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Why Drones Have Hit Their Stride

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“Necessity is the mother of invention” is an aphorism often ascribed to Plato, although there is no confirmed origin. It means we innovate according to the pressures that present themselves to us. A slightly modified version might be more appropriate for 2020: “Necessity is the mother of adaptation.”

Drones have been edging their way into industrial and commercial applications for some years now. Popular perception seems to still hover around the idea that drones are used only by hobbyists and the military, with nothing in between. The truth is that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been developing their functional profile considerably over the last while, and have hit significant milestones that suggest the industry is beginning to take off on the diffusion of technology curve.

This year has seen a perfect storm of social unrest: a pandemic that has shaken the pillars of capitalism and economies around the world, and a global social justice movement that bluntly questions the legitimacy of authority. Individually, these phenomena would offer an arduous challenge to any government, but together they present a terrible quandary that could either paralyze economies or decimate populations—or both.

These challenges have not gone unnoticed by entrepreneurs and enterprises. The degree of adversity facing societies around the world is severe, which brings to bear an urgency that only human need can create. The drone industry has responded appropriately; while drones offer nothing truly revolutionary from a year ago, the leaders in the industry have adapted to the changes in the landscape with a marked nimbleness.

On the brighter side of the situation we can see that drone-based enterprises have provided a solution to the labour shortage created by Covid-19, a way of keeping supply chains intact and operating. Inventory drones are being used to function in tight spaces where people would normally be expected to work: “By using autonomous inventory drones, companies can also mitigate Covid-19 health risks for warehouse workers who would otherwise have to work closer together with manual scans.”

A more obviously humanitarian effort being developed by drone companies is the last-mile delivery of a Covid-19 vaccine. The rapid scaling of reliable vaccine delivery networks could require drones to become an integral component in medical supply chains. This is especially needed in locales that have poor transport infrastructure; drones have already proved their usefulness in this regard, by reducing infant mortality in developing nations through the rapid delivery of life-saving antidotes or blood samples that need to be tested urgently


On a less life-and-death but arguably still important note, efforts to keep life as normal as possible through this crisis are being supported by the creative use of drones as an extension of libraries. A Virginia-based drone delivery service has been delivering library books to families during the shutdown. The concept of bringing our needs to us rather than going out to collect them ourselves is gaining traction everywhere, and may represent a shift in the way we relate to businesses and services as consumers long after Covid-19 is a memory.

On the darker, or at least more dystopian, side of the situation is the use of UAVs to surveil the populace. The commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that the drones that were deployed over more than a dozen U.S. cities recently did not collect information about protestors, but instead were used to “[…] ensure that the safety of folks there as well as to enforce, and make sure law and order remain.” While this may be true, the idea of roving eyes in the sky maintaining a watch over the populace is a chilling and familiar trope in “Big Brother” scenarios a la George Orwell. Surveillance drones certainly aren’t limited to the United States. China has its own “social education” fleet of UAVs that flit around and advise citizens of proper behaviour during a pandemic. On its surface this seems helpful at best and moderately intrusive at worst, but again the use of drones to direct an authoritarian gaze towards a nation’s people is troubling.

We should remain mindful that UAVs, like all tools, are neither intrinsically good nor evil, that it is their application that determines their ethical position. The continued push in R&D within the drone industry has provided some promising and frankly heartening outcomes. A recent announcement by U.S. firm Sabrewing Aircraft Company offers the world an all-weather UAV that can carry a payload of nearly two and a half metric tons close to 2000 km. A particularly compelling feature of this new cargo UAV is its ability to carry generic unit load devices, the same cargo and luggage containers that you see loaded into the bellies of aircraft at the airport. Coupled with VTOL abilities and a very serviceable cruising speed of 370 kph, developments such as this brings the promise of being able to deliver substantial humanitarian aid in remote or challenging regions, as well as another form of reinforcement for the complex and often fragile supply chains that wrap around our world. When (not if) the next pandemic hits, rapid distribution of protective equipment for both health care providers and the general population will be needed, and expected, and agile devices such as Sabrewing’s Rhaegal RG-1 could be in the midst of that effort.

The pandemic and social unrest crises that are rippling around the globe have thrown the profound utility of drones into sharp relief. When the world finds its equilibrium again, when the transformations that are currently under way reach completion, it’s probably safe to say we can expect to see UAVs operating in many more sectors, providing us with more agile, more scalable alternatives to putting people together with needed services and goods. Drones have already proven themselves to be eminently adaptable during a crisis; the coming decade will cement their place in most everything we do.

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