FPV Drone Racing League - forestrydrones.co.za

Ready, Set, Drone!
FPV Drone racing

August 20, 2021
9:40 am

Introduction

‘It’s the most recent tech/sport crossover, and it is fast gaining popularity. Here’s why the region should take notice of drone racing.’

Red Bull UAE

Racing sports like all sports builds a sense of unity and belonging within their group, as they know they are a part of something they all enjoy. For many fans it goes way beyond just a hobby. It becomes a passion and one of the most important things in their life. Finding a group of other people who feel the same way as you is really something special.

FPV drone racing is a sport type of drone operations where participants control “drones”, equipped with cameras while wearing head-mounted displays showing the live stream camera feed from the drones.

Similar to full size air racing, the goal is to complete a set course as quickly as possible.

Air Racing is a type of motor-sport that involves air-planes or an other type of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previously estimated time.

The fascination with racing in the air has followed humans since the beginning with the first ‘heavier-than-air’ air race being held on the 23^rd of May back in 1909! The Prix de Lagatinerie was held at the Port-Aviation airport south of Paris, France. In this race four pilots competed where only two planes started and no-one completed the full race distance. This was not unexpected and the rules were set up and specified that whoever travelled furthest would be the winner if no-one completed the race. Léon Delagrange, who covered slightly more than half of the ten 1.2-kilometre laps was declared the winner.

Sporting aviation has seen aviation pioneers use distance and speed contests as a means of developing and testing air-planes through out history.

Early manufacturers also encouraged these events as a forum to demonstrate their most advanced air-plane designs. Most of the early aviation meets were held in France and were attended by many famous aviators. The strong competitive rivalry between contestants proved very good for the advancement of flying.

Drone Racing and eSports

There has been an active increase demand for esports and as such so has the type of tournaments associated with it. And while video gaming has become big business around the world a new crossover is slowly but surely making its mark: drone racing.

Although growing in popularity, drone racing today still remains something of an underground phenomenon. In fact, there are very few pilots who are able to support themselves competing in the sport.

Drone racing as we know it has originated in Australia in 2013 where loosely organised, relatively underground events began taking place in Melbourne and Brisbane. The participants use radio-controlled drones equipped with cameras to complete a course as fast as possible.

As competitive video games continue to integrate into popular culture, global investors, brands, media outlets, and consumers are all paying attention to the rise in popularity of esports.

There will be 26.6 million monthly esports viewers in the US this year, per Insider Intelligence estimates.

Drone racing will grow if it follows in the footsteps of other esports and develop into having owners, franchises, endorsement deals, cash prizes from tournament winnings, and more—all contributing to the annual revenue and total valuation of the sport.

When the pandemic subsides esports leagues will likely resume their efforts to expand their audiences by hosting live gameplay with regional esports teams in a way that will more closely mimic traditional sports leagues. Despite its underground nature right now there is a lot of potential for growth in drone racing.

Insider Intelligence placed that most projections put the esports ecosystem on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue for the first time at the end of 2021. The revenue is expected to grow from here—Newzoo projects it to hit $1.8 billion by 2022. Money flows into esports through media rights, live event ticket sales, merchandise sales, and in-game purchases, but most of the revenue (69%) comes from sponsorships and advertising, per Newzoo figures cited by Statista.

There are already Star Wars-like obstacle courses and more science fiction like events that reflect the rapidly expanding ecosystem of drone sports, which looks set to follow the growth trajectory of the hugely popular world of live video gaming known as eSports.

The MutliGP

MultiGP is a global drone racing league that governs and manages a radio-controlled drone racing league. It has over 14,000 members and 544 chapters worldwide, and is the only drone racing league with clear and available methods for participation and advancement within the league.

MultiGP governs and sanctions drone racing events across the world, provides turn-key race production services, and works with groups to grow the sport of drone racing.

Founded by Chris Thomas in February 2015, the league has been involved in the organization and management of over 10,000 races worldwide and created the first United States of America national performance-based drone racing championship. This Championship held stringent qualification requirements for entry and not just a price of admission.

The offices are located in Palm Bay, Florida. MultiGP defines community produced specifications and allows participants to supply their own drones increasing competitiveness and innovation. While various drones can be used to race in competitive FPV racing leagues they do require drones to meet certain standards. For competition, aircraft are typically separated into classes, separating winged craft from rotorcraft; and also categorising by size and power.

In 2015 MultiGP introduced the first ever Universal Time Trial Track. Universal Time Trial Tracks allow FPV pilots to compete against each other across the world by providing standardized local courses partnered with a global leader board.

As of 2017 there are currently seven different Universal Time Trial Tracks.

‘We are a true large scale world wide competitive league which features the technological cutting edge element of drone racing. MultiGP rivals other competitive leagues in geographical expanse and participation. With more than 1,700 competitive drone racing chapters/clubs and over 30,000 registered competitive FPV drone racing pilots we continue to grow each month.’

The MultiGP official website

One of the cool features you find when you explore the MultiGP website is the sponsorship opportunities. They are open to partnerships to assist with select local and national events. They also have various partner packages letting you team up with offers you exposure and coverage of your brand, product or company across the globe.

The Drone Racing League

In early 2015 Nicholas Horbaczewski saw an amateur sports race at a Home Depot store in Long Island, United States of America.

“I just thought it was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen,” Horbaczewski said of drone racing. “I think the sport is amazing to watch, I’d love to watch more of it. My passion was the question of – how do we bring [drone racing] to a broader audience? How do we bring it to a mainstream audience around the globe?”

Horbaczewski is now the CEO and founder of the Drone Racing League. The Drone Racing League (DRL) is a global drone racing circuit where they combine futuristic video game inspiration to drone aviation to create sport races that blur the line between real and digital world.

Merging the digital with the real, DRL delivers innovative technology, immersive content, and visually thrilling races on the best sports networks around the world, including sports channels like NBC, NBC Sports, Twitter, Sky Sports, and Weibo.

By using custom drones that can reach speeds faster than 90 miles [144. 841 kms] per hour and First Person View (FPV), DRL’s professional pilots regularly race head-to-head on what the company calls “the most insane 3D courses ever created outside of a video game.”

As fantasy-filled as its mission may sound, DRL is about more than just sports entertainment—the company uses its game-focused technology as a platform to drive very real innovation in the unmanned aerial space forward.

One research element they are assisting in is the increase of the artificial intelligence (AI) and human performance through the company launching DRL RacerAI the league’s first-ever autonomous racing drone.

The company’s team of drone technicians design the drones with one ambitious goal: to be the first autonomous robot to physically compete humans and close the gap between artificial intelligence (AI) and human performance.

The Drone Racing League (DRL) makes all of the drones used in its events in house; pilots are supplied with drones, backup drones, and parts by the league itself, not independently.

DR1 Racing, utilizes an open spec class format that relies on each team in the series to supply their own drones, goggles and gear. Recently they added the Pro Class racing drone, which is currently the largest competitive drone racing format in the world.

Racing drones are designed for speed and agility, as opposed to a photography/video drone which is focused more on hovering.A photography quadcopter design will typically have four motors configured in an X-pattern, all equally spaced apart.

A racing model will typically have its four motors configured in an H-pattern configured to thrust the drone forward, not up. Another specific characteristic of drone racing is the number of propeller’s blades. 3-blade or 4-blade (instead of 2-blade) propellers have a shorter diameter allowing for a smaller frame with increased acceleration and maneuverability capabilities. Because of their light weight and electric motors with large amounts of torque, drones can accelerate and maneuver with great speed and agility. This makes for very sensitive controls and requires a pilot with quick reaction times and a steady hand.

In South Africa

Drone racing is already a local sport! In Durban there is the Durban FPV Quad Racing MultiGP racing chapter and another in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in Gqeberha called the FPV Fanatics Racing League. They are committed to promoting FPV racing, and improving the caliber of racing in Port Elizabeth. Allowing local pilots to compare themselves against international pilots on the UTT leaderboards They also assist newcomers to the hobby in getting started, and have it be a good experience.

If you are interested in learning more about FPV (first person view) there are live streaming of the races where the footage is gained from a camera mounted on the nose of the drone. The image is transmitted via radio to goggles or monitor worn by the pilot. In some races you can change transmissions to watch the different pilots views.

Conclusion

Sporting aviation has played a role of elevating the field with aviation pioneers spear heading technological development and innovation. Drone racing is still developing and with the growing interest that esports is placing into FPV drone racing and leagues like the MultiGP and the Drone Racing league the future of drone racing is bright.

FPV drones camera technology is already being utilized in film and advertising and although still an underground phenomenon the imagination seems to be the only limit with how high drone racing will soar.