Unless you’ve been living in a nuclear bunker for the past few years, you can’t fail to have noticed the hype surrounding drones. From delivering your packages from Amazon to delivering takeaways to hungry students, they have been hailed as a coming revolution in the way we all live our lives. But what’s the truth about these unmanned aircraft we’ve been hearing so much about?
Well, the truth is that although drones haven’t replaced the UPS man yet, there is a good chance they will do that, and many other things, in the future. Here are just some of the ways that drones are set to change the world:
Package Delivery
In an Interview on ’60 Minutes’ Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos noted that more than 85 percent of all orders from the site weigh in at fewer than 5 pounds. This is notable simply because that makes them light enough to be carried by drones. Since then, Amazon have started testing drones that can deliver products within 30 minutes of an order being made. Other companies, including Google, have also started trials into their own drone services
Although testing has been initiated, there are still a number of issues, which will need to be ironed out, not least the impact on other air traffic and the possibility of theft, before drones are likely to be rolled out across the country. It will happen one day though, and we’ll be able to get our packages in record time when it does!
Warehouse Use
Another company that has started to look to drones for solutions to its most common problems is Walmart, who have started looking into ways that drones can be used within their warehouses. The company hopes that using drones to catalog its inventory and move stock around will cut down on costs. Of course, this could also mean fewer warehouse jobs in the future.
Farming
Another area where software product development is being used to make the most out of drones is in the agriculture industry. Farmers are starting to use drones to monitor the health of their crops and identify areas where additional fertilizer, water or pesticides may be useful. Some drones have even been modified so that they can spray crops from above. This cuts down significantly on the amount of work they have to do to keep their crops healthy, and can only be seen as a positive by anyone in the industry, so it is only a matter of time before we see drones used in farming as a matter of course.
Delivering Humanitarian Aid
As many as 2.1 billion people on Earth are unable to access the most basic of medicines they need to stay healthy, and this is primarily because they live in areas that are difficult to access. In order to change this situation and ensure that medicine is available to more people who need it Zipline – a drone manufacturer based in California – made a deal with the Rwandan government to deliver medication via drone which can travel within a 50-mile radius. Medication can be requested by Health Centers in the area via text message, making the whole process as simple as possible, and ensuring that more lives are saved as a result.
Law Enforcement
Back in 2015, the Michigan State Police were given the approval to use a quadcopter in order to respond to incidents, access suspicious situations and even conduct search and rescue operations in the area. This significantly cut down on the manpower needed to conduct these kinds of operations, so it is highly-likely that other police forces across the globe will get on board with the drone revolution in the near future.
Insurance Claims
Another area where drones are likely to be used more and more in the future is in the insurance industry. If, for example, a building is damaged in a storm or because there has been a fire, a drone can be sent to take pictures of the damage, which can be used by insurance companies to validate and calculate claims, which should mean that claims can be handled much more quickly than they are now when an adjuster has to be sent out to investigate each and every claim.
As you can see, drones are here to stay, and they are able to do a lot of the boring and complicated tasks that humans currently have to do for themselves. Although this will undoubtedly benefit many people, and it will certainly benefit a lot of businesses, there is likely to be some fallout as some jobs become obsolete, too. So we will just have to sit back and see how the drone revolution pans out.
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