Both those of us, who are dedicated to drones, as well as the general public, sometimes lose the perspective that drones are only a tool and that their uses and usefulness lie in the applications that we are capable of creating using drones as a vehicle aircraft that, we commonly, call drones.
Therefore, the uses, the utilities and the real value of the UAS are in all the things that we are able to do, incorporating elements and solutions that respond to the needs of the industry and people.
It is possible that many of the applications arise from a specific demand, but others have to arise from visionary minds that anticipate, see where the need is and give it the solution even before the demand appears. As Steve Jobs said: “many times people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”.
Applying these ideas to specific things, there are countless applications that we can carry out with drones that we have not even imagined yet and that are waiting for someone with creativity, imagination and determination to launch them on the market.
Let’s take the example of large industrial companies that have many complex facilities that are often relocated. The possibilities of offering practical and brilliant solutions are enormous. For example, implementing monitoring systems for the different processes and obtaining precise data from the operations in each place where the facility is located, so that they can then be processed in real time over thousands of kilometres, identifying trends to execute improvements and efficiencies, of said Industrial facilities. We might think that these solutions can be carried out by traditional and manual methods, however, the use of drones reduces time, is carried out at a very low cost and, above all, can be carried out without any risk to workers.
But the advances in these fields require certain improvements in the operation of the UAS, which in the case that we mentioned before is essential. We refer to automatic and autonomous operations.
Autonomous operations can be programmed or managed from anywhere in the world, being able to perform daily tasks at any time and in any circumstance. Drones can carry out risk inspections, security patrols, emergency responses, surveillance with multiple sensors and all of this can be analyzed in a delocalized way.
Automatic operations do not require a person who is acting in command of the drone at the time of its activity, an issue that we will have to wait for the regulations to contemplate as something possible.
We are talking about introducing in many sectors and industries, a series of unprecedented resources to do things that currently, in a traditional way, because they are very expensive or because they present certain dangers for workers, cannot be done. It will be possible to increase the productivity and efficiency of companies, reduce operating costs, increase security, speed in responding to emergencies, premature detection of failures or problems, etc.
All this needs solutions adapted to each case and it is not possible to can the solution and impose it in any place or industry. Therefore, we come across a business that goes beyond the UAS operation and is closer to consulting and engineering companies that provide tailored solutions for each case. We have gone from operating drones to developing ideas. As we said before with a small personal contribution: “many times people don’t know what they need until you show it to them.”
