Launch of Commercial UAV Expo Europe Planned for June 2017 in Europe

Diversified Communications, the event organizer behind Commercial UAV Expo, announced it will launch a commercial drone expo and conference in Brussels in June 2017 to be modelled on its successful North American event. Lisa Murray, Director of Commercial UAV Expo, made the announcement during her welcoming remarks at Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas.

The European event will focus exclusively on the highest precision tools for industrial use for:

• Process, Power & Utilities- including solar power and wind power
• Civil Infrastructure
• Construction
• Surveying & Mapping
• Mining & Aggregates
• Precision Agriculture
• Law Enforcement, Emergency Response and Search & Rescue (SAR)

Exhibitors will be UAV/UAS hardware and systems manufacturers, component manufacturers, software providers and service providers interested in non-military, commercial applications of UAVs. Attendees will be professionals who use, or plan to use, precision-grade drones to capture and process data. Additional attendee categories could include regulatory and privacy professionals, service providers, government policymakers and university researchers involved in this emerging market.

Roughly one-quarter of exhibitors at Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas come from outside the US and many are based in Europe. Several expressed enthusiasm for a European event produced by the same organizers. The event will mix conference programming with networking time on the exhibit floor.

The global drone market is now projected to top US$12 billion by 2020 (Business Insider Intelligence, 6 June 2016). Other predictions from this same report:

Growth in the enterprise sector will outpace the consumer sector in both shipments and revenues as regulations open up new use cases in the US and EU, the two biggest potential markets for enterprise drones.
Technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance will make flying drones safer and make regulators feel more comfortable with larger numbers of drones taking to the skies.

According to another report from Grand View Research, North America dominates the global industry owing to high production and increasing applications in the commercial sectors. However, the European commercial drone market is expected to grow considerably in the next seven years owing to the relaxations in regulations and increasing applications in law enforcement and agricultural applications.

According to a recent European Commission Report on Unmanned Aircraft, “Within 20 years, the European drone sector is expected to directly employ more than 100,000 people and have an economic impact exceeding €10 billion per year, mainly in services.”