Although awareness of and appreciation for commercial drone systems are growing, many businesses across a variety of industries are unaware of the opportunities drones offer to achieve better business practices, streamline solutions and elevate profitability. Drones are often thought of as eyes in the sky to assess emergency situations like the Australian wildfires. However, most businesses would benefit from incorporating drone use into their day-to-day operations. The key is to use drones that have Cloud capabilities to collect, analyze, store and share data in real time.
As an experienced airline pilot, I recognized the need for an aviation-inspired operating system to take commercial drone functionality to the next level and created Aquiline Drones (AD), the first U.S.-based, comprehensive drone solutions company that offers solutions in large scale manufacturing of autonomous drones, and a drone-dedicated cloud for operations command and control.
Some current applications of powerful drone technology include:
- Assessment inspection – Drones can reach remote assets (drilling/offshore equipment, warehouses, wind/solar farms, etc.) to improve preventive maintenance, reduce costs and downtime, while improving the safety of personnel and ROI. Utilizing still imagery, video and 3D modeling, industrial structures can be visualized in detail and inspected for every detail using AI-enhanced image recognition capabilities.
- Delivery/logistics – Cloud-based, centralized control, autonomous flight and precision terrain data using ‘see-and-avoid’ capability allow for small package drone delivery for a variety of payloads. AD has recently introduced “precision logistics”; a blockchain-supported chain-of-custody (hand-off) system when there’s zero tolerance for errors.
- Agriculture – A growing application in agriculture is “precision farming”, in which autonomous sprayer drones are capable of carrying 25 lbs. (3 gallons) or more of liquid to cover 12,000 square feet or 0.3 acres of land. Besides distributing fertilizer and insecticides more cost effectively and safely than humans, drones also have the ability to scan large areas of land, collecting critical information through NDVI (normalized difference vegetative index) sensors. The data collected can be algorithmically processed to display the health of crops, as well as other risk vectors such as poor irrigation and soil health. Autonomous drones are a conservation game changer, with the ability to return data from remote locations. Lost livestock is now easily addressed by drones with high resolution cameras. Even at night, an infrared camera can identify stray stock using heat signature. Furthermore, heat signature can help determine the health of livestock, which could trigger preventive/preemptive action by farmers.
- Video production – Drones offer next level business marketing for real estate, entertainment venues, tourism, colleges, churches and other institutions with specialized capabilities and preloaded flight configurations.
- Surveying and mapping – In the world of telemetry and geodetic engineering in which mapping and terrain topologies are determined and used by the aerospace, aviation, forestry management, and farming industries, drones are now equipped with LiDAR sensors to perform scans of areas at a far cheaper rate and produce more precise data than their fast-moving, fixed wing, piloted counterparts. Autonomous surveying drones will do exactly as they are instructed and create tremendous efficiencies.
- Public safety, emergency response, law enforcement and smart cities – One of the largest areas for commercial drone growth is within the public safety sector. Drones will provide effective disaster and medical response, including the delivery of emergency supplies and equipment. For example, when emergency calls are received that involve criminal activities, drones can be deployed ahead of police arrival to provide first-person view situational awareness, thus capturing crimes in action, providing first responders with live footage of the scene and even recording footage/images of criminals that may have left the scene prior to the arrival of the authorities. This has the powerful potential of reducing law enforcement costs from pursuing criminals through prolonged investigations, improving conviction rates, reducing wrongful arrests and convictions, and ultimately saving taxpayer dollars on processing arrestees and court cases. In this context, drones can be outfitted with sirens and flashing blue and red lights indicating the arrival of the authorities on the scene, thereby serving as deterrents to crimes or escalations, while improving response rates for cities. Subsequently, police authorities will be safer on the job and more effective at solving or fighting crimes that truly necessitate their involvement.
What’s more, in a ‘smart city’ initiative, AI-driven sensors can be deployed in key locations throughout cities that are connected to a centralized cloud-attached mobile command centers (MCCs) storage system. The sensors are designed to pick up sounds and other anomalies associated with crimes or danger, which would then launch an autonomous drone able to transmit live video stream to the alerted authorities to investigate remotely and determine appropriate action.
Emergency situations that do not involve crimes can also be better managed through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs aka drones). Just as the police would benefit from a drone solution system, so too would a fire department and/or EMT. When seconds count, drones can be sent ahead of the first responders to access the situation on the ground, give responders a critical heads-up and also be used to deliver life-saving supplies to victims that are not readily reachable by a human person in time. Even the coordination of street cleaning can be assisted by drones. Consider a snowstorm that delivers a foot of snow on the ground. Drones can scan streets, especially side streets, to help snowplows coordinate their actions effectively and efficiently.
Additionally, the recent American Security Drone Act of 2019, which aims to ban the federal procurement of foreign drones – mainly Chinese – and other unmanned aerial systems, opens up opportunities for U.S. drone manufacturing. Aquiline Drones has created a proprietary modular manufacturing process utilizing 3D printing. At the center of this process is the agile workstation cell or AWC, an adaptable drone production module, that can be scaled quickly and inexpensively to meet demand. This allows any community, large enterprise, the military or individual to take on the challenge of designing and building drones on-the-fly. This system is flexible enough the be deployed remotely, be it in hostile areas for warfighters on a military battlefront, or even in a community center or in a home basement.
As the drone industry continues to gain in purpose and popularity, empowering other companies to create drones on their own premises allows for production scalability, design flexibility, reduced costs and time savings, while ensuring a stable supply chain.
In conclusion, drones are intelligent robots capable of performing humanlike functions to save lives and provide essential business services that better society in a safe, responsible and eco-friendly manner.
Supported by a dedicated UAV cloud and real-time OS, autonomous drone operations with real-time control and dynamic in-field decision making capabilities, Aquiline Drones’ full-spectrum of technology solutions provides a more expansive and deeper applicability across countless industries and environments. Aerospace-compliant processes for software, hardware manufacturing and systems integration, along with best-in-class mission capabilities, are being planned and designed as the company continues to forge relationships with Federal, State and private organizations. Visit www.AquilineDrones.com for more information.
