Most of people know drones only as death delivering vehicles on the battlefield, but there’s plenty interesting civilian uses that many people still overlook. Besides pizza delivery, which was considered more like a promotional event than actual service (because of infringement of the rules of flying UAVs beyond the operator’s visual line of sight), there’s a lot of useful applications out there. Let’s take a look at 5 civilian areas, that National Geographic highlighted in their article, in which they’ve already excelled:
1. Hurricane Hunting
Hurricanes represent a frequent threat in many areas of the world. In order to ensure people’s safety, it is required to spy on storms as they evolve. That isn’t exactly one of the safest jobs in the world. But luckily, we have UAVs that are able to do it for us without putting us in danger. That’s one reason NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Northrop Grumman teamed up on a three-year, $30-million experiment to use long-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to spy on storms.
The program’s Global Hawk drones can stay aloft for 30 hours and fly 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) with their 116-foot (35-meter) wingspans. That lets them reach and stay in stormy areas that manned planes can’t, performing valuable surveillance.
Scott Braun, director of NASA’s Global Hawk mission, used this analogy in an interview with National Geographic last year:
If you drove by a drug dealer’s house, you wouldn’t catch him; but if you stood there all day, you might.
2. 3D Mapping
Small, lightweight drones might seem like a toy or a model of an actual airplane, but they are able to survey landscapes with thousands of digital images that can be stitched together into 3D maps. This process is already widely used by military and other government satellites, but emerging UAV technology can put this capability in the hands of small companies, universities or even idividuals, to be customized and utilized for seemingly endless variety of applications.
You can just push a button or launch them by hand to see them fly and you don’t need a remote anymore—they are guided by GPS and are inherently safe.Olivier Küng, co-founder of Switzerland software company Pix4D
Pix4D’s software creates 3D maps from drone images. Küng told the TEDx crowd that such technology has already been widely applied—for Haitian relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, by farmers seeking to manage far-flung crops and fields, by mining companies monitoring changes to open pit mines, and by festivals to monitor crowd size for security reasons, among other uses. Other applications will be developed when drone technology becomes widely available, Küng predicted.
3. Protecting Wildlife
The U.S. government already uses drones to protect its lands and the species that inhabit them.
The Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States Geological Service use UAVs and by and large they use military surplus stuff, like the small Ravens, to monitor wildlife populations or map roads and wetlands for land management purposes
In Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey has mounted a thermal imaging camera on a drone to count sandhill craneswhen they are settled in on the ground for the night. Their 4.5-pound AeroVironment Raven was developed for military use almost a decade ago. Even though newer technology has replaced the Raven in military area, it’s still a cutting-edge tool in the world of wildlife conservation.
An Orangutan Conservancy effort that shows aerial surveys can identify the animals‘ distribution and density in Indonesia and Malaysia, which is key because ground-based efforts are slow and costly in the thick forests that orangutans favor.
The unmanned craft can also chart land use changes like deforestation, which is threatening an untold number of species.
Drones also lend punch in the fight against poaching. With funding from Google, the conservation giant WWF plans to launch surveillance drones this year in skies over Africa, where poaching is driving iconic species like rhinos toward extinction and is fueling a massive illegal trade in wildlife items like horns and ivory.
(More about poaching issue http://mensuro-aero.com/blog/drones-financed-by-google-hunt-poachers; http://mensuro-aero.com/blog/uavs-to-help-against-poaching-at-kaziranga-national-park)
4. Down on the Farm
In many cases, retired military drones find their further applications on farmers‘ fields, where they can serve more peaceful purposes.
Agriculture, far and away, is going to be the dominant market for UAV operations, in Japan they’ve been flying the Yamaha RMAX for 20 years … a lot of the farmland there is on steep hillsides and those vehicles can treat an acre in five minutes that’s very difficult or even impossible to do with a tractor.AUVSI’s Gielow
The precision agriculture movement uses technology to monitor fields, increasing yields and saving money. Gielow noted that precision applications of pesticides, water, or fertilizers, which drones can help by identifying exactly where such resources are needed and delivering them there, is better for the environment and for a farmer’s bottom line.
Drone cameras that spot where nitrogen levels are low or watch the growth of a specific field section, can also be helpful for farmers. Drones with infrared light cameras can reveal plant health by reflecting how efficient photosynthesis is in various plants.
5. Search and Rescue
An injured victim of an automobile accident in Saskatchewan, Canada, last month may have been the first person to have his life saved by a search-and-rescue drone. (The involved drone was Draganflyer X4-ES, learn more about this incident at http://mensuro-aero.com/blog/draganflyer-x4-es-may-be-the-first-uav-to-rescue-a-person)
When Royal Canadian Mounted Police responded to a late-night rollover in a remote location, they found that the disoriented driver had wandered off. A ground search and an air ambulance helicopter with night-vision gear failed to find him.
That’s the first known rescue that an unmanned aircraft has made, that I’m aware of,Gielow said
It’s not likely to be the last. SAR missions are time consuming, expensive, and often too dangerous for the people involved. Successful result of the operation depends on how fast search and rescue efforts commence. Common helicopters requires longer time to land off, while drones can take off in just a few minutes. Also, pre-planned flight paths allow the operator to methodically perform a grid search in a given area to ensure no area is missed.
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