Intel partnered with Ascending Technologies , a German company that makes industrial and research grade drones. They took an AscTec Firefly and used lightweight carbon fiber mounts to attach six RealSense cameras on top for 360-degree coverage. Ascending built a custom PCI-express interface board and used a tiny, lightweight quad-core Intel Atom processor to crunch the data. It ran an algorithmic chain, processing depth information from six cameras, performing real-time sensor data fusion and state estimation, near-field obstacle avoidance, and path planning navigation. With RealSense talking to the AscTec Trinity autopilot system, something remarkable happened.

At its keynote this year, Intel showed off drones that could fly themselves through a forest, navigating around trees. Onstage, they reacted to people who moved towards them, dodging to avoid a collision. It was powerful sense-and-avoid technology, and it was powered by Intel’s RealSense , a system of camera hardware and software originally developed to allow people to control their computer without having to physically touch their mouse or keyboard. "This is a good example of technology being extended beyond its original intent," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "Once we had that developed, we learned we could push that into drones."

However, all of this "follow me" tech is pretty limited in where it can actually be used, because most drones still lack a critical feature needed for autonomous flight: reliable "sense and avoid" technology that can see what’s around and use that data to make smart decisions about how to avoid accidents in real time. Airdog and Zano claim to have that technology already working in the lab, if not out in the real world yet. But so far it’s just big claims and vaporware. Luckily, there was one amazing and tangible breakthrough this year, and it came from an unexpected source: Intel.

Intel's technology could transform the drone industry

Krzanich said Intel is making the RealSense SDK available to developers now, and expects to start selling the hardware sometime later this year. As this and competing technologies come to market, powerful sense and avoid will quickly proliferate across the industry. "The good news from CES 2015 is that the semiconductor giants are throwing billions of dollars of research and [production] capacity at problems we, the drone industry, need solved," said Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3D-Robotics . "So between Qualcomm’s work on real-time vision built into their Snapdragon program and Intel’s work on RealSense vision, which is a standalone chip, those things are now going to be driving next year’s drones, and they are going to be available at a cost and speed that we, the drone industry, could never have done on our own."

Rapid progress in sense and avoid isn’t just great news because it will open up many amazing new abilities for both commercial and consumer drones. It’s critical because the industry, at least in the US, is in danger of being regulated to death. As someone who has fallen in love with drones, CES made me feel both excited and terrified at the same time. The drone industry today, at least in the US, is balanced on a knife’s edge. Every year brings units that are cheaper, more powerful, and more autonomous. It has the potential to be the next multi-billion dollar tech industry, akin to PCs and smartphones: a ubiquitous gadget that becomes part of our daily life and pop culture.

The FAA could totally derail the drone industry's momentum

But new FAA regulations, mandated by Congress for 2015, could also derail the industry in a big way. Reports on the agency’s plans have signaled they may make it much tougher for civilians to own and fly drones. And in the absence of federal rules, local governments are considering basically banning them entirely. Reliable sense-and-avoid technology that regulators can rally behind as a safety standard is what the industry needs to ensure its continued expansion. Last year that seemed like a long shot. Now it seems like brilliant technology has put it well within our reach.