When we talk about drones, we think of the quadcopter drones that are commercially available, but there are tons of different types of drones like: FPS Drones, or the military grade tactical drones.

What exactly is a Drone?

A drone is an unmanned or un-crewed aerial vehicle (UAV), without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. These devices are recently gaining attention due to their accessibility and also their wide uses.

Drones are becoming an essential part of today’s world. From video shooting to land remapping to forest replantation, drones are taking over.

Drones are unmanned devices which when given a laborious task can do it over and over again as many times as need be. Drones can do the same task again and again without tiring and without the loss in efficiency due to boredom and repetitiveness.

Svamitva Scheme using Drones

Drones are also being used for land mapping by the Government of India. The Svamitva Scheme introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the purpose of mapping the rural areas of our country and making digital cards for the land ownership which would help the farmers to claim their land and also make it easier to provide loans to the farmers for their lands. This used to be the job of Zamindars for a long time. To take this process out of the hands of Zamindars, and also automate the process for more accuracy and less chance of error, it has been handed to Drones. Many organizations around the country partner up with the Government to fulfill these tasks. For more details at the official Svamitva Website.

The process for this is that drones are specified an area to map and it takes high resolution pictures of the land from a certain height. These images are then processed on high performance servers which convert the images into a 3-D model of the land which then is used to map and the digital land cards are generated.

FPV Drones

FPV drones are used for racing and also videography. FPV drones are the drones that transmit their data to a VR headset which is worn by the pilot who can see in real time where the drone is going through the camera inside the drone. FPV drones give the pilot the feeling that they are really flying as the drone itself. FPV drones take the pilot to heights and speeds humanly impossible. These drones are becoming very popular.

Military Use of Drones

Drones are also used by the military for reconnaissance and unmanned attacks in remote areas. Drones have been used by the military since the mid 1800s. Since then we have come a long way in the sense of Drone Technology. Back then these “drones” were not so sleek and fast as the first unmanned military weaponized vehicle was used by the Austrian Navy in 1849, when they used fire balloons to capture Venice. Nowadays drones are as small as 6.6 inches to as large as over 22 meters, these drones serve the military in gathering intel and help provide air support during the times of need. India has several military drones in its service.

Mining Industries’ Use of Drones

Drones are also used in the mining industry as mapping of land is needed before initiating a mine. Drones help map large regions of land in a short period of time. These drones provide the data required for establishing the mines for coal or other resources. Coal mines are established on the basis of the data received from drones.

Drone Delivery

Drones are becoming important by the day as its new uses are coming up. Drone delivery is going to be the future as it will help deliver goods like medicines, food, and other things reducing the time taken for delivery, and reduce human interaction which reduces the margin of error. These drone deliveries tend to be autonomous as it reduces the required manpower at the same time increasing efficiency. Many ways of automation of delivery using drones is being researched.

Cautiousness Required

Though drone technology should be taken seriously as it may have some cons, such as maximizing the usage of drones will introduce a new type of danger as drones can be used to carry dangerous and lethal weapons which will be harder to track. Standards for drones should be imposed which will keep the incompatible drones out of the market and also usage as drones if incompatible of carrying the load may fall from the sky and hurt someone.

As long as we are cautious and the government helps keep the drones under check, we can use the drone technology to its maximum potential without worrying it being a threat.