Over the years, the demand for unmanned aerial vehicles commonly referred to as drones has been on the rise. Drones were initially mainly used by the military, but with the current trend, drones are being used more for commercial purposes (Newcome, 2004). Statistics show that currently military drones are outnumbered by civilian drones. The estimated number of civilian drones sold by 2015 stand at over a million (Lozano, 2013). This paper will provide a discussion about Airware Company, a company that focuses on the production of drones’ products.
Jonathan Downey, a MIT electrical engineering graduate founded Airware Company in 2011. He was born on 8th November 1983, grew up in Texas and went to Kingwood high school. As he grew up, he had an interest in both engineering and aviation. Downey went ahead to pursue both these two passions. He obtained a multi-engine commercial aviation license. While at the University, Downey began working on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In 2011, Downey founded Airwave Company to fill the gap that existed between hobbyist projects and military-grade autopilots. To Downey, founding this company enabled him to combine his two passions that are aviation and engineering.
The company was founded in 2011 in Newport Beach but later relocated to San Francisco in 2014. Airware was founded to help solve the issue that existed with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) autopilots. The company aim was to solve this problem by developing better operating systems for commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Lozano, 2013). Since its establishment, the company focused on ensuring continuous improvement by ensuring they have highly skilled personnel in software development, robotics, hardware and geospatial. The continuous superior production by the company has made it capture the attention of major investors and companies who have been interested in venturing into the sector. Some of these include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Intel Capital, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, GE Ventures and First Round Capital. These ventures have helped the company raise $70 million and have played a great role in helping the company grow more rapidly.
Airware Company specializes in UAV systems production. The company is a product of the Y Combinator and the Lemnos Labs incubators. Airwave provides commercial drone solutions by combining on-craft, mobile software, hardware, and cloud services. Over the years, there has been growing demand for commercial drones. In addition, there have been developments on how drones can be used in many ways (Lozano, 2013). Some of these ways in which drones are used include anti-poaching tactics by keeping an eye on the wildlife, precision agriculture, infrastructure inspection among others (Valavanis, 2008). As the ways in which drones are used increase, drone companies rely on Airware Company to provide them with the operating systems that will enable the drones to serve the intended purpose. The company’s operations are based on the different functions of drones. In addition, it focuses on drones for insurance, drones for telecom, drones for waste management, drones for landfill, drones for oil and gas, drones for construction and mining, and for utilities.
- Lozano, R. (Ed.). (2013). Unmanned aerial vehicles: Embedded control. John Wiley & Sons.
- Newcome, L. R. (2004). Unmanned aviation: a brief history of unmanned aerial vehicles. Aiaa.
- Valavanis, K. P. (Ed.). (2008). Advances in unmanned aerial vehicles: state of the art and the road to autonomy (Vol. 33). Springer Science & Business Media.