Recently, we have observed a rise in the usage of drone in different industries, such as: photography and cinematography, wildfire inspection and control, building inspection, Monitoring crops and many other applications where these drones comes in handy in comparison to hiring people to perform the required tasks. However, there has been a great debate on whether this hype will continue to grow or will it fade away like many other technology gadgets? Will we see drones flying everywhere someday? I believe the answer to those questions depends significantly on the international law of operating drones and not due to the capabilities of what developers can achieve with the resources they have in the time being.
Getting Started
If you are planning on using drones in your industry or to achieve a specific task, first, you want make sure that you that you are aware of the rules and regulation of the country you will be operating the drone in. Do you need a license to operate the drone?Can you operate the drone anywhere? Are there restricted areas which you should not fly the drone above? Specific hours of operation? Specific areas to operate in? All of these points are important to take into consideration to avoid any problems that may occur in the future.
Purchasing your first drone
The best way to start is to pick an off-the-shelve commercial drone that is an open source so you can program it and customise it for your specific needs. Once you have chosen your drone, its important that you learn how to operate it manually even if you plan to program it later on. This skill is important to obtain for the testing phase because with drones, like other robots, sometimes in the testing something goes wrong and you will not predict their behaviour, therefore, its important to know how to operate the drone manually from the App or remote control provided by the producer.
What comes next
It really depends on what you are trying to achieve, if your main goal is to use the drone for monitoring the environment for example, then a camera and an image analysis program would be a necessity in your system. However, if you want you are using the drone for some sort of inspection, real-time video captured by the built-in cameras might be sufficient.
Leave a Reply