What Can Drones Do?

Drones are autonomous flying platforms that we can attach a number or sensors to. The reason why there is so much speculation on their potential is becasue they offer a cheap, reliable, flexible, and accurate way to put sensors in the air – and capture data previously unattainable or provide a better alternative to current practices. So, with the idea that drones are flying platforms controlled by waypoint GPS systems or manually, the possible applications for drones becomes limited only by imagination.

The current technology allows drones to be used for small, but extremely accurate remote sensing projects. While a satellite can cover huge areas of the earth, it requires powerful sensors and with such large areas of imaging, resolution is lost. Planes and Helicopters are in the middle of satellites and drones. They can still cover big plots of land and at higher resolutions, but still not at the precision capable with drones. Drones fly low to the earth (less than 200m) and can collect data with extremely precise accuracy, but cannot cover the same distance of a plane or satellite.

Some of the applications we have seen drones in remote sensing so far are:

If you know of other applications currently being experimented with or have any ideas for new applications feel free to leave them in the comments.