Drones and unmanned vehicles draw interest from people in all sorts of fields. That much was clear at the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant Monday evening.
SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ä± 65 people, including police and fire officials, hobbyists, entrepreneurs and educators were present for the launch of The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Miami satellite chapter.
Prav Yalamanchi, a filmmaker who used a drone to film parts of a virtual reality zombie movie called Zombie Beach in Lake Worth, was one of the enthusiasts who showed up for the meeting.
"I hung a camera upside down on the bottom of a drone and I used it as a virtual crane, so I basically flew the drone through the zombie hoards," he said.
Yalamanchi said he plans to join the group for networking opportunities.
"The people who are here are a self-selecting group. They really want to innovate," he said.
In addition to filmmaking, unmanned vehicle technology can be used for hurricane tracking, power line repair, self-driving cars, search and rescue and agriculture. The club aims to give a forum to South Floridians involved with those fields and others.
"Miami is one of the up-and-coming tech centers in the United States," said chapter director Christopher Todd. "This is just the beginning."