Forbes has named Auterion as the company that could transform the U.S. Drone industry in a recent article by Aerospace & Defense columnist David Hambling.
The article comes on the back of the Department of Defense announcing it has cleared five new small unarmed drones for purchase by U.S. Military customers using the Blue sUAS standard, which standardizes on open-source software supplied by Auterion.
David suggests that the U.S. Government’s move to open-source could revitalize the U.S. drone industry creating new opportunities for small and medium companies in the space.
Auterion CEO, Lorenz Meier, say’s the move by the Government is not only a disruptor for the industry but also a decision of geostrategic importance.
Small, unarmed, low-cost drones are a crucial part of any military capability. With the U.S. Government banning the use of Chinese made drones, like DJI, due to security concerns around their link to the Chinese Government, there is no choice but to accelerate the American drone industry and provide a viable alternative to the low-cost drones currently manufactured in China.
Blue sUAS is the first step toward this. The program is set to bring down costs and open up the market to new suppliers while allowing the systems to work together.
Open-source allows the military to bring all their data feeds together through easier integration and breaks the reliance on specific suppliers. Open-source also means that developments are carried out by a whole software development community rather than in isolation. With over ten thousand PX4 developers, any new development can easily be ported across an entire drone fleet, which becomes increasingly important as autonomy and AI become the norm.
Read the full article at Forbes.com
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