Drone News & Articles

Walking around shopping malls this holiday season, I noticed one thing that was not there last year, or in the years before. Many big malls across the US have built huge net cages, some smack in the middle of the mall, that are being used to demonstrate the newest models of consumer drones. Shoppers donning goggles that give a drone’s point of view, through a video, pilot them before they decide whether they want the big, expensive toy for Christmas.

Most consumer drones are made by a Chinese firm headquartered just across the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen that has suddenly found itself in the eye of the storm over global surveillance, intellectual property and national security concerns.

Dà-Jing Innovations Science and Technology Co, widely known as DJI Technology Co, dominates the industry with popular drones such as the US$99 Ryze Tello, US$399 Phantom 3, US$499 Spark Quadcopter and US$1,299 Mavic 2 Pro Platinum. It has a 77% market share, according to SkyLogic Research, up from just 50% three years ago. The words “Da Jiang”, or literally “Great Boundary”, are derived from a Chinese phrase that means “great ambitions have no boundaries”. Yet, if policymakers in Washington have their way, those boundaries are likely to be severely tested over the next few years. Indeed, we could see more walls going up to ring-fence DJI and other Chinese drone makers from making further inroads.

Founded by Frank Wang Tao, DJI is one of China’s largest unicorns, with a valuation of US$21 billion. Born in Hangzhou, Wang attended Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where he won an HK$18,000 bursary to conduct research on unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. He developed a flight control system for an unmanned mini-helicopter that became the seed for the first consumer drone.

Wang launched DJI from his Hong Kong dorm room and chose Shenzhen as the base for his fledgling start-up mainly because of its proximity to the former British colony. He had always been fascinated with flying objects. As a child, he owned a toy helicopter that crashed, so he vowed to build a more stable flying object when he grew up. As a teenager, Wang learnt about flight stabilisation, and on a wing and a prayer launched his start-up, which raised money from prominent venture capital (VC) firms, including Sequoia Capital China and Access Partners.

The Shenzhen drone giant now has 15,000 employees globally and research labs in the US, and recently began rolling out its own iconic retail stores around the world, even though you can buy its drones in an Apple Store, on Amazon.com or indeed in any of the pop-up stores that have sprung up in the malls for the holiday season.

The company’s annual sales topped US$2.7 billion in 2017 and nearly US$4 billion last year for a business that is now growing over 45% annually, and unlike some of the high-flying internet companies with stratospheric valuations, DJI actually makes money. Over 80% of its sales are now from exports to North America, ­Europe and the rest of the world.

The global drone market — including consumer, commercial and military drones — is growing at a 40% annual clip. Barclays Capital forecasts it will exceed US$100 billion by 2024, with commercial drone sales rising to nearly US$40 billion in five years, up from US$4 billion last year. Chinese firms like DJI, Jiangsu-based Yuneec International, Beijing Yi-Hang Creation Science & Technology (which makes Ehang drones), France’s Parrot, Silicon Valley-based Kespry and Canada’s Aeryon Labs are among the major drone players.

Most of us have seen the Amazon delivery drone video on YouTube or TV, seen children fly drones in local parks or heard of farmers and construction workers using them to map cornfields or survey building sites. Yet, drones these days are doing much more, including surveillance and work like inspecting overhead power lines that used to be considered dangerous; oil and gas pipelines for wear and tear, as well as airplanes and trains from onboard cameras.

In the US, home builders employ drones for aerial photos to be used in promotional materials as well as for surveying and mapping. I have walked around neighbourhoods where insurance agents regularly survey homes with their drones.  DJI’s corporate customers include American Airlines, Union Pacific Railroad and Warren Buffett-owned freight train network operator BNSF Railway.

Smartphone boost

So, what’s behind the boom in drones? Look no further than your smartphone. Drone makers such as DJI have deftly leveraged the explosive growth of the smartphone market, which has pushed down the prices of components such as sensors, including accelerometers, gyroscopes, barometers, global positioning systems and magneto-meters, cameras and graphics processors, and put them together with propellers, landing gear, speed controllers and flight controllers to build affordable drones. Consumer drones can take photos and high-resolution videos, stay airborne for up to half an hour and can be easily folded up and carried around.

Now, with the advent of 5G connectivity, cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, which will help to dramatically improve image recognition as well as on-board processing capabilities, drones are about to become incredibly powerful and sophisticated. Specialised cameras could be used for emission detection. Drones used for inspecting power lines or telecom towers will be able to detect temperature, damage or wear and tear that may not be visible to the unaided human eye. Within the agricultural segment, where DJI has a 70% market share, drones equipped with specialised cameras are being deployed for precision fertilisation as well as soil and crop monitoring, land mapping and even plant pollination. That is helping farmers improve yields and reduce costs.

Until recently, a key issue with drones has been battery life, but just as batteries in smartphones are improving, the ability of drones to stay airborne for hours is likely to get better as well. Other improvements being readied include flying farther away from an operator’s line of sight and the use of ­LiDARs, or light detection and ranging, a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges that will help make them fly without much human interference.

DJI’s ascent

How did a company from China whose tech hardware industry has been built on stolen intellectual property get to be the dominant powerhouse in drones? For one thing, China is no longer just a source of cheap components and labour. The era of China as a technology copycat is over.

Cutting-edge tech companies such as Hangzhou Hikvision in surveillance, Tencent Holdings in mobile gaming, Alibaba Group Holding in e-commerce, AliPay and WeChat Pay in mobile payments, Bytedance’s TikTok in short video and DJI in drones are blazing a trail, and competitors from the Silicon Valley to Tokyo to Seoul that are finding it hard to keep pace are now increasingly trying to copy Chinese hardware, software and services.

Within the consumer drone segment, DJI was briefly challenged by a bunch of US players that have all exited the market. 3D Robotics, a firm led by Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief of technology magazine Wired, raised nearly US$100 million and launched Solo, a mass-market drone. It lost most of that money and more. These days, it just makes software for drones used by construction, engineering and mining firms as well as government agencies.

Another competitor was US-based action camera maker GoPro, developer of the Karma drone, which failed to get much traction in the market. GoPro listed in mid-2014 at US$24 a share, saw its stock soar to over US$98 in just 12 weeks, only to crash and burn after its product failed to live up to Wall Street hype. Last week, stock of GoPro, which now just focuses on action cameras for a niche market, was trading at just over US$3.90, or down nearly 97% from its peak.

DJI was the Chinese tortoise pitted against the well-funded American hares like GoPro and 3D Robotics. While American firms pushed a handful of drone models, DJI flooded the market at every price point and aggressively cut prices, rapidly boosting market share and driving out its competitors.

A new US competitor to DJI in the commercial segment is Impossible Aerospace, which is founded by Spencer Gore, who worked as a battery design engineer at ­Tesla and aviation engineer at electric vehicle pioneer Elon Musk’s space firm, SpaceX. Impossible’s US-1 long-duration drone, which can stay airborne for 75 minutes, is purpose-built for first responder missions and law enforcement agencies. Because of Gore’s history at Tesla, US-1 is the first battery-electric aircraft to rival the performance of a conventionally powered system that runs on dry cells. The start-up has raised US$11.4 million from prominent VCs such as Bessemer Venture Partners and Eclipse Ventures.

Drones another front in tech war

For now, DJI’s problem is not some Silicon Valley start-up, but the Trump administration’s and US Congress’ attempts to prevent it from dominating the US market. In early November, the US Department of the Interior announced that it would ground its fleet of DJI drones because they might pose a threat to US national security. The department, which is responsible for maintaining federal land, uses a fleet of over 800 drones to help in tasks such as monitoring floods and fires, inspecting dams and property, and tracking endangered species. Other US government departments are moving to ground their own fleets of China-made drones or even US-made drones that use Chinese components or software. The moves follow legislation currently under discussion in both houses of Congress, including the Senate’s American Security Drone Act of 2019, which would limit all US government agencies from purchasing Chinese drone technology.

What’s next for DJI? So far, founder Wang has resisted the temptation to take his company public, though there has been media speculation about a late 2020 listing. With US Congress enacting laws that may ground a big part of its fleet in the US, DJI is likely to put off the initial public offering and refocus its energies on further widening its lead over other drone makers.

The Pakistani province of Sindh has a colossal locust problem. Hometown researcher Shahzad Nahiyoon has a solution from on high.

For the past 30 years, farmers in Malir have suffered devastating insect attacks without the benefit of pesticide spraying. A shortage of manned aircraft prevented aerial crop-dusting, resulting in thousands of acres of decimated crops.

Nahiyoon, a plant-protection expert, has launched a UAV crop-spray initiative, leveraging his status as the first known agricultural drone pilot in Pakistan.

His drones can spray between six to 10 hectares per hour, using tanks that can hold up to 20 liters of pesticides.

“The UAV has emerged as a capable plant protector because it has high operational efficiency, high speed and low drift,” Nahiyoon said in an interview with the Express Tribune.

“UAVs are more suitable for complex terrain and small-sized farms with separate plots,” he added.

A native of Sindh, Nahiyoon has spent the last few years earning his doctorate in pesticides sciences at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

At the academy, Nahiyoon learned cutting-edge techniques in drone-based plant protection. In 2016, he earned a master’s at the Sindh Agriculture University in his hometown of Tando Jam. In short, Nahiyoon knows his drones.

“In contrast to the commonly used manned fixed-wing aircraft in the United States, UAVs do not require a take-off airport which makes them much more cost-effective,” Nahiyoon told the Express Tribune.

Before Nahiyoon arrived on the scene, the provincial government had requested three helicopters, 32 spraying vehicles and pesticides from the Pakistani federal government – an expensive and potentially dangerous proposition.

“[Drones] have higher work efficiency, lower operator exposure and improved ability to spray chemicals in a timely and highly spatially-resolved manner.”

Market research predicts the agricultural drone market could expand to a $4.2 billion industry by 2022, representing a growth rate of 30 percent. Other reports peg the ag drone market at $2.9 billion by 2021 – up 28 percent from a 2015 valuation of $673 million.

It’s dawn in Kakadu’s wetlands; the night’s inky silence gives way to bird song as the first rays reveal the emerald magic of the landscape.

The dual World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and a precious resource for its traditional owners who have hunted, fished and lived on the land for some 65,000 years.

It is also the site of a ground-breaking project, weaving together Indigenous knowledge, scientific research and artificial intelligence into a pioneering and adaptive co-management solution, creating a new framework for the way the world’s Indigenous communities can protect the environment and preserve biodiversity.

Biodiversity is facing numerous threats across the globe, causing species extinctions and ecosystem losses at alarming rates.

Analysis reveals that most of the planet’s vital ecosystems and threatened species are managed on lands owned by Indigenous people. Forty-five per cent of protected areas in Australia are managed by Indigenous populations.

The Healthy Country project underway in Kakadu brings together the Kakadu Board of Management, Bininj co-researchers and Indigenous rangers, CSIRO, Microsoft, Parks Australia, Northern Australia National Environment Science Program (NESP), University of Western Australia (UWA) and Charles Darwin University (CDU). Together they have a trial underway that is transforming the way the environment is being managed.

Kakadu’s wetlands are one of the last refuges for a number of protected Australian species, such as magpie geese which are considered a key indicator of ‘healthy country’ by traditional owners. But invasive species such as para grass, an introduced fodder crop which has become an aggressive and fast-growing weed in Kakadu, are displacing native plants and reducing the habitat for magpie geese, ducks and turtles.

The Healthy Country project has focussed on identifying the best ways to control, then eradicate para grass weed and bring back to country the magpie geese, ducks and turtles. And it’s working.

AI accelerates adaptive co-management

Northern Australia may be one of the most stunning places on earth – but it’s a challenging environment where cyclones and floods switch to the dry for half of the year. Park rangers and scientists whose job is to travel Kakadu to source environmental data are also fully aware that waterways are full of crocodiles, that buffalo and feral pigs roam the landscape, and that there are only limited resources to support them.

What data has been collected in the past has been somewhat limited, and getting it into the hands of the people able to act on it is a time-consuming process.

The Healthy Country project instead sources large quantities of data from drones, controlled by Traditional Owners. Artificial intelligence which combines Indigenous knowledge and scientific research then interprets that data, providing the insights in near real time to the rangers who manage the park.

Professor Michael Douglas, Leader, NESP Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub and a Kakadu Board Member stresses that; “The need for good information to help us manage these landscapes is only increasing. The challenges from climate change and the threats from weeds and fire and feral animals are getting worse every year. The resources that we have to respond to those is getting less and less. So we have to work smarter.

“We have to do more with the limited resources we’ve got, and Microsoft AI can really make a huge difference there.”

But the project has been determined to ensure that this is truly responsible and ethical AI.

Douglas explains that before embarking on the Healthy Country project, the team spent 18 months identifying what Traditional Owners saw as high priorities for research in Kakadu National Park, focussing on Indigenous knowledge indicators for healthy country regarding weeds, fire, and feral animals and building on work already underway to manage Kakadu’s riparian zones, which include its rivers and floodplains.

According to Dr Justin Perry, CSIRO Research Scientist, Indigenous values are front and centre to the project. They steer all monitoring and management actions.

The data collected and resulting insights reveal to rangers and scientists how well their responses to environmental problems are working, allowing continuous improvement.

Douglas adds; “For me this project brings together 20 years of studying para grass, and the threat that it poses to floodplains, but for the first time we’re actually doing something about it. So, we’ve managed to completely remove para grass from a really important part of Kakadu’s floodplains,” he says.

And the magpie geese, ducks and turtles are returning

Douglas says; “Microsoft AI is going to revolutionise the way that we do research and manage Northern Australia’s environments. It means that we can collect more data than we’ve ever been able to do in the past. We can access locations, and at times of year, that we couldn’t do previously. But it also means that we can collect that data much more safely than we were able to do.”

Microsoft AI is also removing the need for people to physically review thousands of hours of video to count animals and identify para grass in its different states (burnt, wet, growing, dead). Instead, CustomVision AI, trained with machine learning, interprets the drone footage.

The results and analysis are then made available to rangers through a dashboard on a mobile device to support their on-the-ground decision making.

Dr Cathy Robinson, is Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO and stresses that it’s not just the speed at which information can be relayed that is critical, it’s also the ethical approach that has been adopted with Indigenous people leading the process, ensuring that their knowledge is handled in an appropriate way and producing outcomes that are supported by Indigenous people in an adaptive co-management setting.

“This is the essence of responsible AI…making sure that we benefit Indigenous people, and their knowledge, through every single step of the way.

“This is a very, very unique project. We’ve allowed AI to sit next to Indigenous knowledge, to inform adaptive approaches to caring for this land.

“AI has taken a view from the sky, through drones. We’ve woven those together and thought about that platform design, so that it’s usable for Indigenous people. In every part of that process, we’ve had to make sure that Indigenous knowledge is protected appropriately. That Indigenous knowledge is used appropriately to guide management decisions, and that we weave science, including AI, so that we can do that together, to deliver healthy country outcomes.”

Working with Bininj people on the Indigenous led research process the project melds AI with Indigenous knowledge to guide adaptive co-management. Says Robinson; “So what does adaptive co-management mean? It means we’re building the evidence base, to make better decisions. We’ve got to make those decisions together, and we’ve got to build a different evidence base to help that.”

Robinson is also convinced of the global potential of the work underway at Kakadu. “Across the globe, Indigenous people are handling some pretty challenging questions. Their planet is under pressure, and much of that planet is owned by Indigenous people, particularly areas that have got high biodiversity assets. Threatened species, important ecosystems, fabulous cultural heritage spots,” all of which need effective and sensitive management.

With that in mind the adaptive co-management framework is opensource and being made available on GitHub allowing the solution to be used internationally.

Responsible AI, ethical data governance

The AI which interprets the drone-collected data has been built with the advice and guidance of the Traditional Owners in regard to what is important to them from a land management perspective.

That could be information about the presence or absence of animals. It could be information about the condition of different types of grasses or trees. That then feeds into the AI models developed to interpret the data.

The results and analysis are delivered to rangers via a Power BI dashboard that was designed in partnership with the Traditional Owners based on their cultural values and the season. Rangers can use the dashboard to support their decision making regardless of where they are based.

The solution has been constructed with several layers of privacy as some of the sites where the drones collect data are sites sacred to the Traditional Owners, and as such, imagery and data from those sites needs to be properly protected.

The platform features three rings of data management and data governance. The innermost data ring is restricted to Traditional Owners, rangers and Indigenous elders who identify which data can be made available to the second ring.

The data in the second ring can be accessed by researchers and collaboration partners. The outermost ring is data that can be made available for more public consumption.

Microsoft Australia machine learning engineer Steve van Bodegraven says the Healthy Country platform is an exemplar of responsible and ethical AI.

“Everything is led by Indigenous people with Indigenous knowledge and their permission. It’s not the first time that technology has needed to address privacy and security issues. We can go back to publicly identifiable information and your credit card details and your address. From a technology perspective it’s very similar to that.”

In this project “It’s working out how we apply those same quality checks and controls to Indigenous knowledge.”

According to van Bodegraven the development of an open source co-management framework using responsible AI and ethical data management has enormous implications for the management of other environments around the world. While the AI models used to interpret the data would need to be modified for other environments using machine learning to account for different flora, fauna and landscapes, the underlying framework would be globally applicable.

The magpie geese return

In Kakadu a drone is flown over the landscape by an Indigenous ranger following a grid pattern. Data from the drone is downloaded, stored in a file and synchronised to Azure. Using Azure-based Jupyter notebooks data scientists construct models that interpret the data taking account of Indigenous knowledge of the environment and its different seasons.

The more data collected the greater the opportunity to refine and improve the AI algorithms.

In the future additional sensors will be deployed (multiband/LiDAR) to collect more data and provide additional options to classify the landscape and deliver even more insights to rangers.

CustomVisionAI is used to review the drone-collected video and identify plants and animals. CustomVisionAI has two models operational with a further 10 to follow; the associated Machine Learning Service has one model and another will be added.

The insights from the analysis are then made available through Power BI in a self-service dashboard.

Van Bodegraven explains that the self-service dashboard – which is being continually refined – combined with the growing Azure-based data collection allows rangers to focus in on a single water hole and explore it centimetre by centimetre. They can then scan out over a wider area, and monitor the environment month by month, metre by metre.

“We can go back to December last year see how it looked like. Fast forward to March this year. Fast forward to September. Fast forward to December again and see how the land has changed over time. If the animals have changed over time,” he says.

“Then introduce the information from the activities that we’ve applied to the land. So spraying and back burning are two common examples. When those actions have been applied to the land how has the land changed as a response? Then collecting that data so we get a cyclical outcome. We’ve applied this action to the land. This is how it responded. How is that happening across seasons? How’s that affecting the longitudinal activities of the land?”

As it turns out, it’s having a very positive effect says CSIRO’s Justin Perry.

“We’re controlling para grass, which is an invasive weed on wetlands. The aim is to bring back important cultural and social environmental values. That includes, in this case, looking at how magpie geese come back into these systems after we’ve done the management intervention.

“Microsoft AI’s allowed us to accelerate the impact of this project.”

After a year’s careful management, including spraying the para grass weed, the native plants have returned. So have the magpie geese, ducks and turtles.

Says Perry; “We’ve seen almost a thousand more magpie geese come back to this wetland. Magpie geese have been identified as one of the key values for Bininj and are a really important part of the ecology of northern Australia. So, the more areas that we can start to bring back to their natural state and allow these wonderful birds to come back to these areas the better it’ll be.”

A multitude of drones took over Pampanga’s twilight sky for a lights show during the final leg of the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games torch run on the 23rd of November.

The event was held at the Bayanihan Park inside the Clark Freeport Zone.

The choreographed light show appears to be a part of the event’s grand finale prepared by Drone Tech. The spectacle showcased the Philippine flag and other symbols related to the games, as seen on Don Miguel Villarosa’ YouTube channel on the 25th of November.

Pampanga’s cloudy sky became the perfect backdrop for the drones. They created moving multicoloured outlines of various sports to be played at the SEA Games, as well as the official logo.

The highlight of the show was when the drones formed the SEA Games’ official motto and theme, “We Win as One.” The words spun in the sky before finally dispersing to numerous specs of light.

The SEA Games torch first visited SM Lanang in Davao City on Oct 30. It then went to Cebu on Nov 16., before finally made its way to Clark.

Small and relatively cheap, DJI's Mavic Mini may remove a lot of the barriers that have long prohibited most people from getting into drones, though it does come with its own potentially deal-breaking issues.

The Mini packs the core features of DJI's more expensive drones in a package that is about as small as a smartphone when folded. This means you get a rated 30 minutes of flight time, 4km HD video transmission, a three-axis gimbal holding a 2.7K resolution camera and a physical controller designed to house your Android or iOS smartphone. At $599, you get a lot of drone for the money.

It weighs just 249g, and that odd number isn't by accident. Drones that weigh more than 250g will soon need to be registered with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), which involves handing over your personal details and a small fee. Meanwhile, places like the United States and UK already have this requirement in place.

Mavic Mini flyers skirt registration altogether, which is a big plus.

Even in windy conditions, I found the Mavic Mini performed just about as well as DJI's bigger and more expensive models. While it can't do 4K, it still produces a very impressive HD picture that holds up when viewing on a large television display.

Flying it out on the oceanfront of northern Queensland, it felt stable and remained responsive to control. What's more, the video I was able to capture remained super smooth without as much as a hint of camera shake.

But back to those potential deal-breakers.

I live 4.5km from a local aerodrome. According to CASA's OpenSky app, I'm fine to fly a drone for recreational purposes in my area as long as I land the drone if I see an aircraft. However DJI's app wouldn't even let me fly the Mavic Mini in my backyard or inside my own home, owing to the company's GEO zone system that limits flights in certain locations, based on international standards that can be stricter than Australia's.

A software update in December will enable Mavic Mini owners to fly within such zones via a self-unlocking procedure through the app. The self-unlock will need to be done every 24 hours and requires a verified DJI account and handing over your mobile phone number. The user will then receive a text message with an unlock code.

In either case, DJI's approach seems heavy-handed, especially when other drone manufacturers put the onus on the person piloting the drone to fly responsibly and follow local laws. Anyone interested in a Mavic Mini should consult DJI's Geo Zone map before buying.

The other thing to be aware of is that the Mavic Mini lacks obstacle avoidance sensors which means it can't see buildings, trees and other potential hazards while in the air. DJI's more expensive models, such as the Mavic Air, are able to stop and go around objects in real-time. Since there will be times when the drone will have to take over and pilot itself back to you — such as when you lose connection or video link with the drone — the absence of obstacle avoidance smarts will make you feel uneasy.

I also found in my testing that the Mavic Mini tends to prioritise the shortest route back even if it isn't necessarily the safest option. While flying the Mavic Mini across the beach one afternoon, the drone started to pilot itself back to me after I lost video signal. But instead of taking the same obstacle-free route back, it decided to cut through a nearby street filled with several high rise apartment buildings, leading to an inevitable crash into one of the balconies.

I tested the Mavic Mini in a range of conditions and the maximum flying distance I could achieve was around 900m before losing the video signal, which is well below the advertised 4km range. There is a range of factors that can affect transmission, such as concrete structures and mountains, so your mileage will vary.

It's possible that some of these issues will be ironed out with future software updates.

DJI has, overall, done a nice job streamlining what has traditionally been a complicated hobby into something that newcomers can get into. There's really no other drone that can match the Mavic Mini at this size or price, however, the lighter and more fragile construction does mean that Mavic Mini is less likely to survive a crash. Springing for DJI's $59 Care Refresh program, which covers accidental damage by offering up to two replacement units for a year, would be a wise investment.

The sheer joy of flying a drone over a scenic landscape, or grabbing professional-looking aerial footage, with something that can fit in your pocket is a real boon for budding videographers or anyone looking to take their holiday videos to the next level. But the manufacturer-imposed restrictions on flying and the lack of collision avoidance technology indicate consumer drones still aren't yet ready for the mainstream.

Before they were jailed in Iran, an intrepid pair of travel vloggers from Cottlesloe wowed social media followers with breathtaking aerial vistas of their overland travels from Australia to the UK: Javanese volcanoes, the lakes of Flores, the jagged mountains of Pakistan.

Their footage was filmed with a camera drone, as are a great deal of travel video these days. It is illegal to fly a drone without a permit in Iran but Jolie King and Mark Firkin were unaware of this when, in July, they launched theirs to film an instalment of their trip from a highway just outside Tehran, near a military facility. In September, the Iranian judiciary confirmed they were being held  for taking pictures in miltary areas. Negotiations are ongoing for their release from Evin Prison.

For better or worse, drones are increasingly making headlines.

A staple of modern warfare, they played a central role in recent attacks on  Saudi Arabia oil-processing facilities with the Saudis claiming that a swarm of 10 drones had hit the plants.

In Australia, they have made headlines for quite different reasons, including larrikin stunts such as one involving a man fishing while suspended from a drone above a lake. Their potential is barely tapped: this summer will see the first national rollout of drones to help lifesavers spot sharks and swimmers in trouble. In Canberra, they are being trialled for delivering takeaway meals. Uber wants to use them as air taxis in the future.

What are drones exactly? Where did they come from? What are the rules on flying them here and overseas?

Drones are also called UAVs or “unmanned aerial vehicles”, which gives you an idea of how broad a range of flying machines are referred to as drones. The name accounts for the whizzing or buzzing sound they make in flight.

The military end of the spectrum looks, to the civilian eye, like a plane. The ominously named Reaper model, described by former chief of staff of the US Air Force, General Moseley as a “hunter-killer”, can carry more than 1.5 tonnes of ordnance and can be operated from by a ground-based pilot on the other side of the world.

The more common civilian models are, essentially, quadrocopters – small aircraft with four rotors and a camera. These can range from a $10 kids' toy to commercially flown units with more rotors, bigger batteries and the ability to carry professional cameras or other payloads.

Where did drones come from?

After experiments dating back to World War I, it was during the Vietnam War that drones' reconnaissance capabilities were properly utilised. The US Air Force flew more than 3000 reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam during the war there. The Israeli Defence Forces developed the fixed-wing technology and longer range and used their "Scout" model in the 1982 war with Lebanon.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks after the September 11 attacks that the US made its first lethal use of a drone when a CIA Predator drone fired at a vehicle that had been carrying a Taliban leader, killing bodyguards but missing the leader. The strike, in October 2001, was from a base in Saudi Arabia, according to The Atlantic. Since then, the United States has carried out hundreds of strikes, mostly in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia while other countries have weighed in with their own strikes. 

The US Federal Aviation Administration issued its first commercial drone permit in 2006 and an average of two of these permits a year for the next eight years – that was all that was requested. In 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the company was considering using drones as a delivery method, igniting the public’s interest in drones. In 2015, the FAA issued 1000 drone permits, a number that tripled to 3100 permits in 2016 and that has continued to grow in the time since.

Where can’t you fly drones overseas?

Drones are particularly frowned upon in some parts of the world. In Iran, unauthorised use of drones is one of many actions that are illegal (being in a de facto relationship is another one), warns the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on its Smart Traveller website. It also warns that any photography outside tourist areas in Iran may attract the attention of authorities – and there is a risk that foreigners can be arbitrarily detained or arrested.

In Cambodia, “it is illegal to fly drones in Phnom Penh, Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap or other sensitive areas, unless prior approval is received from the local municipality”. Australian filmmaker James Ricketson endured more than a year in a Cambodian prison following his arrest for flying a drone over a political rally without permission in 2017. Sentenced to six years in jail for gathering information that might affect national security, he received a royal pardon in 2018.

In Myanmar, customs officials are “particularly sensitive” about communications equipment such as drones, says DFAT. Two Reuters journalists spent more than 18 months behind bars after flying a drone over parliament, which was deemed illegal under 1930s anti-aircraft laws.

Travellers should get permission to bring a drone into Morocco, says DFAT, and any drone in your luggage will be confiscated on arrival in Egypt.

Even in war zones, where you might imagine drones would go with the territory, flying a camera drone can get you shot, says veteran Age and Sydney Morning Herald photographer Kate Geraghty, who has seen drones used in combat since she reported in Lebanon in 2006. There, she says, “we would drive with the windows down so we could hear drones more easily and leave the area if they dropped weapons.”

Who can fly a drone in Australia and where?

Anyone, providing you stick to the standard operating conditions. There are no age limits for flying a drone at this stage, although this is under review.

If you want to fly a drone for commercial gain, and/or outside the standard operating conditions, you’ll need to obtain a licence to do so – unless the drone is under 2kg, or under 25kg if it’s only being flown on your own property.

The body that regulates drones, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), is aiming to introduce registration for commercial drone certificate-holders next year. Recreational registration and accreditation will follow but remains a couple of years away. When registration is rolled out for recreational drone pilots, CASA is proposing a minimum age of 16.

Most of the rules restrict where and when drones can be flown. What it all boils down to is that you must be able to see what you’re doing and not fly your drone where it could fall and hurt someone, damage something, intrude on privacy, or interfere with aircraft and emergency services.

How are the rules enforced?

Some footage comes to the attention of CASA investigator because it goes vrial on social media and is picked up by the media. CASA is looking into whether the use of the drone to go fishing above the Upper Coliban Reservoir in central Victoria breached regulations.

Sam Foreman, a carpenter from Kyneton, said the project was the brainchild of his electrician cousin Tim French but he had played the role of test dummy, with beer in hand, on August 17 when the video was shot in front of a few dozen friends and family.

"It was a very crazy experience and we put a lot of planning into it, a lot of time. We did lots of tests out in a paddock at the start. We couldn't test it with a person because we didn't want to take it out in public until it was actually ready to lift a person up," Foreman said.

In 2016, CASA slapped a $900 fine on a man who made news for a different stunt: he “sent” his drone from his backyard hot tub in Sunbury in Victoria to collect a sausage sizzle snag from his local Bunnings store. The fine was for failing to keep a model aircraft away from people; the maximum court penalty was $9000. (His local council also saw the video and, incidentally, required him to put a safety fence around his hot tub.)

People who breach the rules are usually identified via CASA inspectors, reports from the public (which can be submitted to CASA online) or investigations by police. Drone detection technology has also been rolled out across Australia, in places such as airports, known hot-spots (such as Sydney Harbour) and at major events. (It was also introduced at London's Gatwick Airport after drone sightings in December led to thousands of flights being cancelled while authorities scrambled, unsuccessfully, to find a culprit.) In Australia, the most severe drone-flying penalty, for an individual who flies a drone in a way that’s hazardous to other aircraft, is up to two years in prison and/or a fine of $25,200.

People found in breach of other rules can be fined up to $1050 per offence and holders of a licence or certificate can receive further demerit-style points. If the matter goes to court (for failure to pay fines or in case of serious rule breaches), an individual could be convicted and/or fined up to $10,500 along with receiving demerits.

But infringements are rare. So far, none have been issued as a result of surveillance by authorities, although a CASA spokesman says a number of warnings have been issued. Infringements issued numbered just 63 in 2018, while the first six months of 2019 saw 26 penalty notices handed out.

What are drones good for?

It depends on your point of view. Some US prisons are now using drones to keep an eye on inmates after resisting having drones anywhere near jails because inmates use them to smuggle in contraband, from wire-cutters to steroids. Prisons in Australia have gone into lockdown because drones were seen buzzing over them; many states, including NSW and Victoria, have now made it illegal to fly drones near jails.

On the US-Mexico border, drones are part of the toolkit for Mexican drug cartels who use them to spot weaknesses in law enforcement patrols, The Washington Post has reported. And, in January, a 25-year-old man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for flying a drone carrying a bag of methamphetamine over a checkpoint at Tijuana.

Despite the pitfalls, drones have less nefarious uses, not least democratising film-making and pushing its creative limits.

Orson Welles may turn in his grave at the prospect but a high-end drone, with all it’s intuitive, motion-tracking gizmos, would make short work of a once-challenging and expensive piece of cinematography. Think of the sumptuous, uninterrupted tracking shot that opened Touch of Evil; or Fred Zinnemann’s crane shot gliding upwards to show Gary Cooper as a sheriff alone on a deserted street in High Noon.

And just as seasoned viewers begin to experience “drone fatigue” – what streaming drama series doesn’t include an aerial sweep of a bleak forest, endless desert or urban sprawl? – drone film techniques become ever more elaborate, with shots from drones replacing shots from helicopters in The Wolf of Wall Street, seen below, and recent Bond movies.

The possibilities offered by drones are particularly pertinent in a big country such as Australia. The Royal Flying Doctor Service, which flew 7.7 million kilometres over the 2017-18 financial year, is actively pursuing drone technology not only to deliver life-saving medicine and equipment but to scope potential runways and landing areas. And last summer was the first to see a national rollout of purpose-built rescue drones to surf lifesaving clubs, with more than 50 clubs part of a program to add "eyes in the sky" at patrolled beaches.

On farms, drones are being used for a range of purposes, the ABC's Landline has reported, from targeting weeds with insecticide to protecting sheep stock from wild dogs using military-grade drones with thermal imaging to deliver bait.

For our cities, Uber has pitched an Uber Air service of flying taxis, which it had slated to start in 2023. But a report by global management consulting firm LEK Consulting in September said that a mass rollout was "unlikely in the next 10-15 years due to infrastructure challenges and delay in delivering a fully autonomous service."  Public acceptance of pilot-free taxis would be "contingent on millions of incident-free flying kilometres to match the safety standards of other passenger aircraft,” said LEK principal Natasha Santha.

A Canberra trial of drone deliveries is perhaps the world's most current "real-world" litmus test for drones, although it focuses on one company and does not test the impact of several rival companies operating in the same airpsace. Wing, which is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, allows consumers to order takeaway food, hot coffee or chemist items on a mobile app and have them delivered by drone within minutes. (The rule on not flying within 30 metres of people does not apply for this trial.)

A July report by the ACT Legislative Assembly's standing committee on economic development and tourism considered public concerns ranging from privacy and safety to the effect of the drones flying over domestic animals and wildlife. It noted that noise, which has been a particular sticking point, requires better regulation.

With the federal government now reviewing drone noise, it found that decibel levels from the trial drones in June exceeded the standard levels for residential areas in Canberra.

From assessing post-disaster damages to increasing worker safety to fostering financial savings, leveraging drones in the insurance industry will yield tremendous benefits to both insurers and the insurance companies alike.

Drones, also referred to as unmanned aerial systems or pilotless flying robots, are no longer a novelty in the tech space. The concept of ‘autonomous systems,’ which was once a sci-fi fantasy, has now evolved to become a sophisticated real-world innovation and is impacting several industries. The bird’s eye view offered by drones enables businesses to capture detailed photographs and videos from the sky. This visual data, when analyzed and interpreted, helps businesses to gain intelligence that can then be used to make informed decisions. Though initially developed for military purposes, drones have showcased their novelty in other areas too. Drone applications range form helping the police in search and rescue operations, filming cinematic videos, monitoring traffic congestion all the way to performing delivery services. The number of drone applications, indeed, seems to be burgeoning over the past few decades.

You might be well aware of Hurricane Harvey that hit Texas in the year 2017. Drones were used to collect images to understand the devastating situation of the place. Apart from this, drones were also used by the insurance companies to inspect the post-disaster condition. Thus, along with the disaster-recovery procedure, drones can also be used by insurance companies for surveying and managing claim procedures. With high-quality images and videos of risky or dangerous locations, drones in the insurance industry can provide companies with numerous benefits. Let’s take a look at few compelling benefits of drones for the insurance companies:

Benefits of drones in the insurance industry Drones have come a long way, since their advent. Today, drones can do more than just capturing images and videos. Equipped with sensors and powered with AI, drones can now analyze a situation and respond suitably. Due to these capabilities, asset inspection has now become more efficient, less time-consuming, and less costly.

Collection of Comprehensive Data

One of the most significant factors that make drones unique is high-quality content acquisition. Flying around any place or structure, drones can easily collect minute details of the location. Earlier, the asset inspection was undertaken manually. Humans were unable to obtain photographs or videos from all angles. Manual methods are, therefore, considered inefficient and inaccurate. On the other hand, insurance companies can leverage drones to collect comprehensive visual information on anything that is insured.

Inspection of Dangerous Areas

Disasters could not only pose a severe threat to people’s lives but also have a devastating impact on property and infrastructure. It is difficult for emergency responders to visit every affected area to collect the necessary information. Sometimes, reaching the affected place is in itself a risky job. For instance, imagine a cyclone has hit a house. The insurance inspectors have to check the roof of the house before initiating the claim procedure. Climbing up the rooftop to physically assess and take photographs is actually easier said than done. Besides, it’s hazardous. Drones could handle this scenario with ease. Without human involvement, drones can reach the rooftop, click pictures, analyze and process the content, and aid the assessment process.

Prevention of Deceitful Activities

Providing inaccurate information intentionally to gain insurance benefits is a common concern that the insurance companies face. Either the insurer or the provider can commit this illegal activity. However, with drones coming into the picture, the chances of such fraudulent activities are eliminated. Drones can collect and store the data on the cloud. Every department in the insurance company can view, monitor, and inspect the details, leaving no room for tampering and illicit activities.

Increase in Cost and Time Savings

Drones can take up humans’ job of visiting different places for asset inspection. Pictures can be clicked and sent on the spot which can significantly expedite the claim process. Initially, when only humans were involved in this process, this wasn’t actually possible. Drones can actually help insurance companies to save a tremendous amount of time and money by eliminating humans from the inspection process. In fact, insurance companies that use drones get the information they need 10 times faster than those relying on traditional methods.

Improved Customer Service

With drones taking up the inspection and assessment process, human involvement will go out of the picture. As a result, the claim process will be automatically expedited. Accelerated claim processing will make customers happy. Faster services will help insurance companies build loyal relationships, enabling them to gain a competitive advantage. With reduced turnaround time on claims, insurance companies will improve the experience of the concerned. As a result, there is no need for companies to worry about losing their clients to competitors.

Accomplishment of Efficiency Goals

When we hear ‘automation’, the first thing that comes to our mind is efficiency and accuracy. Similar is the case with drones. It is proven that drone-led inspection, in the oil and gas industry, offers 85 percent faster results when compared to traditional methods. Using drones for monitoring and inspecting operations can help insurance companies to achieve efficiency goals.

Use Cases of drones in the Insurance Industry

Prices of drones have comparatively lowered down now. As a result, insurance companies can come up with innovative ideas to make the most out of this technology.

Equipment Breakdown Claims

Large machinery run around the clock on a daily basis in a manufacturing unit. Technical errors in the equipment can cause mechanical failures. And breakdowns, if they occur, can cause companies a substantial financial burden. Hence, manufacturing companies opt for equipment breakdown insurance. Here, on identifying that the collapse was due to some technical glitch, the insurance company will have to pay compensation for equipment repair, infrastructure damage, and also spoiled or damaged inventory.

Cases like these need special attention and should be monitored closely when a manufacturer claims for insurance coverage. Insurance surveyors, in such a scenario, are expected to monitor and collect every detail about the machinery. It can be risky as well as time-intensive affair. Drones, on the other hand, can fly around the outlet, zoom in on damaged places, and send all images to the team. While all this happen, the team can simultaneously carry out the rest of the claim procedure.

Proactive Risk Monitoring

Insurance companies can send off drones to collect images and videos of disaster-prone places. The data can be sent to the cloud, where further analysis takes place. The data analytics tool will process the data for providing residents with accurate information on imminent risks. In collaboration with the government, the insurance companies can help residents to take proactive remedial measures. This will help in reducing losses to a more considerable extent.

From helping insurers with preventive measures to aiding the insurance companies in assessing affected places, drones can indeed be beneficial to the industry in every possible way. With drones able to quickly gather high-quality content and companies managing claim procedures speedily, insurance companies will never fear any business risks as well as never witness annoyed clients.

• UPS announced a slew of new customers to its rapidly-expanding drone-delivery service – including CVS Health, its first retail client for drone delivery.
• Through a new revenue-generating service for the University of Utah Health hospital campuses, UPS and drone company Matternet will move medical samples and other cargo.
• UPS Flight Forward will also service Amerisource Bergen and Kaiser Permanente in revenue-generating services
  

On Monday, the package giant established itself yet again as America’s leader in drone deliveries with the announcement of four new customers – including its first retail customer, CVS Health.

“We’re doing this in a pragmatic way,” Bala Ganesh, vice president of UPS Advanced Technology Group, told Business Insider.

“We’re first growing the portion of the business that has an approved regulatory framework – this is revenue-generating work in support of high-demand, value-added, critical instant delivery solutions on hospital campuses,” Ganesh added.

Ganesh has long emphasised the importance of developing sustainable business cases around drone deliveries – meaning, revenue-generating businesses rather than flashy, short-term drone stunts. But the CVS partnership will be merely exploratory to start.

“Our project with CVS represents a big step forward to apply our learnings on the hospital campus setting to customers’ homes,” Ganesh said. “We will create new logistics and air delivery solutions no one has considered.”

Here are the four new partnerships and what UPS will do for them:

• CVS Health: UPS Flight Forward, the company’s drone airline, will develop “a variety of drone delivery use cases” in the business-to-consumer realm. That will include urgent deliveries of prescription and other goods to the homes of CVS customers. Exact services and locations haven’t been disclosed yet.
• AmerisourceBergen: The wholesale pharmaceutical distributor will work with UPS Flight Forward to ship medications, supplies, and records via drone. Qualifying medical campuses served by AmerisourceBergen will be first in the trial, followed by other campuses.
• Kaiser Permanente: UPS Flight Forward will move healthcare goods via drone on Kaiser Permanente’s medical campuses. This will be revenue-generating once flights begin, according to a UPS spokesperson.
• University of Utah Health hospital campuses:In partnership with Matternet, UPS will embark on a revenue-generating drone-delivery service to move medical samples and other goods. It’s similar to UPS’s first medical drone client – WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Rivals are quickly gearing up in response

UPS announced earlier this month that it was the first drone company to score nationwide approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. That move raised eyebrows – showing that drone deliveries are commercially feasible even under rigorous regulations.

Its rivals have been quickly moving to match UPS’s might.

On Oct. 18, Wing, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, made its first commercial drone deliveries. Wing also has FAA certification. But the scope of its operation is limited to a town called Christiansburg, Virginia.

Wing has partnered with FedEx Express and Walgreens to deliver goods to customers’ homes in the Southwest Virginia town, about 210 miles away from the state capital Richmond.

Meanwhile, Amazon has pledged to take its Prime Air drone-delivery service to the real-world this year. At a September event, Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer chief Jeff Wilke said its latest drone model would be fulfilling orders “in months.”

A quarry, a prison site or a religious location? Purdue University engineering and liberal arts researchers are using drones to help answer the question about the past use of an island of Turkey.

Dana Island is located off the southern coast of Turkey. Many stories have been floating around regarding the history of the island, which is one reason researchers from Purdue's College of Liberal Arts decided to explore the geography and artifacts from the island.

This past summer, a group from Purdue's Lyles School of Civil Engineering joined the researchers on the island to use drones and LiDAR, light detection and ranging, mapping systems to better understand the island's history. The work also is part of the College of Liberal Arts' ROSETTA initiative, focused on remote sensing technologies and techniques in archaeo-anthropology. The initiative builds on the world reputation of CLA researchers in socio-human and remote sensing.

"We proved the high potential for our technology to be used for data collection for archaeological documentation," said Ayman Habib, Purdue's Thomas A. Page Professor of Civil Engineering and co-director of the Civil Engineering Center for Applications of UAS for a Sustainable Environment (CE- CAUSE). "We have opened the door to new and different methods and research problems in accurate mapping of real-world objects and locations."

The team of engineers used the drone and system technology they created to do flyovers around the island and chart measurements from the LiDAR point clouds and aerial photographs. They are combining that work with the discovery of artifacts from the liberal arts researchers to put together historical information about the use of the island, where objects related to shipbuilding and quarries have been discovered.

"This was our most challenging work yet involving our drone and mapping systems," Habib said. "We faced major challenges in getting the equipment to the island and then working around the dense vegetation and some snakes."

John Deere and Volocopter’s agriculture cargo drone is gearing up for application tests and its first field flight over the next growing season.

A demonstrator model of the VoloDrone equipped with a John Deere crop sprayer was displayed for the first time at last week’s Agritechnica. Featuring a potential payload of 200kg, the VoloDrone is able to cover an enormous area, especially under difficult operating conditions.

This large agricultural drone is the result of a collaboration between John Deere, who bring knowledge of farmers’ needs, and the urban air mobility pioneer Volocopter, whose flying taxis form the technological basis of the VoloDrone. Small drones are already being used in agriculture for stock control and mapping.

Both companies see great potential for the VoloDrone’s use in agriculture, with capabilities ranging from difficult topography to increased efficiency in the use of crop protection agents, sowing seeds or frost control. The development of this demonstrator is a first step towards bringing this innovative technology closer to commercial application after full testing in the field.

The VoloDrone is powered by 18 rotors with an overall diameter of 9.2m, and features a fully electric drive using replaceable lithium-ion batteries. One battery charge allows a flight time of up to 30 minutes, and the VoloDrone can be operated remotely or automatically on a pre-programmed route.

The drone frame is equipped with a flexible standardised payload attachment system. This means that different devices can be mounted on the frame depending on the application. For crop protection, the drone is equipped with two liquid tanks, a pump and a spray bar.

Thanks to the drone’s low altitude in flight, very large area coverage of up to 6ha/hr can be achieved and spray management improved. This would make the VoloDrone a sustainable, precise and cost-effective alternative to helicopters. Due to the system’s high flexibility and GPS control, more selective area-specific treatments are also possible.