Future Applications of Unmanned Aircrafts

An unmanned aircraft, better known as drone, can be defined as a powered flight

vehicle that does not carry a human operator and can be operated remotely or autonomously

(Department of Defense, 2007). The use of drones, has increased greatly and the impact of

their integration in the US airspace system was more than $13.6 billion during the first three

years (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, 2013). Recently they are

being widely used in applications such as agricultural fields (precision agriculture) or to

perform dangerous civil missions.

In most potential applications drones have more advantages than disadvantages.

There are plenty applications due to the fact that drones can fly in a wide range of heights

and they can be added lights, cameras, microphones, sensors and other devices. Moreover,

drones have the ability to perform certain tasks humans are unable to do such as working in

hazardous situations, inaccessible places or military roles.

Farming will be perhaps the most lucrative application for drones in the future. As a

result, according to the AUVSI, precision agriculture and public safety represents

approximately 90% of the known potential markets (Association for Unmanned Vehicle

Systems International, 2013). The main benefit of this technology is the increase in the

production and control of the harvest. Thus, tasks such as scan plants for health problems or

record growth rates and hydration are carried out easier and more accurate than employing a

person who runs the entire plantation. For example, drones with multispectral cameras were

used to optimize the harvest of high value coffee crop in the Kauai Coffee Plantation

projecting a 5 to 10% increase in the annual harvest (Herwitz, et al., 2002).

 Another of the fields where drones will penetrate is delivery packages. The incursion

in this industry is because the drones are more efficient and faster since they avoid traffic

jams and work schedules, problems that delivery trucks face daily. For example, one of the

companies that bets on the use of unmanned aircraft is Amazon, which has been testing

quadcopters in the UK (Murison, 2016). However, several problems arise due to some

questions as if it is certain that a person can operate several units at the same time or if the

artificial intelligence of the drones is sufficient or worse human interference in the delivering

process. Anyway, technology goes forward and soon or later drones will definitely enter in

delivery market.

Emergency services is other field that drones will enhance; thus, saving lives is a

direct consequence. The logistics of current emergency response are often muddled by

physical factors such as traffic or other stuff. Consequently, the advantage stands that drones

can access to complex, cluttered or indoor places. Also, they are incorporated with high-

resolution camera and external protection to pilot easily that allows be applied in a sort of

disasters as flooding, wildfires or nuclear fallout. Moreover, drones can be used to deliver

medicine, vaccines and care packages to people from a great distance (Lee, 2014). As a result,

decreasing downtime and inspection costs is a reality and also humans who operate them are

safe. Another example of safety work is that drones allow to monitor high-risk machines as

boilers, pressure vessels or tunnels. A very good example of a disaster aid drone is Elios

(made by Flyability Company) which is characterized by being the first collision-tolerant

flying robot and specially designed for dangerous scenarios (Flyability, 2017).

Now, imagine that a drone guides you in a new place like the campus of a university.

Guidance flying robots could be a reality in the next years. The purpose of this is to save and
optimize time for people who dont know the route to go from place to place. In this case,

the best example is an unmanned vehicle developed by MITs SENSEable City Lab. This

prototype is connected through an app called Skycall on a phone. As a result, the drone will

fly to the persons position and it will guide him to his requested destination (Carroll, 2013).

In the future, this invention could be extended for people with disabilities or blind to improve

the way they get a specific place.

Finally, wildlife and environmental problems can be monitored by the named

conservation drones in order to be controlled and remedied respectively. For instance, it is

well known that some wildlife is experiencing serious extinction problems, so it is important

to monitor threatened species and poachers, a task that can be difficult in large territories and

dangerous because of the animals. Drones allow to cover larger areas and have a low noise

footprint that do not disturb animals taking advantage of the ground study. Therefore, tasks

such as monitor the size of wildlife population or protect a landscape are more effective

(Airborne Drones, 2017). Nevertheless, a recent study shows that there could be influences

in animals due to the drones. For example, black bear heart rate soar at the sight of a drone

(Holland, 2015). On the other hand, drones are used to monitor environmental details. For

instance, NASA sent a drone into the atmosphere to analyze the interactions between water

vapor and the ozone layer because they play a critical role for controlling the ozone gas high

up in the Earths atmosphere that can act as a greenhouse gas (Lee, 2014) (Oskin, 2013).

Theres no doubt about the potential applications of drones. It is important to highlight

that they are really useful since they can be built in order to withstand extreme temperature

or radiation. Also, an aerial view gives always a better perspective of what is happening with

a harvest field or during a disaster to save lives. Definitely, the fields where drones can be
used is really widespread ranging from agriculture to help people with disabilities. In

conclusion, unmanned aircraft have shown to provide more precise data than traditional

ground-based techniques.

References

Airborne Drones. (2017). Wildlife & Game Monitoring. Recuperado el 07 de March de

2017, de Airborne Drones: https://www.airbornedrones.co/pages/farming-drones

Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. (2013). The Economic Impact of

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the United States. Arlington: AUVSI.

Recuperado el 2017

Department of Defense. (2007). Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032. Washington

D.C. Recuperado el 2017

Flyability. (2017). Elios. Recuperado el 06 de March de 2017, de Flyability Safe Drones for

Inaccessible Places: http://www.flyability.com/elios/

Herwitz, S., Jonhson, L., Arvesen, J., Higgins, R., Leung, J., & Dunagan, S. (2002).

Precision Agricutlure as a Commercial Applicaiton for Solar-Powered Unmanned

Aerial Vehicles. (AIAA, Ed.) 1st Technical Conference and Workshop on

Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles. Recuperado el 2017

Holland, J. (25 de August de 2015). How Drones are Affecting Wildlife in Surprising Ways.

Recuperado el 03 de March de 2017, de National Geografic:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150825-drones-animals-wildlife-bears-

science-technology/
Lee, J. (24 de November de 2014). 5 Amazing Uses for Drones in the Future. Recuperado

el 07 de March de 2017, de Make use of: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-

amazing-uses-drones-future/

Murison, M. (15 de December de 2016). Five Future Uses for Drone Technology.

Recuperado el 02 de Mach de 2017, de Drone Life.com:

http://dronelife.com/2016/12/15/future-uses-drone-technology/

Oskin, B. (10 de January de 2013). NASA Drone to Probe Ozone Loss. Recuperado el 07 de

March de 2017, de LiveScience: http://www.livescience.com/26161-nasa-drones-

ozone-study.html