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Is the future bright for civilian drones?

Walter Featherstone
9cfafe17cbee9865c53732b3a3144f94-huge-amazonprimeair.jpgFollowing on from Jonathan Webber’s presentation entitled “Looking from a Safe Distance” were you convinced by the use cases for civilian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)? Like Jonathon I’m still rather sceptical about mass delivery from the likes of Amazon, but that was certainly headline grabbing and generated some highly amusing cartoon images. However, the use UAVs for industrial inspection, emergency services and remote monitoring already appear well developed. It’s also going to be interesting to see how things pan out with regards to the use of drones to provide internet to the unconnected. Will they make satellites redundant for communication? Can you think of additional use cases?
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    Given the speed at which technology has and will evolve, one can see that the pressure for more civilian use will expand as the price of vehicles and sensors fall. It is inevitable that the 'enthusiasts' use of drones will increase and that some will want to use the capability for commercial application. It is easy to see a use to take aerial photographs of buildings to support Estate Agents' pictures, they currently use cameras on poles for 'aerial' photographs. There is an interesting article in the March Edition of the Royal Photographic Magazine (Pages 88-91), by a CAA licensed operator. The article shows images taken with a multi-rotor helicopter carrying a GoPro 12MB camera taking images at preset intervals - without a data link, lots of pictures. The operator even managed to take photographs of a cross channel ferry, the latter involved launching and recovering the drone from the ferry!



    By the way I was surprised that in the lecture there was no mention of the use of drones in the 2nd World War. Surely the V1 can be classed as a drone (or even a cruise missile), it was driven by a pulse jet engine and the course was set at launch and gyro controlled in flight.
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    Given the speed at which technology has and will evolve, one can see that the pressure for more civilian use will expand as the price of vehicles and sensors fall. It is inevitable that the 'enthusiasts' use of drones will increase and that some will want to use the capability for commercial application. It is easy to see a use to take aerial photographs of buildings to support Estate Agents' pictures, they currently use cameras on poles for 'aerial' photographs. There is an interesting article in the March Edition of the Royal Photographic Magazine (Pages 88-91), by a CAA licensed operator. The article shows images taken with a multi-rotor helicopter carrying a GoPro 12MB camera taking images at preset intervals - without a data link, lots of pictures. The operator even managed to take photographs of a cross channel ferry, the latter involved launching and recovering the drone from the ferry!



    By the way I was surprised that in the lecture there was no mention of the use of drones in the 2nd World War. Surely the V1 can be classed as a drone (or even a cruise missile), it was driven by a pulse jet engine and the course was set at launch and gyro controlled in flight.
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