Folks asked me what I thought was the most exciting thing I saw at the show. I can say without hesitation that it was the HP MJF 1200 Printer offering. The fit and finish is usable right off the print. For under $60K, you get one hell of a capability set, including the material handler. As a bonus, you don't need to put your files in the no-fee Bambu cloud.
I was also on the Pitch the Depressed panel. With representatives from Drone XL and Drone Review. Some good offerings that stood out for me. Pitchers were Amazon, EagleNXT, EVbots, GeoCue, Harris Aerial, Infinite Electronics, Riegl, Skyline Nav AI, ThinkOrbital, UAS Sentry, Unmanned Safety Institute, UtopiCompression Corp, WEFLO, and FLyGuys. There were many innovative solutions and offerings, and it took a little deliberation among the judges to pick the top 3.
Harris Aerial has a compelling story and is developing a domestically produced drone. UtopiaCompression Corp has a promising software solution for DAA. I had several more questions, but we were time-limited, so maybe I can dig into this one in the future. Finally, Skyline Nav AI's Kanwar shows a passion for the technology, and his ethos for his company is refreshing to see.
Further elaboration on my renaming to Pitch the Depressed.
It is dark humor, tongue-in-cheek, but with some of the storm clouds forming over this industry, I put us at about 2 minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock. The puppies-and-rainbows style denial, aka kicking the can down the road for some quick profits, has again cost the industry time, money, and credibility.
Any drone "expert" who was buying DJI's political-numbers claim of only 60%-70% market share was either out of touch, spending too much time on Chat, in denial, or just flat-out disingenuous. Folks think going along with the BS gives the industry time to work itself out, but that is just not the case. If the government thinks there is 30%-40% domestic capability and capacity, that might lead someone to falsely assume that we can take up the industrial slack domestically. There is no denying that DJI's market share is in the 95%+ range, and any forecast or news outlet that didn't recognize that put their credibility and/or motives into question.
You can make all the comments you like during the public comment period. They make very little difference when the company you are advocating for repeatedly shoots itself in the feet.
Some Solutions -