Drones: The sky is the Limit

​Last week I attended a symposium hosted by Telstra on the business opportunities of drones. The introduction was from Hugh Bradlow Chief Scientist @ Telstra Ventures.













He identified 3 key areas of growth

1. Viewing site inspections
2. Media
3. Delivery

There are also business opportunities with

• Looking at mobile base stations in the sky

• Combine with IOT (Internet of Things)
• Another way of measuring (vertical not just horizontal)
• Increase the yield on crops through better management
• Insurance being able to more quickly do claims inspection

Fun fact: $USD 22billion in drone sales in next 5 years, with the biggest in agriculture and construction. 

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Key challenges

• Safety
• UTM (unmanned traffic management since you asked)
• Flying beyond line of sight will unlock value
• Regulation
• Data
• Vertical algorithms-hardware has been commoditised
• No fly near airports
• Privacy concerns
• Issue with birds
• Weather conditions
• Battery transport 
• Data management will overwhelm 

Use cases

• Auto recharge 
• Survey collections
• Underground scanning
• Integration with asset management
• Persistent transmission 
• Media and advertising
• Species identification
• Transport and logistics 
• Agricultural intelligence
• Drone as a Service
• Spectral imaging
• Bird deterrents 
• Planting trees
• Fish spitting
• River erosion Mgt
• Weed mgt
• Fire Mgt
• Feral pest Mgt
• Insurance

Petrol in the sky

Professor Darryl Vetch from the UTS in Sydney also talked about developing petrol stations in the sky. It was totally blue sky thinking. He talked about the need to remove the limitation of energy refuelling. Metro parcel delivery could be ready as soon as regulation is ready. If we can solve unlimited range issue it will transform business model, therefore the big picture idea is to create petrol stations for drones . The dock economy would allow roof space to be rented to drone companies for refuelling.


Conclusion

The market for drones and the use cases is huge. Beyond sales of drone, companies need to look at the whole ecosystem for business opportunities.