September 1-3, 2026 • Caesars Forum • Las Vegas
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September 1-3, 2026 • Caesars Forum • Las Vegas
Earlier this year, we asked the commercial drone community a direct question: What do you actually need from a conference? The feedback is shaping every decision we are making in building the 2026 program. No surface-level overviews, no filler, no fluff, just practitioners, operators, and decision-makers sharing what they’ve learned the hard way. From BVLOS and UTM integration to workforce development, legal compliance, and beyond, every session is built to deliver something you can put to work starting on day one. The full program is still being developed, but here’s a first look.
State Departments of Transportation have moved well past the question of whether drones deliver value. The real challenge now is building programs that scale across divisions, districts, and mission types, all without sacrificing safety culture, regulatory discipline, or data quality. This session brings together practitioners who work for or with DOTs to examine what sustainable UAS program growth actually looks like in practice. Topics include embedding drone operations into existing professional roles, building governance frameworks that support distributed execution, and treating UAS outputs as enterprise data assets rather than isolated deliverables.
Attendees will also hear how agencies are integrating drones into live incident response scenarios, moving from ad-hoc deployments to standardized, defensible workflows that reduce clearance times and improve responder safety. Whether you’re launching a new program or trying to expand an existing one, this session delivers field-tested lessons you can apply immediately.
UAS Distributed Program Manager
MassDOT Aeronautics Division
Chief of UAS Operations
MassDOT Aeronautics Division
Principal UAS Consultant and Program Advisor
Altitude Integrity Group
Sr. Survey Project Manager
Langan Engineering & Environmental Services
For operators, BVLOS has long existed as a regulatory question. That’s changing. As waivers give way to standardized operations, the conversation shifts to something more practical: what does your organization actually need to look like to compete in a BVLOS-enabled industry? This panel brings together industry veterans from regulatory affairs, operational, software, and international backgrounds to examine how widespread BVLOS adoption will reshape operational realities on the ground. What new mission types become viable? How do staffing, equipment, and data infrastructure need to evolve? And what can operators learn from markets where this transition is already underway? Whether you’re actively pursuing BVLOS operations or planning for a future where they’re the norm, this session focuses on the decisions and investments that will separate prepared operators from those playing catch-up.
CEO
Plaza Aerospace Corp.
Senior Regulatory Affairs Specialist
Censys Technologies Corporation
Founder & CEO
VOTIX
Panelists will discuss de-identified safety reports that drone pilots have submitted to NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). Pivotal points of actions and decision-making that occurred during missions will be explored, along with lessons learned and suggestions for best practices that UAS crews can integrate into their procedures.
NASA ASRS-RS Program Manager
Booz Allen Hamilton / NASA Ames Research Center
The commercial drone industry is advancing faster than its workforce pipeline. New regulations reshape certification requirements, technology demands new skill sets, and public perception still shapes who considers a career in the sector at all. This panel brings together veterans from the training and education side of the industry to take stock of where things stand today, and what needs to change. Panelists will examine how curricula and training programs keep pace with rapid technological and regulatory evolution, what it takes to build genuine public acceptance of the industry, and how to expand the pipeline to bring new talent in at the scale the sector requires. For educators, operators, and anyone invested in the long-term health of the industry, this session addresses the foundational question behind every other conversation at this conference: Who is going to do all of this work, and how will they be prepared to meet the challenge?
Founder / CEO
Boston Drone School
VP, Enterprise Partnerships
Unmanned Safety Institute (USI)
Founder & Executive Director / Chief sUAS Aviation Instructor
Handle It Helping Hands, Inc. / Quantum UAV Drone Academy
The regulatory landscape for beyond visual line of sight operations is shifting quickly. With Part 108 on the horizon and UTM infrastructure continuing to mature, operators who built their programs around waivers are facing new questions: What happens to my existing authorizations? How do I adapt my workflow? How do I actually start flying BVLOS under the new framework?
This panel will focus on practical implementation in this new operational world. Hear directly from operators who are putting UTM to work today across some of the industry’s most demanding applications alongside a regulatory perspective on where the regulatory framework is headed and what it means for your operations.
From coordinating shared airspace across a major metropolitan area to managing drone delivery corridors in an active urban environment, panelists will walk through what it takes to integrate with UTM systems, work with the right stakeholders, and build BVLOS programs that are ready for the regulatory environment ahead, not the one that existed even a year ago.
President
AirWise Solutions
Drone surveyors produce powerful datasets, but increasingly, those datasets don’t live in isolation. As workflows evolve, aerial data is being merged with terrestrial sources to produce richer, more complete deliverables and provide mission types that neither approach could handle alone. This session will feature presentations examining the practical realities of data integration across collection methods, with a focus on what drone surveyors specifically need to understand. Whether you’re actively combining data sources today or primarily working in aerial collection, understanding how this integration works — the tools, the workflows, the tradeoffs — makes you a more capable collaborator and a more versatile professional. Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of where survey workflows are heading and concrete knowledge they can apply on their next project.
Sr. Survey Project Manager
Langan Engineering & Environmental Services
This presentation will examine the future direction of the commercial drone market and the significant gaps innovators still need to fill. Drawing on insights from years of covering global UAV deployments and policy shifts, Miriam McNabb, Editor of DRONELIFE, will outline how evolving regulations are reshaping risk, operations, and investment priorities across sectors.
Some drone manufacturers are building a tightly controlled “all in one” stack, where their aircraft, payloads, flight software, and data tools only work together inside one branded ecosystem. Other players are taking a more modular approach, allowing third party software, analytics, and industry specific workflows on top of the same hardware. As AI and computer vision mature, a growing share of value is shifting to data processing: once you have the images and point clouds, the real question is what insights you can extract for energy, infrastructure, public safety, and more. That raises a strategic choice for the market: do we build highly specialized drones for tasks like tower inspection, or general purpose platforms paired with niche software tools that serve different verticals?
Attendees will gain a framework for understanding where currently available platforms, sensors, and software offerings leave “white space” in the stack: particularly for specialized applications, integrations, and services. Hardware manufacturers, software developers, and integrators will come away with concrete areas of opportunity to target in the next wave of commercial UAV growth.
Editor
DRONELIFE
Drone-based surveying is in the midst of a significant transition as new capabilities expand what’s possible, evolving standards re-shape how work gets done, and the operational realities on the ground fail to match the headlines. This session takes a broad look at where the industry stands today and where it’s heading. Presentations will examine how BVLOS will reshape survey operations, the expanding role of bathymetric data collection, and why standards matter more than ever as the profession matures. A field case study closes the session by putting those themes in context, showing what modern drone surveying actually looks like when capability, compliance, and operational discipline come together. For surveying professionals at any stage of drone adoption, this session offers both a forward-looking perspective and practical takeaways rooted in real project experience.
CEO
Plaza Aerospace Corp.
Director of Marketing & Innovation
Patriot Environmental
Geospatial Technology Director
Atwell
Regulatory decisions, NDAA compliance requirements, patent disputes, and evolving legal frameworks shape the commercial drone industry in ways that aren’t always easy to interpret, especially for operators whose expertise is in flying, not law. This panel brings together legal experts to translate the fine print into practical guidance. Panelists will break down what recent regulatory decisions actually mean for day-to-day operations, how operators can work within existing frameworks more efficiently, and what NDAA compliance really requires from operators and procurement teams navigating an increasingly complex vendor landscape. Manufacturers will also find value in a discussion of what the current patent environment means for product development and market positioning. The goal is to give operators and industry professionals the working knowledge they need to make smarter decisions and avoid costly missteps.
Counsel
Adams & Reese
Invasive species and pest populations represent growing ecological and economic threats, and traditional management approaches struggle to match the scale of the problem. UAVs are changing that equation. This session brings together practitioners from mosquito control operations, state parks, and agricultural settings to share how UAVs are being deployed for detection, monitoring, and treatment across dramatically different environments and mission profiles. Attendees will hear field-tested workflows for identifying invasive plant species using aerial imagery, how mosquito control districts are scaling drone operations to cover tens of thousands of acres with measurable results, and how the same core capabilities translate into plant health monitoring in agricultural contexts. Across all presentations, the emphasis is on operational reality: what’s working, what isn’t, and what other land managers, conservation professionals, and agricultural operators can take directly back to their own programs.
Lead UAS Pilot
Lee County Mosquito Control District
District Resource Specialist
Virginia State Parks
The architecture, engineering, and construction industries have moved well past proof-of-concept drone deployments. The question now is how to embed aerial data collection into core workflows in ways that drive real operational value: better planning, tighter quality control, faster decision-making, and measurable cost impact. This session brings together practitioners from general contractors, engineering firms, and technology providers to share how they’re doing exactly that. Presentations span a range of applications including lidar-driven crane planning and logistics simulation, AI-powered change detection on large construction sites, facade inspection and concrete deck documentation, and how a major engineering firm built an internal UAS program capable of delivering consistent, high-quality data at scale. Across all presentations, the emphasis is on actionable workflows and transferable lessons rather than technology showcases, giving AEC professionals a practical roadmap for expanding how drone data supports their own projects and organizations.
Co-Founder & CEO
FlyFreely
VP Geospatial Data
AECOM
VDC Engineer II
Findorff
VDC Engineer I
Findorff
Product Manager
Bentley Systems
The commercial drone industry is growing faster than its talent pipeline can keep up with. Companies are struggling to find candidates who combine technical flight proficiency with data skills, regulatory fluency, and the soft skills that make someone effective in complex operational environments, and higher education programs haven’t fully caught up to what the industry actually needs. This panel brings together hiring managers and industry leaders to have an honest conversation about the workforce gap: where it’s most acute, what companies are doing to address it internally, and what needs to change in how the industry develops new talent. Panelists will also look ahead, examining what skills in areas like data science, AI integration, and autonomous systems will define the next generation of drone professionals, and how organizations and educators can start building toward that future now rather than scrambling to catch up later.
