With drone sales set to rise more than 80 per cent this year, to approach US$500 million, Euroasia Industry explores some of the most prospective applications across the commercial and consumer spectrum.

1. science&technology
and can be used effectively to capture
imagery for precision management decisions
such as variable-rate in-season fertilisation,
weed identification, livestock inventory and
identifying sick animals,” advised John
Nowatzki, an agricultural machine systems
specialist at North Dakota State University
and the principal investigator on a first-of-
its-kind agricultural research project incor-
porating drone technology. However, Mr
Nowatzki went on to note that small UAS
are “relatively limited by flight time” and
“cannot easily capture imagery of thou-
sands of acres on the same day”.
He points out that large UAS will be
required to collect high-spatial and tem-
poral-resolution imagery over entire regions
in a timely manner. “A large UAS could cap-
ture high-resolution imagery of one square
mile in a single image,” he suggested. “This
would make it possible to capture imagery
useable for precision crop management over
hundreds of thousands of acres in a single
day at very high resolution.” That said, while
advancements in drone technology are crit-
ical, the development of sensors and down-
stream analytical packages to generate
meaningful insights from these farmland
images is perhaps the real driver for growth
in agricultural drone adoption.
Harnessed by Hollywood
Meanwhile, Juniper’s research also found
that demand for UAVs in the film and tele-
vision sectors is soaring. Drones provide a
much cheaper, more flexible alternative to
the use of helicopters and other methods
to capture footage for the film and TV
industry, particularly for action sequences.
Certainly, drones have already become a
firm fixture on the sets of Hollywood block-
busters, with early examples including
James Bond’s Skyfall, which used drones to
follow the action as 007 chased a terrorist
across the rooftops of Istanbul’s famous
bazaar – and won an Oscar for its aerial
imaging platform, Flying-Cam 3.0 SARAH,
in so doing. Other early adopters included
The Wolf of Wall Street, The Hunger Games,
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
Van Helsing and HBO blockbuster series
Game of Thrones.
Darryl Duzak, aerial cinematographer
and pilot at Skyline Studio – a company
specialising in cinema-quality aerial cine-
matography and video production – sees
ease of use, agility, and low cost as the
major advantages ushered in by drone
technology. “Drones are bridging the gap
between camera cranes on the ground and
helicopters in the air,” he enthused. “It
allows that level between 40 and 400 feet
to be filled unlike anything before it, and
enables me to add a needed new perspec-
tive in modern day film and television.”
Beyond that, with helicopter rental costing
around US$10,000 per day, the cost sav-
ings when compared to renting a drone for
an eight-hour day are clearly substantial.
Much needed power boost
Many companies in the oil, gas and power
industries have started adopting drones for
various operations as a faster, safer and
more efficient alternative to manned opera-
tions. Mitigating risk to workers is clearly of
great value to such businesses – especially
given that the stakes are typically high, the
standards are accordingly stringent, and the
price of personnel comes at a premium. As
such, the energy sector is increasingly using
drones to inspect both offshore and onshore
facilities at heights, in hazardous areas or
within confined spaces. “Minimising risk
by utilising cutting-edge technology in this
way is of great importance to the energy
industry. This technology provides a real
opportunity to decrease the number of falls
and fatalities that occur due to traditional
methods of working at height,” suggests
Chris Wilber, Pipeline Services Director at
SGC Engineering – a Houston-based sub-
sidiary of Lloyd’s Register. “Drones can also
be operated at a much lower per-hour cost
than many manned inspection vehicles and
offer the ability to collect data on a pre-pro-
grammed repeatable track, providing con-
sistency in the inspection data and making
the identification of maintenance trends
much easier.”
Given the sustained slump in oil price
and thousands of recent rig closures, per-
haps now more than ever drones could play
an important role in creating operational
efficiencies – and in a cost-effective way.
In the power utilities segment, companies
are deploying drones to inspect overhead
transmission lines and equipment – typi-
cally a high-risk activity to personnel,
however experienced. One such company
embracing UAVs is Austin Energy, which
is testing a novel solution for inspecting
transmission lines from the air using drones
and breakthrough imaging software from
It was almost 15 years ago – on 4th February
2002 – in Afghanistan’s Paktia province,
that the CIA first utilised an unmanned
Predator drone. It would become the first
of many targeted killings that would make
drones or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)
synonymous with death and destruction.
Between 2009 and 31st December 2015,
President Obama’s administration admitted
launching 473 strikes, predominantly with
drones, that killed a reported 2,372 and
2,581 terrorist “combatants”, alongside
up to 116 civilians. Indeed, according to
John Sifton – Advocacy Director for Asia at
Human Rights Watch – the advent of UAVs
in US military operations has ushered in an
era of killing that is “risk-free, remote and
detached from human cues”.
Yet as UAVs become more affordable and
ubiquitous, such technology is being put to
work in countless less controversial emerging
applications. A low price point – with high
performance models now available for less
than US$3,000 and consumer models for
as low as US$30 – has significantly reduced
the barrier to entry in many sectors, with
strong uptake of the technology for applica-
tions involving mapping, inspection and
monitoring. As a result, according to a recent
study from Juniper Research – Drones:
Consumer & Commercial Applications,
Regulations & Opportunities 2015-2020
– annual revenues from commercial drones
sales are forecast to reach US$481 million
this year, up an impressive 84 per cent on
last year’s figure (US$261m).
Agricultural applications on the up
Often viewed as one of the few remaining
bastions of tradition due to its considerable
dependence on human labour and intel-
lect, agriculture has, perhaps surprisingly,
emerged as one of the front-runner appli-
cations for drone technology. Juniper asserts
that the strongest growth is likely to occur
within the agricultural sector, which it fore-
casts will account for 48 per cent of all com-
mercial drone sales this year. Very much
part of the emerging concept of precision
agriculture, UAVs help save time and costs
over established methods like walking fields
on foot and using planes for fly-over filming,
alongside for more regular crop surveying.
“Small UAS [unmanned aerial systems]
are ideal for scouting crops and livestock,
With drone sales set to rise more than
80 per cent this year, to approach
US$500 million, Euroasia Industry
explores some of the most prospective
applications across the commercial
and consumer spectrum.
8 | EUROASIA INDUSTRY
science &
technology
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2. 10 | EUROASIA INDUSTRY
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Indian company Arcturus Business
Solutions. The firm’s pattern recognition
algorithms compare images of new transmis-
sion equipment with images taken by drone
to detect damaged tower components, hot
spots and coronas, and even to measure line
sag. Should such tests prove successful,
utilities have the potential to lower costs and
improve the safety, speed and precision of
inspections. Current inspection techniques
require physical access by lineworkers or
costly flyovers by helicopter.
Longer wait for drone deliveries
While the advantages for such applications
seem obvious, research by Juniper also
cautioned that a raft of privacy, safety and
security concerns could mean the usage of
drones within built-up areas for delivery
purposes is severely constrained or even
prohibited in the future – something that
would scupper the lofty plans on some of
the world’s tech giants.
Flying at an altitude of up to 400ft and
clocking speeds of up to 60mph, with
sense-and-avoid technologies that help the
drones evade obstacles, Amazon claims
its Prime Air drone innovation would make
deliveries a near instantaneous affair, with
vertical take-off and landing on an Amazon
branded landing mat that doubles as a
homing beacon for the drone (although
deliveries to those living in a flat or a tower
block would be somewhat trickier). Tests
have begun, yet there has been no roll-out
date announced, as the company waits for
UAV regulation to catch up with the tech-
nology’s real-life potential.
Elsewhere Google’s Project Wing claims
to be building the ‘next generation of auto-
mated aircraft, and is working towards the
day when these vehicles deliver everything
from consumer goods to emergency medi-
cine – a new commerce system that opens
up universal access to the sky’. Such uni-
versality raises issues, of course, given that
the skies would become significantly more
crowded – and more hazardous – should
unknown numbers of consumer consign-
ments suddenly become airborne.
According to Dr Windsor Holden – the
research co-author of Juniper’s new report
– regulators would be extremely wary of
giving planned services such as Amazon
Prime and Google’s Project Wing the
green light, except as a means of deliv-
ering to isolated rural communities.
“Regulators are understandably con-
cerned that the deployment of delivery
drones in inner cities would significantly
increase the risk of potentially fatal colli-
sions with cars or even pedestrians,” Dr
Holden warned. Yet in more remote set-
tings, the viability seems greater for e-
commerce deliveries – German logistics
giant Deutsche Post-DHL, for example, is
exploring the use of ‘Parcelcopter’ drones
to deliver goods to tap the growing Indian
e-commerce market with a specific focus
on the smaller towns in which the firm
soon plans to set up operations.
Dark skies or bright prospects?
Beyond the risk of mid-air accidents over
crowded city skies, Juniper’s new report
also highlights a potential danger that
delivery drones could be hacked by terror-
ists, conceivably delivering an explosive
payload into areas where they would be
capable of causing high levels of civilian
casualties. Such concerns are not without
grounding. In October, Peshmerga fighters
operating against ISIS near Erbil, Iraq,
downed a small hobby drone, although
upon closer inspection were killed by a
bomb that it was carrying. With that inci-
dent, it is believed ISIS claimed its first
casualties using a weaponised hobby drone.
The ubiquity and cheapness of such tech-
nology (off-the-shelf consumer drones can
be acquired for as little as US$30) means
that such threats from terrorism and cyber-
attacks via drones are something lawmakers
will need to factor in to new legislation.
Certainly, in many places regulation is
having a hard time keeping up. While some
countries have clear, established drone
laws, many others do not – or the existing
regulations fail to take into account how
much the UAV landscape has changed in
recent years – both in terms of opportunity
and risk. What is clear is that unmanned
air-borne technology is emerging as a
smart and oft transformational driver
across a whole host of industries, with
many more likely to benefit in the future –
in those markets that get the regulatory
balance right. Carefully tailored legislation
that keeps pace as UAV tech sophisticates
should go a long way to ensuring aviation
safety and security, alongside providing
more certainty to commercial adopters and
developers of the technology alike. o