The Eon of Drones: From the War Room to the Boardroom!
Author - Naveena Tirumala (LinkedIn)
Welcome to Tomorrow: Drones are everywhere these days. The sheer range of applications is mindboggling.
After binge-watching several sci-fi series and movies, it’s no wonder that there would be a day when something like a vision of thousands of drones flying around become a reality. With the recent regulation and policies on drones and the multi-billion investments pouring into commercial drone services, it will be sooner than later when we will have hundreds (if not thousands) of drones operating in our skies.
Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) originated as military devices used for surveillance and destructing enemy hubs as self-destruct missiles. While the military sector may still be the largest share of the market in the short term, recent advances in drone technology have opened the doors to a wide variety of consumer and commercial-grade applications.
Even though it seems like an exaggeration, it is hard to think of a business that could not benefit from drones. And the practical use of these small, remote-controlled aircraft is expanding rapidly. The possible applications range from agriculture where farmers use drones to monitor crop growth, insect infestations, and areas in need of watering at a fraction of the cost of manned aerial surveys to land-surveying and construction surveys where the drones of Flyability, a swiss company does the most intuitive, reliable, and precise indoor inspections. Drones have taken over film-making as well. Some of the spectacular footage in “The Wolf of Wall Street” was shot by Freefly using drones showing a raucous party scene from above, allowing audiences to peer voyeuristically into characters’ lives. Many companies have started experiments in their operations departments by delivering things using drone technologies too. Swiss Post has a trial drone-borne parcel service for packages weighing up to 1kg, and many others, including Amazon, UPS, and Google, are looking at similar ideas.
As exciting as these advances in drone applications are, they aren’t without challenges. Significant concerns about privacy, safety, and noise are making citizens wary of drones in their neighborhoods. Many rogue drones are flown by hobbyists or others, which can harm the public and their properties if not appropriately controlled. Criminal networks are using drones for everything from smuggling drugs and contraband to making assassination attempts.
As a part of regulating such activities and laying down some structure, many Government bodies like FAA in the USA, DGCA in India, etc., are giving their best efforts to draft the rules and policies that frame the drone or UAV ecosystem the commercial and consumer segment.
Since the market is just starting to take off and estimates range from $52-$144 billion by 2025, every government across the world is super keen and very supportive of new initiates like air taxis, drone deliveries, etc.
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