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Commercial drones are now becoming a mainstream technology, with the 2020 pandemic serving as a showcase for how drones can save human lives.
Drones have been used for delivery long before Amazon announced its Prime Air service. Founded in 2011, Zipline, a US-based company focused on medical drone deliveries became the pioneer in long-distance drone delivery, with distribution centers in Rwanda and Ghana. With an exponential growth since then, Zipline now delivers 65% of blood samples in Rwanda, particularly because the country lacks suitable road connectivity.
Companies like Zipline are investing heavily not only in better drone hardware but also in remote operations software, so they can intelligently & centrally manage a large fleet of drones.
Drone delivery refers to the act of moving a package from point A to B using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Such UAVs are either autonomous or remotely controlled by human pilots.
The infrastructure that powers drone delivery operations requires seamless integration between reliable drone hardware and robust software that can enable EVLOS/BVLOS Operations. The components of such systems include:
Drones that are capable of carrying heavy payloads; for example:
Links to above-mentioned drone specs:
Companies like Zipline, Wing, etc., have their own fleet of drones specifically designed and developed to suit their specific delivery needs.
Note:
Drone delivery requires an advanced fleet management software like FlytNow that helps plan & execute long-range EVLOS/BVLOS flights with live tracking and drone control over 4G/LTE/5G.
FlytNow Delivery is a cloud-based offering that can be used for package delivery operations. Delivery businesses can use off-the-shelf or custom drones to quickly set up a delivery system in their geography. FlytNow solution cuts the deployment time to a few days and gives a unified web-based dashboard to control and manage every aspect of a drone delivery operation. FlytNow Delivery Offers:
A drone equipped with intelligent onboard software make this kind of operation autonomous and safe. With the integration of FlytOS intelligent modules and sensors with onboard SBC (Nvidia Jetson Nano, DJI Manifold 2, Raspberry Pi 3B+/4), drones can do:
For operations to be autonomous and efficient -- physical, on-ground components such as a docking station, charging pad, launching systems, etc. are required. With FlytNow DiaB integration enables remote control & telemetry in the same delivery interface. Our enterprise solution also offers integration with DiaB APIs. Below are a few DiaB and charging pad solutions for reference:
Airspace intelligence and management is a critical enabler for scalable, safe, beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) or extended-visual-line-of-sight (EVLOS) enterprise drone programs. Such integration with a UTM engine or national airspace services can augment sense-and-avoid capabilities with regards to airspace, flying advisories, and weather information for optimal path planning while avoiding no-fly zones and manned aircraft. Some leading UTM and providers are:
Learn about the FlytBase partnership with AirMap here
FlytNow can be integrated with any 3rd party private or government UTM API services.
Whether you are flying in rural or suburban areas, the safety of people on the ground and expensive drone equipment is of utmost importance. Emergency situations like flight system failure, bad weather conditions, or immediate advisory from the local aviation authorities may happen anytime.
In addition to standard drone fail-safes (RTH, Geofence, etc.), FlytNow provides Emergency Landing Point (ELP) Failsafes. ELP Failsafes allow you to define landing points along your delivery route and land the drone on the nearest ELP when a situation arises.
FlytNow also provides advanced geofence features to draw a polygon on a map along the delivery route to restrict drones from going outside the designated area.
In unavoidable situations, a safety parachute on the drone can avoid accidents. Here are some of the brands which offer drone safety parachutes:
FlytNow Pro is a cloud-based SaaS solution, well suited to help drone operators and service providers quickly set up a PoC (proof-of-concept) delivery system to validate a proposed delivery plan or to manage customer demos.
If you are someone who is looking to quickly validate a delivery idea then FlytNow Pro is a good starting point. As more requirements get identified, customers can then migrate to FlytNow Enterprise for Drone Delivery, which offers an end-to-end software suite with advanced capabilities and priority support.
Step 1: Sign up for a 28 days free FlytNow Pro account.
First signup to our free 28 days trial by visiting: https://my.flytbase.com/accounts/signup/?next=https://app.flytnow.com
Open your email and verify it before you can access the dashboard. Login to your account using your credentials.
On the dashboard, you can add drones, create a flight mission, set up a pre-flight checklist, and define a geofence.
In the above screenshot, We have already added our drones and two of them are online. In your case, you have to add the drones. Follow our getting started guide to add your DJI drones.
Do not have a drone? Try FlytNow Pro with Virtual Drone. Follow Step 2
(Optional) Step 2: Adding a virtual drone.
Your free trial account supports up to five drones. In case you don’t have a drone, you can also add a virtual drone, you can add one virtual drone. For a virtual drone, you need to set up your FlytBase cloud APIs. Please follow this guide.
Once granted access to the cloud, you can use your virtual drone’s vehicle ID and token to add it to the FlytNow dashboard.
Step 3: Creating a Mission Plan.
A mission plan lets you add a route for your drone. Considering you are testing a medical delivery system, you use the mission plan to define routes to all the medical centers you want to make deliveries.
To add a mission plan, click on Mission -> Add Mission. Give a name to your mission and click on Add Waypoints to begin defining your route. Clicking on the map will place a pin; this way you can place multiple pins.
In the above screenshot, we have defined a mission that tells a drone how to go to Palo Alto Health Care. Apart from defining a route, you can set the flight speed and a Finish Action. The Finish Action tells a drone what to do once it reaches the destination; you can set the following actions.
In our case, we have selected Return to Home that signifies that the drone will drop the payload and return to base.
Please note that FlytNow Pro offers limited features for mission planning. Advanced features are available in FlytNow Enterprise for Delivery.
Step 4: Creating a pre-flight checklist.
This feature allows you to create a pre-flight checklist. In the case of a delivery operation, a checklist will ensure that a drone is configured properly before it is sent out on a mission.
To create a checklist, click on CHECKLIST and then Add to Checklist to add a checklist item. While adding a checklist item, you can also add a description.
We have created a checklist suited for drone delivery operations. You can create your own checklist.
Step 5: Setting up a geofence
A geofence allows you to set up a boundary for your operations. Once you set a boundary, FlytNow will not allow your drones to fly beyond the boundary.
You can set up a geofence by:
The following image shows you how your dashboard will look after geofence is set successfully.
A geofence has two circles. The area between the circles is called a warning zone. Whenever a drone crosses the first circle, the system gives out a warning, but it will not let the drone go beyond the second circle.
While planning a mission, you can’t put a waypoint beyond the first circle.
Step 6: Turn on Live video feed (feature works with a real drone only).
You can access the video feed of a drone from the dashboard. This feature is useful when a drone is out for delivery. This way you can visually assess a flight mission.
Select a drone under the FLY tab. Now you can see the video feed on the top right corner.
You can also enable the multi-cam mode (refer to the above picture) that will allow you to view the video feed from all drones on a single screen.
Step 7: Share live drone location and video feed with a third party (feature works with a real drone only).
You can share live drone locations and video streams with anyone outside the FlytNow platform. This feature is useful especially when you want to share tracking information with a recipient which might include live video feed from the drone.
To initiate sharing click on the share button on the video panel
In the next dialog box click on Create new link.
Enter the email address of the person to whom you want to share the video.
Select the drones and your preferred options. You get the option to share both the map and the video.
The person with whom you have shared the live feed gets an email with a secure PIN. Tell him/her to click on View Operation and enter the secure PIN to start the live streaming.
Once you are done with the basic setup, it is time to launch your first delivery mission. Consider a situation where you have received a delivery request from a nearby medical center, and you are about to initiate a launch.
Step 1: Launching a drone and selecting a mission.
Under the FLY tab select a drone (has to be online) and click on the launch icon in the bottom right corner.
You will be asked to select a flight mode. Select Mission. In the next window, you will see all your missions. Select a mission and click on start.
Step 2: Completing the pre-flight checklist and executing the mission.
Next, you have to complete the pre-flight checklist.
Once you are done with the checklist, hit Execute to begin your delivery.
We have been talking about FlytNow Pro which has limited features but ideal for validating an idea or doing a POC. Once you are done with the validation stage, it’s time to move to FlytNow Enterprise.
FlytNow Enterprise is a fully-featured comprehensive drone automation solution designed for large scale drone deployment. The solution is fully customizable and can be used in a variety of use cases, and drone delivery is one of them.
Here are some exclusive features of FlytNow Enterprise:
For enterprise drones (DJI, PX4, Ardupilot), FlytNow provides SBC, with the FlytOS installed, for direct integration to make BVLOS flight possible over 4G/LTE/5G network. We also provide accessories and landing tag design for precision landing over charging pads.
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Schedule a 30-min free consultation with our expert to learn more about the FlytNow Drone Delivery Software Solution, contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/
Drones with cameras have both commercial and recreational applications. For commercial use-cases, the ability to live stream videos, with low latency, is crucial for the effective use of drones. This enables enterprise stakeholders to see things happening far away, in near-real-time, from a bird’s eye view. Many industries, sectors, and use-cases can leverage such remote drone operations, for example:
A cloud-connected, user-friendly solution can thus be leveraged by drone operators, specialized service providers, UAV system integrators, and enterprise drone program managers.
The capability to stream videos from multiple drones, simultaneously, is now available in FlytNow, the remote drone operations solution from FlytBase. Multiple camera (‘Multi-Cam’) streams can be viewed from a single operator dashboard, which can also be used to control multiple drones, their payloads, camera gimbals, etc.
While there are numerous commercial applications that can benefit from drone fleets and multiple-camera streaming capabilities, these 3 seem to be gaining the most traction.
Automated drone patrols are at the heart of surveillance of residential, commercial, and industrial premises. With the FlytNow multi-cam feature, surveillance drone operators can cover large areas from a single dashboard; it allows them to gain situational awareness during a security breach, with the added advantage of images & video surveillance from different angles.
Security stakeholders can combine different views (eg. thermal and normal camera feeds) and be much more effective during night time, low visibility conditions, etc.
Drones are used to inspect infrastructural and other valuable assets that are remote, hard to reach, or massive in size. With FlytNow, inspection personnel can view such assets from multiple angles, with the videos streamed in real-time, from multiple drones to a single dashboard in the command center or control room. This ability is useful in a range of remote inspection activities such as structural inspections, wind turbine inspections, cell tower inspections, oil & gas refinery inspections, and pipeline inspections.
Large structures under construction require to be inspected quite regularly – this includes visual observations of foundations, roofs, and key structural components. The inspection data provide insights into the overall condition, progress, and maintenance needs of such properties.
The traditional way of inspecting, which involved manual inspection of only some of the areas of a large structure, is severely lacking – not only in coverage but also in terms of safety. Drone footage, on the other hand, can both improve coverage, reduce inspection time, and eliminate almost all safety concerns. Drone fleets powered by FlytNow can give stakeholders automated aerial views, from multiple angles, of important but hard-to-reach structural locations.
Periodic inspections are an important part of the maintenance programs of wind-turbine sites, so as to maintain their efficiency, safety, and longevity. It’s important to check the structural integrity of the blades since different parts expand and contract differently under varying climatic conditions. Blades are also subject to damage from dirt, birds, snow, ice, etc.
Here, drones are now being used to rapidly, safely, and quickly scan the different parts of a wind turbine with highly calibrated IR sensors and high-resolution cameras. With FlytNow Enterprise, an inspector can capture different aerial views of a blade, control the camera gimbal remotely, and maintain a safe distance automatically.
Cell towers are tall structures that need periodic inspections to keep them operational and safe. Drone-based inspections can help significantly reduce the amount of time that people have to spend on a tower for such inspections. Safety, speed, and cost are all factors in making remote aerial inspections more amenable for broad adoption. Using FlytNow, live streams from drone fleets can be delivered to a single dashboard; these videos can then be shared with guest users, regulators, and other stakeholders in cell tower inspections.
Drones are being designed and deployed for corrosion detection, analysis of cracks, spillage, and leak detection in oil and gas refineries and along long-distance pipelines. The information gathered by drone fleets can be invaluable for maintenance and planning at these complex facilities, with billions of dollars of infrastructure at stake. The speed with which inspection data is gathered can be drastically improved using multiple, autonomous drones, powered by multi-cam streaming available via FlytNow.
The biggest risk in public safety is to first responders, who have to be on-site without timely situational awareness. They also have to deploy fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and other equipment – without first being able to assess the situation.
US-based technology company Phirst Technologies, which focuses on public safety solutions, has integrated autonomous drones into the CAD system that supports the 911 service. The idea is to dispatch drones from a unified dashboard to assess a situation before sending human responders. The solution is called FIRST iZ, and they are using FlytBase technology to power their drone automation.
Drones thus offer a compelling capability for incident response – public safety authorities can deploy them first, gain real-time awareness, and make better-informed decisions about people and equipment deployments.
Drones are actively used worldwide for search and rescue operations because they can cover a large area in less time while providing a bird’s-eye view. In 2018, police in the UK used drones to find a semiconscious man on the cliff of Exmouth; they used thermal imaging to locate and save the person.
These capabilities are now available in FlytNow so that search parties can quickly dispatch a fleet of drones and stream the live footage from them to a single dashboard, thus expediting the search and rescue process.
Drones fitted with IR sensors can find people trapped in difficult situations such as forest fires where visibility can be quite poor. In 2018, fires scorched more than 150,000 acres in less than two weeks in California. 16 teams of public safety officials clocked 500 drone flights in 3 days. UAV flight data was used to aid search and rescue operations, and pinpoint the path of the fire.
Since such operations may require scanning a very large area, of the order of hundreds of square miles, features like multi-cam streaming are crucial for the deployment of a large fleet of thermal drones.
During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, drones deployed in the city of Ahmedabad, India helped monitor lockdown and mitigate the spread of the deadly coronavirus. A central command center was established, with the FlytNow dashboard receiving live video streams from multiple drones flying across the city.
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To get started with FlytNow visit our Get Started Guide.
or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact
Drone technology has witnessed a rapid maturity curve - with regards to not only hardware and software technology but also the use cases across industries and sectors. Consumer drones have gone past the typical use in film production and recreational uses. These prosumer off-the-shelf drones are now solving complex business problems - for example, in logistics, drones are being deployed to do last-mile delivery, managing inventory, and conducting security patrols.
In this blog, we will specifically focus on thermal imaging drones and the related use cases. Let’s start with an introduction to thermal imaging, understand how it works and how it might be used, via different drones and cameras, for commercial applications.
The ability to let people visualize what their eyes cannot, have led to the popularity of thermal cameras for conducting inspections and patrols. Owing to the invisible heat radiations emitted or reflected by all objects, such cameras record and produce an image of any object having a temperature above zero without the need for visible light. The hotter the object, the brighter it will appear in the thermal image (you can choose the color pallet accordingly).
Such differences in temperature of the objects under observation are then represented in different colors. Generally, blue shades are used to represent colder objects, while red shades are used to represent hotter ones.
Thermal imaging has therefore been known to offer superior protection in demanding conditions. Some of the prime benefits include:
Drones with thermal cameras have resulted in unparalleled flexibility for many businesses that require constant protection against potential intruders. Adding a thermal camera as a payload, allows operators to view thermograms in real-time, with the ability to immediately identify objects from the radiation emitted.
Some of the key factors to take into consideration while choosing an appropriate payload aligned for business include:
Here are some recommended payloads:
Apart from having a fast turn-around time, drones are pocket-friendly as compared to installing thermographic cameras at several locations in the property with a higher possibility of blind spots. Some of the cost-effective drones that could quickly cover the entire facility and be used 24x7 for monitoring include:
Aerial imagery is the primary application of commercial drones; with a thermographic camera, drones can further add value for various enterprise applications.
More recently, during the outbreak of COVID-19, thermal cameras were widely used by the public safety authorities in many countries to detect infected people by checking body temperatures. Thermal drones were also used to identify people defying lockdown rules or social distancing guidelines imposed by many countries especially at night.
FlytNow Enterprise for Security and Surveillance enables drone operators, service providers, and enterprises to remotely operate a fleet of thermal drones.
An ideal solution due to the following capabilities:
Here is an illustration of what drones with thermal imaging working at scale might look like.
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To get started with FlytNow visit: https://flytnow.com/getting-started-with-FlytNow/
or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact
Observational surveillance systems rely on the capabilities of the cameras employed, but the main limiting factor is the stationary nature of the cameras in a traditional surveillance system. Now, surveillance can be achieved utilizing drones; it can be not only cost-effective but also accomplish the desired outcome more safely, efficiently and at a much larger scale. Security drones present a quicker, more economical method of aerial information collection.
Drone operations for the purpose of surveillance and security can now be automated using the FlytNow solution from FlytBase.
Here are some of the benefits of using drones for surveillance.
A drone security system can be deployed for home security or monitoring commercial properties. They can relay live video footage, eliminate blind spots both during the day and nighttime — and follow and track trespassers and intruders, thus reducing the chance of theft.
Drone surveillance can aid in real-time traffic control. They can improve situational awareness during accidents. Drones can employ analytics in traffic management that includes automatic vehicle count recognition, license plate identification, and tracking vehicular activities for improved safety and security.
Forest officials face a constant threat of poachers hunting. Drones outfitted with thermal devices can replace stationary IR systems that are costly and not as effective. Surveillance drones have a fast turnaround time; they can be deployed on-demand and controlled from a base station.
Commercial and residential properties usually have pre-defined boundaries. Surveillance drones can track a target area from a safe distance with live updates of possible threats present at/inside the perimeter. Surveillance drones can operate even at night time with the help of IR sensors, thus avoiding harm to security guards and serving as ‘eyes in the sky’.
The government can track large scale events and execute complex analytics like head-count evaluation, riot detection, and identification of law-breakers. Drones armed with speakers and beacons may be used for crowd control.
Surveillance drones can be used to monitor insecure border operations and dangerous zones. They can give live video feeds to security officials and other stakeholders, thus enabling them to make strategic decisions from safety.
FlytNow is a cloud-based, remote drone operations software that can be used to manage a fleet of drones from a single, user-friendly dashboard. The platform has intelligent features like geofencing, flight path design, precision landing, autonomous charging, collision avoidance, etc. that can be used for automating surveillance activities with drones.
The FlytNow dashboard is the command center from where operators can control multiple drones, which in turn are connected via 4G/LTE/5G. Users can stream live videos from the entire fleet of drones on a single dashboard, and can easily switch between map mode or video mode.
The FlytNow solution also integrates with the Drone-in-a-Box technology allowing enterprise users to completely automate the flight, patrol and docking cycle of a drone.
FlytBase offers a 28-day free trial for users to explore FlytNow Pro edition and its relevance to specific use-cases for security stakeholders. Customers can add their drone fleets, fly them autonomously, create flight plans & coordinate missions, set geo-fence and checklists, view and store live video footage and integrate drone operations into an existing system.
To get started with FlytNow visit: https://flytnow.com/getting-started-with-flytnow/
Here is an example of how professional drones can help firefighters during forest fires. Airbot was engaged to provide a bird's eye view and crucial informations on burning surfaces and fire travel. The drone is one of the best tool for providing this kind of data and help the operations officer in his decisions and organization of ground resources.
FlytNow Guest Link Sharing offers the capability to share live drone video feed and telemetry with teammates and clients.
Scroll down for the step-by-step tutorial.
Enterprises worldwide are scaling their drone operations, as cost-effective drones become available off-the-shelf, and cloud-based SaaS solutions drive intelligent automation. One of the key drivers of drone fleet adoption is the ability for a variety of stakeholders to participate in drone missions. For example, an inspection of a wind turbine may involve on-site visual observers, remote subject-matter experts, safety managers from regional offices, R&D teams from corporate offices, technology partners — and even UAV regulators who seek insights into such missions before granting waivers for unmanned flights.
Live, remote drone operations thus require not only low-latency, high-quality video feeds, but also the ability to seamlessly share such video streams across people, geographies, devices and networks. In fact, enterprise drone programs tend to involve a variety of drone hardware — including off-the-shelf drones like DJI Mavic 2 Pro, Mavic 2 Enterprise, Matrice 210/210RTK, M600 Pro, etc., for day-to-day operations and custom drones built using DJI A3, Pixhawk or Cube based autopilots with high-end sensors for rare but critical use-cases.
Given that privacy and security remain amongst the top concerns in the global drone ecosystem, enterprises have to carefully manage access to drone telemetry, live video streams, navigation, and payloads. With multiple, remote participants in each mission, fine-grained access — based on the roles and responsibilities of each participant — becomes central to successful drone operations.
It can be argued that many drone operations would be significantly more productive if secure, mission-wise remote viewing can be made available, over the Internet, via a user-friendly interface. Whether it’s a drone service provider monitoring construction sites or whether it’s the in-house drone operations manager supporting his/her colleagues for inspection of infrastructure assets, the access to live video streams — securely & remotely — can create immediate business value by enabling subject-matter experts to make better-informed decisions.
In fact, not only can remote viewers be empowered to access live video feeds in real-time, but remote operators can be given control of the drone, camera gimbal and payloads, with the on-site team serving as safety pilots and visual observers. Automating such live, remote drone operations then becomes the logical next step in the evolution and maturing of enterprise drone programs.
Given the pervasiveness of mobile phones and tablets across businesses in all sectors, it is but natural for drone mission participants to expect these devices to be an integral part of the overall system. This is now easily possible via enterprise-grade mobile apps that can be easily customized, white-labeled and configured — making drone telemetry & videos extremely portable, especially in areas with robust 4G/LTE/5G networks.
Remote access for ‘guest’ participants in drone missions need not be limited to video — since live map views can also be seamlessly shared over the cloud, showing guest viewers the waypoints, flight paths, obstacles, etc. for each mission. Third-party maps can be integrated to overlay drone missions on satellite imagery, specific drones/payloads can provide IR/thermal camera views to remote stakeholders, and missions such as parcel delivery can be remotely monitored not only over the last-mile but all the way to the ‘doorstep’.
Aerial video streaming is thus becoming the core of drone operations for operators, service providers, system integrators and large enterprises — with secure, user-level access for remote participants the ‘killer app’ of this technology.
Step 1: Log in to your FlytNow account and connect your drone to the application. Follow the FlytNow getting started guide if you are a first time user.
Step 2: Click on the “Share” icon on the video box or button in the Cockpit view
Step 3: Click on “Create new link” to generate a link
Step 4: Enter your teammate’s or client’s valid email address with whom you wish to share video & map view and click “Send”
Note:
Step 5: Teammate or Client receives an email with a link and Secure PIN
Step 6: Click on the “View Operation” and enter the Secure Pin. Your teammate or client can now securely access live drone feed and telemetry.
For any questions, you may write to us on info@flytbase.com or visit http://forums.flytbase.com/c/flytnow
FlytBase offers a 28-day free trial for users to explore the FlytNow Pro edition. Customers can add their drone fleets, fly them autonomously, create flight plans & coordinate missions, set geo-fence and checklists, view and store live video footage and integrate drone operations into an existing system.
Start Now and fly your drone(s) via a free trial in 5 Easy Steps.
The need for security and surveillance — whether residential or commercial — continues to steadily increase in a world of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Privacy, not just security is becoming as much of a concern — with technology playing a central role on both fronts i.e. in violation of privacy and in the provision of security. This is where drones for security come in, powered by reliable hardware and intelligent software.
Traditional security systems (human guards, CCTV cameras, locks, access control systems, etc.) continue to prevail amongst security and surveillance providers. However, new technologies ranging from drones and robots to biometrics, AI and cyber-security have started to capture a larger share of the market. These technologies offer a range of benefits — automation, scalability, remote management, auditability, cost-effectiveness, reliability, mass customization and so on.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e. drones) are already part of the most advanced home and office security systems, with a fleet of drones programmed to launch from their nests, run repeated missions, capture aerial footage of the assets being secured, and return to their nests to charge and prepare for the next mission. By augmenting, if not replacing, human guards and static CCTVs, these ‘eyes in the sky’ can offer faster response to incidents, real-time situational awareness to the central command, live video feeds to remote stakeholders, and even serve as a deterrence to unfriendly elements.
While regulation remains a challenge for outdoor operations such as aerial security and surveillance using drones, technology has advanced enough to enable drone-in-a-box security systems. These include not just drones, but also autonomous charging pads, weather-proof docking stations, intelligent automation via software, cloud connectivity and live remote operations. The key to large-scale adoption of such drone surveillance systems is their cost-effectiveness; which in turn requires the use of off-the-shelf drone hardware and SaaS-enabled solutions that minimize the upfront capital expenditure.
Residential security drones have made the news in recent years, but it is industrial and commercial security systems that are seeing faster adoption. This is driven not only by enterprise initiatives in security automation but also by the rapidly increasing costs of human guards for drone security system providers, made worse by constant employee turnover.
By putting equipment, instead of humans, at risk of harm in case of adverse incidents, aerial surveillance drones minimize risk and enable better-informed decisions during security events. The best surveillance drones can, in fact, be rapidly sent to a location of interest, using GPS navigation and 4G/5G connectivity, to immediately stream live video feeds and even carry payloads such as sirens or warning lights. With thermal and IR cameras easily available, night-time drone patrols and alarms can be an integral part of aerial home/office surveillance systems.
Autonomy is — of course — the key to drones for security, since having human operators involved in UAV surveillance can not only add to the cost, but also introduce the risk of errors, or worse, loss of integrity of security operations. Software-driven automation of drones is thus driving their adoption for home security as well as industrial perimeter security. By defining specific points of interest, ideal schedules, and waypoint-wise camera action, such autonomous UAV security systems can be programmed to operate reliably and continuously and can be rapidly deployed across large swathes of residential or commercial areas. Automatic obstacle detection, collision avoidance and precision landing capabilities further expand the use-cases for drones in this context.
By incorporating AI/ML techniques, image processing, and machine vision, drone security systems can even recognize things, track-and-follow intruders, and automatically identify objects that post threats. The physical size and weight of drones are reducing rapidly as the technology matures; such drones can make hard-to-reach locations easily accessible — and make harsh environments more secure — without putting humans at risk of harm.
Aerial video surveillance is thus turning out to be the next frontier for the security industry, powered by autonomous drone fleets that are intelligent, cloud-connected and remotely managed.
FlytBase offers a 28-day free trial for users to explore FlytNow Pro edition and its relevance to specific use-cases for security stakeholders. Customers can add their drone fleets, fly them autonomously, create flight plans & coordinate missions, set geo-fence and checklists, view and store live video footage and integrate drone operations into an existing system.
Start Now and fly your drone(s) via a free trial in 5 Easy Steps.
The commercial drone industry is rapidly maturing – across industries, geographies, use-cases, and business models – thanks to advances in UAV hardware and regulation. An incredibly rich variety of drone hardware has been built, tested, piloted and deployed for enterprise applications – ranging from ‘nano’ category drones for covert surveillance to large, custom-built drones designed to carry multi-kg payloads for last-mile e-commerce delivery.
Nevertheless, a large percentage of commercial use-cases involving drones revolve around the ‘eye in the sky’ capability – making live, high-quality video feeds from drones a key capability of enterprise-grade solutions. With the recent advances in AI/ML technology, the data captured by the drones’ camera can then be automatically processed – in the specific context of that use-case – to derive insights and make informed business decisions.
Live views of an environment, asset, person, etc. – enabled by drones – are central to use-cases such as situational awareness during natural disasters, inspections of wind turbines and solar farms, intruder detection at secure sites, etc. Drones that stream live video are expected to augment, if not replace, humans as well as fixed monitoring equipment such as CCTVs – driven by their ability to use the 3D space, be remotely operated, carry payloads, be deployed in fleets, and made fully autonomous.
In use-cases such as public safety, drones can provide live video streams to the emergency operators centers and help accelerate the incident response. In the security & surveillance context, drones can be operated remotely to capture live video, thus preventing humans from being put at risk.
Firefighters can deploy drone fleets all around the incident site to get a 360 degree, real-time video feed and thus employ the most suitable equipment and tactics to control the fire while minimizing safety risks.
The latency of live video feeds from drones has been brought down to the 500-ms level, and the latency of drone telemetry is in fact much lower at 50ms. Enterprises can thus not only rely on near-real-time video feeds (with quality as high as 4K) from drone fleets – but they can even incorporate remote control of the drone and camera gimbal, into their workflows. Subject-matter experts, for example, need no longer go to the site for asset inspections; instead, they can control the drone from a corporate office, using the live video feed as immediate feedback, saving time, effort and expenses – and improving worker safety at the same time!
A variety of remote stakeholders can thus easily access drone videos simultaneously – with only the drone pilot/operations manager having to be physically on-site. In fact, varying levels of access can be designed to telemetry, images, videos and sensor data – thus ensuring data privacy and security, while empowering the right stakeholders to fulfill their roles in the context of enterprise drone operations.
With the availability of cost-effective off-the-shelf drones and airframes, as well as a wide variety of payloads, drone solution providers are crafting the optimal solutions for commercial use-cases. The software of course plays a vital role in enabling drone stakeholders to plan, execute, log, monitor and repeat drone missions; the software will also be crucial in maturing most drone operations from manual to fully autonomous.
However, drone payloads such as thermal cameras, IR cameras, sirens, lights, camera gimbals, charging pads, etc. also are crucial for delivering value. Live video streams from dual cameras in drones can power night-time missions, while the ability to record video streams (on local servers or on the cloud) can support the investigation of security incidents and audits of security services.
The rich, real-time image and video data captured by drone cameras serve as a rapidly increasing repository of ‘training data’ for AI/ML algorithms to use as part of intelligent automation of enterprise automation. For example, live video feeds from drones that monitor industrial premises can be complemented with trained AI/ML models that can automatically detect humans, animals, and objects – and trigger security alarms. Similarly, video streams from public safety situations can be automatically analyzed to aid emergency response teams to identify suspects and/or victims in that context. Drone solution providers are in fact rapidly building capabilities to automatically detect weeds, pests, crops, cattle, etc. – with high-quality video data from drone fleets as the key enabler.
