Drone News & Articles

Drone technology is one of the most important innovations in real estate marketing and listings. Low-quality images and grainy satellite aerial shots no longer make the cut. In the United States alone, 60% of new property buyers favor images shot by a drone, and 73% of real estate clients prefer to add videos shot by drones in their listing. A well-made aerial video can serve as a virtual tour for a potential new home.

Benefits of Using Drones In The Real Estate Market

Given the extremely competitive nature of the real estate market and the reasonable cost of using drones for photography, most professionals in the field, believe, soon, the use of drone technology will become indispensable to a property listing campaign. Not only does it show the buyer how invested and committed the realtor/seller is, but it also gives visual insight on previously hard-to-access vantage points such as high decks, waterfront views, and other such features part of the property. And so it comes as no surprise that 80% of home sellers also prefer realtors who use drone technology.

Using data from Meero and Soldbyair, Gavop found that properties listed with drones’ aerial view sell at a higher rate as compared to traditional 2D photography since modern home buyers’ preferences have changed significantly. This study also found that realtors with a high volume of sales used drones almost three times more than realtors with a low sales volume in their real estate marketing. Also, 50% of high dollar volume transactions and large properties are shown better through drone images and media. From producing compelling images and videos to creating buzzworthy listings, drones have become integral to most real estate marketing campaigns.

Compelling Images: One can get a comprehensive view of the interior & exterior of the property with the use of drones. Gone are the days of low-quality photos and a limited view of ground shots of the property. With this new technology, drones can capture high-quality images with a wide array of camera angles and vantage points, that were once previously impossible to shoot, to help provide clients with an accurate representation of the property and the neighborhood.

Buzz Worthy Marketing: Drones are still relatively new as a marketing tool and considered trendy in the real estate sector. Having them can raise a realtor's listing profile. Given the innovative mechanism behind this method of marketing, it comes as no surprise that potential clients instantly appreciate and are drawn to this kind of marketing, as compared to the old school industry standard of 2D images.

Lower Costs: Previously, one would have to use helicopters or low-resolution satellite images for aerial shots of a property. Today, it is a lot easier to capture high-quality images in a fraction of the cost, thanks to the availability of drones. A one minute video shot by a hired drone operator should set you back by $200-$400 depending on your requirement.

Save Time: Drone images and videos give you a virtual tour of the entire property, the neighborhood and other attractions nearby, that one can only access during in-person site visits. Now thanks to drone technology, one can see all the specifications right at the click of a button, saving the potential homebuyer time, especially, if it is a property they would like to skip.

Neighborhood Snapshot: Not limited to just property listings, homebuyers, especially new transferees, can now use this tool to get a snapshot of a new town or area they might be moving in to. From nearby parks, shopping centers, community centers and more, they can get a far more extensive picture of a neighborhood by looking at drone images and videos than just a basic internet image search on the same.

Generates Business: According to Multiple Listing Service (MLS) statistics, properties that have images shot using drone technology are 70% more likely to sell than those without. And this trend is gaining more traction largely because of increased accessibility and positive client response to the same. This has shown an increase in sales and a definite boost for realtors aiming to clear out their inventory faster.

Drones Are Here To Stay

Numbers never lie. According to TechHelpline, 10 million drones were sold last year and that number is expected to triple in the next 3 years. Realtors and homebuyers are now more than ever determined to get a bang for their buck. With a surge in technological advancements in real estate marketing, world-over, the drone industry valuation is expected to be $90 billion by 2025 and is used mostly in real estate than any other market in North America. There are a plethora of drone models in the market depending on your requirements and budget. Gavop rounded out some of the most recommended and popular drone models used for real estate in the market today.

1. DJI Phantom 4 Quadcopter: Is Favoured by most as the best overall drone used for real estate purposes. This model is particularly known for having a wide assortment of features including 720p HD transmission with a range of up to 3.1 miles. Price: $1000 | Flight time: 28min

2. DJI Inspire 2 Quadcopter Bundle: Prices on the higher side, this model allows you to combine the drone with the X4S or the X5S gimbal cameras for better imaging. Price $3000 | Flight time: 27min

3. Yuneec Typhoon H: One of the best value-for-money options available in the market today, the Yuneec Typhoon H has a 360 degree unobstructed camera along with collision avoidance technology. Price: $999 | Flight time: 20min

4. 3DR Solo: For those on a tight budget, the 3DR Solo is equipped with an intelligent flight computer and is GoPro compatible. Price: $499 | Flight time: 30min

5. DJI Mavic Pro: The Mavic Pro is considered to be one of the best in its class of models. Built with 100% foldable arms, which helps render the drone into the size of a water bottle, is a huge plus for portability. Price: $765 | Flight time: 27min

FAA Guidelines For Drones Used In Real Estate

Considering the competition in the real estate market, in order to stand out, realtors have to be tech-savvy as well as use new technology to capture the complete view of a building. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a set of guidelines and regulations for use of drones that weigh less than 55 pounds. The pilot must be 16 years of age or older to operate a drone for commercial purposes. Whether you are outsourcing the work or doing it yourself, you must comply to Part 107 guidelines of FAA regulations, issued in 2016. Some of the key guidelines have been illustrated in the infographic below.

• FAA Registration: A drone larger than 0.5 lbs in weight requires FAA registration
• Maximum Altitude: Drone pilots must follow FAA guidelines, which include flying no higher than 400 ft
• Safe Operating Conditions: The pilot must complete a pre-flight checklist and inspection of the drone to ensure it is in good condition to ensure safe flying
• Speed Limit: Maximum permissible groundspeed is 100 mph (87 knots)
• Maintain VLOS: The unmanned aircraft must remain within visual line-of-sight (VLOS) of the remote pilot in command
• Restricted Air Space: No drone is allowed to be flown with a 5 mile radius of an airport
• Day-Light Only: Daylight-only operations, or civil twilight (30 minutes before official sunrise to 30 minutes after official sunset, local time) witt appropriate anti-collision lighting
• Minimum Age: The pilot must be 16 years of age or older to operate a drone for commercial purposes
• UAV operator’s certificate: Whether you are paid or not, anybody flying a drone for commercial purposes including real estate, requires an FAA issued drone/UAV operator's certificate
• Flying Over People: Drones may not be operated over people without their written permission unless they are located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that would provide reasonable protection in the event of an accident
• Weather Conditions: Minimum weather visibility of 3 miles from a control station
• Drone Insurance: It is recommended that every drone operator have suitable drone insurance in case of damage or injury

Delair and its regional reseller Frontier Precision have signed an agreement with Wood that will see the engineering and project service company adopt the Delair UX11 high-performance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for its work in site planning and asset management in mining and quarry projects in the western US.

Delair said Wood was initially deploying the drone to do high accuracy, 3D topographic surveys and materials quantification for mining projects in Idaho and Wyoming. It is the first fixed-wing UAV Wood has deployed in the Western US, according to the company.

“For the scale of the projects we are performing, and the accuracy required, adopting the Delair UX11 was a logical choice,” Greg Meinecke, Technical Services Manager at Wood, said. “Its long-range capabilities allow us to cover areas not feasible with other data collection methods like hover craft drones or by foot, so it reduces the cost and time involved. It integrates well with our existing work flows, and features such as the PPK (post processed kinematic) function deliver additional benefits in terms of the precision and flexibility required in challenging environments.”

He added: “We have received excellent support from Frontier Precision and Delair in helping us deploy our first fixed-wing UAV missions and are already seeing results.”

According to Delair, Wood is deploying the UAV in remote areas where its heavy civils team is performing extensive excavation and site preparation for phosphate mining activities, a project covering more than 200 acres (81 ha). “Of critical importance for operations is an ability to precisely quantify the volume of materials being removed to ensure a high degree of accuracy in planning and invoicing,” Delair said.

Wood turned to the Delair fixed-wing UAV to deal with the scale of the terrain that needed to be surveyed, as well as the challenge of taking measurements in an active mine site area, including the safety hazards of having personnel on the ground in rough terrain and around large, moving equipment, Delair said.

“Flying at 400 feet (122 m) above the project areas and often at times using beyond visual line of sight flight plans, Wood technicians were able to use the precision data collection features of the Delair UX11 to acquire large amounts of highly accurate imagery that could be processed to generate detailed topographical reports,” the company said.

Meinecke said the company was able to get surveys covering large tracts of land done in a very short amount of time, which ends up being much more cost effective to the company and its client.

“More importantly, we can provide the mine owners a great deal of confidence in the accuracy of the work being performed and the quantities of resources involved. In the end, everyone agreed on the material quantities as the technology is very reliable,” he said.

Frontier Precision worked alongside Wood’s engineering and field experts to evaluate the Delair drone, and ensure it met the firm’s requirements, Delair said. This included integration with other tools the firm uses such as AutoCad, Trimble Business Center, and the Pix4D photogrammetry suite.

“Wood’s team noted the ease of use of the Delair UAV, especially given this was their first experience with fixed-wing flying,” Delair said. “The firm was able to train several pilots who specialise in different types of projects, and expects to deploy the drone on other infrastructure, mining and construction projects around the US.

“The team also noted the Delair UX11’s embedded global shutter camera as well as its PPK capabilities as key to ensuring greater precision in its data collection. With PPK, GPS data from both on-board and off-board systems can be matched after the mission, providing higher degrees of accuracy of the images collected.”

The Delair UX11 UAV, introduced commercially last year, is one of Delair’s top-of-the-line drones. The fixed-wing drone is an innovative hardware-software platform that provides highly accurate images for survey-grade mapping, with on-board processing capabilities and real-time, long-range control via 3G/4G cellular networks or radio links.

“The platform’s enhanced centimetre-level precision along with its efficient operational characteristics make it the most cost-effective solution for large area surveying and mapping,” Delair said.

There has certainly been a lot of buzz about drones recently. From Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos claiming drones will soon be dropping  parcels at our doorstep, to having the power to bring whole airports to a standstill, it’s safe to say the technology has really started to take off.

Drones are now increasingly being tipped as a technology that could help revolutionise a whole range of other industries, with agriculture in line to be one of the main sectors expected to benefit from the technology.

This may not be the first time people have ‘droned on’ about the potential that drones hold for agriculture but, thanks to a dramatic improvement in the technology’s capabilities combined with a significant fall in price, it is only recently that they have started to live up to the hype. Uptake of drone technology is therefore predicted to soar across the sector in the near future, with European consumer drone shipments expected to increase four-fold by 2021. So how will this change the face of agriculture?

Precision-driven decisions

Agriculture, driven by an urgent need to keep pace with the demands of an ever growing population, is under increasing pressure to produce more with less. Even in ideal circumstances, this would be no mean feat, but when you combine a need to potentially double food production by 2050 whilst working in a shifting and uncertain climate, it’s clear that our agricultural industry has no choice but to innovate – and fast.

One response to this has been the practise of ‘precision farming’ (or ‘smart farming’). This is a data-based system of farming which allows farmers to get to know their farms’ needs more intimately, meaning they can manage their production down to the most minute detail. Using this information, the system can then be optimised to accommodate specific plant and soil needs in real time, improving crop quality and boosting yields whilst saving farmers precious time, energy and money.

But the benefits don’t just stop at farmers. The use of this type of technique also allows for fertilisers and pesticides to be applied much more precisely, thus sparing the environment from the excessive use of chemicals.

A document submitted last month by the European Commission to the EU member states makes it clear that in order to address the kind of environmental, economic and social challenges that we are increasingly facing, there is an urgent need to accelerate the uptake of technologies which facilitate precision farming methods, and thus a need to make them more accessible and efficient.

Drones and precision farming

And this is where drones come in. Fast, agile, relatively inexpensive and packed full of potential, drones are proving to be an ideal technology for the agricultural industry, and one which is adaptable to a whole host of precision farming techniques.

From real-time soil, plant health and field analysis using infrared sensors, to monitoring irrigation systems for efficient use of water, to seeding hectares of land in just a matter of days – these are just a few of the benefits that have been highlighted in a recent European Commission report on the application of drone technology in agriculture.

Unlike notoriously unreliable and costly satellite imagery, formerly the most advanced form of crop monitoring technology, drones are able to monitor crops more precisely, regularly and affordably, thus ultimately delivering higher quality data which offers a level of insight into crop development and practices that would have been previously unthinkable.

This is far from mere conjecture. Experiments with drones are already well underway and have started to show some extremely promising results. One study with the OCEALIA group, a French agricultural co-operative, found that using drones increased farmers’ yields by an impressive 10% on average.

Furthermore, the collection of such accurate data also holds the potential to be a powerful research tool. By collating the data gained from drone use from multiple farms, this dataset can then be used monitoring of large-scale change across a region, allowing researchers to explore trends and a wider set of farming practices, thus helping to optimise agricultural systems all over the world.

Drones in a European context

Thanks to the fact that farmers in Europe have shown to be very open to use of drones, Europe is rapidly emerging as one of the dominant forces in the market for agricultural drones. However, if drones are going to live up to their potential in Europe, there are still a number of challenges which must be addressed in order for the technology to really be able to take off.

Firstly, it is clear that there are some obvious technical challenges that still must be overcome for the technology’s wide spread adoption, such as the development and incorporation of low-cost, high quality sensors, and the appropriate software platforms to support them. That being said, there are a multitude of companies springing up that are ready to rise to this technical challenge, and drone technology continues to improve by the day.

Other inhibitory factors include cost. Agriculture remains, on average, a low-paying industry, meaning that farmers often struggle to find the surplus cash required to invest in new technologies. Although the price of drones continues to drop, farmers will still need a helping hand to invest in the technology. It’s for this reason that government support for alternative ownership schemes, such as through the use of co-operative and shared ownership of drones, could help speed up the adoption of drone technology in rural communities.

There would also have to be a concerted effort to provide adequate training programs in digital data collection. This is especially pertinent in Europe, where over 56% of the workers in the agricultural industry are over 55—a demographic which tends to lack the vital digital skills that would be required to be able to access this type of advanced agritech.  

There are clearly challenges to be met before the wide scale adoption of digital technologies, such as drones, in agriculture. However, these challenges pale in comparison to that of producing the amount of food required to sustain our growing population, and for that reason there is no doubt that the potential is sky high for drones to help optimise our agricultural systems.

Drones create unique new ways to film but as technology seems to advance day after day, true pilots begin to push these drones to their limits. Meet Johnny FPV, a drone pilot who has helped take FPV freestyle to the public eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPXrlcoSNlw

There are certainly a lot of people who fly drones nowadays but only a few that seem to be creating more unique applications. After getting into micro drones and learning about racing drones, Johnny FPV was one of the first FPV pilots I started to follow. What he was doing at the time really stood out to me. He took his flying further than just shooting scenic locations and I began to notice him become pretty good at tracking moving subjects. Johnny's creative approach to FPV has spread across the internet, leaving people speechless when they look at some of his work.

With over three years of flying DJI drones myself, I know for a fact that locking onto a subject is really a skill to master. Being that I just got into FPV, I can say learning to fly like Johnny really takes a lot of time, patience and practice. I have spent over 200 hours practicing with FPV drones and I am just feeling comfortable enough to try and fly like Johnny once I can build a bigger drone and get outside a bit to practice!

Following Johnny on Instagram has been an inspiration to me as he shares his FPV videos with the world. I see him introducing racing drones to people like Will Smith, flying them out in the Safari and even chasing cars at actual races as we see in one of the videos above. It is great to see skilled pilots going out there creating this type of content in a way we've never seen it before.

For more on Johnny FPV, check out his Instagram.

Drones create unique new ways to film but as technology seems to advance day after day, true pilots begin to push these drones to their limits. Meet Johnny FPV, a drone pilot who has helped take FPV freestyle to the public eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPXrlcoSNlw

There are certainly a lot of people who fly drones nowadays but only a few that seem to be creating more unique applications. After getting into micro drones and learning about racing drones, Johnny FPV was one of the first FPV pilots I started to follow. What he was doing at the time really stood out to me. He took his flying further than just shooting scenic locations and I began to notice him become pretty good at tracking moving subjects. Johnny's creative approach to FPV has spread across the internet, leaving people speechless when they look at some of his work.

With over three years of flying DJI drones myself, I know for a fact that locking onto a subject is really a skill to master. Being that I just got into FPV, I can say learning to fly like Johnny really takes a lot of time, patience and practice. I have spent over 200 hours practicing with FPV drones and I am just feeling comfortable enough to try and fly like Johnny once I can build a bigger drone and get outside a bit to practice!

Following Johnny on Instagram has been an inspiration to me as he shares his FPV videos with the world. I see him introducing racing drones to people like Will Smith, flying them out in the Safari and even chasing cars at actual races as we see in one of the videos above. It is great to see skilled pilots going out there creating this type of content in a way we've never seen it before.

For more on Johnny FPV, check out his Instagram.

Members of the Native American Choctaw Nation tribe in central Oklahoma are using drones to aerially refill feral pig traps, in order to somewhat curb the $2 billion in annual damages the animals cause, according to USA Today. 

Coincidentally, this particular tribe hosted Intel’s Open Drone ID demonstration alongside the FAA on Wednesday, and is implementing this aerial pig trap solution in Oklahoma as an official part of the aviation administration’s UAS Integration Pilot Program. That initiative, of course, is comprised of select territories and corporate entities conducting semi-deregulated drone missions in order to eventually safely integrate UAV traffic into national airspace. 

“We see drones as an extension of smart farming technology,” said Mike Komp, an agricultural drone expert at Oklahoma’s Noble Research Institute, which is serving in an advising capacity for the Choctaw Nation. “Drones provide that next step toward robotics and automation.” 

To Komp’s point, unmanned aerial systems have made an enormous dent in the agriculture industry. From autonomously pollinating apple orchards, mapping crop fields to maximize yields and accurately assessing the lowest required amount of pesticides to use, camera-drones have become more than mere recreational toys for those in the business of growing, farming, and ranching. 

The process itself is fairly simple: a remotely piloted drone drops handfuls of corn into the traps, reducing time, money and gas otherwise spent by doing so manually. As the FAA has authorized the Choctaw Nation’s systematic, unmanned endeavors here, this can legally be done at night and beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the drone operator. 

Ultimately, it’s another logical use case for drones, with an admittedly niche appeal. For those who own land and can’t afford feral animals ruining their crop yields, however, it’s certainly an enticing prospect. Deploying a drone to drop food into traps instead of wading through the property yourself every day is likely a far better use of time, money, and resources. In that sense, the Choctaw Nation has accomplished a pretty respectable feat here. 

Just shoot them down?

After troublesome drones infiltrated London’s Gatwick airport late last year, disrupting passenger flights and costing potentially millions of pounds in revenue, that was the instinctive question posed by the watching world.

But for some businesses, shooting them down is a dangerous and unfeasible answer. They’re starting to tout better ideas: firing a net, jamming the drone, using a bigger drone to scoop it up.

These companies are part of an emerging industry offering myriad solutions, all hoping to solve the problems caused when drones fly where they are not supposed to. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced in early 2018 it had logged more than 1 million registered drones, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts that by 2020, there will be 7.8 million shipments of consumer drones — an industry worth $3.3 billion in revenue. But as drones proliferate, major incidents likely will increase, raising questions about how to keep wayward devices in check.

“Laws will not stop drones; only technology will,” said Joerg Lamprecht, CEO and co-founder of Dedrone Holdings Inc., a company that specializes in drone detection. “The race is on, the future is unmanned, and we’ve got to be staying in charge and in control.”

Drones are becoming cheaper, increasingly accessible and more frequently used in business. An offshoot of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Wing Aviation, on April 23 became the first drone operator to receive government approval as an airline, enabling it to begin routine deliveries in U.S. skies.

Amazon.com has experimented with delivery by drone, and construction companies such as McCarthy Building Cos. are using them to survey sites. Drone photography is proliferating and has sparked drone film festivals, and a breed of the devices designed for racing is rapidly gaining popularity. Let’s not forget finance types, who can invest in an exchange-traded fund dedicated to drone-focused stocks.

But when drones become problematic, and require detecting and disabling, it’s too dangerous to just shoot them down, even if that seems like the easiest answer, according to Arthur Holland Michel, co-director at the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York. Bullets aimed at drones need to land somewhere, potentially causing damage and harm.

In addition, drones aren’t that easy to hit. Take the example of the DJI Phantom 4, the most popular drone in the United States, according to FAA data, analyzed by Bard. This drone — succeeded now by newer models — has a top speed of about 45 mph, can fly as high as 3.7 miles, and boasts an almost 30-minute flight time, according to its manufacturer, SZ DJI Technology Co.

Drones designed for racing are even more nimble. Their top speeds can reach into the triple digits; they can change direction instantly and have a dangerous tendency to fall out of the sky when their operator signal is cut.

“You cannot simply do it with existing technologies used with shooting regular aircraft,” Holland Michel said.

Drones have wreaked havoc on a number of occasions. In the Gatwick case, drone incursions halted travel for more than 120,000 people over 36 hours. In August last year, two drones laden with explosives attacked Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro during a military parade.

In 2015, a drone landed on the roof of the office of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Also in 2015, a drone accidentally crashed onto the White House lawn, triggering a brief lockdown.

“It’s a large issue, and not just for airports, but for everybody that shares airspace above their head,” said Jim Hall, a former chairman at the National Transportation Safety Board.

Companies including Dedrone, OpenWorks Engineering Ltd., Fortem Technologies Inc., DroneShield Ltd. and the nonprofit charitable trust Battelle say they have solutions. They are developing counter-UAS, or unmanned aircraft system, solutions. The technology is new — at times so new, its terminology is not yet standardized.

United Kingdom-based OpenWorks sells a shoulder-mounted cannon that fires a net to catch the drone. DroneShield, based in Sydney, offers a large, gun-shaped jammer that when triggered will force a drone to land, or fall out of the sky. Dedrone, based in San Francisco, creates a mesh network designed to detect and identify drones based on how they “talk” to the operator by intercepting signals, feeding this information to a complementary jamming system developed by Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio.

Fortem Technologies uses a specialized radar to detect the drone — and attaches it to a bigger and faster drone. The firm’s DroneHunter can chase the target “like a dog on a leash,” leading to its capture, said the Pleasant Grove, Utah-based company’s CEO, Timothy Bean.

OpenWorks says it has deployed hundreds of its devices. DroneShield, which went public in 2016 and trades on the Australian Stock Exchange, signed an accord with STC Specialized, an arm of Saudi Telecom Co., in March to cooperate on sales opportunities.

These technologies have to be carefully applied and not just used at will. Drones are considered aircraft under federal law, and just like regular aircraft, it is illegal for citizens to sabotage or destroy them. The penalty can be up to 20 years of prison, said Michael Beylkin, an attorney in the Denver office of Fox Rothschild, a law firm with specialties including laws governing drones used in media and entertainment.

There are no exceptions, unless the aircraft is invading your private space, according to Beylkin. Even then, a drone would have to be dive-bombing a person repeatedly, and the response can only be proportionate, he said.

“Airspace is not defined the same way as your land borders.” he said. “The airspace above your house is not your property.”

Devices that aim to jam drones similarly cannot be used outside of strict parameters: They are restricted devices that law permits only federal agencies to use. And with the new technology comes other limitations: Jamming devices don’t discriminate between targets and can disrupt everything from Wi-Fi internet to other planes. Pursuit drones need to be faster and more agile than their targets, requiring significant technological innovation.

For NTSB’s Hall, the answer is better legislation, military-grade technology and closer cooperation on the issue between authorities and operators.

“The drone issue is an extremely important issue,” he said. “It is an emerging safety concern, which I don’t think most Americans are focused on.”

Imagine a drone going from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in less than two seconds and flying at speeds of up to 220 km/h around a futuristic multidimensional track with neon obstacles. This is not a dream, but the reality of drone racing, a new sport favored by young players.

Combining the thrill of Star Wars' pod-racing and Formula 1, the Drone Racing League, the global professional circuit for drone racing, brings the fun and fierce competition of the futuristic sport to millions of fans in China via online video streaming platform Youku.

The two parties inked a three-year partnership to push DRL in China in late February, and Youku will begin airing professional drone racing in the country for the first time, premiering DRL's thrilling 2016-2018 Allianz World Championship Seasons.

Drones have been revolutionizing the entertainment industry through aerial photography and cinematography, and they are now becoming a source of entertainment themselves with drone racing, said Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO and founder of DRL, in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

"We take the most elite pilots and put them head-to-head on video game inspired 3D courses that travel through iconic locations like palaces, museums and stadiums," said Horbaczewski.

He added that the pilots race custom-built first person view or FPV drones at more than 144 km/h, seeing a live video feed in a pair of goggles from a camera mounted on their drone, while the fans can watch the racing live at the events and at home online, immersing themselves in DRL's high-speed action.

"There is a tremendous opportunity for DRL in China. Last year, Nielsen reported that a whopping 17 percent of people under the age of 30 were already interested in drone racing. By bringing DRL to China, we'll be showing them drone racing as they've never seen it before, with the best pilots racing the fastest drones on the biggest courses," said Horbaczewski.

"We are excited to see so much piloting talent emerging in China, and I'm positive you'll see the emergence of China's first-ever professional pilot in 2019," he said, adding that people will be able to see racing live at DRL events staged in China in the future.

Currently watched by 57 million fans in 90 countries and regions on top sports networks, including Sky Sports and FOX Sports Asia, DRL's high-speed drone races will position Youku as the ultimate destination for innovative robotic sports.

Because this is the first time the sport of the future has been brought to China, DRL is focused on teaming up with the right, strategic partners to help it establish and cultivate a local fan base who will grow with DRL as it grows, according to Horbaczewski.

"Youku will also work with us to bring the first DRL race to China, offering incredible, unique opportunities for Chinese brands to integrate straight into the sport of the future, and meaningfully engage with our fast growing, local and global fan base," he said.

Committed to expanding professional FPV racing in China, Youku will work closely with DRL to recruit local Chinese pilots for the 2019 season through a private, US-based tryouts race and the 2020 season through a live streamed e-sports tournament on a true-to-life drone racing sim, the DRL Simulator, and develop reality-show inspired content with the league's superstars.

In Horbaczewski's view, China has an incredibly talented local community of drone racers, and DRL is excited to welcome the best Chinese pilots to the league.

Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO and founder of DRL. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"We would love to collaborate with other Chinese brands, communicating their key messages through immersive content and activations around our visually spectacular races," he said. "We'd love to partner with other brands to not only promote the industry, but also inspire and develop a whole new generation of drone pilots and engineers for future careers in things like professional racing, aerial surveying and urban package delivery."

By 2020, China's civilian drone industry will continue to develop rapidly, with an annual output value of 60 billion yuan ($8.9 billion). The average annual growth rate will likely exceed 40 percent, according to the guidelines on promoting and regulating the development of the civil unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturing industry, issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in December 2017.

According to market consultancy TMR Research, the demand in the global market for racing drones has been rising on account of the growing popularity of luxury and tech-controlled sports. Drone racing has lately emerged as an important sport that is played by allied groups, sports enthusiasts, professionals and tech wizards.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD also held its first drone racing event last year, in cooperation with drone manufacturers such as DJI and Parrot, and the domestic professional drone racing league DroneGP, in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.

Twelve pilots from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan flew racing quadcopters using real-time video goggles in the competition.

Industry insiders said the purpose of holding such drone racing events is not only to show JD's position in the drone category, but also to promote the further development of drone racing events in China.

"Such events have been well developed in Europe and the United States, but in China, they used to be mainly confined to some tests and performance activities by drone manufacturers. As the world's largest drone market, China should have its own racing drone competitions," said Wang Qing, founder and CEO of DGP, which holds DroneGP.

Wang is bullish on the prospects for the events. "It is just the beginning. Like e-sports, drones have entered people's daily lives. Now e-sports are attracting a large amount of money, we can imagine the huge growth space of drone racing," Wang said.

"There are hundreds of pilots in China, which seems to be a small number, but the number of domestic drone enthusiasts who watch such events through media platforms has exceeded 20 million," he said.

However, Wang admitted that there is still a long way to go for drone racing. "In countries like the US and South Korea, there are more than one thousand pilots. We want to popularize and promote such events," he said.

"In order to meet the requirements of shooting and broadcasting, the drone model used in the competition is larger. We record the events and distribute these videos to iQiyi, one of China's largest online streaming websites," Wang said.

New video shared by the Guardian overnight has revealed the extent of the damage caused by Monday's fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

According to the Guardian, the 850-year-old landmark was just 15 to 30 minutes away from being totally destroyed, with drones playing an important role in limiting the damage and helping save the belltowers from collapsing into the iconic structure.

Fire brigade spokesman Gabriel Plus said that two drone pilots, flying a Mavic Pro and Matrice M210, were able to track the movement of the flames and assist firefighters as to where to aim fire hoses. 

Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron has confirmed the cathedral will be rebuilt in the next 5 years, with funds donated to a restoration campaign already hitting more than a billion euros. 

Oil refineries use hydrogen to lower the sulfur content of diesel fuel. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA; Washington, DC, United States; www.eia.gov), refinery demand for hydrogen has increased as demand for diesel fuel has risen both domestically and internationally and as sulfur-content regulations have become more stringent. Much of the hydrogen used at refineries is produced on-site.

To do so, a process such as steam-methane reforming is used in which methane is mixed with steam at high temperatures in catalyst-filled pipes resulting in a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and a small amount of carbon dioxide. At the end of this process, purification to obtain hydrogen is accomplished by removing the carbon monoxide with a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) system.

COMPLEX AND DANGEROUS

“Oil refineries are complex and dangerous environments”. says Ian Hannah, Co-Founder of Industrial Skyworks, Toronto, ON, Canada (https://industrialskyworks.com) “At the heart of hydrogen production, for example, is the ‘Radiant Box,’ an industrial furnace that reaches temperatures up to 4,000° F.”

Contained inside the Radiant Box are specialized pipes with high Chromium content designed to withstand such extreme temperatures. In operation, burners heat the tubes which then heat the steam-methane mix inside the pipes. In many vertical furnace designs, these 40 ft. tubes are placed approximately 1 ft. apart at a distance away from the refractory wall of the boiler so that a uniform temperature is maintained during production.

Recently, during the construction of a new Radiant Box at a large oil refinery, a possible manufacturing error was noticed in the construction of one of the pipes. The company required all the other 143 pipes used in the Radiant Box to be inspected, since even a small nick in a pipe could have disastrous consequences at such very high temperatures.

This would have been a straightforward task, except for the fact that the 40 ft. pipes were already installed in the building. The construction project was placed on hold until all the pipes could be assured to be free of defects. The traditional solution to this problem would be to erect scaffolding on each side of the box. To do this, the scaffolding would need to be coated with plastic to avoid any metal contact with the chromium alloy pipes.

This would have taken weeks of work and made more difficult because access to the building was extremely restricted through a small hatch measuring 2 ft. x 3 ft. leading to a very small walkway between three columns of pipes. Thus, the scaffolding would need to be entered piece by piece through the hatch and then assembled.

While white light LEDs are used in the drone to illuminate the pipes being inspected, like an aircraft, the drone features red LED lights on the port side and green LEDs on the starboard side so that the operator can understand the orientation of the drone as it flies.

DRONES TAKE OFF

Rather than take this approach, Industrial SkyWorks proposed a faster, more cost-effective solution. Using an Elios drone from Flyability (Paudex, Switzerland; www.flyability.com) equipped with a 1920 x 1080, 30 fps camera, it would be possible to capture video of all of the pipes safely without the need of scaffolding. These images are then recorded to an on-board SD memory card housed in the payload head of the drone. Image data can also be streamed to the operator at a lower resolution since the Elios drone integrates a Lightbridge 2 wireless controller from DJI (Shenzhen, China; www.dji.com). This allows images to be transmitted from the drone to the controller over a 2.4 GHz link frequency band.

“This wireless communication system does not require any special authorization to operate even in the most complex and confined spaces,” says Hannah, “and the maximum range of the drone is unimportant since it only operates a few hundred feet at maximum from the drone’s pilot.”

To protect the drone and the pipes being inspected, the drone is protected by a carbon frame. This frame is decoupled on three axes from the drone using a gimbal mechanism that allows the Elios to remain stable in the event of any possible collision. While protecting the drone and the structures to be examined, the camera still provides clear images of the pipes being inspected.

“While white light LEDs are used in the drone to illuminate the pipes being inspected,” says Hannah, “it is important for the drone pilot to know the orientation of the drone as it flies.” Thus, like an aircraft, the drone features red LED lights on the port side and green LEDs on the starboard side (Figure 1b). The drone pilot can then capture images at known orientations, ensuring that all areas of the pipes in the Radiant Box are imaged.

BIG DATA

In addition to displaying the live stream from the drone, Flyability’s Cockpit software displays live telemetry data with relative headings, altitude, and camera tilt orientation. To analyze the images being inspected from drones without cages, operators can use Industrial Skyworks’ own BlueVu inspection software.

“Traditionally, the problem with collecting large amounts of image data is that there have not been any tools to efficiently review and gain insight from these images. Instead, such analysis has involved manual, time consuming work,” says Hannah. To overcome this, BlueVu uses an optimization algorithm that automatically organizes, analyzes, and selects the most relevant images from these large data streams.

An operator pilots the drone in dark conditions.

When non-caged drones are equipped with microbolometer-based infrared cameras from FLIR Systems (Wilsonville, OR, USA; www.flir.com), BlueVu software can be used to identify problems such as energy leaks. In inspecting the pipes within the Radiant Box, the HD camera captured numerous visible images within the space of three days. In these images, the pipes can be visualized, as well as the main spar of the drone and its surrounding cage.

Although the drone’s camera incorporates a wide-angle lens with a horizontal field of view (FOV) of 130° and a vertical FOV of 75°, captured images were of sufficient resolution to identify any potential defects in the pipes.

“In 3Q 2019,” says Hannah, “Industrial Skyworks will be releasing an updated version of the BlueVu software that will use a neural network-based approach to automate the identification and classification of problems within images such as corrosion and cracks.”

By using the drone to capture images of the pipes within the Radiant Box, Industrial SkyWorks completed the inspection task required by the vendor within three days, after which the manufacturer was provided with HD images enabling them to determine the condition of each pipe. This meant that work at the facility could resume weeks ahead of schedule without the dangers of traditional methods—such as erecting scaffolding—that could have exposed workers to unnecessary risks.

According to Hannah, this approach was between 3-5 times less expensive than using conventional approaches. Interestingly, the new rules for non-hobbyist small unmanned aircraft operations included in Part 107 of the Federal Aviation Regulations, cover a broad spectrum of commercial uses for drones weighing less than 55 lbs. A summary of these regulations can be found on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website (Washington, DC, USA; www.faa.gov) at //bit.ly/VSD-FAA.

UAVs and infrared cameras image wildlife behavior

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and thermal cameras are being increasingly used by researchers for both wildlife detection and censusing.

To detect sea turtle nests on a Florida beach, for example, Eric Becker of the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF; Woking, Surrey, UK; www.wwf.org.uk) has used a Duo Pro R thermal imaging camera from FLIR (Wilsonville, OR, USA; www.flir.com) that combines a 336 x 256 microbolometer-based thermal image detector and a 4k color camera in conjunction with a Phantom 2 quadcopter drone from DJI (Shenzhen, China; www.dji.com).

Working with the Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center, Becker located two neighboring loggerhead sea turtle nests that were weeks from hatching. Attaching the camera to the drone, images of the nests were taken before sunrise at the rate of one frame per second. Images were captured as radiometric JPEG (RJPEG) data that have temperature data tagged to each pixel. To extract this data, the RJPEGs were downloaded to a PC and, using FLIR’s software, a list of temperature readings was extracted. In the aerial images, a temperature difference can be seen between nesting and non-nesting areas.