Increase in the number of UK UAV Operators with CAA PFAW Certificates

Commercial operators of UAVs in the United Kingdom have to obtain what is referred to as a Permission for Aerial Work (PFAW) certificate from the Civil Aviation and they publish a list of Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) operators.

In The number has been increasing rapidly from just over 200 operators in May 2014 to 1702 operators as of 20-May-2016. I thought it would be interesting to plot the trend.

I'm no statistician but I thought a curved trend-line fitted better than a straight line as the rate of growth appears to be increasing. The average growth so far this year has been at a rate of around 80-per-month.

It is likely that there is a bit of a bubble effect reflected by the media attention given to UAVs / drones, but nevertheless it doesn't look like things are easing-off just yet.

Skytech 2016

Many thanks to everyone who came to see us Skytech 2016 at the end of January. I hope you enjoyed the exhibition and spotted some promising opportunities.

It was our second year at the event and it was particularly interesting to see how quickly the UAV industry is developing.

Our Wing GCS Ground Control Station has moved on quite a bit too since we launched the product last April. Here are some photographs of the latest build.

Wing GCS (before we've fitted the aerials)

Wing Control Device

Ground Control Station (GCS) Update

We've been getting a lot of interest in our Wing GCS, the Ground Control Station for Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or drones), so I thought it was time for an update.

The system was launched at Skytech back in April 2015 and and we're now getting ready for Skytech 2016 on 27th and 28th January at the Business Design Centre in London. 

The latest build, shown in the photograph below, was for a customer in Crete.

The Latest Wing GCS

Every Ground Control Station is custom built, and we develop and refine the design each time we build one. Most of the changes have been internal: improving the aluminium frame, strengthening the screen supports, and modifying the laptop mount. The more noticeable changes included a better keyboard, twin aerial mounts and a larger capacity battery. There were also some customer-specific requests such as fitting the Piksi Real Time Kinematics (RTK) device from  Swift Navigation for centimetre level accuracy.

If you can make to Skytech, please drop by. It would be great to meet new people at the event and to see some of the people who have helped us to get the Wing GCS to this point.

ROV Control

ROV control typically involves the manipulation of one or two joysticks and range of other input systems. The Wing's joystick functions naturally lend themselves to control of the thrusters in the same way as a standard joystick. 

Some people have concerns over the unfamiliar mouse-like form, but in practice it feels just as intuitive to use as a standard joystick.

Pitch Control

Roll Control

Yaw Control

The Z-height can be used as a rate adjustment to temporarily increase the sensitivity of the thruster speed for finer control.

Things get particularly interesting with the mouse movements. Controlling an ROV with a mouse is not something you see very often and the advantages might not be immediately apparent.

Human-machine input often works best when the type of input matches the type of response required: A foot pedal works well for controlling a car speed where the further you press the pedal, the faster the car goes. A joystick however is not very good for cursor control as you have to move the joystick to accelerate the cursor and then wait for it to get to you target.

The manipulator arm arguably is more similar to the second of these categories You want the arm to move to a point in space, the speed at which it get there is less of a concern.

There are some systems available that use what is essentially a miniature version of the manipulator arm and this directly translates to the arm position. It's just what is needed in a lot of situations but can be tiring to use for long periods and is expensive.

An alternative approach is to map the manipulator arm to track a target defined by the Wing's mouse cursor. All the operator needs to do is to move the cursor to the target location while the arm's control system adjusts the arm until there is a position match. This is just in two dimensions of course, but the scroll wheel provides control of the reach.

Wing cursor target control for ROV manipulator arm

Wing for Sale

We've now got the web shop live. They are built-to-order so delivery is quoted at 4-weeks but we can probably get one out to you faster if you need us to.

Tasty

Staff development

Attracting and retaining the best possible employees is critical to the success of any company and Worthington Sharpe is no different. Here are some photographs of our two newest recruits busy at work.

This is Fergus, listening carefully to instructions on his first
day at work.

Dougal, on the left is in charge of quality control. Anything
that does not meet the strict requirements is knocked to the floor.
Meanwhile Fergus is busy organising the tools and equipment in
a manner befitting an operating theatre. "Tidy desk, tidy mind"
as you'll often hear him muttering to himself.

We offer flexible working but do expect our staff to work

overtime if required. To make the long hours easier to endure

we provide comfortable (if somewhat cramped) sleeping quarters.

The slightly terrified expressions that you see here have nothing

at all to do with the working conditions at Worthington Sharpe.

Minimal Input for Maximum Output

Sometimes people are initially surprised that with today's touch screens, gesture recognition and virtual reality, we have developed something that is, well, a bit like a mouse. However, despite it's rather humble nature, the computer mouse is extremely well suited to fast, accurate input and all-day use.

It reminds me of an quote from the game developer John Romero that I read in a gamesindustry.biz article some time ago and that I think goes far beyond just gaming:

Really the best optimal design for games is minimal input for maximum output - that's the way that games work best. When you watch people playing with a mouse and keyboard, you see them barely moving their fingers and hands but on screen you see crazy movement and all kinds of stuff.

Perhaps his predictions about virtual reality might not turn out to be totally accurate, but I certainly follow his way of thinking with the "minimal input for maximum output".