Flock: the world's first Big-Data driven risk analysis tool for drone flights

The drone industry is growing rapidly; there are an increasing number of use cases for drones, from hobbyists flying in the park, to commercial operations such surveillance, data gathering and parcel delivery. Drones will be a $127 billion industry by 2020. However, drones bring with them a degree of risk; falling out of the sky into congested areas, environmental disturbance and privacy concerns in public spaces, to name a few. There is a growing need for technologies that can identify, quantify and minimise the risk of drone flights. That's exactly what we're building at Flock, and it is the project that this Innovate UK grant will support. Flock is the first software of its kind anywhere in the world: our Artificial Intelligence platform tracks in real time the position of people, vehicles, structures, weather systems and more, calculating the safest possible flight-paths for drones to fly through congested urban environments. Our software is essential for insurers, operators, policy-makers, and UTMs, as it helps to keep the public safe from overhead drones, whilst allowing operators to intelligently schedule and route their flights to minimise risk. Our unique approach is to aggregate multiple data sources and use machine learning and path optimisation algorithms to generate optimal flight paths in real time, allowing operators to quantify and minimise flight risks on the spot. This project brings together world-leading experts to design and build a technology that will become the de-facto standard of drone safety globally, and make the UK a pioneer in drone safety standards.