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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KTVU) -- The Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management Convention, a gathering for drone engineers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts opened at NASA Ames Moffett Field Tuesday morning.
"There's business opportunities as well as a lot of hobby activity going on," said Frank Ketcham of Senord Technology Inc.
His $8,000 drone with a 4K camera mounted on a gyroscope is for commercial use to map properties, and inspect infrastructure. He says the technology can save money.
"So instead of $2,000 an hour for a helicopter, we can come in at a much lower level," Ketcham explained. "A few hundred dollars an hour."
The convention has everything, from the backyard DIY drones made with wood and duct tape, to the NASA engineered drone called "Grease Lightning". It's a black, ten propeller drone with a ten foot wingspan that looks a bit like the Death Star.
"I'll take that as a compliment," NASA engineer Bill Fredericks laughed. The drone is a prototype, he says "to show that we can achieve vertical takeoff and landing at the same time as very efficient cruise flight. So it's really having your cake and eating it too."
But technology is moving at a faster rate than regulations. Earlier this month, firefighters had to delay air drops over a fire in Southern California because there were drones in the area.
"So there are a lot of things to work out right now," said Steve Justice, Director of Georgia's Innovation for Aerospace. He says more education is needed among the consumer drone users.
"They don't know the aviation community, they don't know the aviation rules of the road," said Justice. "They just put it up in the air and say 'Oh, how high can it go?' and that's where the problem is"
The convention includes an exhibit hall, seminars, and a flight demonstration area. That's where Panoptes showed off its new technology.
"So this is a drone and what we've put onto the drone is our e-bumper 4," Donnie Rogers of Panoptes explained. "Which is an optical avoidance retrofit system." It words like a backup camera, to help pilots avoid crashes.
"The average life span of a first flight is 30 seconds," Rogers said. "You take off, you don't know what you're doing, and you crash...so this is our first step at trying to prevent some of those crashes."