The Future of Commercial Drone Industry: And It’s Boring

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In a 2017 article published by HBR, Chris Anderson (CEO of 3DR) hoped that the future of commercial drone will be boring[1]. Let us take a brief discussion about the meaning of his idea.

It is incredible to consider how the term ‘drone’ shifts drastically from a sophisticated flying weapon into an ordinary flying toy in just a few years. I remember that between 2010 - 2014, the term of drone was still unpopular. A drone was tightly associated with a $10 million flying weapon built by aerospace and defence companies. It was definitely could not be associated with the $300 DIY flying toy that I assembled myself at 2013 when I was still in my undergraduate.

For the next few years, everybody talked about the new drone launched by a Chinese company that was branded as DJI Phantom with the price tag just below than $1,000. Brilliant market positioning made DJI Phantom so famous, and like a flash, it quickly caught the attention of hobbyist and videography companies. Suddenly drone was everywhere and correlated as new tech and savvy gadget. Even alternative brands aside from DJI with the price tag below $500 sold quickly. People were using drone from capturing a personal aerial photograph to making a commercial aerial video.

Many would state that those were the 1st wave and 2nd wave of public's adoption on drone. The 3rd wave, which is the commercial industry tool, is where the potential of a drone can be most applied to the commercial growth of economy and infrastructure.

Drone also promises the potential to disrupt retail deliveries and autonomous personal flying vehicle industry. However, leading companies and regulators state that delivery drone still needs five to ten years to develop, while autonomous flying vehicle still needs ten years.

Five enablers that influence the adoption progress are: (i) the drone technology itself, (ii) infrastructure, (iii) regulation, (iv) public perception, (v) and the growth of the economy. However advanced the drone technology is (such as long distance beyond-visual-line drone, swarming system, or collision avoidance system), nobody would be interested in investing their capitals without the fulfilment of the other four enablers.

Let us say that the commercial drone manufacturers are capable of creating a drone that can travel up to 20 miles in a single flight to deliver goods such as medicine. I am sure that it is not such a challenge with current technologies. However, without the proper landing infrastructure, telecommunication, air traffic management integration, or local clearance from the authority, then practically nobody would be interested in conducting the business. Customers expect the goods to be traceable, safe, easily collected, and delivered in good condition to the correct address. Otherwise, It would become an "advanced technology without meaning".

Hidden from the excitement of autonomous delivery or personal flying vehicle (that are often over-published by the media to catch public attention) is the eminent potential of drone to perform daily works to improve operations by offering services and information management. Yes, it definitely sounds less revolutionary. But it gives the most impact right now, and it will become more in the future.

Digitisation is everywhere right now, and companies are working through digital transformation progress for their business strategy. Beyond traditional photography or videography application, a drone is a cheap and robust tool to collect reality as data that can be processed into information. Data are considered as a commodity, and if extracted into information and knowledge, can be sold with a high price to a correct customer.

More companies are investing in drone as an industrial tool in capturing reality. The term ‘Digital Twin’ means a virtual duplicate of reality, often used to either simulate or monitor real-time behaviour. Almost 10 years ago, most of the digital twins were constructed by bringing reality into a studio room full of cameras. Nowadays, a single camera mounted on a drone is more than enough to capture any objects outside a studio room: anywhere, and anywhen. Imagine the potential of cost reduction that a single drone can bring, companies can push capital and operational investment to capture larger object.

Agriculture, energy, and infrastructure industries have big slices in the pie for the benefit that drone can offers. Autonomous drone surveillance in agriculture leads to better estimation and planning of crop yields. Drone inspection on a wind turbine, pit mine, or offshore oil rig can replace human works in dangerous, dirty and dull (3Ds) environment. Daily drone monitoring to create 3D-based digital twin on construction project leads to accurate material control and accurate progress report.

Drone as hardware has been matured enough. There will be several incremental innovations, of course, but possibly not a radical one. On the other hand, the software is where the money in the industry will be contested. It includes the autonomous system, information management, data processing, and data analytics.

Now imagine that you are buying a smartphone. Think about the daily applications that you use to get useful information, such as Google, Maps and Navigation, Facebook, or Instagram. It does not matter if you buy a cheap or the expensive one, both can use the applications. If you remove or uninstall the applications, all that is left for you is a platform that only allows basic functions to call, take a photo, and store data. There are no real-time data connection, no information feed, no cloud storage, and eventually your smartphone will have less value for your productivity. That is the analogy with drone in the commercial industry. Without any capabilities for drone to conduct data analytics and information management, nor to deliver any added-value, drone are just an overpriced gadget to take a photo/video.

Report from BCG analysis shows that by 2050, value-added services of the drone industry in the US and Europe will reach the value of $23billions per year, which nearly half (47%) the expected total value of $49billions per year[2]. On the other side, the Asia Pacific as the rising economy is forecasted to get comparable size in the commercial market. Business is taking a steep move to servitisation, and existing companies need to know what the customer expects from a drone in the future.

In the ideal future where the full potential of drone has been absorbed by industries, there will be no need for the operator to define mission path in detail. Drone shall self-assess their target and decide the best mission path by using cloud intelligence, machine learning, and advanced data analytics. There will be no more time gap between downloading data from the platform and processing. Instead, raw data will seamlessly be connected in an integrated cloud, processed in real-time, and give the user only the information that they need. Drone-friendly infrastructure such as hubs or automated charging platform will offer autonomous fleet management, ensuring continuous data collection in the operations.

Drone will become cheaper, but more connected and more reliable. Regulation on commercial drone flight will become supportive, allowing more flexible flight in a crowded area, commercial airspace, or beyond the visual line. Drone will be another regular tool to industries, just like machinery tool in manufacturing, or cranes in civil construction. It is not novel, yet essential. But for me, it quickly becomes dull as the initial excitement will be gone.

I am sure that there will be exciting progress such in the personal, military, or racing drone market. But just like Chris, I wish that the commercial drone industry get boring as soon as possible, which signify the boost in industrial productivity.

References

[1] Anderson, C. 2017. Drones Go to Work. [Online]. [Accessed 5 July 2019]. Available from: https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/05/drones-go-to-work

[2] Amoukteh, A., Janda, J., and Vincent, J. 2017. Drones Go to Work. [Online]. [Accessed 5 July 2019]. Available from: https://www.bcg.com/en-gb/publications/2017/engineered-products-infrastructure-machinery-components-drones-go-work.aspx

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