The use of UAVs is growing steadily not only in the military setting but also on the civilian side. A national geographic article gives five areas in which their use has already excelled. These include hurricane hunting; using large drones to "spy" on the storms improving predictions, 3D mapping; using smaller drones for land surveying, protecting wildlife; monitoring populations, deforestation and helping the fight against poaching, farming; monitoring fields and growth analysis and application of pesticides, water and fertilizers and lastly search and rescue; covering large areas of non-accessible land faster and through the night. (Handwerk, 2013) There has also been talk of using drones for Amazon deliveries. UAVs are regulated by the FAA and are not supposed to fly out of the line of sight of the operator.
I think that UAVs will eventually be integrated into the NAS, however not for quite a few more years. A British Dominos pizza franchise came up with the "DomiCopter" delivering pizzas by drone. In America this is highly illegal since the operator was not in line of sight. This is just one of the problems using drones poses. Another would be an increase in air traffic causing more congestion in airspace.
In the military aspect, drones are used in numerous different ways for example: security, search and rescue, monitoring, impact and disaster management, communications and munitions. (Unmanned, n.d.) The use of these has saved many lives, allowing us to enter warfare without having any actual troops. A main downside is the cost and upon entering a war zone may be damaged and these things are not cheap.
I also found an entire website dedicated to UAS/UAV careers with plenty of job opportunities called UAS Career Center.
References
Handwerk, B. (2013, June 6). 5 Surprising Drone Uses (Besides Pizza Delivery). retrieved from
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130606-drone-uav-surveillance-unmanned-domicopter-flight-civilian-helicopter/
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems Association Welcome. (n.d.). retrieved from
https://www.uavs.org/military
UAS Career Central. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://uascareercentral.jobboard.io/
I had no idea the British already used the "Domicopter". That would be an amazing business idea if only we could do that here in the US. I'm sure that their business is greatly improved, due to the copter and would be interested to see what the increase was in profits.
ReplyDeleteI have never thought about poaching as a use for UAVs before. It seems like drones would be a lot of use for governments and anti-poaching organizations in places where elephants and other wildlife is hunted since they don’t have the manpower to patrol large areas.
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