opening up
 once the vehicles can intelligently and automatically maneuver through complex scenarios.
 Good news from CES 2015 is that the semiconductor giants are throwing billions of dollars of
 research and capacity at problems we the drone industry need solved.
 So between Qualcomm's work on real time vision built into the snap dragging program and Intel's
 work on real sense vision which is a standalone chip, those things are now going to be driving
 next year's drones and they're going to be available at a cost and a speed that we as
 a drone industry could never have done on our own.
 If you want to put enough sensors to be reliable enough, so far it was all very heavy and with
 real sense camera that's a quite reliable sensor, it combines a normal 3D camera and
 a structured light sensor so it's pretty reliable in a lot of situations.
 With this sensor weighing only eight grams and some very efficient algorithm on our side
 because still if you want to process the data from six cameras at a time, that's quite challenging.
 So we have reliable safe behavior.
 These things are going to be kept in relatively limited locations, beaches, maybe a big park.
 Once things become more mainstream, then new applications emerge.
 As someone who has fallen in love with drones, I feel simultaneously excited and terrified.
 The drone industry today, at least in the US, is balanced on a nice edge.
 Every year brings units that are cheaper, more powerful and more autonomous.
 It could be the next multi-billion dollar industry for the gadget world, a piece of
 our pop culture as common as smart phones and cars.
 But new FAA regulations mandated by Congress for 2015 could also derail the industry in
 a significant way.
 Reports on the agency's plans have signaled they may make it much tougher for civilians
 to own and fly drones and in the absence of federal rules, local governments are considering
 banning them entirely.
 That's another big reason that powerful sense and avoid technology, if it becomes a standards
 regulators rally behind, is crucial to the continued expansion of the drone industry.
 It's definitely technology necessary to do stuff like autonomous package delivery or
 flying emergency medication somewhere into the city, but there are still many more problems
 to be solved.
 What we're talking about here is in the recreational use category, so it's already in the relatively
 lightly regulated category, under 400 feet visual line of sight, all that stuff.
 Now, you're not allowed to fly over urban areas, you're not allowed to fly around people.
 If these things had sense and avoid, would the FAA be more inclined to let them fly?
 Probably, but I never promise timeframes or outcomes when it comes to the FAA.
 Let's just say it's a step in the right direction.