the time. For me, drones are still
at an early stage of development
– much like the early days of the
microcomputer. Having worked
as a software engineer for more
than 35 years, I feel there is
a tremendous potential for
drones to move forward in
software, eletronics and all
other areas.
ED: Have you reached
the point where the design has become
as good as it gets – or are there other
advances still to be made?
PO: For me, a design is never complete
or perfect – there is simply no such thing,
as a design can always be improved,
however minute that improvement is.
I do the best I can with the resources
available to me and, when the product
is ‘ nished’, I always look to see if I
can make further improvements in the
future. Where other people may look at
a new Dark Matter product and state it’s
perfect, I only see the things I would like
to improve. This always makes me very
excited as this drives me....constantly!
ED: Describe the novel ways in
which drones are now used?
PO: Drones are already being used for
lots of different applications across the
world, with new applications appearing
almost daily. The obvious ones are
perhaps photo, video or lms, but there
are many others uses today: inspection
work, emergency services, surveillance,
security, mapping, agriculture, geography,
farming and logistics, to name but a
few. In many cases, drones are already
used widely to replace dull, dirty and
dangerous tasks.
ED: How do you see the future – in
what ways might drones be used that
no one has really thought of?
PO: Drones are an amazing tool and
we are just at the tip of a giant iceberg.
They will appear everywhere across
many different industries, as they realise
more of their true potential. With new
high-quality sensors, powerful onboard
computers running smart and
complex software solutions,
drones will become widely
used everywhere; they
will become an integral
part of our future. I
believe the number of
usable applications
is almost endless –
let’s do something
good with this exciting technology!
ED: Not everyone loves drones and
sometimes they attract negative
coverage in the media.
PO: I would like to stress that most
of this bad press involves consumer
drones operated by non-quali ed
pilots, who are usually oblivious to the
current rules and regulations. For the
enterprise drones, pilots must have
completed various tests to become
a quali ed and licensed operator for
commercial operation, and are well
aware of those rules and regulations.
In time, the rules and regulations will
tighten and hopefully make some of
the negative drone reports a thing of
the past.
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
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