A #drone is a # helicopter/ or aircraft
which is also known as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (#UAV). The drone is a
flying robot that can be #-controlled from the ground or it can fly #autonomously
as per flight plans already embedded in its memory. The ground control system
works in conjunction with onboard sensors and #GPS. Drones
are useful in different sectors like #surveillance, #law enforcement, , #agriculture
and emergency response during many #calamities and #military #operations.
Drones help in #delivering #medicines and food to people living in calamity affected
/ difficult areas. Drones have a wide range of civilian applications
ranging from search and rescue, surveillance of water
bodies, jungle #fire lanes, #mining areas, #patrolling electric,
#power lines, oil #pipelines, #traffic monitoring and #fire-fighting. Drones
have been extensively used in India for surveillance and #crowd management
during COVID 19, pandemic.
In the agriculture sector, drones are
being used for #crop growth monitoring, #spraying of liquid type insecticide
and fertilizer. These are being used for #dropping #seedlings for plantations
in mountains and difficult areas. This effort helps in providing green
cover to the mountains and consequently controls #landslides and soil #Erosion.
Likewise, personal drones are being used for #photography, #videography,
and delivery of small payloads. In certain countries, heavy version drones are
being used as aerial taxis carrying one person over a short distance. In
technologically advanced countries, drones are being used for door to door delivery
of small domestic stores. These drones also find great application in low-level
flying and photography by #journalists for real-time reporting of public
movements during processions, street/roadshows, public rallies and
social-distancing violations during corvid-19 like a pandemic.
Drones / UAVs are
being used in the Army for surveillance, delivery of goods, carrying and
dropping of weapons/ammunition on assigned military targets. They are slowly replacing pilots while dealing
with hideouts of terrorist’s organizations like those in Afghanistan and Syria.
In various military operations UAV is used for surveillance of fencing along
international border/Line of Control (LOC), delivery of military stores and
other logistics in mountainous /snow-bound terrain. Although the drone has
versatile applications and low cost for the flying mission, it has issues
related to privacy, weather dependency, interference with air traffic around
airports and misuse by undesirable people or terrorist groups.
History of pilot-less planes. The radio-controlled pilotless aircraft were used in World
War I. and World War II. These were used for dropping leaflets to
affect psychological warfare and acting as spying decoys. In 1982, the Israeli Air Force used
UAVs for surveillance, spotting and destroying artillery locations and
jamming enemy communication. Israel could destroy the Syrian fleet of
vehicles with minimal loss of its own forces. However,
widespread drone use started in 2006, when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Agency introduced UAVs to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border. In late 2012, some
manufacturers came up with low cost, lightweight personal drones for
entertainment and aerial photography. Drones got real momentum in 2014 when
many countries started developing UAVs for commercial applications and military
operations. Its popularity continues to rise worldwide, where it is
actively used by law enforcement agencies, the National Guard for patrolling
borders and departments of Environment and Agriculture.
Types of drone platforms.. Drones
used by civilians or law and order maintaining agencies or healthcare are VTOL
(Vertical Take-Off and Landing) air vehicles. These neither require a runway
for taking off / landing nor pilots to fly. Drone platforms are mainly of two
types:
·
Rotor drones. These are small, lightweight and low cost having
single-rotor or multi-rotors (Tri-copters, Quad-copters and
Hexa-copters,). These are used as a toy for entertainment or for hobbies or for
surveillance and area mapping. These are also used now for logistics for
carrying small loads of medicines, food or other domestic needs.
·
Fixed-wing
drones. These are
relatively large in size, having two wings as in aircraft, heavier and fitted
with many sensors and high-resolution cameras. These drones are capable of
delivering small payloads at designated locations. These are used mainly for
military operations, agriculture spraying and logistics applications. These are
launched by special equipment (Drone launcher), which is mobile and can be
quickly set up in any location.
Drone Categorization. Drones can be also categorized as per
their applications:
·
Personal
Drones. These could be toys for
children entrainment for a hobby for aerial photography or even for doing
photography during weddings or political gatherings.
·
Commercial
Drones. These include
spraying of water, insecticide, fertilizer on agriculture
fields, scanning, and mapping disaster-affected locations, surveillance
and area mapping, including 3D imaging of minefields, cement queries, and
cement plants. These drones could be carrying small payloads and delivering
goods to difficult terrain.
·
Military
Drones. UAVs are well
suited for stealth operations of locating and destroying enemy hideouts and
carrying out many other military missions. Drones are being used by
Pakistan and China to drop explosives payloads across their borders. These
explosives could trigger off on impact after landing or as per the time set in
it. The details are not given due to security considerations. USA lead forces
in Afghanistan have very successfully used drones for searching and destroying
hideouts and concentration areas of Taliban and ISIS elements. On 03 Jan
2020,.US Army in Bagdad, used UAV (Drone) MQ-9 to track and shoot Iranian
military leader Qasem Soleiman, a Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps The General officer was moving from Bagdad Airport to a meeting place when
the missile was fired on his moving car from the UAV. Drones have been safe to
use for surveillance in mountainous and snow-bound terrain.
Drone Size and weight.
·
Personal
drones. These are Quad
Rotor type drones for common use, These are simple to fly around as
entertainment, sports, offering video or still camera capabilities. These
drones are easy to carry like a toy and weigh from 1 to 10 pounds.
·
Commercial
Applications. These
drones are the UAVs, larger in weight and size, longer flying time, capable of
doing surveillance, area mapping and delivery of small
stores/materials, Boeing Company offers a “Scan-Eagle” drone, having
10-foot wingspan and weighing 35 pounds. Its sensors include electro-optic
imagers, mid-wave infrared imagers, infrared markers, and laser
rangefinders.
Monitoring
and Control Features.
To have good radio
control on the flight path and do aerial video photography, drones can be
equipped with a number of sensors, including distance sensors, time-of-flight
sensors, chemical sensors, stabilization and orientation sensors and
RGB sensors. In some special applications, accelerometers, gyroscopes,
magnetometers, barometers and GPS are also installed but at an additional cost.
Price and
Facilities. A simple toy type drone
with a short-range of flight and limited control features will cost you $ 30 to
$ 70 or say Rs 2500 to Rs 5000. You may add more features like a
high-resolution camera with some spare parts and that can cost you additionally
say $100. A typical personal drone DJI Spark (Professional),
costing Rs.70,000 ($1000) will offer the
following facilities:
·
Flight
Time: 16 Minutes, Control Range: 4 KM and Speed: 50 KM/H
·
Video
Resolution: FHD 1920×1080 @ 30fps
·
Photographs
Resolution: 4K, Camera
Resolution: 12 MP.
While buying a drone
online from Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba or Google store, you may have a good deal
for free Carry Case, spare accessories like a battery, rotor blades, SD memory
card or additional sensors. If accessories are not offered
free, you should buy them for an additional cost of $100 to $
200. The agriculture-type drones
may cost you $3000 (Rs 2 Lacs) upwards depending upon various instruments/
equipment installed on board and the size of the power pack. Price and
other features of military-type a drone are very specific for
their role and are not covered here.
Characteristics of a Commercial Drone. It is a small, compact,
battery-operated and versatile flying machine with special features to suit
non-military applications. The main characteristics of these drones are:
·
It has four to six rotors and can take off vertically from anywhere and
can land anywhere.
·
It can fly as per pre-programmed route or it is remote controlled
through radio.
·
It does not make noise during its flight and it can fly very low to go
undetected,
·
It can safely carry small loads and deliver those at a designated place.
·
It has a digital camera and data storage device onboard for
recording ground images.
·
It is well
suited for delivering small loads say medicines in difficult terrain.
·
It is very
accurate and economical for aerial water spray for irrigation or for
fire-fighting both in the jungle or built-up areas.
·
It is very
handy and effective for aerial surveillance and conducting patrolling along
designated routes/pipelines.
Characteristics
of Military type drone (UAV).
·
It is a noiseless and low flying aerial vehicle that is difficult to
detect by the enemy radar.
·
It is pilot-less and no danger of losing a trained pilot.
·
It has a
large number of highly sensitive instruments and sensors for area mapping,
locating enemy targets and accurately delivering required ammunition/ weapon
systems on designated targets.
·
It is
launched by mobile ground-based launching equipment but can sustain its flight
with an onboard battery.
·
It has
provision to load software-based route plan and contingency plan for manoeuvre
and action.
·
It is also
radio controlled and can be manoeuvred as per operational requirements.
·
Weather
permitting, it can provide a 3D view of the target area in real-time.
Commercial Applications.
Earlier UAVs / Drones have been mainly associated
with military operations, like anti-aircraft target practice, intelligence
gathering, propaganda leaflets dropping and even delivery of weapons at
selected places/hideouts. Due to their versatile applications, ease of
transporting and launch and low cost, drones are now used in a wide range of
civilian/commercial roles. Some of the common applications are briefly given
below:
·
Journalism. It can facilitate reporting live from
the place of action/accident,
·
Search and Rescue ( SAR) Drones
can fly low and search across the sea, desert and mountains to locate and
rescue stranded persons.
·
Disaster
response. During calamities
like Hurricanes/Cyclones, Earth Quakes, Volcano eruptions, Landslides, drones
can be employed for area scanning and for dropping supplies.
·
Communications
Relay Station. The drone can
act as an elevated Radio Relay Station during any national emergency operation.
·
Healthcare
Service. Drones can
deliver life-saving medicines in remote locations
·
Dangerous
jobs. Jobs in hazardous
palaces, which are risky for humans, are being slowly replaced by drones.
·
Mining. These can provide real-time status of mining
activity in open-cast mines and can also be deployed inside deep mines.
·
Cement Industry. The drone can assist in
monitoring progress at stone queries, carriage by ropeway and unloading
and storage at the cement plant.
·
Oil
industry. It can help
during the exploration of new oil fields monitoring oil production of
oil fields and patrolling oil pipelines.
·
Delivery
services. The drone can
carry small stores from warehouses/stores to the customers. This can also
be linked to certain Apps for teleshopping and home delivery of purchased
items.
·
Policing
and law enforcement, It
helps in flying over crowded places and provide real-time info to the police to
reach there and control the crowd. During Covid 19, drones have been
successfully used for maintaining 6 feet social distance in crowded
places.
·
Wildlife
monitoring and
protection. Drones can be effectively used for monitoring animal
movements and monitor poaching activity. It can also spot any injured/sick
animal and help its evacuation by the forest staff.
·
Monitoring
and reporting jungle fire. It
can detect fire and report to the forest department, who can quickly
organize to control the fire and its further spread.
·
Fire-fighting. Drones provide economical and faster means for
Aerial spray of water/ chemicals to control fire in the forest, oil
fields, Oil refineries, moving trains, factories and high-rise buildings.
·
Arial
Surveillance. Photographing
water levels of various water bodies during the dry season and rainy season can
help water management of dams/canals and Hydroelectric powerhouses. It
can help in locating drought areas and shifting sand dunes in the desert
·
Monitoring
the progress of construction sites. Drones are well suited for monitoring the construction work
of highways, railway tracks, bridges, waterworks, tunneling.
·
Pollution
control. Drones can
monitor water pollution in lakes, ponds, rivers, canals and on sea beaches. It
could also report oil spills in the sea and help in protecting sea animal life.
·
Search
& Rescue operations. The
drone can do low level flying over beach-side, sea, jungle or desert for search
for stranded people and help in rescue operations,.
·
Policing
and Patrolling. Drones can be
used by the Border Security Forces (BSF) to carry out patrolling of international
borders and report any activity/ingress by the enemy along international
borders.
·
Quick
Reach at Disturbed area .
The drone can provide real-time activity at the disturbed site so that the
police could quickly reach the disturbed/ riots-hit areas and control the
situation.
·
Road
Traffic Monitoring. Drones
can help in monitoring traffic density, congestions on routes/ bridges and
diverting traffic towards alternate routes. This could supplement information
available through GPS
·
Arial
Spray. Drones can help in
spraying chemicals/water to control fire in buildings or jungles.
·
Thermal
Imaging. It can also help in
sensing a person with a high temperature in a crowd and to take that person for
checking and treatment, During the Corona pandemic (2020-2021), drones
have been of great help to control further spread of corona.
·
Area
mapping. The drone
can carry out scanning and photographing any specific location. Drones could be
monitoring the pollution of water bodies and shifting of sand dunes in the
desert area.
·
Delivery
Systems. Delivery of small
payload of food, water, medicines, clothing, in difficult terrain or in
areas affected during any calamity/disaster.
·
Patrolling. Patrolling can be along electrical power lines,
oil pipelines, canals/water channels, railways lines, roads and bridges, beach
sites and trekking routes.
·
Agriculture activities. Drones are already being used
for monitoring crop growth and spraying of water, insecticide and
fertilizer.
·
Planting
of trees in higher mountainous terrain. Drones have been successfully used for planting trees in
areas that have been deforested due to fire or any other reasons and terrain
is very difficult to negotiate for manual digging and planting seedlings. Tree
planting using drones is carried out by dropping pods containing small plants
having mud cladding.
·
Aerial photography. Photography can be indoor/outdoor, during
marriages or public functions, election rallies.
·
Virtual
tour of house building sites. The Housing dealer can conduct a virtual tour of a number
of building sites by flying across a drone and customers can have a wider
choice without having to travel to field locations. He/she can also observe the
construction status.
·
Insurance
companies,. They can use drones
to remotely monitor customers’ immovable properties and issue insurance
policies.
Military Applications.
·
Gathering
intelligence, surveillance, artillery spotting, target acquisition, battle
damage assessment and reconnaissance,
·
Patrolling
along Line Of Control (LOC) or border for monitoring any intrusion and any
damage of fencing, bunkers and other vantage points for Border Observation
Posts ( BOP) towers.
·
Locating
and delivery of weapons on sensitive targets /hideouts of terrorists /gorillas.
·
Delivery of
stores, artillery howitzers and field equipment in difficult/mountainous
terrain/ jungles.
·
Deploy as
an aerial target for practising Air Defense guns.
·
Many other
secrets missions can be carried out to meet tactical objectives
Drone manufacturers and Suppliers. There are many
manufacturers of drones in the USA, China, Russia, Europe, Taiwan, Japan,
Australia and a few other developing countries like India. However, Drones are
easily available through online stores of Amazon, Google, Alibaba, or
Flipkart and at an affordable cost. Dragonfly is a USA based company of UVVs/
is the leader in supplying UAVs. One can browse popular websites to select the
drone/ UAV which suits one’s requirement and budget. Some popular
suppliers are-www.amazon.com, www.google.com, www.allibaba.com, and www.flipkart.com.
Limitations of Drones.
·
Weather
conditions. Windy weather,
snowing and rain affect the use of drones. Flying drones in rain or snow can
damage the electronic components and interfere with the communication between
the drone and the controller.
·
Low
speed. UAVs maximum speed is 30 mph, which makes
them vulnerable to ground fire.
·
Vulnerable
to hackers: UAVs vehicles
require data links for controlling them from their launching area. Hackers can
intercept the data link and affect your monitoring in the area or even trace
your remote location and harm you.
·
Flying Time. The flying time of a drone is between 8-15
minutes before the battery needs changing. You need a bigger and heavier battery to sustain a
long flying time.
Issues involved with Drone Applications.
·
Causes
unemployment. It is feared
that larger deployment of drones may lead to unemployment of the aircraft
pilots. Similarly, some logistic organizations dealing with delivery
services fear unemployment to their existing human resource.
·
Invasion
of Privacy. Drone’s
capability to quietly and speedily move to any location and with high-power
zoom lenses fitted in the drone, people fear that it violates individual
privacy.
·
Drone
Collisions. UAV type
Drones pose a risk of collisions with aeroplanes around the airport.
Keeping track of all drones/ UAVs and their flight routes is a major concern.
·
Collateral
Damage. Missiles and
explosives fired by military drones can lead to the death of innocent people
caught in the targeted area. This can lead to an international issue
of human rights,
Drone Education for Jobs. Knowledge of drones and
their judicious deployment of drones in various sectors will be offering many
jobs. Therefore, drone education is picking up momentum in many colleges,
universities, private training institutes, and aviation schools. Some
universities /training institutes offer a BSc/MSc degree in Unmanned Systems
Applications. In liberal arts universities, a minor in
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is a good option. One does not require a
degree or diploma in Computer science to operate a drone / UAV but a basic
knowledge of mathematics and science will be useful. However, for
modifying/updating of embedded software and retuning of onboard
sensors/devices, one requires a degree in Computer Science/ Electronics Instrumentation
and Control systems.
Job Predictions. It is now well recognized that drones will not take away
jobs but supplement human efforts and also create many new jobs. Jobs could be
both in the government departments and private sectors. These jobs relate to
areas of Information Technology (IT), Aviation, Transportation,
Agriculture, Healthcare, and Management of water and power services, Delivery
systems, Aerial photography /videography, Journalism and Reporting, and
Policing. PricewaterhouseCoopers have valued the drone-based businesses service
market at more than $127 billion, with the top industries being infrastructure
at $45.2 billion, agriculture at $32.5 billion and transportation at $13.0
billion. Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (UVSI) have predicted more than
100,000 U.S. jobs and add $82 billion to the U.S. economy by 2025. The
job opportunities could be following sectors:
·
Drone Pilots (controllers on the ground). They should possess
mechanical skills, self-evaluation skills, the ability to analyze
information, problem-solving skills, and communication skills.
·
UAV Pilots. UAV Pilots are required for flying drones
and executing data acquisition and Area Mapping. These people should have good
knowledge of the engineering of UAVs, handle safe drone flying with industry
standards.
·
Software
Developers. Software
developers (system software designers) are required to implement flight
algorithms and security aspects for Drone firmware and ground control
software. They should have proficiency in software tools like, Python.
Ruby, Java or Scala.
·
Data Analytics. Data Analytics are in great demand to
undertake drone operations for data acquisition on agriculture, mining, survey,
monitoring, and construction site inspection.
·
Business
Developers. Drone
Industry requires dynamic sales executives with good soft skills and basic
knowledge of computers and drone operations
·
Skilled
camera persons. Developing
agencies require photographers skilled in DSLR operations, High-Resolution Imaging
and Light Manipulation,
·
Electronics, Instrumentation and Control (EIC) engineers. These system engineers
are to deal with radio communication, instrumentation, and control systems for
the safe and efficient operation of Drone/UAVs. They need to be proficient
in the microcontroller, Assembly Language, embedded technologies,
robotics, and AI.
·
PCB
Designers. These
hardware engineers are required to develop a compact two-layer PCB design for
poisoning various components and their inter-connectivity. They should be
proficient in using software tools like Altium Designer,
Eagle, Lab-VIEW,
·
Software
Engineers. They
are needed for, problem-solving and troubleshooting They should have high
proficiency in software design, good communication skills, and decision-making skills.
·
UAV
Developers. These technical people must have experience in developing
flight path planning, and control algorithms. They should have good knowledge
in robotics, computer vision, simulation, MATLAB, Simulink and Machine Learning
(ML) to undertake the development of various algorithms for autonomous
systems.
·
AI Experts. They are to carry out Analysis and Design of
Algorithms (ADA) and should have good expertise in ML to help us extract
value from scanned data.
Drone Regulations Policy. Keeping in view the great potential of drones
and their vast applications in various sectors, GOI has reviewed its earlier
Drone Regulations, which were based on USA Norms. A more liberal
policy has been issued by the Ministry of Aviation on 16 Aug 2021. The army
of a country may have its own considerations and regulations in response
to military operations and prevailing battle zone conditions
As drones/UAVs are being used for
many commercial applications, newer laws are being introduced by every
user country. Before using a drone, it is very essential to check the laws of
the country in which drones are being operated. All
major user counties have enforced strict regulations on the operation of drones
so that these do not interfere with the privacy of any citizen or
interfere with the operation of another aircraft, helicopter or air balloon,
flying in close vicinity. USA regulations, as shown below, are very
comprehensive and may be suitably modified /adapted as per prevailing law
of the country, where these drones are to operate:
·
Unmanned
aircraft/drones must remain within visual Line-of-Sight (LOS) of the remote
pilot who is handling various flight controls.
·
Drones may
operate during good light/weather conditions (30 minutes before official
sunrise to 30 minutes after official sunset)
·
A
drone must yield the right-of-way to other aircraft flying in the
vicinity.
·
No one
should fly drones near airports or airfields
·
The
drone must stay below 400 feet and at least 150 feet away from buildings
and people.
·
The base
station controller must observe and control his/her drone at all
times.
·
The
drone should never fly near an aircraft.
Summary. Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(UAS)/ Drones offer many benefits to almost all sectors of the economy like
Healthcare, Agriculture, Mining, Transportation, Arial mapping, Law
enforcement, Disaster Management, Search & Rescue and Military operations
Drones can create many jobs and help in economic growth. , Due to their reach,
versatility, and ease of operations, drones are particularly suited in India’s
remote and inaccessible areas. Proper integration of drones with IT, AI,
and GPS can make India a global drone hubby 2030. To
give impetus for the Drone Industry, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA)
published the UAS Rules, 2021 to seek response/ feedback from academia and
other users. Based on the feedback, the GOI has repealed the UAS Rules,
Of 2021 and replaced these with the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021.
The future of the drones industry is
very bright as it provides speedy transportation of small payloads, to
designated places. Drone technology continues to gain popularity for various
applications, Its potential for law enforcement, border patrolling and
various military use is of great value. It also promises many new jobs in
various technical and non-technical sectors. It is therefore important that
young professionals should select courses in drone technology, and upgrade
their skills to match the needs of the emerging drone market.
Comments