Drone News & Articles

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV or “drone”) industry is evolving at breakneck speed, and it is often difficult for mining companies to keep up. In fact, it has been said that a “drone year” is the equivalent of one calendar month due to the pace of change the market is experiencing.  However, despite the difficulty of staying abreast of changes, drones offer incredible potential to transform the mining industry. Therefore, it is critical for mine operators, entrepreneurs, and investors to better understand this new and emerging technology.

UAVs are turning the mining sector into an emerging frontier for new technology, and in recent years have helped the industry find cheaper and safer ways to map deposit sites and explore for minerals. With the ability to monitor stockpiles, map exploration targets and track equipment, the potential applications for drones in the mining industry – T are practically limitless. UAVs offer tremendous efficiency and cost advantages in every part of the mining life cycle including exploration, planning/permitting, mining operations and reclamation.

Lidar sensor mounted on Procyon 800 E UAV – Global UAV Technologies Ltd

Payload technology – the amount of weight and equipment a drone can be equipped with – is advancing rapidly also. Tasks that were hard to accomplish even a year ago are possible with the latest drone models, with some of the biggest gains being seen in the agricultural industry; however, the mining and mineral exploration industry is not far behind. It is amazing that the changes drones are bringing to mining right now  are taking place in an industry that dismissed this technology as a mere fad just a few years ago.  To a great extent, this usage growth has been fueled by the enthusiasm with which investors have supported drone start-up companies.

One of the most significant benefits of using UAVs is the cost. Far cheaper than traditional manned aviation platforms, drones are reshaping the way that all of these industries survey new areas, providing better results for a fraction of the price. The adoption of drones for industrial purposes is rising quickly and can save businesses significant amounts of money while producing unique, valuable and task critical outcomes. For example, drones can map an area in high resolution in less than a day, usually a couple of hours. The cameras on today’s drones have also benefited from recent advancements in small, high-resolution sensors.

Additionally, miniaturization of other components such as GPS and computer boards has contributed to the modern UAV’s utility in the industry by making the UAVs lighter and therefore able to fly for longer times and cover more ground per flight. Due to the unmanned nature of a drone it can fly close to the ground, which allows unparalleled image resolution. Conversely, traditional manned aerial survey aircraft require cameras with extremely high resolution because they fly at elevations of 2000-5000 ft above the survey area. Drones can fly at 250 ft with a lower resolution camera camera and get better data.

UAV’s in Aerial Mapping

Using UAVs, early stage mineral exploration projects can now get a rapid aerial image mosaic produced by a drone for a couple thousand dollars, where a conventional aircraft would produce an inferior product for about ten times the cost. This cost advantage allows imagery to be collected very early in the exploration process, when it can be of the most benefit, and that imagery is used to reduce the ground that an exploration team needs to cover by ground.

In addition to aerial imagery, the same drone data can be used to produce accurate topographical maps and GIS data in remote areas. Topographic mapping has traditionally been produced by ground surveyors. Previously, you would have to pay a survey crew to walk the entire property and collect GPS points to be used in a map. Today however, mapping drones can do this without the need for any ground control points at all (though for centimeter-level accuracy, a ground control point is still used). The combination of low cost aerial imagery and terrain data allow modern explorers to have a close up view of any property in 3D. Having this capability in early stage exploration aids significantly in project planning, which reduces exploration costs and expedites fieldwork.

UAV’s in Resource Modelling

Mining companies are also using UAVs and highly detailed topographic mapping techniques to estimate the size and therefore value of mineral stockpiles.  UAVs are used to generate a 3D model of the stockpile to centimeter-level accuracy, and that model generates a volume for the pile.  This volume is then used to determine the amount of ore or mineral product that is present.  Stockpiles can be monitored in this way over time to determine changes in stockpile size – which is very useful for mineral processing operations or aggregate operations, as well as tolling mills.

The same technology is also used to quantify the size of quarries and pits, by creating a three dimensional model and calculating the volume of the void.  Similar to the value proposition with ore piles, the volume of quarries or pits can be calculated over time with repeated drone flights, allowing for verification of production volumes down to centimeter-level accuracy.  In the figure below, the software package Pix4D was used to create the orthomosaic and Digital Surface Model (DSM) from data captured with an eBee RTK UAV with SODA camera.

Orthomosaic (Left) and Digital Surface Model of a Quarry in Malta flown with an eBee UAV and processed using Pix4D for the Maltese Government to calculate the quarry’s volume.

After using the software to process the orthomosaic into a three dimensional model, the software can then be used to calculate the volume and area of the quarry or any other topographic feature.  Software is oftentimes sold with a UAV so that the systems are integrated, but companies like Drone Deploy are also available, where data is uploaded to a remote server and then processed and sent back to the user as a finished product.  In the image below, DroneDeploy was used to calculate the volume and area of the quarry.

Screenshot using DroneDeploy to process Malta Quarry data to determine volume and area of quarry.

UAV’s in Geophysical Surveys

At the cutting edge of UAVs in the mining industry is the use of drones to capture geophysical data.  A leader in this field is Pioneer Aerial Surveys, a Canadian company owned by Global UAV Technologies Ltd (CSE:UAV) leading the mining and exploration industry in UAV based remote sensing and commercial grade drone helicopters such as the Procyon 800E.

Pioneer developed the first commercially available UAV supported aeromagnetic sensor systemin 2014, and grew to become the largest drone-based geophysics survey provider to the mining industry worldwide today. Their technology and services have been used by companies like DeBeers Diamonds, Anglo American, Rio Tinto, TECK and SSR Mining on four continents and in more than  10 countries.

Comparison of Magnetic Survey resolution captured with a UAV (left) compared to a helicopter (right) courtesy of Pioneer Aerial Surveys Ltd.

GEM Systems (GEM) is another player in the field, with their GEM DRONEmag™ a quantum magnetometer developed specifically for drone magnetometer surveys. With high-resolution and low noise threshold (high sensitivity), GEM’s drone magnetometer is a Ultra Light-Weight Potassium Magnetometer that can be flown using a variety of UAV platforms that GEM sells – it has been installed and successfully tested on the Monarch Fixed-Wing Gradiometer, the GEM Copter Multi-Rotor UAV and the GEM Hawk Helicopter UAV, allowing flexibility for companies to buy just the sensor or a complete package.  Unlike Pioneer, who is a service provider, GEM sells the hardware for companies to fly themselves.

Conclusion

While more and more companies in mining are planning to incorporate drone-based aerial surveys into their operations, many continue to struggle with whether to bring drone operations in-house or contract with third-party drone service providers to perform aerial surveys for them. Since the idea of having in house drone operations suggests a significant investment in training and equipment, most companies have determined that it’s better to simply hire drone service providers.  Similarly, many exploration-for-hire firms have integrated UAVs and associated sensor technology into their offerings, so that companies hiring out for exploration or drilling can request these services and products as a part of their larger exploration service.

Drones may not yet be in use in every single mining operation, but this technology is clearly here to stay. As long as investors and exploration geologists continue to see value in knowing more about a remote deposit faster, Drone use will become far more widespread throughout the mining industry. Additionally, more and more exploration prospects will incorporate UAV data in their promotional packages, so it will be increasingly important for investors to understand what UAVs are, how they work, and the limitations and constraints as well as benefits of using them to capture datasets.

During Inter BEE 2018 we talked with japanese filmmaker Katsuhido Masuda, who is using a very tiny toy drone with 1080p camera for his video productions. As drones are getting smaller and tiny cameras better, are they going to be the future of filmmaking?

Drones are getting smaller and their cameras better very quickly. A good example would be DJI with their Mavic Pro, Mavic Air and Spark line of drones, which can all be considered quite small. Maybe it is still not small enough though. As capable camera units get smaller (smartphones be the evidence), I believe there is still plenty of room in miniaturizing camera drones.

During Inter BEE 2018 we met and interviewed japanese filmmaker Katsuhiko Masuda, who is runing a video production company producing for example VR content for Oculus. He built a very tiny toy drone with FPV camera and uses it now for his productions. He flies the drone often in interiors and through considerably tight spaces to give another perspective to his images.

Impossible Drone Fly-Through Shots

The concept of using a very tiny toy drone for filming is not new. You might still remember the impossible drone shots from Robert McIntosh, who used his great drone piloting skills to promote his own After Effects stabilizing plugin ReelSteady. In case you did not see them or you want to refresh your memory, here are the links to our older articles – Impossible drone shot I and Impossible drone shot II. The resulting videos are very impressive thanks to the multiple very tight fly-throughs.

Robert used a very tiny toy drone and attached a stripped of Gopro HERO4 camera to it. The takeoff weight of the whole setup was only 120 grams including the LiPo flight battery and foam roll cage. The battery had to be tiny so the drone could carry it and therefore the flight time was only couple of minutes. The footage straight out of the GoPro was of course not stabilized, but ReelSteady plugin managed to get a smooth resulting clip.

The point is – this is the most interesting thing about filming with such a small drone. It can fit in very tight spaces and it usually is more agile which is vital for filming in interiors. Very low weight is on the other hand not so great for exteriors as even the slightest wind will affect the micro drone.

According to the japanese website Videosalon, the micro drone which Katsuhiko uses for his shooting is a slightly modified racing drone Nano Vespa 80 HD DVR. The camera unit used on the drone is capable to record 1080p video in up to 60fps and save it to micro SD card. Unfortunately no info about the bitrate or codecs. The overall weight of the setup is 68.4g. Drone operator can fly the drone with FPV goggles. 

Both micro drones (Robert’s and Katsuhiko’s) look actually quite similar and have similar size. The camera unit used on Katsuhiko Masuda’s drone definitely is much smaller than the stripped down GoPro HERO4, but it logically also offers lower video quality. Katsuhiko told us it is a 1080p FPV camera. He also stabilized the footage, so the resulting resolution is probably a bit les than full HD. In my opinion the image quality is sufficient, but there sure is lot of space for improvement and image-quality-wise I am still more convinced by the stripped down GoPro (which on the other hand was bulkier).

Disadvantage of these small toy drones is the flight time. It usually does not exceed few minutes, because the battery cannot be too heavy to keep the drone compact and agile. Katsuhiko’s drone can fly for only about 2 minutes. Such a short flight time requires a certain workflow and lots of practice as every mistake means replacing the battery and taking-off again.

Important part of design of the micro drones is that the propellers are protected with guards. Without them close flying by the actors would increase the danger of injury.

Physical Gimbal or Electronic/Post Stabilization?

I am looking forward for the very tiny cameras to get better, add high bitrate and 4K capabilities. I don’t think this should be a big issue – flagship smartphones already have such a technology in their camera modules. Putting them in a smaller package on the back of a tiny toy drone should be possible.

In terms of stabilization – I don’t think physical gimbals can be the right future for very tiny drones. I would say it will rather be some kind of good electronic stabilization, like for instance the hypersmooth in the GoPro HERO7 black. For non-stabilized footage there is always the option to do it in the postproduction. ReelSteady seemed to do a good job, but there are other options too. In this case it is vital for the small camera modules to get higher resolutions as post stabilization eats up some part of it.

Tags: Drone Film, Micro Drones, FPV Goggles

The introduction of a drone delivery service in the ACT would help the Territory meet its zero emissions goal and reduce congestion on Canberra’s roads, according to a new report.

Commissioned by Wing, which is preparing to trial drone delivery services in Canberra’s north next year from its new base in Mitchell, the report by AlphaBeta says that by 2030 drones could replace 6 per cent or 35 million kilometres of delivery-related road travel a year, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 8000 tonnes or the equivalent in carbon storage of almost 250,000 trees.

The report estimates that by 2030 there will be about 67 million household deliveries by road a year in the ACT.

“By delivering up to 4-6 per cent of transactions, drones could materially reduce the number of unnecessary vehicles on the road, reducing congestion and the associated greenhouse gas emissions,” the report says.

“Delivery vehicles are large, heavy and can disproportionately disrupt other road users. Parking and access to loading areas often delay and inconvenience other commuters and pedestrians. Delivery-related congestion in high-density areas has only increased in the era of ride-sharing and food delivery.”

It argues that with road transport responsible for nearly 70 per cent of the ACT’s emissions, and cars accounting for 44 per cent of emissions, electric-powered drones were perfectly placed to play a significant role in reducing the Territory’s emissions by replacing car journeys.

AlphaBeta says that by 2030 personal pick-ups via car will account for about three-quarters of transactions in the ACT and a 2018 study found that cars are the worst polluters, emitting an average of 4,600 grams of greenhouse gas per trip.

The study found that small drones emit 25 grams of greenhouse gas per last-mile delivery, compared with 296-728 grams for delivery trucks or vans, after accounting for the economies of scale that these trucks can achieve by delivering multiple packages along their route.

AlphaBeta says replacing 35 million vehicle-kilometres of road-based deliveries and pick-ups could also result in 70 fewer accidents a year.

The ACT Government has a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest, with transport one of the biggest challenges. At present, the ACT emits 1.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year.

Wing has lodged a development application to fit out its Mitchell warehouse and is conducting a publicity campaign in the northern suburbs of Franklin, Harrison, Crace, Gungahlin and Palmerston, where it plans to trial its service in 2019.

Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess said: “Drone delivery is the safest, fastest and most environmentally friendly mode of transport and we’re incredibly excited about the potential long-term benefits of drone delivery for Canberra in improving road safety and reducing vehicle emissions.”

Wing has received a hostile reaction to its Bonython trial in Canberra’s south, mainly over noise and privacy, including a petition tabled in the Legislative Assembly, and next year will also face an Assembly committee inquiry, which will look at the potential for cutting emissions, as well as noise and privacy.

Tags: Environmental Drones, Drone Delivery

Computer scientist Tobias Nägeli is sure that drones are going to change the film industry in a major way. About a year ago, he showed that spectacular, highly technical film scenes could be shot much more easily with these mini aircraft.

For the new project, which he presented at the ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA conference in Tokyo in early December, he demonstrated that drones also have great potential for animated film, too.

BETTER THAN TODAY’S METHODS

“It’s a very time-consuming task to make figures look realistic in an animated film,” explains Nägeli. “For the figures to appear natural, the first step is to film an actor performing the movements. The second step is then to build the animated figure around this.”

In order to reconstruct the actor’s movements for the 3D animation, at least two cameras must first simultaneously record them. Sequences of motion that cover a great deal of space in particular create an enormous amount of technical work, so two well-positioned cameras should be able to cover the entire scene. This requires either installing numerous cameras in different places, of which only a few can be used at the same time, or other tricky installations.

This complicated technique may soon be obsolete. Nägeli and his colleagues have developed a system that, in its simplest configuration, consists of two commercially available drones and a laptop.

The drones follow the actor’s every move and automatically adjust their position so that they can can always shoot the target from two angles. This reduces the amount camera work required, since the cameras only have to be in the spots where they are actually needed. Impressively, the system anticipates the actor’s movements in real-time and then calculates where the drones need to fly in order to keep the actor in the frame.

To minimize the volume of data, infrared diode markers attach to the actor’s joints. The drones, which have a true light filter, record only the light from the markers, greatly simplifying data processing. The system only sees a few points, from which it then determines the body’s position and directional movement.

“What makes our system so unique is that it can also reliably capture sudden and fast movements,” explains Nägeli.

“Of course, this kind of demo system is not good enough to meet the requirements of the film industry yet. But it does offer a promising approach.” As he explains, the system could also be extended with additional drones to capture movement in even greater detail. It is also conceivable that the current approach with light markers could be replaced by automatic image analysis, thus reducing the technical complexity of film production even further.

NOT JUST MOVIES

The team conducted various tests to show how the system can be used to track human movement over longer distances—something that makes the approach interesting for sport motion analysis.

“Until now, it has been impossible to perform a comprehensive motion analysis on runners, for example, because it is much too complicated,” explains Nägeli. “With our system, it’s very easy now to examine how a runner’s kinetics changes over a period of time.”

For the time being, this is still just a vision. Now, the challenge is to continue developing the system for practical applications. Together with two colleagues, Nägeli plans to tackle this task at the new start-up company Tinamu Labs.

Tags: Drone Cinematography, Animation

Skylark Drones Pvt Ltd, one of the fastest growing drone solutions companies in the country, aims to deploy its technology at Tata Steel's flagship Noamundi iron ore mines by the next financial year.

The Bengaluru-based start-up is already in talks with the steel monolith for a tie-up. The engagement could mean offering of a standalone software solution or the deployment of complete end-to-end solutions. Located in Jharkhand's West Singbhum district, Noamundi is one of the oldest operating mines in the country.

"We have co-created India's first mine monitoring system with Tata Steel under the directives of the Indian Bureau of Mines. This encompasses three facets -- compliance, monitoring and surveillance. As part of this engagement, we will have drone-based analytical capabilities being used for compliance reporting, monitoring volumetric production and automating lease boundary management," said Gokul Kumaravelu, the marketing lead at Skylark Drones.

Drone solutions are expected to help Tata Steel operate their mines more efficiently and raise productivity, besides ensuring higher regulatory compliance.

With the Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiling its drone policy and commercialising their usage, Skylark Drones is eyeing wider applications. "We have been awaiting regulatory interventions. Now, we are aiming to get our drones compliant by January or February next year," Kumaravelu said.

The ministry's drone policy has gone live and online registration of drones has kicked off from December 1 this year. Flying drones or remotely-piloted aircraft has become legal in India from December 1 with the National Drones Policy coming into effect. The new policy, called 'Drone Regulations 1.0', clarifies where, when and how drones can operate within the country. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has designated five different categories of drones -- nano, micro, small, medium and large.

Besides Tata Steel, Skylark Drones is in advanced talks with three other major companies to deploy its solutions. The companies in question are active in the mining of key minerals like bauxite, copper and coal. "The engagement should begin towards the middle of next year," Kumaravelu said.

Skylark Drones has placed huge bets on the mining sector. The company expects mining to be one of its top three verticals, alongside infrastructure and solar power. "We started our operations in 2015 servicing legacy B2B (business to business) verticals. In this period, we have achieved scale in our core verticals of mining, infrastructure, agriculture and solar. In the process, we have crossed the initial stages of validation and finding the right product-market fit," he added.

The technology is a web-based analytical platform that works by integrating data from different sensors to form different information layers such as 3D and thermal. It provides thematic analytics based on use-cases and applications. Though Skylark Drones has partnered with a few international tech companies such as Intel and Wipro, most of the technology that delivers value -- such as understanding actual mine layout in the context of engineering plans and haul road route optimisations -- to the mining customer has been developed in-house.

"If a mining or infrastructure conglomerate needs to conduct a complete analysis of all their projects and assets using high-definition drone data as the basis, we can do it because of the distributed pilot networks we have that acquire data rapidly. Not just this, we have a unique delivery platform that makes it easier for end users in these companies to understand and use drone data without changing their systems or workflows," Kumaravelu claimed.

Tags: Mining, Drones

Singapore, officially called the Republic of Singapore, is a relatively small sovereign city-state and island country in Southeast Asia with a current population of 5.6 million people.   The World Bank has named Singapore as the best country to do business in for numerous consecutive years.  The country is known for its rapid transition from third world to first world in a single generation – frequently referred to as one of Asia’s economic tigers.

The small country has made it to the top ranks of economic powers by being innovative – and supportive of new technologies and new ideas.

H3 Dynamics Holdings is one of the drone startups shaping the industry in Singapore.  H3 Dynamic Holdings are the developers of “DRONEBOX” – a fully automated and remote-deployable drone solution.  DRONELIFE asked Taras Wankewycz, the Group Founder & CEO at H3 Dynamics Holdings, about his company and the Singapore market generally.

DroneLife:  Please tell our readers about H3 Dynamics.

Wankewycz:  H3 Dynamics has been involved in the early phases of drone evolution – from power systems enabling fixed wing electric UAVs (since 2006), to more recently innovating on commercial drone business models and drone automation.

Singapore is a very small market for commercial drones, and like many areas of the world is looking to apply drones to commercial use cases. Singapore is leading the charge on trying to figure out what the next evolutionary step is for the global drone sector both from the technology innovation and the business model perspectives.

DroneLife:  What does the regulatory environment in Singapore look like?

Wankewycz:  Regulations are tight given there are 5 airports on a small and highly concentrated urban space. All drones and operators need to be registered and there are activity and operator permits that are mandatory for any flight. There are specific designated sites for recreational users. There are procedures for professional operators and clear guidelines from authorities.

BVLOS is being worked on and H3 Dynamics is the first to test solutions in cooperation with authorities. It’s a difficult topic given concentrated urban conditions, but technologies and features that maximize safety of deployments are being worked on. Given the constraints posed by the local conditions in Singapore – innovators in Singapore are working to think ahead of the curve compared to US and European markets which have larger land areas.

With clear drone regulations and the willingness to work with innovators like H3 Dynamics, Singapore is poised to take a significant place in the global drone industry.

Tags: Drone Industry, Small Business

Racing drones, flying taxis and pilotless delivery bots are jostling for attention in Amsterdam this week as the unmanned-aircraft industry stages its biggest global expo.

Amsterdam Drone Week gathers together attendees from 70 countries, spanning tech-savvy teens to sober-suited safety regulators. Major aviation players like Airbus SE, Boeing Co. and the Dutch city’s Schiphol airport line up alongside disruptive startups and heavyweight outsiders such as Uber Technologies Inc.

The RAI conference center took on the look of a science-fiction film Tuesday as brightly lit FormulaFPV racing drones streaked around a darkened arena, manipulated via the goggles of their controllers. Engineers from Airbus and Audi later showed off a prototype passenger capsule capable of switching between a driverless car and an unmanned aircraft -- with the demonstration taking place behind a protective net, just in case.

The event is due to end Thursday with the publication of draft proposals for regulating flights and operators drawn up by European Aviation Safety Agency.

Here are some of the craft that may be coming to airspace near you:

An Airbus Pop.Up Next passenger drone concept vehicl Airbus Pop.Up Next flight demo

A Formula First Person View (FPV) drone-race competitor 

A drone flies through illuminated racing gates

A Netherlands Aerospace Centre OA60 fixed-wing drone

A model of Airbus’s Vahana electric vertical takeoff air taxi

Attendees inspect an Airbus Skyway delivery drone 

A model Airbus Zephyr stratospheric pseudo-satellite 

Tags: Drone Expo, Events

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is pushing for the adoption of the drone technology in farms to cut production cost and encourage the youth to plant rice.

PhilRice FutureRice Program (FRP) leader Roger F. Barroga said the drone technology is commercially available but has not been applied in rice farming.

“PhilRice and other public and private organizations are already exploring it so that it can finally be brought to the ground, making it less elusive to Filipino rice stakeholders,” Barroga said in statement.

PhilRice said it recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Davao-based drone firm New Hope Corp. to advance research in the rice sector.

The MOA covers the possible use of drone in fertilizer application, seeding and pest management, according to the attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Initial testing conducted by PhilRice and New Hope showed that the drone only uses 16 liters of spray per hectare to apply fertilizer compared to the usual 160 liters per hectare applied by farmers using knapsack, according to Barroga.

“This drastic change in volume can make the farmers turn skeptical on its effectiveness for pest management in addition to investment, roughly ranging from P500,000 to a million pesos,” Barroga said.

He said further research and farm demonstrations may yield possible reduction in the seeds used per hectare from two to three bags to just one bag through the use of drones.

The promotion of the potential of drone technology in rice farming would cut farmers’ production costs while luring young people back to farming, according to Barroga.

“By bringing it to the ground, rice stakeholders in awe of this flying technology would cease to feel that it is out of reach,” he said.

“Through service providers, drone spraying can be made accessible to farmers at a price roughly ranging from P850 to P1,500 rental fee per hectare,” he added.

The DA is promoting the use of drone technology to reduce the cost of producing rice, vegetables and other crops amid the increase in the price of inputs, such as seeds and fuel.

In April, the DA said it would spend at least P7.5 million to pilot test a drone spraying technology in a 5,000-hectare farm in Benguet.

“Five thousand hectares of vegetable farms in Buguias town and other selected towns of Benguet Province will serve as the pilot area of the newest farming technology that the DA is adopting—aerial spraying using remote-controlled Drones,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol  said in a Facebook post in April.

Piñol said he made the commitment following the successful test of drone spraying in vegetable farms in La Trinidad, which was witnessed by Benguet Gov. Crecencio Pacalso and hundreds of vegetable farmers.

The spraying test was conducted by Japanese firm DMM Corp., according to Piñol.

“It took the drone just a few minutes to cover a patch of vegetables and according to the data provided by the Japanese service provider company, it will only take 10 minutes to cover one hectare,” he said.

“The drone could be used to spray foliar fertilizer and other biological pest control solutions and is expected to bring down farm operations costs and increase productivity,” he added.

With the use of remote-controlled drones, the DA chief said farmers will also avoid getting sick as they “will no longer have direct contact with the biological or chemical mists emitted by handheld sprayers.”

Tags: Agriculture, Drone Crop Spraying

Goldman Sachs forecast a $100 billion market opportunity emerging for drones from 2016 through 2020. We are more than halfway through that window, and real estate is one of the industries feeling the greatest reverberations from drones' arrival. Drones are able to collect data in unprecedented ways, complete tasks like physical inspections too risky for humans and are impacting the marketing of real estate to investors or buyers in ways never before possible.

Real estate is being or will be impacted by the arrival of drones in four broad ways. So says Jake Fingert, partner at Camber Creek, a Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm that invests in real estate tech companies. First, drones can allow developers to tell more compelling stories through video. Imagine being able to build a powerful social media campaign to lure prospective renters to a new urban high-rise apartment building by showing week-by-week progress of the building's construction from a drone's perspective, Fingert says.

Drones are also helping developers build more safely and quickly.

“For example, there are huge delays in construction getting the right materials to the right people at the right time.” he says. “Now, construction teams are using drones to monitor supply inventory across large project sites, so they can better manage delivery of new bricks, steel or other supplies.”

Get ready for droneports

Third, drones are on a path to begin influencing the way developers think about location and infrastructure. Picture a future in which drones deliver groceries, Fingert says. Suddenly, proximity to a supermarket is far less important. If drones are flying everywhere, there will also have to be drone flyways.

“That starts to impact real estate markets as well,” he says. “Meanwhile, you need a whole new network of regional distribution systems [that might be termed] 'droneports.'”

A fourth way drones are affecting real estate is through drone services. Operating and maintaining real estate and infrastructure involves danger for humans, in jobs like cleaning the windows of skyscrapers or handling simple maintenance chores on windy rooftops. Drones combined with robotics will be able to perform the same work without risking human injury. Moreover, they could complete those tasks more affordably and with better quality.

Drone services are also enabling commercial buyers of real estate to handle other tasks like complementing traditional surveying.

“Using lidar – basically radar with lasers – drones can develop highly accurate 3-D maps of land, which can help potential purchasers evaluate challenging issues like how the property would fare in a flood,” Fingert reports.

It is also exciting to contemplate the data capture and predictive analytics opportunities drones afford. For example, owners could use drones to analyze roofs for potential leaks and address the problems before they result in damage to their buildings.

High-flying savings

Many applications currently calling for airplanes or helicopters can be completed far more affordably with a drone, Fingert says. For instance, to shoot a panoramic flyover of a 10,000-acre property, “a drone is just fine,” he says. An average helicopter and pilot can cost between $600 and $1,000 per hour, depending on the chopper and market. That price does not include the videographer or photographer. By comparison, a drone operator will charge perhaps $100 to $200 an hour, including the actual video shooting and production, Fingert reports.

“Similarly, drones are very cost-effective for monitoring. If you have an in-house drone team and have purchased the equipment, your costs per hour per drone drop dramatically.”

Asked if the sky – pun intended – is the limit for drones, Fingert voices caution.

“We're in the very early stages,” he says. “ Can drones take off in a big way? Definitely. Are they certain to do so in the near term? No.”

Tags: Real Estate, Drone Photography

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are typically thought of in terms of warfare or entertainment (i.e., film and photography) applications. Yet the technology is growing to unbelievable heights and finding use cases in enterprise as well—particularly in the construction industry.

Today, most clients actually look for a construction team with drone technology. Using drones for construction has made constructing procedures easier and less time consuming. The purpose and use of the drone can change according to the situations, time, people, and the plan. But drones are used in different ways and for different purposes on a construction site, including:

Remote Viewing: Looking at an entire construction site or area is difficult from any point of view. Even a photo or video that covers the entire site will be difficult to capture. Drones can be used to view the entire site from the top of the area. By getting an overhead view, workers can see the entire structure with every nook and corner covered.

Progress Tracking: Drones in a construction site can be used to analyze the progress of the work already accomplished, current work, and the work yet to be implemented. It can give accurate information about the day-to-day progress of the construction site. The site owner does not need to visit the site daily to look at the work going on because the information adopted from the drones will be accurate.

Materials Handling: Drones can also be used to track the count and information about the materials being used. By having an exact count of this at any point in time, the owner can analyze the amount spent and the amount of materials being used. Along with this, the owner can calculate the exact overall budget of the project as it progresses.

“There are millions of changes happening every day on a construction site, so capturing daily progress with daily drone data capture is the single best way to capitalize on drones,” said Jacqueline Guilbault, marketing director at Skycatch, a company that designs drone systems and solutions for enterprise applications. “Some of our customers even fly multiple times a day because their sites evolve so quickly.” The team at Skycatch said the greatest benefits they have found from drones in construction include: quality assurance and control, the ability to bid more competitively, saving time on surveying, increasing safety, preventing expensive rework, and keeping track of schedule changes.

Guilbault noted that satellite maps are outdated by years and not very high-resolution. But using drones to capture data daily allows teams to assess the specific day's progress, identify potential issues before they evolve into larger problems, and plan the next day’s work.

“Users can also go back and identify what was done on the project to the day. And having that historical archive has proven invaluable as customers use them for everything from verifying invoices to resolving claims,” Guilbault said.

The way Skycatch designs drones involves spending time with their construction customers on their job sites, so they can detect firsthand what their customer’s needs entail. During the designing process, Guilbault said, “…We optimize the camera, the data collection, and the processing speed of the flight data. Our ruggedized enclosure, proprietary camera, and the precision RTK [Real Time Kinematic] GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] we have built is specifically designed for high-stakes business. Our onboard computer ties together the positioning from the high-precision GPS and the timing from our custom high-res, mechanical shutter camera so that you know exactly where each photo was taken to within centimeter-level accuracy.”

Skycatch recently entered into an agreement with Japanese construction equipment manufacturer, Komatsu, under which Komatsu will distribute Skycatch's fully autonomous Explore1 drone and accompanying Edge1 base station to Komatsu sites. According to a press statement from Komatsu, more than 10,000 job sites across Japan have been using the Skycatch platform to eliminate the need for ground control points (GCPs).

Think of GCPs as sort of thumbtacks on a map. Marking certain locations in an area of interest (i.e., a construction site) allows drones to more accurately map the area. Here, Skycatch's platform relies on the use of the Edge1, a base station that provides drones with the location data they need without requiring a cloud-based connection or service. The Edge1 integrates a GNSS receiver—enabling signals from various location tracking technologies, such as GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, and Galileo—with an Nvidia TX2 mobile GPU to allow for machine learning processing in the device, on the edge.

Drones like Skycatch's Explore1 (manufactured by DJI) are equipped with many technologies that have enhanced their usage in various industries, such as obstacle detection sensors. While these sensors scan the entire area, the software algorithms help in the production of 3D images, which are scanned by the sensor. 3D maps are eventually produced from these images. These 3D maps help the flight controller to sense and hence avoid objects.

Enabling edge processing in its platform allows the Skycatch to create maps and, based on location signals, create predictions in the field much faster than a system that requires cloud connectivity. According to the company, the Edge1 base station, combined with the Explore1 drone, can deliver data as accurate as 5 cm in arbitrary or local coordinate systems within 30 minutes.

“We’re best known for our level of accuracy, time to data, and ease of use,” Guilbault said. “We’ve automated on-site data processing with the Edge1 GNSS base station by integrating machine learning, artificial intelligence, and edge computing so that the data can be delivered to you on-site and the customer can make important decisions faster.”

Tags: Construction, Drone Inspections