Lessons from Building a Platform for Commercial Drones
summary
Airware builds a commercial drone product line: a modular hardware stack (flight core, GPS, airspeed, actuator boards, gumstick Linux companion), ROS‑like middleware for publish/subscribe, a six‑button ground station UI, and a cloud job/project workflow that ties missions to operators. The platform supports onboard apps and drivers (example: LiDAR + gimbal + camera app that generates photogrammetry 3D tower models), aims for persistent missions (research demo >24 hours), is venture‑backed with ~70 staff, first platform release ships four months ago.
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chapters (23)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:36About Era
- 0:52The Story
- 3:35The Problem
- 4:11Jonathan Downey
- 4:47Unmanned Innovation
- 5:04Three Components
- 6:02Demo
- 6:52Evolution of the Platform
- 7:19Different Types of Drones
- 7:47Modular Architecture
- 9:10Robot Operating System
- 11:41Multi Vehicle Architecture
- 12:03User Interfaces
- 12:39Streamlined User Interface
- 16:31User Interface
- 17:25Application Framework
- 20:39Vertical Inspection
- 26:24Workflow
- 27:14Cloud Platform
- 32:19Metadata
- 39:13Wildlife surveying
- 44:31Cost stability
