Drone News & Articles

Here’s a digital asset management (DAM) riddle for you: What technology has made the following three DAM scenarios possible? 

1. A construction firm uses aerial images to monitor job progress and send updates to its clients. 

2. A government agency analyzes 3D images to prioritize repairs to roads and bridges. 

3. A property management firm uses video and imagery to determine which buildings and landscapes need maintenance and then request bids from contractors.

If you guessed "commercial drones," you’re right on the money. And you also have a bird’s-eye view of some exciting new applications that are remaking digital asset management.

The Democratization of Drones

With the democratization of once-expensive technology such as commercial drones, there is an unprecedented amount of new digital media being created and stored outside of traditional marketing departments.

Not only marketing teams, but other areas of business, including government agencies, are increasingly relying on high pixel count imagery, video, geographical data and realistic visual 3D models and scenes to engage consumers and increase efficiency and safety.

Cutting Down Delays, Reducing Risks

For example, in the construction and infrastructure sectors, engineers regularly examine detailed geospatial images — often captured by drones — to keep track of projects and physical assets so they can act quickly and accurately, even from remote locations.

Drone-captured images can also cut down on delays in image access and reduce the risk of costly misinterpretations. And because such digital assets typically retain their value beyond an immediate project, preserving them and making them easily accessible makes sense from both economic and intellectual property standpoints.

Governments Are Transforming Aerial DAM

Yet, because the images and video from drones are typically large and data rich, they are often stored in separate files or drives, which can’t be easily searched, viewed or used in downstream applications, especially by those who may be on lower bandwidth mobile connections.

Much of the push to transform aerial image data into products and services is actually coming from government organizations such as departments of transportation that want to demonstrate value to taxpayers. 

More Data Collection Means Easier Searches 

In the past, individuals who were looking for aerial images needed to know the location first before being able to assess what they are looking at and answer questions about, say, bridge safety or road conditions.

Now, with better, cheaper and more frequent data collection from drones, governments are amassing a treasure trove of digital assets that can be made available for public access via websites that allow images to be searched by location and downloaded as JPEGs. 

Video and Virtual Tours 

Yet, all too frequently, assets continue to be managed in low-tech catalogs, spreadsheets and hard drives, making access and usage difficult and providing little value to constituents.

Meanwhile, the commercial development and real estate industries are becoming more reliant than ever on 3D virtual tours, maps and video to showcase and market properties to consumers, businesses and commercial lenders. 

For these industries, drones are quickly becoming a popular, low-cost way to capture accurate panoramic digital footage that allows viewers to experience flying around a scene to explore and measure it from any angle. In addition, drones can allow property managers to remotely monitor buildings and detect security breaches or other issues that may need attention. 

Demand Currently Exceeds Supply

Consumer acceptance of, and demand for, drone images is high, thanks to popular applications such as maps and restaurant search tools that have accustomed users to searching by location.

The bottleneck, however, lies in managing supply side resources: The explosive growth in the amount of digital media being collected makes it time consuming for managers to store, find and distribute relevant assets to clients and downstream teams who need them.

Migrating Images to the Marketing Department

As DAM resources catch up with demand, the high-quality digital media obtained by non-marketing departments can be a boon to the growing needs of traditional marketing organizations.

For example, if made easily accessible, campaign managers could edit and repurpose the images, maps and video captured outside their departments into social media, web and mobile properties. This would not only save time and expense but create new sources of novel, engaging content.

Leveraging the New Digital Assets

For these industries and others, there is a great opportunity to extend the methods and best practices of digital asset management into departments which are now acquiring and using new types of drone-generated digital media. 

The question is how to best leverage these valuable new assets by making them available in central locations. After that is accomplished, the files then need to be integrated into the file sharing and storage protocols used for the organization’s other project files, whether Microsoft Office, PDFs, etc.

To maximize their usefulness, the files must also be easily searchable, viewable and accessible to remote or extended teams for usages as diverse as coordinating subcontractors, creating sales proposals, sending client updates and marketing for blogs, brochures and other collateral.

Centralizing Locations and File Formats

With digital asset management of drone images still in its infancy, it can still seem simpler to clients to schedule an additional photo shoot rather than invest time and money in setting up a DAM system.

But early adopters are already beginning to look for solutions that will help them store new file formats in secure, centralized locations that can significantly compress large files without losing quality.

They will need to capture rich metadata, such as longitude and latitude on new asset types, search by geolocation and optionally publish files to internet portals for search, preview and download. 

Drones gather mapping data about all kinds of things in the real world.  Today we're using apps, data, and IoT devices, including drones rather than human surveyors on site or in a plane. Have you considered how your company might use drone mapping data in business apps to deliver new value to your customers? If not, perhaps you should.

Construction companies, excavation companies, mining companies and energy companies are just a few types of organizations using drone mapping data to do their jobs more effectively and achieve better bottom-line performance.

Drone mapping solution provider Identified Technologies works with such companies to reduce costs and win more business based on the analytics and conclusions drawn from drone mapping data collected at their work sites. The end product is reports about costs and cost forecasting, progress forecasting and accounting.

"When you have an area about the size of San Francisco Bay, you've got hundreds of piece of equipment and hundreds of people around," said Dick Zhang, founder and CEO of Identified Technologies. "[Historically,] you could only confirm [their status] after the fact."

In the past, the information might not be available for weeks or months, and the cost of collecting the data could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for projects. To get paid, contractors need to show progress, such as the amount of dirt they moved and status of the roads they're building. Zhang said his customers are able to save 70% to 90% on their surveying endeavors.

Although using drones to gather mapping data isn't a new concept, the economics of owning, renting and using them have changed dramatically as drone technology continues to improve and prices continue to fall.

"You can get remarkable quality and reliability for a remarkable price [which] has accelerated growth in the market," said Zhang. "Data is a huge driver."

At this week’s InterDrone conference, top industry figures discussed the next step of enterprise drone programs: data-driven business transformation.

The panel, moderated by Intel‘s Anil Nanduri, was a small group of heavy hitters.  Michael Ritter of Slantrange, Dyan Gibbens of Trumbull Unmanned and Dr. Christophe Strecha of Pix4D focused on how to integrate aerial data throughout the enterprise.  “If you’re in the industry, you’ll likely work at some point with someone on this panel,” said Gibbens, pointing out that the group represented areas across the workflow: from data capture to processing and analysis.

Nanduri began by asking the panel if they had seen proof of concept projects with aerial data become recurring ways of doing business for their enterprise customers.  Gibbens, whose clients are primarily in the energy industry, commented that lower oil prices had forces efficiencies in that vertical – which had led to the adoption of drone mapping projects.  Dr. Strecha of Pix4D said that their company had seen widespread adoption in areas where drones have a significant benefit, such as mining where drones can travel in inhospitable environments.  And Ritter, whose customers are in the agriculture sector, said that drones had revolutionized the way that crops are evaluated – “We’ve seen an evolution of these concepts being adopted,” said Ritter.  “Some parts of the industry are eagerly adopting the technology.

While the panel saw drone technology being broadly adopted across verticals, they agreed that agriculture – a $5 trillion industry – may offer the most potential for the drone industry.  Defense, energy, and construction were all named as emerging sectors for drone technology adoption.

The panel agreed that adoption of drone technology differed around the world.  Strecha pointed out that the concept of data sharing is different depending upon where you are.  “In many parts of Asia, cloud-solutions are just not acceptable,” said Strecha.  “And pushing data to a cloud is still really hard in some areas… in the next few years, I think internet connectivity will be OK around the world, but how do you get there now?”

When asked what they saw as the top barriers to entry for enterprise clients, participants said that education, regulations, and data transfer were important.   Gibbens commented that their company had to educate clients on technology adoption and safety issues, and added that clients were not interested in small benefits but needed to see an order of magnitude savings.

Technology has outpaced regulations, the panel agreed – but it is up to the drone industry to help.  “How can we work with FAA to solve the problems for them?” asked Gibbens.”Where we really want to get to is beyond line of sight,” said Ritter. “That will really transform the industry.”

So you want a drone that can film from the sky? DRIVE/Aerial is here to help. A few years ago, if you wanted to dabble in aerial photography or cinematography, you only had a handful of options. Today's offerings, however, come with a wide array of features and can range from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, which makes trying to find the right one daunting. 

So to help you sort out the good from the bad, we at DRIVE/Aerial decided to put together a list of our favorite camera-ready drones available as of February 2017. That way, you'll be all ready to film your family on your next vacation to Aruba.

Holy Stone F181 - $109.99

If you'd like to dip your toe in to the aerial filming market, the Holy Stone F181 is a good place to start. This feature-packed drone comes with an attachable 720p camera, a push-button return, and an altitude hold function that can help any pilot stay up in the air. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with an external gimbal to stabilize your footage, which means your camera is only as steady as your flying. But for the $109 price tag, this drone is hard to beat. 

Yuneec Breeze 4K - $364.38

We like to call the Breeze the budget DJI Mavic (see below). It's a portable 4K drone that is easy to use and fits in a backpack. The only drawback is its lack of stabilized footage. The portable design means Yuneec sacrificed an external gimbal, so you'll have to stabilize your footage in post-production. But for the price and feature list (4K video and 13MP stills, as well as selfie, orbit, journey, and follow-me modes) the Breeze is a good entry into filming from the air.

Yuneec Q500 4K - $799.00

Bee-based maths is helping teach swarms of drones to find weeds, while robotic mowers keep hedgerows in shape. 

‘We observe the behaviour of bees. We gain knowledge of how the bees solve problems and with this we obtain rules of interaction that can be adapted to tell us how the robot swarms should work together,’ said Vito Trianni at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council.

Honeybees, for example, run on an algorithm to allow them to choose the best nest site, even though no bee knows the full picture.

Trianni runs an EU-funded research project known as SAGA, which is using the power of robotic groupthink to keep crops weed free.

‘We can use low-cost robots and low-cost cameras. They can even be prone to error, but thanks to the cooperation they will be able to generate precise maps at centimetre scales,’ said Trianni.

‘They will initially spread over the field to inspect it at low resolution, but will then decide on areas that require more focus,’ said Trianni. ‘They can gather together in small groups closer to the ground.’

Importantly the drones make these decisions themselves, as a group.

Next spring, a swarm of the quadcopters will be released over a sugar beet field. They will stay in radio contact with each other and use algorithms learnt from the bees to cooperate and put together a map of weeds. This will then allow for targeted spraying of weeds or their mechanical removal on organic farms.

Today the most common way to control weeds is to spray entire fields with herbicide chemicals. Smarter spraying will save farmers money, but it will also lower the risk of resistance developing to the agrichemicals. And there will be an environmental benefit from spraying less herbicides. 

Co-ops

Swarms of drones for mapping crop fields offer a service to farmers, while farm co-ops could even buy swarms themselves.

‘There is no need to fly them every day over your field, so it is possible to share the technology between multiple farmers,’ said Trianni. A co-op might buy 20 to 30 drones, but adjust the size of the swarm to the farm. 

The drones are 1.5 kilos in weight and fly for around 20-30 minutes. For large fields, the drone swarms could operate in relay teams, with drones landing and being replaced by others.

It’s the kind of technology that is ideally suited to today’s large-scale farms, as is another remote technology that combines on-the-ground sensor information with satellite data to tell farmers how much nitrogen or water their fields need.

Wheat harvested from a field in Boigneville, 100 km south of Paris, France, in August this year will have been grown with the benefit of this data, as part of pilot being run by an EU-funded project known as IOF2020, which involves over 70 partners and around 200 researchers.

_{Changing the way we watch sports}

_{Drones are perfect action cameras. Like the athletes they film, they defy physical limitations. They move like Hollywood camera rigs but are more flexible and spontaneous. Think of them not as action cameras, really, but as athletic cameras. They can film pretty much anywhere: clinging to a sheer cliff face; over open water; behind a dirtbike going 60; even in the middle of fireworks. Drones mimic the way we move—they can even follow you, hands-free—and by doing that they go one step beyond the sports coverage we’re used to: they convey not just the visuals, but the feeling.}

_{This will change the way we watch sports. For instance, I don’t remember the first time I saw a BMX double backflip — the YouTube clips fuse into one — but I remember the first time I saw it through a GoPro. Even though I’d never jumped a BMX, I felt, or imagined I did, what the rider pulling the trick felt.}

_{This is because the thrills of action sports—sports in general, really—come from their extreme physical challenges: speed, height, strength, distance, and terrain. Static or handheld cameras can’t keep up, and most professional camera rigs can’t quite communicate the spontaneity of sport. Drones excel at this stuff—they can capture spontaneous movement and do best with extreme speeds, heights and distances. (For an idea of what I mean, think of the NFL’s Cablecam.)}

_{That’s what a fireworks display feels like. In other words, with a drone, the shots can have the same spirit as the subject.}

_{And now: I’ll elaborate.}

_{Surfing, for instance: I like surfing, but I’m not an enthusiast and don’t especially like watching it. One reason that sport hasn’t broken into more mainstream broadcasts, aside from all the downtime, is that it’s pretty hard, visually, to get the right feel. It’s been tough to get a camera out over the water that, unlike a helicopter, can track exactly (and safely) with a surfer’s every move.}

_{You probably want another visual aide here, so here’s an edit of action sports drone footage featuring surf shots. Again, you’re probably going to mute your speakers at some point. (Almost all drone footage online is for some reason completely unlistenable.)}

_{Even golf has its physical extremes of distance and accuracy. A helicopter—which costs who knows how much to rent—can give you a sense of the course, but here’s an interactive 18-hole aerial tour where the drone more or less tracks with each individual shot. Or with what your shot’s supposed to be.}

_{Football coaches realized the value of an aerial perspective long ago, installing cameras on top of broadcast booths to record practice and games. Those are static views, though, and can only show so much. Drones move in three dimensions and can spontaneously react to plays in real time, the way a Cablecam does in a game, except cheaper. The NFL has permission to use drones in practices, including the Patriots.}

_{Astronauts say they experience a shift in awareness when they see the Earth from space: the entire planet, a fragile blue dot suspended in isolation. They swim in empathy for the planet, and, with all borders and boundaries removed, feel a yearning for peace and cooperation among all people. They say the feeling never leaves them.}

_{This is known as “the overview effect.” Drones will let us experience it. The scale is obviously magnitudes smaller but the principle is the same. For now we say “Whoa, look up there,” or, “man that thing is annoying,” but the really interesting thing is what happens after you get past that part, and you look back down.}

Armed with an array of sensors, commercial drones are about to become a new source for digital information. We expect the drone market to surge to nearly $7 billion by 2020 globally, driven by regulatory clarification, continuously decreasing component costs, and – most important– ongoing innovation that connects drone capabilities to big-data analytics.

While 60% of drone usage currently relates to communications and media such as for film making and commercial photography, new higher-value applications are on their way, as drones have a significant advantage in terms of precision, convenience, and cost over more traditional solutions such as satellites and helicopters. Drone-mounted sensors can be used to capture an impressive array of data, paving the way for increased digitalization of industrial processes.

Leaders across a spectrum of industries are already availing themselves of drone-based data. In the oil industry, for example, what used to be weeks of inspection work now takes just days, thanks to drone-based thermal imaging and gas “sniffer” technology to inspect oil rigs and pipelines. Sky Futures, a third-party drone services company that specializes in such inspections, works with oil companies, such as BP, Shell, Statoil, and Conoco Philips, and has raised $9.5 million in investment capital in just the past year.

In transportation, American railroad BNSF is partnering with the Federal Aviation Administration to test drones for remote track and bridge inspection and air quality monitoring.  Network Rail in the United Kingdom is using drones as part of its ORBIS project to digitize the country’s rail network in 3D, to enable better planning of track maintenance and renewal. Airlines Easyjet and Lufthansa have adopted drones as a tool for aircraft inspections.

Other industries are being persuaded by the cost and safety benefits of drone-based data as well. Mining giant Rio Tinto is using drones to survey equipment and mining pits in Western Australia. Heavy machinery company Caterpillar is reportedly exploring the use of drones for fleet vehicle management in the field, while drones are the cornerstone of Komatsu’s “Smart Construction” service, which can fully automate bulldozers and excavators. And one of retail’s largest players, Walmart, is testing how drones could help improve warehouse inventory management.

The multiplying possibilities of drone-based data could inspire across-the-board alterations in data gathering strategies, particularly if such changes lead to cost savings, improved safety, and enhanced analytics. For example, savings are to be had in analysis of inventory stockpiles, thermal imaging of pipelines and rail lines, three-dimensional modeling of insurance claims, and non-destructive terahertz imaging for buildings. Soon, it might be worthwhile for many companies to check whether drone-based data could add value – either to optimize current operations or offer new avenues for growth.

If a company can identify potential benefits, it can then consider whether to consolidate drone program development across multiple business units or subsidiaries, so as to concentrate investment dollars and strengthen data analytics. In addition, organizations that decide to invest in drones may need to adjust their data architectures and processes – and improve their understanding of  local regulations. While some drone-based data may complement existing information, some will make other information-gathering methods obsolete. Given that drones have little track record as yet, determining the “best” method for data gathering will require strict analysis of benefits versus costs, such as through pilot programs, before undertaking expensive functional restructuring.

Businesses also will need to determine whether to run their own drones or outsource. Factors such as investment horizon, need for data security, and desired development speed will influence this choice. A company might opt for in-house drone operation and data analysis if it is concerned about proprietary issues or security, is willing to make a substantial up-front investment, and wants to take a “learn by doing” approach. As an example, French railway operator SNCF is using an internal drone program to enhance safety and maintenance through network surveillance.

Banking low over the trees, the small quadcopter slows and begins a gradual climb. Rising above the roof, it hovers in place for a moment before flying over a fountain in the courtyard and sweeping along the edge of a swimming pool.

Welcome to the modern world of real estate.

Drone photography and videos and sophisticated software programs are seeing increased use among Realtors looking to up their game with eye-catching visuals that will help sell homes. “Drones can be used on all kinds of properties,” said Bob Gonsalves, president and CEO of the U.S. Association of Unmanned Aerial Videographers, a membership association focused on the needs of commercial UAV operators.

“It allows real estate agents to show off properties in a very unique way that you couldn’t have done several years ago,” he said.

Actually, it could have been done it back then.

“You would have hired a pilot to fly a helicopter, and that would have probably cost $2,000 for a couple of hours,” Gonsalves said. “What has changed over the years is the affordability of drones. Now you can buy a DJI Mavic Pro Quadcopter with high resolution from Best Buy for about $1,000.”

About half of his association’s 6,000 members use their drones for real estate purposes, Gonsalves said. It’s no wonder because Multiple Listing Service statistics show that homes with aerial images sell 68 percent faster than houses that are marketed using standard photos. Industry research firm RIS Media additionally notes that 73 percent of homeowners say that they’re more likely to list with a real estate agent who uses video to market their home.

Chad Z. King, who owns a Los Angeles-based aerial photography business called A Bird’s Eye, got in on the ground floor, so to speak. In fact, King figures he was among the first to utilize drones to showcase homes. “I started doing aerial photography with a miniature remote-controlled helicopter in 2009,” he said. “We mounted a Nikon D7000 camera on it. Back then that was the best that Nikon offered. We didn’t have a downlink, so we just sort of winged it. We’d land it and take a look at the footage and say, ‘OK, we need to get further out,’ or ‘we need to angle it down a little more.’ We did it that way for about three years.”

Sharper Shape Inc. wants to bring its drone-based 'Automatic Detail Inspection' (ADI) service to major electric utilities companies in the United States. Having just successfully completed field trials, the company is now making its end-to-end drone-based inspection system readily available for commercial use. The company announced its ADI service and field trial completion this week, in hopes to allow the "drone software as a service" to increase the efficacy of electric utilities companies across the country. 

How would this work, exactly? Well, the entire process of inspections of "critical infrastructures" would be automated. You'd no longer need people 'on the ground', which eliminates costs. Drones would cut down on a lot of time, further eliminating expenditures. 

In addition to the obvious, Sharper Shape has a far more interesting trick up its sleeve. According to sUASnews, before a single inspection takes place, Sharper Shapes ADI Flight Planner software would construct extremely accurate 3D models of the infrastructure in question. After creating a digital map of all power lines, towers, and other critical infrastructure using the lidar (light detection and ranging) data recorded via drone, the Flight Planner software would arrange for the most optimal and efficient inspection routes possible. This would then allow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to do routine inspections, detect defects anywhere on their path, and communicate with the on-the-ground system or utility company faster than an employee could scale an electric pole.

A squadron of drones at the BHP Billiton-managed Goonyella coalmine near Moranbah in central Queensland is radically changing the way in which miners keep physical tabs on their operations, traditionally the preserve of the mining surveyors’ profession. The first of the drones — or more correctly unmanned aerial vehicles — arrived at the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance-owned Goon­yella a little more than a year ago.

Dubbed Virgil after the logistics character in Thunderbirds and sporting $2 stick-on cat’s eyes to keep the local hawks at bay, it has been joined by seven others in BMA’s growing squadron. Weighing 2.5kg and looking more like a hobbyist’s model aeroplane than the more ubiquitous hovering helicopter type of drone, the German-built and battery-powered UAVs have a flight time of up to 40 minutes, fly at up to 80km/h at a height of 120 metres, and can cover 80ha of the mining lease in a single flight.

After a flight plan is uploaded on to a memory card, the UAVs take flight for their rapid-fire collection of the type of volumetric measurements (by taking overlapping photos which can be data crunched into a 3D model) that a team of surveyors would have laboured to collect in the past. Project leader Jason Wads­worth told The Weekend Australian that the UAVs gather volumetric information “so we can understand the progress of the mining operation around the pits”.

“We get a tonne of information from the UAVs and it is giving our engineers and operators better visibility about what is going on site at any time,” Mr Wadsworth said.

“And now we are starting to venture into its safety compliance aspects, so we can monitor and understand where we might have problems with safety berms, road construction and that type of thing.’’ “It is about making sure the site (the mining lease is 30km long and 20km wide) meets its speci­fications. “The UAVs don’t need to go down to the pits, and they don’t need to integrate with the equipment down there which is good for safety, and it has productivity ­benefits.”

Mining surveyors are far from losers in the technology shift as apart from anything else, they are the ground-based pilots of the ­airborne workhorses — after ­obtaining a remote pilot aircraft systems licence for drones weighing up to 5kg. Sometimes referring to themselves as spatial scientists but unkindly referred to as “peg whackers’’ by other professions on mine sites, mine surveyors are climbing the respect totem pole thanks to the game-changing impact of the UAVs.

It reflects the capability of the UAVs, with Goonyella specialist mine planner Ben Skerman ­saying that there was a “lot of excitement about what this system can do”. “That’s because we can get the information quickly, it’s accurate and it gives us the opportunity to see things in ways we have never seen before,” Mr Skerman said. “So there is a real buzz around what this can do. As the technology evolves, we know these things are going to get better.’’