Commercial drones deserve a lot more of your attention than you think. 

At the dawn of aviation in 1907, the U.S. Army had no idea what to do with “ballooning, air machines and all kindred spirits,” so it set up a small division to figure out how operating above the Earth’s surface could benefit the military. Ultimately, air power and control of the skies fundamentally altered battlefield dynamics, military strategy and changed the calculus of military advantage.

Just as air power changed the military forever, it’s now starting to invade your competitive theater.

Industrial drones are inexpensive data collection systems, operating autonomously, opening up new data collection and reach while augmenting existing data systems. Unmanned aerial vehicles are hitting a tipping point, evolving from single-use applications to a fast-growing, widely adopted platform for innovation.

As platforms mature, a familiar pattern takes hold: Applications evolve, driving a virtuous cycle of innovation as the interchange creates a multiplier effect of ongoing development. Third-party applications and extensions fuel additional market expansion and platform adoption. As application adoption rises, so does platform scale economics.

Here are a few foundational forces bringing air power to your industry sooner than you might think: 

Drones are a cheap, mature platform

• Flight systems: The operational flying system is ready for configuration and autonomous operation individually or as a node in a larger system.
• Critical mass of infrastructure: Modern drone platforms leverage preexisting platforms such as GPS, mobile accelerometers, ML, AI, machine vision and sensors to accelerate the rate of advancement.
• Payload flexibility: The payload/weight capacity is used to support virtually any payload, whether that be sensors (visible light, infrared, LiDAR or proprietary), liquids, controllers, packages, extra batteries or other components and materials.
• Connectivity and integration: Always-on, two-way, high-quality data connection from drone sensors to base or other complimentary systems on site via Ocusync, WiFi, LTE, 5G and proprietary networks.
• APIs: Direct integration to data systems, flight control and sensors.
• Apps: Custom apps leveraging drone and other third-party or proprietary data.
• Flight control/sensor integration: Two-way flight data (proximity sensors, systems sensors) and control (direct control of fine-grained flight control instructions).
• Beyond 1:1:1: Other operational paradigms besides one operator, one drone, one mission.
• Ecosystem: Third-party development on sensors, software and mission-specific features.

Drones offer autonomous operation

Replacing pilots with operators, human or software, changes the economics of flight:

• Democratization: Pilot-free operation is a leap forward, reducing operational cost by orders of magnitude, lowering barriers to entry and opening up a new universe of economically viable applications.
• Over-the-horizon (object) visibility: The most basic, powerful benefit of even a simple visible light camera deployed in the air. The Menlo Park Fire District uses UAVs to assist on site at actives fires and is looking into forward crash assessment to help determine the proper response.
• Safety, accuracy and proximity tradeoff: When a machine replaces a pilot for dangerous tasks, sensors can get closer to the data source and accuracy is improved while costs go down. If you replace a person with a drone for roof inspection, injury rates fall and inspection accuracy rises.
• Independent operation to node: Beyond a single task/drone/operator, UAVs will increasingly operate as a node in a larger-scale operation with software translating the objectives into missions with integrated flight patterns and sensor schedules. Think Intel Olympic drone show, but with an industrial objective.
• Site/systems integration: Integration with local systems to provide additional data sets, integration with GNSS, and process tracking systems (construction, mining, traffic and the like).

Drones benefit from miniaturization and scale economics

The industry is benefiting from accelerating consumer-scale consumption of component technologies such as cameras, accelerometers, gyroscopes, screens, GPS, gimbals, sensors, batteries and networks to accelerate technical innovation on core platform performance axes, including range, payload and control systems.

The number of commercial drones working today would surprise you, especially in heavy industries like oil and gas, energy, construction, mining and agriculture. From roof inspection to herbicide applications and inspections of pipelines, power lines, refineries and power stations, drones are doing the dirty work and getting the data.

One could argue that the DJI Phantom 1 released in January 2013 kicked off the modern commercial drone era, so we are just beginning to see the power of this industry. Not surprisingly, we are well past the one-person, one-drone, one-task paradigm.

So if your organization isn’t thinking about your air operations yet, you might want to get started. Someone else will be there soon enough.

Here are a lot more sources of information, including interviews with key drone experts on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s video studio:

• Enterprise drone analytics company Airware Inc.
• Interview with Airware Chief Executive Yvonne Wassenaar
• TheCUBE interviews at Airworks 2017
• Drone manufacturer DJI
• All 39 DJI drones ever made
• DJI Enterprise YouTube channel
• DJI Innovations YouTube channel
• DJI Airworks 2017 mainstage presentations
• Casey Neistat’s assorted drone videos, but here’s one of my favorites
• Aerial intelligence platform Kespry Inc.
• Interview with Kespry CEO George Mathew
• History of the Air Force
• Intel drones
• Interview with Tom Bucklar, director of IoT & Digital Channel Solutions at Caterpillar Inc.

Photo: Cisco Systems Inc.