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Synapse expansion

Discussion in 'ALTA' started by Chris Jackson, Jun 21, 2016.

  1. Chris Jackson

    Chris Jackson New Member

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    Are there any plans to increase the range of capabilities for the synapse?

    I see a mention of waypoints in the boot up CLI ;)

    The ability to fly waypoints with the Alta, as well as trigger a camera a GPS postions would be very interesting. Its a beautiful reliable airframe that packs up small, which would make it useful for a lot of roles, like mapping or inspection work (among a swag of other things)

    Mavlink 2 is set to become the new standard protocol, slapping a 915 radio onto a serial port (if one is available) and getting it talking to uGCS or even mission planner, and the Alta would be a really useful tool (and open it up to a whole new market)

    Are freefly working on this or anything similar?
     
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  2. Josh Lambeth

    Josh Lambeth Well-Known Member

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    Last I heard FF wasn't planning waypoints at all.

    Josh
     
  3. Cody Lewis

    Cody Lewis Member

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    I know of a few companies that got in touch directly with freefly about working together to use the Alta for industrial applications and it seems like freefly has no interest at all going in that direction, which is disappointing.
     
  4. Chris Jackson

    Chris Jackson New Member

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    That is disappointing, the market for uses beyond filming is growing fast!
     
  5. Cody Lewis

    Cody Lewis Member

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    The industrial UAV market will (is?) no doubt be much larger than the professional film making market. Plenty of companies receiving huge amounts of investment.
     
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  6. Chris Jackson

    Chris Jackson New Member

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    Last I saw the photography/filming was around 80% of the marketshare, but you can guarantee a big chunk of that is the real estate agents with phantoms and not more serious toys like the Alta.

    Personally Ive built 6 machines in the last 6 months for various customers here in NZ, using various frames (none as nice as an Alta) and none of them were built for filming, all industrial and scientific uses, all of them were Alta sized budgets too.

    Im sure freefly have a good idea of who their market is, but it seems mad to not take on more customers for the cost of what appears to just be firmware/software development?
     
  7. Cody Lewis

    Cody Lewis Member

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    Is that 80% based on revenue? I think one of larger hurdles has been regulatory which is now changing, and the fact that larger corporations and industries are slow to move. Almost every drone startup that has raised significant funding is for a variety of industrial applications.

    Most aerial cinematographers are freelancers or pretty small companies that don't operate at the same scale say a company specializing in vertical structure inspection would.
     
  8. Chris Jackson

    Chris Jackson New Member

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    Sales of new UAVs, trying to find the document now, it may have been from droneanalyst.com. Its was based on a survey carried out a few months ago.

    Regulations were definitely hurdle in the US, the majority of the rest of the world has had commercial use sorted for a few years though.
     
  9. Cody Lewis

    Cody Lewis Member

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    Ah, yes. With so many phantoms and consumer AP drones sold its no surprise that is the market leader. I think as a service though industry will very quickly outpace photo and video work, especially as autonomy takes over. Hard for a company to say no to a faster, safer, cheaper way to get a job done.
     

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