One of the things I get asked most often about by the press is for examples of non-military, non-police use of drones. Part of our function here at DIY Drones is to educate the public about civilian and peaceful uses of drones, so I'm always happy to reel off some examples, from agriculture to Hollywood (aside from the main reason we do it here, which is education and fun). Atmel has also created a great list of "18 ways that drones are being used today", which illuminates how broad their non-military applications are.
But to make it easier to get the word out, I've started a repository of such uses, below. I'll link to this post from the front page of DIY Drones. Please add your own examples and suggestions (including categories I may have missed) in the comments, and I'll update the post to include them as they come in.
Examples of Non-Military, Non-Police use of Drones
Agriculture
Search and Rescue
Hollywood
Sports
Wildlife management
- Studying crane nesting
- Tracking elephants
- Ocean wildlife
- Stopping poachers
- Tracking Orangutans in Sumatra
Science/Environment
- Plant biology
- Hurricane tracking
- Multispectral imaging of Florida Keys
- Tracking ocean debris
- Atmospheric research
- Academic research
- Journal of Remote Sensing special report
- Mapping archeological ruins, also here.
News reporting
Real Estate
Mapping
Delivering Medicine
Human Rights Monitoring
Communications networks
And lots more in the comments below and at the DC Area Drone User group
Comments
Oh I remembered pollution monitoring that River of Blood story
Here is another example for scientific application: Erosion Monitoring
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/4/11/3390
Antonius: Yikes! I was skimming that too fast and didn't notice the source. Very sorry! Fixed.
Matthew: Thanks! Added..
Marc, Curt: Thanks! Added.
I guess it's ok to harass whales, using drones, as long as it's in the name of Oceanic Preservation.
Could you change the link for the "Gates Founding founding" because it leads to a ANTI-VACCINE site and I think the opinion about vaccines in that post is just plain wrong, vaccines saves people and thats it.
There is a lot of sites that carry the same news about gates foundation and medicine drones not entering the anti-vac "controversy"
Hi Chris,
Here's another use: NOAA.gov has been exploring the use of UAV's to address the growing problem of ocean debris:
http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/projects/atsea.html
ATI (the company I work for) has been involved in several NOAA sponsored marine debris projects.
Antonius: Thanks. Fixed
Gary, I agree we should stay focused on the topic :-) find good examples for UA use!
Atmospheric research:
http://bllast.sedoo.fr/campaigns/ http://www.svalbardscienceforum.no/pages/news333.htm http://www.cost-uas.net/
Gary, I only have to disagree with your differentiation between RC/UA... I want to be considered RC if I fly my APM/Paparazzi/whatever. This is because I want to fly under RC rules which is actually what I do (being able to manually control at any time) and doing it for my private fun. What probably will happen in 10 years is not important now... The clear differentiation by law in most countires I know is Hobby/Fun against commercial. So I think we should use this argument! And privacy concerns are not only an issue in the US. Here in Germany it is also a big point of discussion regarding UA use...
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