The wait for drone industry to take off is almost overThe wait for drone industry to take off is almost over

Many believe drones will be a familiar feature of the future digital utopia, but the industry has yet to really experience its watershed moment. Pessimists will tell you the hype created an unachievable goal, but we think the industry is on the verge of change.

Hyped industries do generally take off, just not as aggressively as we’d expect. There are examples of steady growth, becoming significant through osmosis without anyone noticing (smartwatches for example), and there are others where we must be patient for the stars to align.

We believe the drone industry falls into the latter. The technology was hyped, and we got excited, but there were too many complex variables. For new technologies to succeed, the dozens of underlying factors must all be in the right state, at the right time.

Regulatory considerations

Many innovations are born into unregulated domains. Artificial Intelligence is a good example of this, and its rapid growth can be partly attributed to this freedom. Policy is still catching up with technological advancement, therefore innovators can explore without boundaries.

Drones are different. It is effectively another form-factor entering into an ecosystem which already has an established and complex regulatory environment. The technology is fitting into a framework which was not designed for it – adaptation of rules is slow, and therefore progression is limited. Looking at research from Drone Industry Insights, 57% of the industry believed rule-making authorities were the single biggest market-driving factor of this segment.

For the drone industry, this means limitations on how and where they can fly (don’t forget, this was a hobby for a long-time before enterprise use cases were viable), there is a lack of drone traffic management systems, and strict rules on flying beyond-line-of-sight, undermining many of the benefits of drones in the business world.

These issues are being addressed. Authorities like the FAA (US) and EASA (Europe) are introducing clearer frameworks for drone use. This work also includes developing systems to manage air traffic for drones, ensuring safe integration with manned aircraft. NASA is one of the organizations spearheading this effort.

These consultations and negotiations have been in the works for years, and there is clear progress already being made. Many emergency services can fly beyond-line-of-site, and we expect the same rules to be adapted for other organizations soon.

Security risks

Drones are often considered security risks, which is a challenge for commercial adoption. These is of course grounds for these concerns, but there are mitigations currently in place to ensure minimal risk.

This is a sensible approach as it enables innovation but pays adequate attention to the risk itself. Risk is a part of life, and it is impossible to completely irradicate it. For example, if we had a zero-tolerance approach to risk, we wouldn’t drive cars.

With the industry already offering counter-drone technologies, as well as introducing a secure-by-design with stronger encryption, secure communication protocols, and regular software updates, we are at a stage where Drones can operate with minimal risk.

Increasing industrial use cases

The first Drone use cases discussed in the public domain were largely gimmicky and focused on rural use cases where Return-on-Investment would have been limited. Delivering pizzas or small packages to people in sparsely populated areas sounds fun but is realistically not going to be a scaled use case which delivered high levels of revenue.

Now we are at a stage where there is serious investment into commercial use cases that deliver genuine value above-and-beyond what would be possible without drones.

For example, Nokia and Motorola Solutions have recently unveiled an AI-enhanced turnkey, automated drone-in-a-box solution offering for emergency services. This announcement is the next big step of Nokia’s success story of entering the Drones-in-a-Box market in selected European markets.

By using Drones as the first eyes on a location, humans can better prepare their approach at a much lower risk to worker safety. This insight is an example of technology underpinning human endeavour to improve decision-making and performance. And thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the drones can be automated to improve efficiency and accessibility of adoption (you wouldn’t have to employ a qualified drone pilot).

This is one example, but there are countless others gathering momentum. The entertainment industry already uses Drones extensively, inspection of remote infrastructure can be done remotely, mapping and 3D modelling, precision farming and inventory management of large warehouses, just to name a few.

Technical limitations

With each month that passes, there are technological steps forward. These might be improvements to battery life, better integration with existing systems, price reductions in supporting infrastructure (e.g., charging stations, monitoring systems) or higher payload capacity.

While many of these challenges are reliant on the drone manufacturers themselves, battery life and durability of the device itself, others involve deeper integration with the wider ecosystem, as well as technological advancements in parallel ecosystems. 5G, for example, offers greater reliability and security, as well as low-latency communications, critical for Drones to operate efficiently and safely. But it is only in recent years (or even months) that we are starting to see deployment of 5G at a geographically wide scale.

The ever-increasing penetration of IOT connectivity across multiple segments (as well as the introduction of specialised IOT connectivity models such as LTE-M) allows Drones to communicate with other devices and systems. This can lead to more coordinated operations, especially in smart cities, industrial inspections, and agricultural monitoring.

The development of AI is also a very interesting factor to consider. There are benefits to remotely operating drones, both the piloting and deployment, but if that can be automated there are significantly higher benefits. The development of AI has been accelerating over the last few years, and is only getting faster, meaning the knock-on impact to segments like the drone industry will be amazing.

All these elements contribute to the business justification of drones for commercial organisations, as any use case has to make financial sense alongside the other benefits.

Drones are ready for lift-off

When you consider the contributing factors to the development of the drone ecosystem, you can start to see why this industry has not accelerated commercially too much in recent years. It is a complex undertaking to line-up all the moving parts.

We believe the watershed moment is on the not-too-distant horizon, with all the underlying factors beginning to align. We may well still be in the incremental growth stages of the bell curve, but we are seeing a huge amount of interest from customers in exploring how drones can add benefits from worker safety through to more efficient management of inventory and inspection of remote assets.

The future of drones delivering your morning coffee to you window might still be a long way off, but drones improving operational efficiency and worker safety is more likely months than years away.

Thomas is a recognized R&D and Business Leader with over 15 years of experience in the wireless networks telecommunications industry. He currently heads Nokia’s Embedded Wireless Solutions organization, where he is responsible for introducing applications to industrial and mission-critical private wireless 5G networks, as well as Nokia Drone Networks.

With a strong background in all generations of mobile communication standards, ranging from 2G to 5G, and applications, Thomas brings unique insights into the challenges and opportunities in the mobile communication space. His expertise in software, hardware, and testing enables him to design and develop robust solutions that integrate seamlessly with hardware components and meet the needs of customers.