DRONES DYMISTIFIED – UNKNOWN CREATURES IN THE SKY TO THE ART OF POSSIBILITY

“Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society”

 - Bill Gates

What comes to mind when you think about drones? A package being delivered. A vlogger getting breathtaking aerial images. A pizza being delivered to your front door. All of these are common images that come to mind, but why is it limited to only these things? Here is why - the human imagination for the potential of drone technology’s potential has not made it to the mainstream market. The drone market only makes up a small percentage of high-end consumer electronics, but drone demand is expected to keep growing. From insights provided by Goldman Sachs, consumer drone shipments in 2014 were around 450,000, and are expected to hit 7.8 million in 2020. Talk about growth! Although, the drone market is expected to grow the fastest in the business and civil government sectors.

What Can Drones Be Used For? The sky is the limit for drone technology, literally. Within the business and civil government sectors, drones can be applied to many tasks such as disaster monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, supply chain, healthcare, policing, environmental modeling and research, agriculture, and entertainment.

Healthcare

Drones are no longer just drones – they are life savers. Every minute counts when trying to save a life, especially for those living in rural areas. From Belgium to Mississippi, so-called “ambulance drones” are being developed to help reduce the lead time in providing medical equipment and assistance. These drones will drop life-saving medical tools and medication such as an AED, first aid kits, anti-venom, and more to far-off areas or just around the corner. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 81,000 to 83,000 people die each year from snake bites. Now imagine that one day you’re on a hike with your friend who gets bitten by a venomous snake. The time for a drone to arrive at your location with the anti-venom, IV bag, and instructions, is greatly lower than EMTs arriving at your general area and scouring to find you. Drones also can provide a larger impact. Drones can deliver mass humanitarian aid to hard-to-reach communities in countries such as South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Disaster Monitoring and Search & Rescue

For years now, our media feeds have been bombarded with tragedies all around the world. Some of the most memorable being Hurricane Harvey flooding Houston, Hurricane Maria ripping through Puerto Rico, the wildfires that engulfed California, and the earthquake and abrupt tsunami that ravaged Indonesia. Every year, natural disasters kill nearly 90,000 people and affect nearly 160 million people globally. Again, drones are no longer just drones – they are life savers. We live in an era where these lives could be saved. With drones, tracking the direction of disasters, identifying survivors, and determining safe paths for rescue are readily identified. In a way, utilizing drones allows us to bend time.

Environment

 According to the World Bank, 1.3 million square kilometers of trees have fallen between 1990 and 2016. That is larger than the entire country of South Africa. Since 2016, half of the Great Barrier Reef has died. These are only a few of the environmental problems we face today. However, the fight to save the environment is not over yet. One last time, drones are no longer just drones – they are life savers. To save our forest, one drone has the potential to plant 100,000 trees per day. To save our coral reefs, drones provide detailed insights, more detailed than satellites, in the health of entire coral reef ecosystems. 

Animal Tracking and Protection

In 2017, more than 1,000 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa. A decade before that, there were only 13 killed. In such large areas such as the savannas of South Africa, it is hard to guard these rhinos and other wildlife, especially at night. With the use of drones, authorities can more easily gather data on these illegal poaching activities and bring those responsible to justice. For researchers, drones can be used to observe animal behavior, without having to place themselves in dangerous situations such as observing Hippos. The Smithsonian has even published an article naming drones as a game-changing tool for wildlife population monitoring.

Agriculture

The age-old profession of agriculture has finally gotten a cool and useful new tool. Drones can increase farming efficiency by solving the biggest problem among farmers, inefficient crop monitoring. Drones continue to impress with their potential to complete soil analysis, crop spraying, crop monitoring, perimeter defense, seeding, and livestock monitoring. Another large problem, literally, farmers face are bears or coyotes feeding on a farmer’s crop and livestock. With a drone, farmers can be alerted in real-time before any harm comes to their crop or livestock. Maybe drones can finally confirm if chupacabras are real, being that they are blamed for many livestock attacks in Mexico. Drones are poised to thrive in the agriculture market. The global market for agricultural drones is estimated to be $3.69 billion by 2022.

Infrastructure

When we build bridges, skyscrapers, stadiums, pipelines - really any structure - we build them to last for years. Although, we can’t control everything, and unexpected disasters like some that were mentioned above can take a toll on these structures. Drones can be used as a tool to take account of the damages on these structures. However, a major disaster does not need to occur for drones to be put into play. Drones can be used for periodic assessment and maintenance of these structures, such as bridges. In the US alone, there are 54,000 bridges that are considered structurally deficient. The major benefits of drones in this sector are safety and detail, especially with edifices and bridges. Using drones ensures workers are not put into any unnecessary risks, such as being harnessed to a scaffold.

Supply Chain

This is something everyone thinks about when thinking about drones - package delivery. According to the Office of the Inspector General, the American public is anticipating deliveries via drone to be available with the next 5 to 10 years. While that is exciting, drones can do so much more in the logistics field! Drones have been adapted to take physical inventory in warehouses using RFID and IoT technology, making the process more efficient. In manufacturing and distribution centers, there could be a cut down on conveyors and forklifts because drones can be designed and programmed to lift containers and move them to the specified area.

Entertainment

Have you ever watched a TV show of a man surviving in the wild? Have you seen those mesmerizing images on the cover of National Geographic? Most of the time, those shots are taken by someone carrying around an expensive and heavy piece of equipment. In the case of the recent Academy-Award winning movie, Free Solo, using a drone would have been a much safer route to get the film needed for the movie. However, drones are not allowed in Yosemite National Park where the documentary was shot. Instead, cameramen had to scale the rockface while also shooting film. Director and mountaineering legend, Jimmy Chin, even stated that the obstacle he and the crew faced was getting the shots without interfering with Alex Honnold’s climb. In areas where drones are allowed, they can be used to get these amazing shots to share with the world. There have been dozens of Box Office hits that have used drones include multiple Marvel movies, Skyfall, Jurassic World, Zero-Dark-Thirty and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Policing

I think a common aspect of life that all humans can agree on, is that everyone wants to be safe, at least most of the time. A few years ago, a show called APB premiered. It was about a tech billionaire upgrading a police precinct in Chicago with all new technology, some of which were drones. These drones acted as preemptive safeguards. They went ahead of the officers to identify any threats. Corporate offices, public venues, and even walking on the street becomes safer with aerial drones on patrol. In fact, many law enforcement agencies already use them. 347 US agencies are using drones, the largest agency being sheriff outposts. Currently, the top uses for drones in law enforcement are collision reconstruction, active shooter investigations, and surveillance.

Where will Drones Fly to Now?

Drones will add value to any industry it enters. The technology and its uses have not fully matured, but it is almost there. However, the obstacle for drone adoption is not the technology, it’s the trust that we, humans, need to put in them. Think about a calculator, or the automobile, when those technologies emerged, most likely, those people were like us. They were wary of something new. In the end, it benefited society and moved us forward to where we are today. As a society, we will decide whether drones will fly high, or crash to the grown, but before that, we need to give drones the same chance to succeed as we have for the technologies before them.