Drone News & Articles

Researchers have found more than 60,000 hidden Maya ruins in Guatemala in a major archaeological breakthrough.

Laser technology was used to survey digitally beneath the forest canopy, revealing houses, palaces, elevated highways, and defensive fortifications.

The landscape, near already-known Maya cities, is thought to have been home to millions more people than other research had previously suggested.

The researchers mapped over 810 square miles (2,100 sq km) in northern Peten.

Archaeologists believe the cutting-edge technology will change the way the world will see the Maya civilisation.

"I think this is one of the greatest advances in over 150 years of Maya archaeology," said Stephen Houston, Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Brown University.

Mr Houston told the BBC that after decades of work in the archaeological field, he found the magnitude of the recent survey "breathtaking". He added, "I know it sounds hyperbolic but when I saw the [Lidar] imagery, it did bring tears to my eyes."

Most structures are believed to be stone platforms for pole-and-thatch homes

Results from the research using Lidar technology, which is short for "light detection and ranging", suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilisation more akin to sophisticated cultures like ancient Greece or China.

"Everything is turned on its head," Ithaca College archaeologist Thomas Garrison told the BBC.

He believes the scale and population density has been "grossly underestimated and could in fact be three or four times greater than previously thought".

How does Lidar work?

Described as "magic" by some archaeologists, Lidar unveils archaeological finds almost invisible to the naked eye, especially in the tropics.

• It is a sophisticated remote sensing technology that uses laser light to densely sample the surface of the earth
• Millions of laser pulses every four seconds are beamed at the ground from a plane or helicopter
• The wavelengths are measured as they bounce back, which is not unlike how bats use sonar to hunt
• The highly accurate measurements are then used to produce a detailed three-dimensional image of the ground surface topography

Revolutionary treasure map

The group of scholars who worked on this project used Lidar to digitally remove the dense tree canopy to create a 3D map of what is really under the surface of the now-uninhabited Guatemalan rainforest.

"Lidar is revolutionising archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionised astronomy," Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist, told National Geographic. "We'll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we're seeing."

Archaeologists excavating a Maya site called El Zotz in northern Guatemala, painstakingly mapped the landscape for years. But the Lidar survey revealed kilometres of fortification wall that the team had never noticed before.

"Maybe, eventually, we would have gotten to this hilltop where this fortress is, but I was within about 150 feet of it in 2010 and didn't see anything," Mr Garrison told Live Science.

While Lidar imagery has saved archaeologists years of on-the-ground searching, the BBC was told that it also presents a problem.

"The tricky thing about Lidar is that it gives us an image of 3,000 years of Mayan civilisation in the area, compressed," explained Mr Garrison, who is part of a consortium of archaeologists involved in the recent survey.

"It's a great problem to have though, because it gives us new challenges as we learn more about the Maya."

In recent years Lidar technology has also been used to reveal previously hidden cities near the iconic ancient temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Hidden insights

Maya civilisation, at its peak some 1,500 years ago, covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, with an estimated population of around five million.

"With this new data it's no longer unreasonable to think that there were 10 to 15 million people there," said Mr Estrada-Belli, "including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable."

Most of the 60,000 newly identified structures are thought to be stone platforms that would have supported the average pole-and-thatch Maya home.

The archaeologists were struck by the "incredible defensive features", which included walls, fortresses and moats.

They showed that the Maya invested more resources into defending themselves than previously thought, Mr Garrison said.

One of the hidden finds is a seven-storey pyramid so covered in vegetation that it practically melts into the jungle.

Another discovery that surprised archaeologists was the complex network of causeways linking all the Maya cities in the area. The raised highways, allowing easy passage even during rainy seasons, were wide enough to suggest they were heavily trafficked and used for trade.

"The idea of seeing a continuous landscape, but understanding everything is connected across many square miles is amazing," said Mr Houston.

"We can expect many further surprises," he added.

The Lidar survey was the first part of a three-year project led by a Guatemalan organisation that promotes cultural heritage preservation. It will eventually map more than 5,000 sq miles (14,000 sq km) of Guatemala's lowlands.

The growing adoption of BIM and demand for digital data are fuelling the take-up of drones in the construction industry. Ian Tansey of ProDroneWorx discusses this growing technology and its potential to transform the sector

The construction industry is moving towards to a world where digital information is an essential part of conducting business due to the many benefits it brings. Within this industry, its commercial adoption is being accelerated by the shift towards more and more companies using BIM (Building Information Modelling).

Drone technology is one of the tools a company can use to produce digital data, other methods include ground-based scanning. Drone technology can be deployed very quickly, safely and cost-effectively on any job that requires digital information.

Here are some interesting facts about drone technology:

1. Drones are going to be a major disruptor in the construction industry now and in the coming years. Early and effective implementation of the technology will give companies a significant edge in a very competitive market.
2. According to PwC, drone technologies will upend and reshape construction-related business models. Of all industries, construction has the best prospects for leveraging drone technology.
3. Balfour Beatty is also predicting that drones in the construction industry will play a key part in the digital transformation.

These forecasts and adoption of the technology were confirmed in a recent survey by my own company, ProDroneWorx.

A third of the respondents, which included construction firms, surveyors, architects and engineers, were already using drone technology and, of those that did not, almost 70% of them planned to do so in the near future.

Of the third of respondents that were already using drone technology, the majority (60%) had been using it for less than a year. But an important sub-group of this set (11%) had been using the technology for three to five years – making them very early adaptors indeed.

ProDroneWorx believes that drone technology will transform traditional business models and help digitalise the construction industry. Indeed, early adopters are already starting to see a positive impact on their operational processes from the way projects are understood and monitored to the inspection of assets.

Drones in the construction industry have a wide variety of uses, from 3D modelling (point clouds and textured models), topographical surveys and volume measurement to progress monitoring. Indeed, at nearly every stage of the construction process drones can be of huge benefit, from the planning stage to final construction.

Drone technology and BIM

Although drone technology has many applications within the construction industry, currently its primary use is in photography and video, surveying, asset inspection and progress monitoring.

The technology also has many uses within BIM, for example:

• 3D modelling: 3D models (point cloud, textured model) over large areas or objects can be easily created using drone technology or can be combined with ground-based laser scanning and conventional total station surveying to produce the complete 3D model. 3D models can be imported into BIM or CAD packages so that comparisons can be made with the design plans or it can be used to create an intelligent 3D model.
• Progress monitoring: Drones are the best way for companies to monitor work progress on a project. They provide managers with data to better track a project’s progress, manage resources, reduce downtime and keep projects on schedule and within budget. They also allow teams to verify the ‘as-built’ project status against design models using 2D and 3D data.
• Orthomosaics: High resolution aerial imagery can be captured on the whole project area and all of the images can be merged to form a seamless mosaic. This data can be used within BIM to understand the development area in great detail, while the 2D image is orthorectified so measurements can be taken from it.

Drones are likely to revolutionise construction through the use of 3D modelling, which will reduce the amount of time it takes to design, analyse and maintain a structure, or implement any changes. 3D models are capable of spanning a project’s entire lifecycle, from the initial planning stages through to the operation and maintenance. As a result, onsite and offsite management can enjoy a clearer understanding of a project’s performance by maintaining more consistent data and responding faster to change.

3D models bring the real world or ‘as-build’ into the office and this means that the user can carry out some of the following tasks: appraisal of existing conditions, monitoring construction progress, carrying out structural assessments and recording ‘as-built’ conditions.

In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of improvement in positioning accuracies through the use of ground control points (GCPs) or drones with RTK/PPK built-in, developments of photogrammetry software and the use of LIDAR on drones. 3D point clouds and textured model accuracies have now been demonstrated and validated down to just a few millimetres.

So how can drone technology be used within BIM? Let’s take an existing building where a laser scanner is used to acquire data on the inside while a drone can be used to capture data on the external of the building and the surrounding area. Integrating information from two different datasets enables a complete representation of a building to be achieved. This information can then be used for a variety of purposes, including redesign, visualisation of the building inside and out for prospective customers and as a historical record.

A key benefit of using drone technology, and the specialised photogrammetry software used to create the 2D/3D maps or models, is that the data can be imported into BIM or CAD packages in various file formats, such as dwg, dxf, xyz, las, laz, obj and kmz. This makes integration of the digital 2D/3D data into workflow processes straightforward.

What does the future hold?

Drone adoption is clearly set to grow in the future – and I have no doubt in my mind that we have much more to see in terms of the development of new products and technological innovations.

These technological improvements will make drones fly faster for longer, while also improving safety. The real benefits will come from improvements to the drone itself, with sensors and the use of predicative data analytics to analyse real-time information through machine learning and algorithms.

If you are planning to list your home for sale, you probably already know that you need to prepare your home for the market. This is called staging! The point is to create the most attractive, welcoming version of your home to entice buyers into the home and encourage offers. Your listing needs staging also! Professional photography has traditionally been the best way to attract those buyers. Today’s buyers also expect to find real estate drone photography/video and drones are changing the way listings are presented to the marketplace.

Most buyers now start their home search online. Over 90% in 2015 used resources on the Internet to research properties that meet their needs. The online listing is your first opportunity to showcase your home to potential buyers. With drones, you now have the ability to show potential buyers aspects of your home and neighborhood that was once reserved only for the very high-end market. Aerial photography no longer requires an expensive aircraft, for under $200 a decent drone can be purchased and used with very little instruction.

Studies show that using professional photography is instrumental in selling the home as quickly as possible and for the highest sales price. Drones have added an additional value to online listings. Online listings with drone photography or video receive significantly more views than those without. Buyers tend to linger on the site longer as well. Video options and drone shots increase attention and in doing so, the potential buyer has the opportunity to see aspects of the home never seen before.

With drones becoming more mainstream; just want kind of pictures and video are real estate agents offering in their listings?

• Great way to showcase larger homes, provides perspective
  
• Display the entire property including yards, land and acreage
  
• Video moves around the home, offering details on architecture and landscaping
  
• Positions the home in its surroundings. Does it sit on a bluff overlooking the lake? Is there a park or trail nearby? How far to the community clubhouse or golf course? If part of the appeal is location, drone video/pictures really allow the viewer to feel the location.
  
• Pair with a script to narrate the drone tour to engage potential buyers and call attention to special features.
  

The real estate industry has embraced drone photography/video whole heartedly, but there are more changes to come. While most municipalities still allow drone piloting by lay-people, hiring a professional is still the best choice. Professional drone operators understand how to get the best shot without infringing on the privacy of the neighborhood members. Careful attention to air traffic rules must also be observed. But all-in-all, drones are changing the way we market online homes for sale.

Aerial photography and video is no longer reserved for luxury property listings. More and more agents are seeing the value of drones. Make sure your home stands out among the sea of listings as potential buyers sort through properties online. Professional drone photography will help you sell your home faster and for a higher sales price than those without. Present your home in the best possible light to attract those buyers and encourage them to visit and write you an offer.

The utility industry has taken tentative steps to enter a new era of technologically-driven opportunities – along with its challenges – with the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (also known as drones).

Electric, gas, and water utilities are increasingly interested in taking advantage of the capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to support their operations. Applications for UAS are numerous and include maintenance inspections, surveying right-of-way, evaluating asset restoration, and in the construction of power lines and plants.

It is through autonomous commercial drones that utilities are changing the way they inspect and survey generation facilities, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and terrain by enabling the rapid, repeatable and safe collection of high-resolution imagery. Some are using UAS for Visual Line-of-Sight (VLOS) applications, such as the provision of substation aerial views. Others are actively investigating the use of UAS to inspect transmission towers and power lines as an alternative to costly and potentially more dangerous helicopter deployment.

Many utilities use the capabilities of the UAS to supplement inspection operations performed by line crews, such as power line and substation inspections, and during routine vegetation maintenance. UAS are also uniquely suited to assess damage to utility infrastructure in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as a flood, tornado or hurricane. Utility maintenance and outage restoration efforts are greatly enhanced by using many kinds of smart technologies and drones are a key piece of this new story.

However, for utilities to take full advantage of the promise drones can offer they need to be able to operate them Beyond VLOS (BVLOS).

Securing authority to operate BVLOS is a critical step for utilities where in many countries the use of drones is either not allowed or is highly restricted. With utility lines and pipes spread over thousands of meters and across various terrains, BVLOS drones are more efficient and can complete inspections more economically, safely and faster than traditional means (typically helicopters and inspection ground crews).

BVLOS drones, equipped with cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors, capture imagery that only a few years ago needed an aircraft, large sensors and a crew to accomplish. Today drones with sophisticated software can process the LiDAR images very quickly in cloud-based platforms so effective decisions can be made by stakeholders and relevant parties. It is, therefore, understandable that utilities are increasingly attracted to this gamechanging technology.

Asset inspection and maintenance

North American electric utilities are particularly eager to use drones to mitigate hazardous, time-consuming and expensive work of inspecting remote, often dangerous power lines and transmission towers. In one example, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) has partnered with a Canadian utility on drone inspection between Lake Erie and the Niagara River in an effort to make repairs that are quicker, safer, more environmentally friendly and considerably less expensive.

Solar power plants are also seeing a high rate of drone use. Drones give operations teams a birds-eye-view of the solar field with sensors outside of the visible light spectrum allowing the utility or IPP to find hot spots in a solar field. This allows much more efficient maintenance when looking for the panels that need replacing. Ultimately, this results in a more efficient solar field, with more proactive maintenance versus the more traditional approach of testing each panel on a maintenance schedule.

Another example is wind turbine drone inspection, which is set to be a billion-dollar industry in the next 10 years. Advances in operational intelligence (OI) technology as well as easing regulations will certainly help to accelerate this growing trend in utilities around the world.

Disaster recovery and outage restoration

While drones can help with the routine maintenance needs of utilities, they also have a place in disaster response and damage assessment. Drones can be quickly deployed in the event of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and fires, in order for utilities to get a sense of the damage to utility infrastructure, potential hazards such as blocked roads and unsafe bridges, and where repairs are needed most.

This allows utilities to dispatch the right number of ground crews to the right places, with the correct equipment and knowledge to make the necessary repairs and stay safe while doing so.

Last year at this time, I reflected back on the news and trends of the commercial drone markets of 2016 and wrote about the mixed state of affairs ahead for 2017. Throughout the year, I offered my perspective on how the drone industry was still motivated by hype and how assessing forward momentum required hard data on the performance of the various sectors of the industry. To that end, we did research over the summer that surveyed 2,600 respondents on drone purchases, service providers, business users, and software services. In September, we published the data in 2017 Drone Market Sector Report 2017.

In this post, I’ll use that data to illustrate the major trends of the past year and describe what I think are the major challenges ahead for the drone industry.

Trend 1—Growth

By all measures, the drone industry in 2017 was marked by significant growth – growth in aircraft sales, software licenses, the number of service businesses entering the market, and the number of industrial businesses setting up commercial operations.

Here are a few statistics:

We project U.S. sales in 2017 to be about 3.3M units, which is 36% above 2016 figures. That’s all drones, all sizes. It’s about 1.3M units for the >250gram category.

As of October 31st, there were about 837,000 hobbyist users and 107,000 non-hobbyist drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

As of December 1st, there were about 66,000 Part 107 FAA Pilots.

This represents a big change in the commercial market since Part 107 regulations supplanted Section 333 as the means for commercial operations in the U.S. What this and our survey data tells us is the number of service providers currently outpaces demand, and as a result, service prices are coming down significantly.

Trend 2—Consumerization

We said in our report that more consumer drones are being used for commercial work than ever before. For example, our data shows that more than two-thirds (68%) of all drones weighing over 250 grams are purchased for professional purposes—either governmental or business.

Why is this significant? Because the impact of consumer-originated technology on the enterprise is something that can’t be ignored. Enterprises want to take advantage of powerful, yet easy-to-use products (like DJI’s popular consumer models), and put them to work on the job. What this means for operators or businesses is that a shared core technology benefits all users and enables companies to scale the best experiences to everyone. Enterprise customers get the added simplicity and usability of the consumer product that has been built to meet the demands of thousands of customers around the world.  The average individual pilot gets to benefit from the reliability and scalability inherent in the product and demanded by enterprise users.

Trend 3—The DJI effect

Our data shows DJI is the clear market leader in drone aircraft sales and almost every software category. For example, DJI is the dominant brand for drone aircraft purchases, with a 72% global market share across all price points and an even higher share (87%) of the core $1,000–$1,999 price segment. Additionally, in the three categories of software we evaluated, DJI is the market-share leader in two: flight logging and operations, and automated mission planning.

This is significant because by building on top of its existing technology platform, DJI has fast-tracked development and has benefited from economies of scale. By migrating a successful technology stack and feature set up market, DJI never has to reinvent the wheel—it just needs to improve upon the original design and save engineering cycles for real innovation.

The upshot is that, to stay relevant, all the other major vendors have had to partner with DJI (see Trend 5 Partnerships, below). DJI’s sales success has taken market share from others and has led to layoffs at 3DR, Autel, GoPro, Parrot, and Yuneec. However, fears about data security remain. And this has some speculating about whether DJI can sustain its leadership role in the future.

Trend 4—Investments

According to CB Insights, investments shifted in 2017 from aircraft hardware to software. In 2016, there were 106 deals totaling $542M. Most of these were for hardware. In 2017, VCs focused on software, end-to-end solutions, and counter-drone technology. CB Insights projects the year will end with 110 deals totaling $494M. The most significant investment this past year was 3D Robotics’ $53M Series D round. It saw them pivot from hardware to software services.

Why is this significant?  Because it shows the industry is still maturing. Seed and Series A rounds represented 60% of all deals in 2017; whereas early-stage share peaked in 2015 at 73% of deals. Additionally some of the most well-funded drone companies are targeting enterprise and industrial inspection.

What this means for operators or businesses is greater affordability. Software advances, computer chip manufacturing techniques, and economies of scale will continue to drive down the cost of drone platforms and sensors and solutions.

Trend 5—Partnerships

This year we saw a change from synergistic merger and acquisitions to the creation of end-to-end solutions via partnerships. For example, look at how DJI’s enterprise partnerships have grown. Consider their AirWorks conference. What drone major vendor wasn’t there? The list included DroneDeploy, Measure, PrecisionHawk, Skycatch, and Sentera, to name a few.

This past year we also saw an uptick in regulators and industry stakeholder partnerships. For example, the Drone Advisory Committee was created to provide the FAA with advice on unmanned aircraft integration from a diverse group of stakeholders. Major commercial participants include Intel, DJI, Amazon, Google X, and Facebook, as well the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Inspection services are one of the most hyped and fastest growing verticals in commercial drones, with good reason.  When it comes to return on investment, the drones have it – saving large energy and infrastructure companies millions over conventional methods.  Now Intel and Cyberhawk have partnered on a major use case, one that demonstrates that return for the entire industry.

Intel introduced their Intel® Falcon™ 8+ system last year.  It’s an aircraft built to meet enterprise (and regulatory) requirements for safety, engineered for stability and featuring numerous built-in redundancies. Cyberhawk, as global leader in aerial inspection and surveying and a respected figure in the industry, was a perfect choice of partner to demonstrate the drone in action and the value of drone technology to the industry.

Inspecting a gas terminal in St Fergus, Scotland, the companies say that they were able to save the client $1 -$5 million per day,  while significantly reducing the risk to employees.

The return is so large because of the way these inspections are performed conventionally.  Inspectors have to climb structures with harnesses and cable equipment – and one glance at the towers involved is sufficient to grasp the inherent danger in the job.  In order for them to inspect the structure, it must be powered down.  That’s a long and costly process: one that not only takes time but has a high cost in lost production for the plant.

The Intel Falcon 8+ captured over 1,000 images in 1 -2 days.  A conventional inspection would have required a 3 man team to work for 3 days. “In the last 20 years that I’ve worked in the inspection industry, drones are the biggest single change we’ve seen to-date,” said Chris Fleming, Cyberhawk CEO.

“Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies allow for large and complex facilities to be inspected while in operation, capturing accurate and precise data to better inform business decisions on asset maintenance,” says a company press release. “Drones are an important tool for the oil and gas industry, and the Intel Falcon 8+ system delivers reliable performance and best-in-class safety, especially critical when faced with challenging environments or dangerous situations.”

With many mines maturing and productivity decreasing, the companies behind them are trying increasingly hard to maximize the value of their operations. It’s not an easy thing. It requires efficiently combining people, processes, and equipment, and mining companies have been scrambling to improve operational efficiency. However, it’s possible many of them are looking in the wrong place.

While many are perhaps understandably focusing on what they could do better on the ground as well as below the surface of the earth, not nearly enough of them are looking to the sky. They should, though. Automated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, offer a versatile set of productivity advantages that are poised to revolutionize the mining industry.

A million uses for automated drones

Automated drones, such as those that have emerged thanks to leading manufacturers like Airobotics, boast a variety of impressive drone uses and are able to complete an entire mission, entirely on their own. They can take-off and land - without the intervention of a human pilot, both scheduled and on-demand - yet precise flying missions are just one feature of these automated drones. They can be equipped with a portfolio of sensors, cameras and corresponding analytics software in order to inspect assets, identify risks like gas or chemical leaks, create 3D maps of their environment, and even perform hands-on (rather, robotic-pincers-on) work in the field. All data capturing and processing can be completed without requiring human operators.

Further, leading automated drones can charge themselves, swap batteries if necessary, and even swap payloads and sensors, eliminating much of the maintenance work that goes into having an on-site drone. All told, automated drones eliminate the significant expense of human pilots as well as the delays associated with waiting for human operators when a drone needs to fly on-demand - precious minutes that are not only costly but can present a risk to human lives. This advanced technology offers benefits to a wide range of industries, very much including mining.

Digging deep on drone capabilities

In the mining industry, automated drones provide more efficient alternatives to traditional human-based approaches. For example, they can be deployed to conduct asset inspections, as they can quickly and safely reach areas that are difficult for humans to access. Or, automated drones could be used to quickly complete surveying or take measurements of stockpile volumes, to ensure a blast plan is being followed precisely, and to conduct essential inspections of haul roads.

However, beyond replacing traditional operations, automated drones also offer this industry unprecedented opportunities. For example, drones are increasingly being used for surveying and terrain mapping, as they can automatically render three dimensional maps and models based on a fly-over visual inspection. The simplicity of obtaining such detailed models surpasses anything that was previously possible, opening the door to unforeseen productivity solutions.

As important as improving business processes is for mining companies, perhaps the most important thing automated drones do at a mine site is provide emergency response capabilities. Whether it’s a potential incident at a blast site, at a haul road, or anywhere else, an automated drone can immediately launch and begin transmitting live footage of the incident, providing essential information to responders.

The advantages of autonomy

Mines and other industrial sites can be dangerous places, and human fatalities are not unheard of. Using automated drones for the most dangerous of tasks eliminates personal risk, and the possibility of emergencies and other productivity delays.

American Robotics, a drone developer specializing in agricultural automation, has unveiled unveiled its flagship product, the Scout, a self-charging, self-managing drone system capable of autonomously carrying out daily scouting missions.

American Robotics  in their release state that “By 2050, the world population is expected to grow to 10 billion. As a result farmers will need to increase food production by 70%. This issue, coupled with a reduction in arable land and the shrinking number of farmers across the globe, will require new tools to increase automation and efficiency in agriculture.”

The solution may enable some future agriculture remain outdoors rather than move it indoors. There are a number of significant technology firms looking at indoor agriculture techniques. While drone technology cannot address the issues of water and climate control, it can provide in depth crop analysis and the intelligence needed for efficient use of resources.

As AR notes, traditional scouting techniques, including first-generation and consumer drones, are inadequate at detecting plant stress early enough to offset the billions of dollars of lost yields. These methods are often time-consuming, complicated, and uneconomical. To improve agricultural decision-making, optimize inputs, and maximize yields,  automation must be delivered in a reliable industrial solution.

Scout delivers this automation in a turn-key package consisting of an autonomous drone with visual and multispectral cameras and a weatherproof drone station which handles housing, charging, data processing and data transfer. Once installed within a farmer’s field, it requires no manual intervention to plan, fly and manage the drone operations. Health reports and analysis are seamlessly sent to the farmer. The system has already been deployed in a range of agricultural locations across the United States this summer.

American Robotics is headquartered in MassRobotics in Boston, an emerging hub for robotics startups.

No one likes to think about worst-case scenarios—especially not in the context of a huge event with literally thousands of moving parts that have been aligned over months leading up to your show or exhibition. But if you’re expecting a crowd, you’re responsible for the safety of that crowd—and that means you’re responsible for planning and prevention of those worst-case scenarios.

Event planners are used to thinking about threats coming through the doors. We’ve got security in place, metal detectors, bag checks, perimeter barricades and on-site officers. But we’re less used to thinking about the threats introduced by the advent of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and that needs to change.

A recent event in Japan demonstrated why drone security should be a fundamental part of event security planning. An overhead vehicle suddenly dropped into the crowd, injuring six people. In this case, injuries were minor, but they could have been significant. It’s only a matter of time before we see an incident where drones play a major role in injuring people gathered in a crowd—and we’re being warned about this likely event on several fronts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released its latest Terrorism Advisory on Nov. 9, warning about increased use of UAS by terrorist groups, and any gathering of a significant number of people represents a target.

Terrorist and malicious threats aside, anyone flying an unmanned system over a crowd represents a threat, and given the proliferation of drones and the lack of awareness about rules and regulations surrounding them, non-malicious incidents are on the rise as well.

In many cases the threats evolve inside the show—someone exhibiting sends up a drone to get an overhead shot of their booth, or an attendee decides to capture some video footage of the whole venue. In either case, if the proper waivers haven’t been secured and if the operators aren’t insured and licensed, you—as the show planner—incur a liability if something goes wrong.

There are several things event planners can do to protect their venues and events from the potential for a drone-related incident:

1.      If you are planning to hire drones to capture aerial footage of your event, ensure that the company/individual you hire is licensed and insured. If they are flying over a crowd, confirm that they’ve secured a waiver to do so—U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibit flight over people. Know the rules—or better yet, bring in a specialist who knows the rules governing drone operation.

2.      Have a counter-UAS plan in place. From putting out pre-event publicity that your venue is a no-drone zone to on-site integration of an aerial observation and deterrent team, you should know how UAS might affect your event and how you’ll protect your crowd if one is identified. A good counter-UAS company will be able to integrate their teams directly with your show security center, and will implement defensive tactics when unauthorized drones are spotted—minimizing the chances of an incident.

3.      Work with local law enforcement to enforce regulations. Not all local law enforcement agencies are well versed in UAS regulations. They may not know all the rules, but integrating your counter-UAS partner with your local authorities will ensure that rapid and appropriate action is taken when an incident arises. Because UAS proliferation has been rapid and the threat is relatively new, your counter-UAS team should be prepared to educate on-site authorities where necessary.

Part of the challenge is education. Any time a new technology is introduced, innovation can outpace awareness, and that’s certainly been the case with drones.

While there are companies who will suggest that they can “shoot down” any unauthorized UAS, or “jam” them, be wary. Counter-UAS should be part of your plan, but these types of drastic actions should only be employed when all other options are exhausted.

It’s almost eerie. The first time you hear it approach, if you’re like my neighbor Ernesto, you may think it’s a bumblebee – or, to be more precise, the aggressive solitary bees called ronsapas that inhabit stumps of dead wood and defend their territory by way of nasty stings. From a jungle perspective, you’d surely be forgiven for hitting the deck or breaking into a run when the sound first reaches your ears – that characteristic buzzing hum.

It may not surprise you to learn that in our almost unbelievably technology-saturated, increasingly globalized world, even rainforest farmers know exactly what that sound is – a drone. Call it tech appeal, or the stereotypical gadget fixation of the grown-up boys of the world, but drones are just about everywhere these days, including in the Amazon of Peru.

Over the course of the last 15 months, Camino Verde has had the opportunity to put these instruments to valuable and surprisingly varied use – and save an incredible amount of work at the same time.

Consider this: Last year, our Reforestation Center team, under farm manager Olivia Revilla and with the help of several interns, set out on an ambitious mission to document the trees we’ve planted. That totals around 50 acres of trees, tens of thousands of trees, representing our reforestation efforts of the last 10 years and the tangible manifestation of our donors’ commitment to Amazon restoration.

As you can imagine, making a map that includes every single tree and keeping track of basic data for each – such as species, botanical family, height, diameter at breast height, etc. – was an incredibly time-consuming task, a labor of love aimed at helping us better measure our impact. Months of work later, we had our first map for wide swathes of the farm – though not the whole planted area.

We celebrated this first achievement and prepared ourselves mentally for the work involved in finishing the task. It was right around that time, as we were contemplating methodologies to improve our efficiency for this arduous data collection, that a small group of Wake Forest University students paid us a visit and flew a drone over the reforestation center for the first time ever. The images captured were incredible. It was frankly breathtaking to see the trees from above – to see how clearly the mixed agroforestry systems we plant resemble the wild forest.

Given the meteoric rise of drone technology, maybe it doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that in the following months, there were many more drone flyovers to come. Our friends from Pacha Soap paid us a visit in February and captured breathtaking video of one of the largest, most impressive trees in 200 acres of primary rainforest areas we protect. And then Wake Forest’s Centro de Innovación Científica Amazónica (CINCIA) research group – our staunch allies in reforestation and restoration activities in Madre de Dios, Peru – returned and flew again.

To my amazement, after the last of these visits, we were presented with a map that the drone had made for us. By taking pictures of the ground at regular intervals and using software to stitch the images together, we got a better and more detailed map than from satellite or GPS. Beautifully photographic, the map showed us our trees as they appeared from above. And further, it did the work of months of hand data collection in the span of a day.

As you may know, Camino Verde values monitoring and evaluation, which means we follow up on the trees we plant so that we can say clearly and unequivocally what our impact has been. Drone technology is allowing us to greatly reduce the time and energy we spend on this necessary activity – so we can spend more time on our real work, our real passion, the planting of trees.