IoT Meetup #44 - Taking drones beyond visual line of sight, why so challenging?

This February the IoT Liverpool meetup has the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Owen McAree to DoES Liverpool to talk to us about his extensive work both in Liverpool and globally with - wait for it - drones!

Dr McAree is a drone technology consultant specialising in safety assurance of autonomous and beyond visual line of sight operations. He completed his PhD in autonomous drone operation at Loughborough University in 2013 and has subsequently worked as a senior researcher at the University of Sheffield and Liverpool John Moores University. In recent years he has developed drones which have been deployed across the world in support of wildlife conservation, medical delivery and search & rescue operations. He is a member of the UK Government Drone Industry Action Group, a number of national and international drone standards committees and is often interviewed by the media on drone related matters.

The theme of the talk will be:

"Taking drones beyond visual line of sight, why so challenging?"

We'll start with a brief overview of drone technology, with a bit of history on how we got to the current state of the art. This review will highlight a number of technology areas which currently limit the vast majority of drone operations to what is known as Visual Line of Sight (VLOS). To really reach the potential of drones we need to get them routinely operating Beyond VLOS (BVLOS), so we'll take a deep dive into a few of the challenges and discuss how we might tackle them, including

• How do drones know where they are?

GPS, right? But this might not be as reliable as you think.

• How do drones know where everything else is?

We've got maps for (most) things that don't move, but unfortunately there are plenty of moving things out there which we'd rather not have drones flying in to.

• How do we know where the drones are?

We need to make sure we can keep track of our drones, especially if things start to go wrong

• Just how safe are the drones?

What's the chance of one falling on your head? And just how many drones-on-heads is acceptable?

Beer 'n' Pizza -

If THAT isn’t enough to entice you, there will even be time for some FREE beers, pizza and networking! We look forward to seeing you there!

(We do pay for the beer and pizza out of our own pockets so there will be a "pay as you feel" box which you are welcome to contribute to should you wish to help us cover costs!)

MCQN Ltd (http://mcqn.com) and Dynamic Devices Ltd (http://www.dynamicdevices.co.uk) are sponsoring the pizza and refreshments from 6:30pm, with the event starting at 7(ish)

*** Spaces are limited so please RSVP quickly to ensure attendance! ***

Schedule -

6:30 - 7:00: Networking & Nibbles

7:00 - 9:00: Dr. Owen McAree talks drones

9:00 - 9:30: Mingling until the beer runs out!