The first draft of my writing on commercial drone application. This document does not follow APA standard and should be nowhere close to the final version (which is not gonna be disclosed anyway)

1. On Sep 22, 2014, the infamous performing troupe Cirque du Soleil published a new video under the title
“Sparked: A Live Interaction between Humans and Quadcopters”. The film starts with a quote by Arthur
C. Clarke, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. In this short film, a
lone repairman is struggling to repair a series of lamps when the lampshades suddenly begin flying by
themselves and interacting with the man, mimicking his movements. However, the most amazing thing
about this short film is no CGI was used or needed, and all the magical flying lampshades was played by
the latest stars of modern technology: drones.
In recent years, leading technological companies has shown that drone technology have the potential
for a wide array of commercial applications. According to a research published by Lux Report, they
predict that market for commercial drones will reach $1.7 billion in 2025, led by agriculture with $350
million revenue generated in 2025. Utilities will be the second‐biggest segment at $269 million, while oil
and gas will be worth $247 million.
In agriculture, drones can be programmed to fly low over fields and stream photos and videos to a
ground station, where the images can be stitched together into maps or analyzed to gauge crop health.
They can also be modified to land and take soil and water samples. Trimble, a technology company from
Sunnyvale, California began offering agricultural drones in January 2014 and is currently selling them in
foreign markets. Indiana‐based drone maker PrecisionHawk says it has projects in Canada, South
America and Australia. Agriculture could be the proving ground for commercial drone applications,
partly because operating in rural areas far from crowds, large airports and tall buildings alleviates
privacy and safety concerns.
In energy industry, drones can be used for various purposes. Aeryon Labs, a Canadian company that
made headlines for supplying drones to rebels in Libya, has dispatched its drones to look for cracks in
wind turbine blades, which can hang hundreds of feet above the grounds, without having to send

2. workers to scale towers or hiring helicopters, which can cost thousands of dollars an hour to operate.
SolarCity, a Silicon Valley company that is one of the nation’s largest installers of solar panels, also
reportedly used drones to detect malfunctioning solar panels, which generate a distinctive heat
signature as they fail. During a test by ConocoPhillips last year in Alaska's Chukchi Sea, an Insitu
ScanEagle drone was used to inspect pipeline. In the Alaskan tundra, inspecting a pipeline isn't easy.
Most pipelines don't follow what few roads are there, so trucks often aren't an option. And using low‐flying
airplanes can be unsafe to pilots in snowy, windy weather.
Drones can also be used within the mining industry for surveying and mapping on site. Precise maps of
open pits can help in planning mines and monitoring the angle of slopes, a key safety concern because
of the risk of rock slides. Lightweight drones can take measurements otherwise usually made from the
ground, without putting extra workers near dangerous heavy equipment on an active mine site. Some
aerial mapping can be done with satellites or from conventional aircraft, but low‐flying drones can
collect more detailed data, often just using a camera, and because they fly below the clouds, there is no
need to wait for a clear day. Another application of drone in the mining business may be exploration,
the search for new mineral deposits – something that is now typically done with helicopters or small
planes. Geosense and Ursus Airborne, a company who does mapping and exploration work around the
world, added small UAVs to their toolkit about three years ago to serve these purposes.
On a more similar note, both Amazon and Google revealed their plan to use drones to deliver packages.
Amazon’s R&D lab introduced Prime Air in December 2013, a new delivery system is to get packages
into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. Later on August 2014,
Google revealed that it has been developing a drone delivery system in the Australian outback,
codenamed Project Wing. Nicholas Roy, founder of Project Wing, said Google has been secretly working
on the project for two years at Google X, a division of Google dedicated to major technological
advancements. Surprisingly, neither Amazon nor Google are the leader in drone delivery. DHL, a

3. Germany‐based global logistics company, has beaten the tech giants to become the first company to
deliver packages officially when they launch the first commercial drone delivery service. The service will
use an autonomous quadcopter to deliver small parcels, including medication and other goods that may
be “urgently needed”, to the German island of Juist, an island 12km into the North Sea from the German
coast, inhabited by 2,000 people.
The reason after DHL’s advancement over the tech giants, which is also one of the major blocks for
companies to access and develop drone technology, has been a lack of regulatory approval for drone
flights. In the United States, due to its rich history associated with various military and special operation
applications, adoption of drones for commercial purposes are heavily monitored and controlled by the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In 2007, FAA imposed what amounted to a nationwide no‐fly
zone on commercial drones in the United States while they wrote rules regulating their operation.
Amazon had to test Prime Air in Canada while Google tested their Project Wing, both countries that has
more relaxing rules for commercial drones.
FAA’s burdensome regulatory regime could hurt the US drone development scene as a whole. Amazon
sees drones as the future of commercial delivery. The technology is one way Amazon can shave down
shipping expenses which cost the company nearly $4 billion per year. Amazon has demonstrated that
they are committed to developing drone technology to secure their future. In their exemption request
sent to FAA, Amazon made clear that they have other options for testing their drones such as moving
their drone R&D operations outside of the US.
Fortunately, in March 2014, an administrative law judge for the National Transportation Safety Board
ruled that the F.A.A. had no authority to impose such a ban. FAA just recently began approving
commercial drone uses on a case‐by‐case basis, even so, FAA strictly require that the aircraft must be

4. operated within the "line of sight" of the pilot, and there the FAA and its critics have a difference of
opinion.
In the latest development of this saga, pro‐drones should feel thankful to Hollywood when the FAA
grant a handful of television and film productions an exemption to its outright ban on the use of drones
for commercial purposes on Sep 25, 2014. Filmmakers’ drones now can be used only on closed sets and
have to weigh less than 55 pounds, fly no faster than 57 mph and go no higher than 400 feet.
The exemption, only the second of its kind and the first of any meaningful scope, will allow those
companies to employ unmanned aerial technology in their business operations even though the FAA
hasn’t yet settled on a larger set of rules to govern drone use in the commercial sphere. Hollywood’s
exemption is the first granted to multiple companies and the first to give an entire industry entries to
commercial drone use.
And filmmakers don’t wait long. Director, landscape photographer, and aerial cinematographer Randy
Scott Slavin founded New York City Drone Film Festival, the world’s first event exclusively dedicated to
celebrating the art of drone cinematography. The festival will be held February 21st, 2015 in New York
City with the submission deadline on November 30th, 2014.
This hopefully will also open the gate for many other industries to enter the Drone Era in the near
future.

5. Sources
Drone Delivery
Google – Project Wing: http://mashable.com/2014/08/28/google‐project‐wing‐drone‐delivery‐australia/
Amazon Drones: http://mashable.com/2013/12/01/amazon‐unveils‐flying‐robot‐delivery‐drones/
DHL: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/dhl‐to‐begin‐deliveries‐by‐drone‐in‐germany/
Entertainment & Arts
Drone + Cirque du Soleil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C8OJsHfmpI
Drone Film Festival: http://www.nycdronefilmfestival.com/
Video tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfo2gvt2OlI
Disney drone show at theme park: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/25/us‐usa‐florida‐disney‐idUSKBN0GP1ZF20140825
Hollywood drone: http://fortune.com/2014/09/25/action‐filmmakers‐to‐be‐allowed‐to‐use‐drones‐in‐the‐
u‐s/
http://fortune.com/2014/09/26/faa‐approval‐drones‐hollywood/
Search & Rescue Drones: http://mashable.com/2014/07/23/drone‐saves‐life‐missing‐man/
Disaster relief
Photo Drones
National Geographic: http://www.dronestagr.am/
Drone + GoPro: http://mashable.com/2014/10/13/dronie‐selfie/

6. Wedding photo: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/sean‐patrick‐maloney‐wedding‐drone‐
109025.html?hp=r3
Agriculture drones:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la‐fi‐drones‐agriculture‐20140913‐story.html#page=1
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rakeshsharma/2013/11/26/growing‐the‐use‐of‐drones‐in‐agriculture/
Drone’s future:
Drone industry could soar to 11B by 2024: http://mashable.com/2014/07/31/drone‐industry‐growth/
http://www.marketwired.com/press‐release/led‐by‐agriculture‐market‐for‐commercial‐drones‐will‐reach‐
17‐billion‐in‐2025‐1957058.htm
Future of Drone: http://www.livescience.com/45242‐future‐of‐drones.html
Monitoring: hunting & anti‐hunting, environmental compliance, paparazzi, highway
Science: wildlife research, atmospheric research
Drones in energy industry

7. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy‐environment/drones‐are‐becoming‐energys‐new‐
roustabouts.html
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Drones‐give‐energy‐companies‐high‐hopes‐for‐
safer‐5488028.php
http://breakingenergy.com/2014/08/25/can‐energy‐companies‐legally‐use‐drones/
Drone surveying & mapping in mining industry
http://www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/currentstudents/ug/projects/Smithson/background.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report‐on‐business/industry‐news/energy‐and‐resources/drone‐start‐
ups‐woo‐stretched‐miners‐for‐survey‐work/article9467067/
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/drone‐tech‐investment‐takes‐off
General link
9 totally cool uses for Drones: http://www.livescience.com/28137‐cool‐uses‐for‐drones.html
Journalism, hunting & anti‐hunting, sports photography, highway monitoring, wildlife research,
atmospheric research, disaster relief, environmental compliance
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/10/10/drones‐in‐hollywood‐what‐industry‐is‐
next/