1. From flying toys to flying taxis
Dr. Steve Wright
Senior Lecturer, Avionics and Aircraft Systems
Department of Engineering, Design and Mathematics

2. Steve Wright Rolls-Royce 1989-97 STMicroelectronics 1997-2000
Airbus
University of Bristol
University of West of England 2014-

3. Expensive Drones Bae Systems Taranis General Atomics Predator
AeroVironment
Puma

4. Cheap Drones
DJI Inspire
Parrot AR.Drone
JRCC H2O

5. Drones in the media

6. Revolution by Evolution
No fundamental breakthroughs
Multiple technologies have evolved along their performance/cost curves
Converged to enable system-level breakthrough

7. Enabling Technologies
32-bit microprocessors
6-axis accelerometers
Barometers
GPS
Open-source software
Digital telemetry links
Cameras
Displays
Batteries

8. A new industry
Un-organised standards are leading to system interoperability
Control protocols
Ground software
Airborne software
Organizations

9. It is 1917

10. Weaknesses: Reliability
Inexperienced/reckless operators (this is a systems issue)
Fundamental lack of resilience in airframes
Flaky code
Consumer electronics (e.g. EM Susceptibility)
Simplex architectures

11. Reliability Availability (does what we want)
Integrity (doesn’t do what we don’t want)

12. Simplex
Command
BITE
Sensors
Actuators
Low Availability
Low Integrity

13. Improved Availability
Duplex
COM 1
BITE
Sensors
Channel select
Actuators
COM 2
BITE
Improved Availability

14. Triplex & COM/MON
High Availability
High Integrity

15. Reliability/Cost

16. Old drones, new drones A de-costed Eurofighter
A de-costed iPhone, or an enhanced Raspberry Pi

17. How to get from here….

18. …to here?

19. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift

20. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift
Energy storage and transfer

21. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift
Energy storage and transfer
Rotor containment

22. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift
Energy storage and transfer
Rotor containment
Communications

23. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift
Energy storage and transfer
Rotor containment
Communications
Systems/software reliability

24. Things we need to think about…
Propulsive lift
Energy storage and transfer
Rotor containment
Communications
Systems/software reliability
Certification

25. Reflections The drones we know come from a very different technical
heritage than conventional aircraft
It is easy to make drones fly, not so
easy to make them
reliable

26. Where we are The genie is out of the bottle
Choose your wishes carefully!

27. Why build stuff?

28. Steve Wright
1967-?

29. Steve Wright

30. Why build stuff?

31. Questions?