Drones, also known as "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" (UAVs), are essentially flying robots that can be remotely controlled using software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems, working in conjunction with sensors and a global positioning system (GPS).
These robot-like vehicles can perform tasks ranging from ordinary to highly dangerous and everything in between. Initially developed for the military and aerospace industries, they have now made their way into the mainstream due to the enhanced levels of safety and efficiency they bring to the table.
What Key Benefits of Using Drones?
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What is a Drone Used for ?
Drones are used in almost every sector, expanding their usage across various industries. Here is a quick list of what drones are being used for:
Inspections
- Asset Inspection: Drones excel in close visual inspections, swiftly identifying defects such as cracks, leaks, and structural issues in assets. Their agility allows them to navigate challenging environments, providing a quick and detailed assessment.
- Roof Inspection: Aerial systems conduct roof inspections, reaching places inaccessible to humans. This not only enhances safety by reducing the risk of injuries but also significantly saves time in identifying and addressing issues.
- Oil & Gas Industries: In the oil and gas sector, drones revolutionize inspections, ensuring consistent and rapid data collection. This proactive approach enhances asset longevity, reduces downtime, and mitigates potential hazards.
- Power Station, Transmission and Distribution: UAVs play a crucial role in maintaining power infrastructure. They enable operators to analyze malfunctions from the ground before manual intervention, increasing efficiency and minimizing downtime.
- Telco and Radio Towers Inspection: Drones capture high-resolution imagery for assessing conditions of telecommunication and radio towers. This aids businesses in making informed decisions based on detailed inspection reports.
Monitoring and Management
- Port and Marine: For surveying hard to reach places and assessing a vessel’s condition. Aerial surveying removes the logistics and time investments and delivers on-demand insights in port monitoring, traffic control, operational oversight and environmental health and safety.
- Highway Infrastructure Management: UAV technology is used to monitor and manage highway infrastructure and, more importantly, bridge inspection and pavement distress recognition.
- Traffic Monitoring and Management: Drones are used for traffic surveillance and monitoring. Online and offline traffic parameters are extracted from the drone video data to improve traffic monitoring and management mechanisms.
- Road Safety: Road safety-based application of UAVs includes risk assessment, detailed accident investigation, and overall surveillance of road network.
- Agriculture: Agricultural drones provide farmers, researchers, and service providers a fast and efficient way to scout their crops, track plant growth, spot stress, create treatment plans, and more.
- Waste Management: Drones used in waste management can simplify many operations, including garbage collection and landfill monitoring. They can also be used in cleaning garbage – identifying and picking garbage for disposal.
- Environmental: Drone technology offers a faster, safer and cost-effective method for mapping and monitoring large areas for environmental investigation, protection and management, where human and vehicle access is dangerous and difficult.
- Natural Hazards and Disaster Relief: Drones revolutionize disaster relief, rapidly pinpointing and aiding those in need. Equipped with sensors, they speed up response, deliver supplies, and rescue individuals, minimizing the impact of disasters.
Surveying and Aerial Mapping
- Mining: Industrial-grade drones are used at mining sites for surveying?, asset inspection, terrain mapping, stockpile estimation, security and surveillance. They provide aerial perspectives of the mining sites at a fraction of a cost and improve operational efficiency.
- Landfill Sites: Drone mapping is used at landfill sites to help identify potential concerns early, ensuring the safety of the crew. Moreover, it detects environmental hazards, like leaching chemicals and gases, before they become dangerous and costly.
- Aerial LiDAR: Drone technology coupled with?LiDAR technology can map surveys?to generate 3D models with centimeter-level accuracy. A drone can perform aerial mapping and surveying by flying 100m to 200m above the survey area.
- 3D Modelling: Survey drones can create high-resolution Orth mosaics and detailed 3D models of areas that require high-accuracy cadastral maps to be generated quickly and easily, even in difficult to access environments.
- Metro Map: The drones are used to carry out detailed surveys, measure, demarcate, and geo-reference the area while capturing aerial photographs and videos and preparing metro maps.
Construction
- Civil Engineering Projects: Drones produce high-quality information, images, and models in civil engineering at lower costs. Drone-mounted cameras capture images from multiple angles, which are then processed to create digital models.
- Real Estate: Real estate use drones to take awesome aerial images and videos to provide a unique perspective while featuring a property. Drone photography offers prospective buyers a 360-degree view of the property and its adjoining points of interest.
- Land Development: Aerial images taken by drones simplify and accelerate the process of topographic surveys for land planning, development and management. Construction drones help in site scouting, allotment planning and design, and also the construction of buildings, roads, and utilities.
In the next article, we will explore the detailed use of drone for different sectors one by one.
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