While drones have become increasingly visible for tasks like roof inspections, aerial photography and even home delivery, the truth is we are still in the very early stages of commercial drone adoption. The current state of the drone industry is akin to the Nokia era of smartphones – bulky, low-powered devices that hint at greater possibilities to come.
The numbers tell the story. Despite all the hype around drones, only about 2% of predicted commercial use cases have been implemented so far. The industry is still relying heavily on adapted hobby components and DIY solutions, rather than having a robust supply chain and purpose-built platforms for scalable operations across industries.
Part of the issue is that many drone manufacturers are taking a scattershot approach, building unmanned aerial vehicles by loose analogy to either hobby RC aircraft or military drones. While this made sense in the pioneering early days, it fails to solve key practical problems that enterprises face in trying to get full value from drone programs integrated into their operations.
As a result, many businesses who jumped into drone experiments over the past decade have been disenchanted by underwhelming results, excessive operating costs, overhyped capabilities that didn’t translate well into the real world, and an inability to scale up operations. This has slowed down adoption in some industries that were expected to be leaders like construction, energy, and agriculture.
The real innovation is happening behind the scenes at a handful of cutting-edge companies like Aerovel, Quantum Systems, Swoop, Tekever, and Marble that are taking a first-principles approach. Rather than building drones as toys or scaled-down planes, they are designing integrated drone hardware and software from the ground up to excel at specific high-value applications and use cases across sectors. This involves hardening drones to operate in harsh environments, optimizing power management for extended endurance flights, and integrating advanced sensor and AI/machine learning capabilities.
At the same time as this quiet commercial progress, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and broader tensions across the Middle East and Asia are spurring huge new investments in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for defense and security purposes. While critical for national security, this military focus and influx of funding could potentially divert resources, talent, and brainpower away from commercial drone development and innovation in the short-to-medium term as companies chase defense contracts.
If you want to see what the cutting-edge future looks like for the commercial drone industry, look to the maritime and offshore sectors. A pioneer in this space like Marble is using drones loaded with multiple sensors and cameras to cost-effectively monitor and assess a wide range of oceanic risks including piracy, smuggling, illegal fishing, and maritime ecosystem monitoring over long distances. With fix-winged drones capable of vertical take off and landing with a range of nearly 100 miles and speeds of 160 km/h, capable of operating even in harsh wind and weather conditions, they are unlocking completely new maritime domain awareness and surveillance capabilities that transform offshore operations.
While consumer drones get the bulk of mainstream media attention for aerial photography and video or headline-grabbing stunts like delivering snacks, the real revolution is just beginning for how drones can disrupt and transform operations across industry verticals. With improving AI analytics to automatically detect and identify risks or anomalies, hardening for reliable all-weather performance, and optimized power management for extreme endurance, we are still in the primordial stage of the commercial drone industry’s potential.
Soon the full power and scale of fully integrated, purpose-built drone solutions will be unleashed in sectors that underpin global supply chains and drive economic productivity, from logistics and transportation to agriculture, construction, mining, utilities and energy. Drones will augment human workers, automate routine tasks, improve safety and slash costs.
The current commercial drone industry is akin to the first flip phones and PDAs – impressive for their era but just the first hint of what intelligent, connected unmanned systems are capable of across the enterprise. Despite the hype from some companies and the inevitable disillusionment from early failed experiments, the steady progress by a vanguard of innovators proves we haven’t seen anything yet. Those who resist the urge to dismiss drones as an overhyped fad and stay focused on solving hard practical problems will define this next transformative era.
Author*
*This post was written by Mathieu Johnsson, CEO & Founder at Marble, a drone startup. You can listen to an interview with Mat on the topic of Drone Monitoring on the Futurized podcast.
