Why uavs are good

An amateur filmmaker can record high-quality aerial shots using only a drone equipped with a high-definition camera.

Less than two decades ago, recording from this perspective was only consistently an option for large movie studios that could afford to use cranes, helicopters, and airplanes. Apart from their costs being more manageable, drones are also useful due to their extreme versatility. Drones are usually relatively small in size, so they are great when shooting a movie scene that requires entering a tight space or moving nimbly. Yet, they are not a complete replacement for traditional aircraft in the film industry.

Poaching is devastating endangered wildlife populations across the globe. Conservationist groups have been working for decades to protect these animals by migrating them into protected lands like animal sanctuaries and national parks.

Yet many poachers still trespass into these parks to kill the animals. Therefore, conservationists must strategize new ways to secure these locations and prevent people with malicious intent from entering.

Recently, the conservationist community has discovered how to use drones to help protect wildlife. Using a drone equipped with night vision optics or thermal sensors, conservationists can patrol the parks to deter poachers. The park uses anti-poaching drones to find illegal snares, monitor activity within the park, and help law enforcement officials find and arrest poachers.

War zones are extremely dangerous, and war journalists would normally need to risk their lives to record events as they unfold. Using drones, journalists can record the destruction of war without compromising their own safety.

This makes it possible to accurately represent the reality of war using firsthand visual accounts filmed in real war-afflicted areas. The future of drone technology will also present consumers with the highly convenient option to receive their deliveries by drone. Amazon is at the forefront of making this a reality. Its upcoming Amazon Prime Air service is expected to allow customers to request drone delivery for packages weighing up to five pounds.

How will the process work? This application of drone technology has the potential to make delivery far more efficient in the near future, though no widespread drone delivery services are operating at full capacity yet due to government regulations and public safety concerns. The firms that are interested in offering drone delivery services will need to emphasize designing and implementing safe and ethical systems that will not endanger their customer or the public.

To create accurate weather forecasts, meteorologists must measure weather data from a diverse set of sensors that are usually affixed to satellites or surface equipment.

These tools collect data that can be used to predict common weather changes like precipitation, or even violent storms like tornadoes. Scientists are now working to incorporate unmanned aircraft into the process by using drones to collect research data.

Flying through a storm can be dangerous, but drones can enter storms to collect temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind velocity measurements without risking lives.

This data can be used to provide advanced storm warnings, giving people more time to take precautions or evacuate. As drones continue to become more robust, industry leaders expect them to become a more regular aspect of weather measurement and forecasting. Although unmanned aerial vehicles have existed for several decades, over the past 20 years the technology has seen significant advancements.

Drones were once a tool used almost exclusively for military uses, but modern engineering has made them accessible and affordable to private citizens. But with unique cameras, drones are able to capture volumetric data on stockpiles and survey mining operations from the air. This reduces the risks associated with having surveyors on the ground. The system is fully autonomous and stored in on-site housing that can autonomically swap cameras and batteries.

Mining is also being disrupted by autonomous vehicles, such as the unmanned ground vehicle designed by Komatsu.

One of the most common commercial use cases for drones is construction planning and management. Software developers have created solutions that analyze construction progress with regularly captured data. While ground surveying is still a critical part of construction planning and monitoring, the use of drone data has become increasingly important.

Camera technology is used to monitor buildings and gauge topography and soil type throughout the construction lifecycle. Skycatch offers these services in a monthly software subscription that is designed to pair with a number of UAVs. Dronomy offers a similar suite of software intended to help drones enhance project monitoring and site management. While drones serve a useful purpose in construction planning and management, they also have the potential to be used to develop physical infrastructure.

By programming the drones to lift and stack thousands of polymer bricks, the team was able to create a geometric structure nearly 10 meters high. Uses include monitoring the progress of highway construction projects, surveying new sites, inspecting bridges, emergency response, and more. Insurance inspections are a core area where insurance companies can leverage drones. Traditionally, inspectors and assessors for property insurance would scale structures to conduct manual inspections of properties, but now drones can provide detailed assessments with high-resolution cameras.

While damaged or defective property still requires the attention of a physical inspection, UAVs are beginning to have an impact there as well. Drone companies focused on the insurance industry include Kespry , which offers services like roof inspection for claims and has partnered with Farmers Insurance to scale its offerings in the insurance space.

Drones have been beneficial in capturing pictures of high-value properties, showing that even the real estate industry can be upended by drone technology. By , real estate was already reported to be one of the most active industries when it came to adopting drone technology. DroneBase is one company that offers on-demand drone photography for a number of different industries, including residential and commercial real estate.

Zaw Studios, a media company based outside of Los Angeles, uses drones to capture immersive degree photographs and videos within large homes. The finished product provides potential buyers with a perspective that mimics a physical walk-through.

For property developers, drones can be a useful tool for understanding how to better outfit a property with the views, amenities, and features. Being able to quickly scan a property from all angles can allow a better ability to design a structure for the landscape in which it sits.

As urbanization continues, cities are having to adapt to larger populations and chronic congestion. Urban planning has become increasingly important for cities, but requires a thorough understanding of metropolitan rhythms and flows. With the use of drones, urban planners are able to better understand their environments and implement data-driven improvements. Engineering consulting firm Arup has used drones to gather data in population-dense areas.

With many municipalities operating on limited budgets, drones can provide a relatively low-cost way to capture invaluable urban data.

For example, drones have helped city planners determine which areas may benefit from green space. Today, machine learning is helping make more sophisticated mapping processes possible at a lower cost. In Benin, the Benin Flying Lab used drones to create a data-dense aerial map of the town of Dassa, then applied machine learning technology to classify the different types of structures and regions on the map, a process that would have taken a significant amount of time and labor without the software.

While our definition of drones is typically limited to unmanned vehicles, certain emerging forms of autonomous transportation function similarly to drones.

The vehicle is intended to transport passengers between destinations, even in an urban environment with plenty of obstacles. The AAV requires minimal passenger input and incorporates built-in systems that aim to allow safe landings in the event of engine failure or a collision.

Lilium Aviation , meanwhile, is a startup looking to build an autonomous aerial vehicle for passenger transportation that leverages a design more comparable to a Harrier Jet than a typical drone. Incumbents are also making moves in the space. Uber, Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce are 4 of the big transportation companies working on developing their own autonomous flying drones for ferrying passengers around. Compliance is a challenge for many industries, but the airline industry must adhere to particularly stringent levels of regulatory standards.

FAA inspections vary in comprehensiveness, but basic inspections are conducted after every hours of flight time. Additionally, airlines are expected to conduct their own routine inspections before every flight. In an attempt to improve this process, Intel partnered with Airbus to conduct exterior aircraft inspections with UAVs.

Intel supplied drones outfitted with cameras that allow them to collect images and data that can be used to create detailed, 3D-models of the Airbus fleet. Airbus has also launched its own drone subsidiary called Airbus Aerial, which looks to provide inspection services across a variety of industries.

Canard Drones , meanwhile, is a startup looking to provide inspection solutions for airports rather than aircraft. Telecommunication towers also are inspected frequently to ensure service reliability. These drones were able to quickly assess damage to help guide repair teams in restoring service. In many cases, service was brought back in hours rather than days. Facebook experimented with a solar-powered drone called Aquila, which was envisioned as helping to provide internet access to rural parts of the world.

Google initially acquired solar-powered drone company Titan Aerospace to provide UAV-powered internet similar to Aquila , but the venture proved challenging. It has since pivoted toward a weather balloon-like design called Project Loon that aims to provide internet access from the stratosphere. In the consumer area, an early application for drones was as a recreational tool for the great outdoors. Between aerial landscape photography and extreme sports footage, UAVs changed the way people experienced locations.

Today, drones are being used for more than breathtaking photos and award-winning film. Drones were able to map the entire mountain face in less than 7 hours. These types of models can be used by climbers and skiers to better understand the terrain. The higher these costs are the worse the long-term impact on stability is likely to be, as impacted communities would be less prone to recognize and deal with authorities — whoever these might be — that they associate with pain and suffering.

Adding to this situation is that drone operations such as targeted killings, which regional countries such as Turkey and the UAE are increasingly keen to conduct [86] , rest on dubious legal foundations and have been widely criticized by legal scholars and humanitarian organizations alike [87].

On the whole, in contexts of weak or eroded state monopoly over the use of force where para-state or non-state armed actors play a prominent security role, drones could represent yet another incentive to employ military means and create new potential obstacles to guarantee the accountability and transparency of security apparatuses. The clearest example of this is Turkey, which since has used drones to spearhead its domestic counterterrorism campaign against the PKK [88].

At the same time, UAVs might have induced a transformation in the realm of threat perception and the associated level of acceptable risk between rivals by making it more asymmetrical. What is more, as less capable adversaries get acquainted with the drone threat, they are more likely to adapt their strategies or conceal their operations, for instance by hiding among the civilian population, thus increasing the risk of collateral damages, as the significant number of civilian casualties in the U.

In Turkey, for instance, no debate on the use and implications of armed UAVs has been held by the Turkish parliament so far [95] while, in a similar vein, all regional states possessing UCAVs have refrained from disclosing relevant information about their use. In this context, the risk increases of miscalculation and military incidents that could eventually flare up into something bigger. In August, a Turkish drone strike aimed at PKK operatives mistakenly killed two high-ranking Iraqi Border Guard officers north of Erbil [97] , sparking a harsh diplomatic reaction in Baghdad, with the Iraqi government cancelling a Turkish ministerial visit and seeking political condemnation from Arab countries within the Arab League [98].

Such circumstances may become increasingly frequent in what is set to become a new and more fluid operational environment. So far, drones have been mainly employed in the asymmetric context of the Global War on Terror led by the U. Quite interestingly, the empirical evidence from the few cases in which drones have been used against conventional targets or have been downed in conventional or near-conventional operational environments seems to confute the likelihood of armed escalation.

In the first case, for instance, and similarly to the recent Turkish-Iraqi case, the highly controversial U. Other episodes between India and both China and Pakistan resulted in similar outcomes []. However, such a trend might change if states embrace a more aggressive use of armed drones, including their possible deployment against high value targets, but as available data remain limited, it seems premature to draw robust conclusions about their impact on the use of force at the interstate level.

Therefore, can we expect countries in the region to apply the same standards and follow the same rules of engagement that Western countries supposedly use? What are the implications of drones for the Just War theory and ethics in war? And to what extent does the type of political regime affect their use?

To what extent do UAVs exacerbate conflict dynamics? At the same time, it is worth noting that combat drones should not be regarded as harmful assets per se, and that, similarly to other military technologies, their implications largely depend on how — and for which goals — they are employed.

Thanks to their capacity to loiter over a target for prolonged periods and collect multiple information, drones can indeed offer unique potential to hit only specific targets, provided that the intelligence available to the user is sufficiently reliable and properly interpreted. Nevertheless, it is possible that their unique features, along with the myth of their surgical precision, may induce more confidence — and less carefulness — in the user as well as an easier acceptance in public opinion.

The implications for international law and the law of armed conflicts as well as the tangible humanitarian impact caused by drone strikes in many regional conflicts are, in this regard, the essential departure point for such an exercise. Drones, and remotely controlled weapons more generally, are also influencing the way coercive force is employed by both state and non-state actors and perceived or discussed in the public sphere , with potential repercussions on international law and other regulations informing the use of force.

In the MENA region these dynamics are tangible and may gain further relevance in the near future. A word of caution is necessary, though. Despite their expanding role, drones have not yet replaced manned aircraft as the main air platforms in any military in the world, let alone in those of MENA countries.

While UAVs represent disruptive assets for ISTAR and kinetic operations in asymmetric scenarios, they still have to prove that same level of effectiveness against conventional and well-equipped forces and in communication-denied environments or contested operational spaces characterized by sophisticated air defences, where they remain highly vulnerable []. New technological improvements will likely counterbalance or at least reduce these limitations, but states are still investing huge amounts of resources in developing manned platforms.

The way UAVs are carving their military role out remains therefore incremental, although the pace of this process is set to accelerate exponentially in the coming years as the next UAV systems will be stealthier, more precise, and capable of operating at longer distances while carrying heavier payloads.

With that being said, however, in the MENA region drone proliferation may follow a faster-growing trajectory , due to two main reasons: first, the increasing need for combat-capable tools on the part of many political regimes to get rid of internal threats, such as armed militant groups, and to deter external ones; second, the difficult economic situation many countries are currently going through , which could force goverments to invest immediately and heavily in cheaper unmanned solutions in the face of reduced defence budgets, as UAVs are overall more cost-effective to acquire and operate than manned aircraft procured by U.

In this respect, the economic fallout of the Covid pandemic may have a deep and long-lasting impact on defence spending in the region, opening new market space for unmanned platforms. According to a article published by the New York Times and based on leaked confidential emails, in the same year the UAE transferred to Egypt an undisclosed number of Yabhon United unmanned combat aerial vehicles.

See David D. This variant features a larger wingspan and a doubled payload up to kg. This acquisition has not been officially confirmed. These UAVs are usually used to transport heavier objects, including LIDAR systems, that can be used to survey land, research storms and map erosion caused by global warming. Multi-rotor drones are usually some of the smallest and lightest drones on the market.

They have limited distance, speed and height, but make the perfect flying vehicle for enthusiasts and aerial photographers. These drones can usually spend minutes in the air carrying a lightweight payload, such as a camera. Fixed-wing drones look like normal airplanes, where the wings provide the lift instead of rotors- making them very efficient.

These drones usually use fuel instead of electricity, allowing them to glide in the air for more than 16 hours. Since these drones are usually much larger, and because of their design, they need to take off and land on runways just as airplanes do. Fixed-wing UAVs are used by the military to carry out strikes, by scientists to carry large amounts of equipment and even by nonprofits to deliver food and other goods to areas that are hard to reach.

Probably the oldest, most well-known and controversial use of drones is in the military. The British and U. The most prominent military drone in use today is the MQ-9 Reaper. The aircraft measures 36 feet long, can fly 50, feet in the air undetected and is equipped with a combination of missiles and intelligence gathering tools. Delivery drones are usually autonomous UAVs that are used to transport food, packages or goods to your front doorstep.

Retailers and grocery chains all over the country are turning to drones as a more efficient delivery alternative, instead of relying on delivery drivers with inefficient trucks. These drones can carry an impressive 55 pounds of goods to your front door without you ever having to leave the house. In the case of a capsized boat or drowning individual, officials can throw an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle AUV into the water to assist in the rescue.

Aircraft maker, Kaman, has even developed a pilotless helicopter, called the K-MAX, designed to carry more than 6, pounds of cargo. Drones have proven to be beneficial to the agriculture industry as well, presenting farmers with several ways to optimize their farms to maximize efficiency and reduce physical strain. Carrying out field surveys, seeding over fields, tracking livestock and estimating crop yield are all made easier through the use of UAVs while saving agriculture professionals valuable time.

NASA and the U. Air Force have been secretly testing out unmanned aircraft geared towards space travel. It has been quietly circling the Earth for the last two years, setting a record for longest flight from an unmanned aircraft more than days. Drones are a cheaper and more efficient alternative to wildlife conservation. Tracking wildlife populations is nearly impossible with humans on the ground. Having an eye-in-the-sky allows wildlife conservationists to track roaming groups of animals, ranging from Orangutans in Borneo to Bison on the Great Plains, to get a better idea of the health of their species and ecosystems.

Conservation drones also make perfect tools in the fight against poaching efforts in Asia and Africa. Drones are also being used for reforestation efforts all over the world. These drones scour the forest floors of forests decimated by fires and drop seed vessels filled with seeds, fertilizers and nutrients that will help a tree rise from the ashes.

There have been around million acres of deforested land since the early s. What would take humans around years to reforest can be more efficiently completed via seed-planting drone technology. Finally, UAVs are becoming instrumental in historical conservation efforts.

Drones are being used to map out 3D renderings of historical sites like Chernobyl, the ancient Greek sites of Ephesus, Turkey and Jewish cemeteries all over Europe. The vantage point gives historical preservationists the ability to find clues about culture and architecture while using 3D imagery to recreate lost sites.