Why Drones Are the Future of the Internet of Things

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What if you could talk to a drone?  No, seriously.  You can already talk to a locomotive, so why not talk to a drone?

For those of you following the technology, you already know that unmanned aircraft systems (a.k.a. drones) are finding their way into Internet of Things (IoT) implementations. IoT applications are typically composed of:

  • A sensor “at rest,” e.g., on a highway or a bridge or a thermostat that gathers input (like weather conditions or seismic activity)
  • A connection (via the Internet) between the sensor and a back-end data collection infrastructure
  • A back-end data collection infrastructure that’s commonly based in the cloud

So why do I claim that drones the future of IoT? For one, drone technology is evolving very rapidly. Drones are already beginning to efficiently replace the connected sensors at rest with one device that is:

  1. deployable to different locations
  2. capable of carrying flexible payloads
  3. re-programmable in mission
  4. able to measure just about anything, anywhere

To illustrate the trend and these capabilities, I’ll highlight the developments of several companies. But first – so that we are all on the same page - let’s look at what I mean when I talk about drones.

Read more here: http://droneanalyst.com/2014/12/01/drones-are-the-future-of-iot/

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Comments

  • A while back Australia seized a large shipment of these drones that looked identical to the picture. I thought they might have released them.

  • Thanks Jethro and Geoffrey for your comments and insights.

    @armen - the pic is not a real drone; rather it's a royalty free graphic from Shutterstock.

  • I agree with your article, though it could happen much more drastically than one might expect. I gave a talk at the "Trillion Sensor Summit" last year at Stanford on this. The trend is towards smaller and smaller drones produced in higher quantities. The problem is that the smallest platforms lack real autonomy, but that will change as sensors get smaller and better. Also the trend in MEMS/sensor technology is away from single-purpose sensors to sensor clusters that operate in various modes and carry on-board processing. The next step beyond just sensor clusters is sensor-actuator clusters. Then that becomes a drone, whether walking or (if battery tech catches up) flying.

    For every giant eagle or falcon on Earth, there are probably hundreds of small birds. For every small bird on Earth, there are probably thousands of flying insects. I don't see why there can't be similar ratios between full-size UAVs, micro drones, and tiny "insect" drones...

  • As usual, a very thought provoking piece. Fleet management is definitely going to be a big sub-industry for commercial UAVs. Skyward.io is also working on fleet management.

    Take agriculture. I imagine the process like this...

    1. The farmer wants a report on his field and contracts a commercial drone operations company.
    2. The company sends out a certified pilot to set up the drone and perform the imaging.
    3. The drone is connected to the IoT and can send back all of the captured data to a data analysis center where a professional data analysts can make a custom report for the farmer.
    4. The farmer can have the report emailed or send via mail to him with full annotation.

    That data analysis center could be taking in data from all over a country and managing their fleets in real time if the drones were connected to the IoT (via an encrypted link ;-) )

    Of course ideally you would want to remove the drone 'pilot' from this scenario and for this to be reality things like automatic recharging (Skysense/Skycatch) and better flight times, plus far more reliable systems need to be developed, but real inroads are being made!

  • which "drone" is that in the upper pic?

  • Thanks John.

  • This is a superb article. Thanks Colin!

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