Drone trends to watch in 2016 by Tim McCarthy, Researcher and Developer in Geospatial Technologies

By @SimonCocking. Great insights from leading Irish drone pioneer Tim McCarthy. Tim has over two decades R&D experience in new concept development, design, coding & testing of novel Geospatial Technologies gained in both Industry and Academic environments.

What aspects of drones / uavs are you excited about?

Drones have great potential for mapping, monitoring, news-gathering, entertainment, searching, tracking & transportation tasks – these are all, at various stages of development across multiple sectors. Automation and relatively low-entry costs have opened-up this microairborne technology to a wide audience globally. We can expect to see an increasing array of both improved products and services as well as entirely new applications over coming years

What opportunities exist in the Dublin / Irish context?

You can probably divide drone related opportunities into 3 X broad groupings;

-Drone platform & sensor technologies (Materials, Auto-pilots, Sensors, Gyrostabilisation, Batteries, Sense and Avoid, Landing systems)
-Drone operations & support services (Insurance, Training, Flight-planning)
-Drone applications (Mapping, Monitoring, News-gathering, Logistics)

Ireland has a reasonable footprint in all three areas with reasonable growth evidenced by the increase in activity over past two years. I think Drone application offers the largest potential in devising advanced digital products and services based around the data collected by these aerial robots – these include; precision agriculture, optimised search and tracking systems, cloud-based data indexing & analytics, automated defect inspection along critical infrastructure, real-time monitoring of high-value installations, marine surveillance, water quality testing and 3D reconstruction.

What can we expect to see coming in the next 6 – 18 months?

We will see a sharp rise in drone activity in USA as FAA update their regulations for both existing Section 333 (commercial) as well as hobbyists. This will be accompanied by accelerated growth by commercial operators in Drone imaging companies as well as a growing list of new innovative end-use cases. Logistic services such as Amazon Prime will begin some localised ‘package-drop’ activity. Human transportation by drones (ehang 184) will become more popular – even very short hops in designated areas across the globe.

Anything else you’d like to add?

With new opportunities and developments comes challenges and drawbacks – with Drones we need to be mindful of the potential risks posed when drones are mixed with human activity so, we need to continue to promote safe and responsible operation near airports, controlled airspace & urban areas. We need to address privacy and nuisance issues since these platforms can be programmed to record HD video and high quality imagery from any aerial vantage point unbeknown to the person on the ground. Security is another area that can potentially be compromised using off-the-shelf drones. Alot of these potential draw-backs, themselves, can pose interesting opportunities for engineers to solve – and perhaps start-up a new company!

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