The drones are coming and I am programming my first one.

Everywhere you go, drones are taking flight. The number of non-commercial drones in the U.S. is expected to triple in three years and reach 3.5 million by 2021, says Engadget, with another 440,000 in the commercial sector, per Reuters.

The Drone Economic impact

According to a report by BI Intelligence, which analyzes the growing global industry for commercial drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and provides forecasts for the business opportunity in commercial drone technology, looking at advances and persistent barriers, there are some of the most important highlights regarding the future of drone market:

• The projections regarding drones sales are up to top $12 billion in 2021, up just over $8 billion 2017.
• Shipments of consumer drones will more than quadruple over the next five years, fueled by increasing price competition and new technologies that make flying drones easier for beginners.
• Growth in the enterprise sector will outpace the consumer sector in both shipments and revenues as regulations open up new use cases in the US and EU, the two most significant potential markets for enterprise drones.
• Technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance will make flying drones safer and make regulators feel more comfortable with more significant numbers of drones taking to the skies.
• Right now FAA regulations have limited commercial drones to a select few industries and applications like aerial surveying in the agriculture, mining, and oil and gas sectors.
• The military sector will continue to lead all other areas in drone spending, thanks to the high cost of military drones and the growing number of countries seeking to acquire them.

Drones in Poland

The Polish market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was worth approx. US$ 57 million at the end of 2016 with a listed annual growth of 23%.

About 100,000 drones currently fly through Polish airspace. According to forecasts by the market research institute, this figure could double by 2020 due to the dynamic market growth.

In Poland, drones are finding application in various sectors. Approximately 90% of aerial film recordings are done using drones. Another example is the Polish railway group PKP Cargo, which uses drones for security purposes, or the Polish Electricity Networks (PSE) and Gaz-System, who monitor power networks and test gas lines with the help of drones. Drones are also increasingly used for precision measurements in the construction industry.

According to PwC’s Drone Powered Solutions consulting team, beneficial legal frameworks and broad knowledge in engineering and geodesy in Poland will contribute to the use of drones in other areas.

According to MikroMakro, In Poland, in 2017 there were 3,523 drone operators (compared to 1,700 in the previous year), which is more than France (2,905) and the United Kingdom (2,237). It is worth mentioning that Poland occupies the first place in the EU and the second place in the world regarding the number of operators per 100,000 inhabitants.

In October 2017, the Polish State Development Fund also announced special support measures for the drone sector intended to cover the following areas: integration with air traffic, cyber security systems, data processing systems, data monitoring systems and competence centers where new technologies are tested.

The developments in the Polish market offer export opportunities for companies that provide solutions for the drones industry.

Drone Use Cases

Drones are a becoming a vital piece of technology for any Vlogger worth their salt, but they are not just for entertainment. Drone delivery has been on the horizon for technology in the past few years, for example, Zipline is using, drones to deliver life-saving blood supplies and vaccines to areas in Rwanda or Amazon and Alphabet Inc. that are testing delivery services in order cut time and delivery costs for the past few years.

In recent years, the number of potential applications for drones (UAVs) has increased significantly since components have become lighter, smaller, cheaper and overall more efficient. Combine this with improvement in machine vision, and you get drones that can address various multi-billion dollar industries.

There are hundreds of drone use cases but just to give an idea, I've just selected some interesting examples industries where drones are being used to help solve real-life problems:

1.    In Real Estate & Construction

Aerial photography is not a new concept in the real estate industry. Property owners and real estate agents have been using aerial photography and videography to show their properties in appealing ways for decades. Also, while helicopters have been used in the past to bring stunning aerial shots of commercial properties and real estate, drones can provide footage from heights and angles that are not possible or easy using a helicopter.

In the construction industry, builders use drones as a cheaper alternative to manned aircraft and human surveyors. They are also used to collect data much faster and more accurately, allowing construction workers to track a site’s progress with a level of precision that was absent in the industry before.

2.    In Sports

When it comes to sports, drones are a popular option for filming sporting events that take place globally, and even in practice sessions to observe players. As a drone can shoot live action aerially, the recordings can be used for evaluating players’ performances and the changes that may be needed in their technique or coordination.

3.    In Agriculture

One of the biggest commercial markets for drones agriculture, where they are used to monitor crops for disease, analyzing yields and identifying areas where fertilizers are needed.

4.    In the Security Sector

Secom, a Japanese security company has developed a drone that launches automatically when an impostor is identified and follows them around. The UAV is made for tracking large areas, like supermarkets and shopping malls with big parking lots. The drone links with a burglar detection system that sends laser light beams through the boundaries of secure space. When the detector senses motion, the drone takes off automatically from a charging station nearby to investigate and sends real-time footage of the imposter to the security center for further analysis.

5.    For Wildlife Conservation

UAVs are used to conserve wildlife through several ways, which include identifying and intercepting poaching gangs in Africa, tracking illegal fishing in Belize, collecting data regarding caribou, and checking populations of gray whales on the US coast.

6.    For Wind Turbine Examination

The traditional method for inspecting a wind turbine is both expensive and risky. With drones, however, the process becomes faster, cost-effective and safer. Recent improvements in artificial intelligence and machine vision technologies have allowed automatic classification and detection of defects, which is making life more comfortable.

7.   Drones for telecoms

A further high-potential service area for drones in telecoms is supporting increasingly automated inspection processes. There are many technologies that have transformative potential for the application of drone technology in the telecoms industry, and the foremost of these is machine learning. 

Thanks to the rapid expansion in computing power and ongoing miniaturization, credit card sized processors are now available that enable a new generation of smart, autonomous machines capable of learning and performing analytical work on-the-go. In the very near future, it is likely that we will see drones conducting cell tower inspections without human intervention and providing real-time analytical reports, as well as delivering spare parts or even performing smaller repairs autonomously.

My first step in drone technology

I had chosen to start to program the Parrot Mambo Fly for an excellent reason: with some good coding efforts, I can make some significant steps on drone automation technology!

The Mambo is part of Parrot’s SDK, so I can even program the Mambo to fly itself using Apple’s Swift programming language and Tynker (it is great to teach kids how to program) and other languages and tools.

Thanks to the powerful onboard processor, the bottom facing and an ultrasonic sensor, it can hover in place and hold its position without needing to make any corrections.

I have started to code and develop some automation with the parrot and very soon I will be integrating it into my Autonomous car ecosystem, using a Raspberry Pi to control my drone and all of the sensors it has onboard using python, javascript, and Node-red.

Today I am already able to take it off, land it and send direction commands using the keyboard (for me it is amazing because it means that I can set and send commands based on events, only based on key pressing!

My Robot A-Team

My idea is to create an autonomous squad with all the robots I have at home, integrating it all and assigning specific tasks to each member, based on some events and triggers: for example, the drone can follow the car, or it can take off and land based on events sent by the self-driving car.

I will keep working on it.. keep in touch to see my next steps!

Thanks

Jair Ribeiro