As the era of war winds down for America, Nelson Paez dreams of bringing home one of its biggest spoils: drones.

The same technology that has been used to send spy vehicles over enemy territory or direct a driverless Hummer in a convoy might one day have more prosaic uses, such as employing an unmanned plane to drop water on a wildfire or spray crops.

At the foundation of this Asimovian world is Ballista, a software platform developed by Paez’s Santa Monica company, DreamHammer Inc. It’s scheduled for commercial release later this summer, though beta versions have already been purchased by government agencies and defense contractors.

Ballista is intended to be an open, Android-style operating system that drives a drone economy. Although widespread clearance for unmanned aerial vehicles is still a few years away, Paez is releasing the platform early to encourage developers to start making applications for it. And when drones are given the all clear, the infrastructure will be set and the military technology ready for the home front.

“There’s so much that can be improved with remote vehicles – like in the world of logistics, why are ocean liners manned?” Paez said. “We make unmanned ships in the military, so why not do that with cargo?”

To boosters of this new technology, the economic projections are rosy; a trade group estimates the nascent industry will create an $82 billion economic impact in its first decade of use. In a report prepared by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, California was projected to be the largest benefactor of this expansion, with more than 18,000 new jobs and $14 billion projected to be added to the state’s economy.

But all of that is contingent on a loosening of restrictions by federal regulators, as well as a shift in sentiment among a public that is wary of a technology laden with privacy and safety concerns. The earliest possible across-the-board clearance of UAVs by the Federal Aviation Administration wouldn’t take place until 2015.

And even getting an FAA green light won’t mean the technology has public acceptance.

“I don’t think we’ll reach a point where people will have no concerns, but they’ll gain an appreciation which is currently lacking in the public dialogue,” said John Villasenor, a professor of electrical engineering and public policy at UCLA. “It’s like the Internet; we all appreciate the many benefits of access but it doesn’t mean there are not concerns about how it can be used.”

Government built

When Paez, 39, began DreamHammer in 2000, it was by no measure in the business of drones. Its initial clients were in the private sector, where the firm built internal technology systems. When that business slowed, it moved exclusively into government work.

DreamHammer has since grown to 70 employees in offices around the country, including Hawaii and Virginia, and pulls in $7 million annually from government contracts. Paez created a division to develop the Ballista software, financed by cash from the original IT business as well as angel investments. Since launching the project in 2009, the company has raised $6 million for its development and has plans to raise an additional $10 million in an upcoming series A round from some Silicon Valley venture firms.

In the time that DreamHammer’s core business was essentially being the federal government’s IT guy, things changed in the way agencies dealt it money. Specifically, there was less of it.

In 2009, facing cutbacks that could threaten his top line, Paez saw an opening for a new type of software system for government agencies. And one that was cheaper.

In the past, when the military needed a piece of software, it contracted a company to build it from the ground up. It’s an expensive way of doing business, Paez explained, that makes an otherwise reasonably priced commodity skyrocket in cost.

“By that logic, a single Toyota Prius would cost $2 million instead $25,000. It’s insane,” he said.

The winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with recent federal sequestration cuts, forced the government to rethink its spending practices. The idea of purchasing an off-the-shelf product for far less money suddenly became appealing.

The government’s new spendthrift approach also coincided with the military’s expanded use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

There are a variety of companies, including Monrovia’s AeroVironment Inc. and San Diego’s General Atomics, that build drones, and each have proprietary operating systems and requirements for their remote operators. An opportunity existed to build an off-the-shelf UAV software that could allow one person to control any number of drones regardless of the manufacturer, and all at once.

Executives of DreamHammer said government agencies have already paid $2.3 million in licensing for the beta version. But the real market might come with the commercial release.

“There’s been a prolific use of drones in the military but it’s been expensive to use,” Paez said. “We saw that the future potential market for drones and robots is in the commercial world.”

A few entities have been granted provisional licenses for domestic drone use by the FAA. Police departments have used it in limited cases, though not without attendant complaints from privacy advocates, such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

UCLA’s Villasenor said some of the privacy fears are well-founded.

“The most significant and obvious concern is that people will use them to get images into backyards and into windows that would otherwise be difficult to get,” Villasenor said.

Despite those worries, he doesn’t believe it will significantly hold up the FAA’s march toward lifting the restrictions on domestic drones.

Drone advocates also counter that the fact the technology was used on the battlefield has given it an unfair rap.

“Some critics don’t understand that they’re not going to be used as it’s used in theater,” said Melanie Hinton, a spokeswoman for drone advocacy group AVUSI. “It’s just another tool that can become part of everyday use.”

Even when the government begins to loosen up the airspace and perhaps even the roadways for unmanned vehicles, it will be some time before the larger machines will be able to take to the air. The first drone for a fire department is more likely to be one equipped with a heat-sensing camera rather than a large aircraft loaded with water.

Meantime, Paez wants DreamHammer to galvanize a new industry of software builders for the Ballista platform, ready to control our new mechanical workforce.

“I’d love to see an army of app makers, who have used platforms in the mobile technology world start to make apps for Ballista,” Paez said. “It’s a whole industry for developers that they didn’t ever have before.”