The popularity and widespread use of drones is increasing every year. Flying drones officially launched in 2012, and since then, the industry has boomed where it is predicted in 2020 that there will be $127 billion invested in the drone industry. This popularity is largely due to the vast range of applications associated with drones and this is where the perceived value comes from.
The application of drones vary from being used to capture incredible 4K video footage for travel blogs and advertisements, to surveying flood and natural disaster damage, as well as assessing rooftops and building sites and everything in between.
Tim Nguyen from DJI explains how drones have a number of different sensors that allow for their ease of use and ensuring safety during flights. These include GPS being used when outside, and sensors on the front and underneath of the drone ensure the drone doesn’t crash into trees or objects at ground level respectively. Tim goes on to describe that the future of drones will include, “lasers that will be used to calculate measurements on the fly, and LIDAR to autonomously fly indoors and map out an area.” David Lyman, the CEO of Betterview, agrees with this sentiment as he believes drones will move away from being completely manual to close to being totally autonomous and the sensors used to collect data, and those that help fly the drone will only continue to improve.
With drone technology, the quality and quantity of data will be expanded all whilst reducing the cost and increase efficiency.
In the insurance industry, drones will become pivotal in improving the data collection during the underwriting and pricing of the risk, as well as assessing of damages post natural disaster events such as floods, hurricanes and wild fires. The footage will inform insurance companies on the concentrations of damage and losses. The turnover of this information is very quick and will help companies better plan out their settlement of claims.
The variety of applications that drones can perform ensures the value they can provide a number of different stakeholders. The sky is the limit for drones as we fly into the future of surveillance and data recording.
