Nowadays, technology has transformed many industries making them to move away from the classic brick and mortar business to online services. In this way firms could reduce operating costs while offering a larger variation of products. Nonetheless, shipping and postage has remained unchanged through these years with UPS and FedEx being the primary sources for shipping. But recently Amazon challenged the way of shipping with Amazon Prime Air. It is a drone delivery system distributing commercial packages in less than 30 minutes. Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) originated mostly in military applications but the last 2 years civilian drones outnumbered military drones.
Drones are not only invading in the way of transporting goods, but in a few years, they will change the way of doing business in certain industries. The greatest contribution will be made in doctor aid and medical supplies delivery. Zipline, a Silicon Valley company, is working on a project with the government of Rwandan to deliver medical supplies to inaccessible villages, just in a few minutes. Doctors will request through an application specific material and it will be transferred from a medical warehouse facility right to the remote regions. The drones are designed to fly in average 120km and carry up to 1.5kg packages of fragile items which are dropped safely using a parachute. Also, the drones could be in the disposal of fire departments. In France, a company developed a real-time system to monitor fires and the spreads of flames. It will be “an eye in the sky” helping the firemen to take information about the fire and scout the direction of the flames, from a safe zone.
However, we should keep a close eye to the use of drones as they can also create some problems to the world. Just like birds, flying drones caring cargo could be a danger for aircrafts and should be assessed. The UK government is already running a project to test potential collision impacts between a drone and a commercial airplane as there have been several reports of “near misses”. The tests will be conducted by a military contractor with the use of military airplanes. Moreover, experts warn that drones can become “a game changer in the wrong hands”. Foreign embassies, nuclear power stations or a prime minister’s car can become potential targets for a terrorist attack. Although, remote control warfare is impossible to control, mitigating measures like radio-frequency jammers or no-fly zones could prevent any detrimental action.
From transportation to journalism and from saving lives to guarding, drones will become an incentive for many industries in the way of making business. With pioneers Amazon and Royal Mail, more and more companies will enhance the use of drones to save time, money and limit gas emissions. Yet, possible dangers could arise using drones and the need for flying regulations is mandatory.
References:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13314916/drone-crash-airplane-test-uk-dangers
http://www.ibtimes.com/14-ways-drones-will-change-world-1517486
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/27/how-rwanda-is-using-drones-to-save-millions-of-lives.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/11/drones-terrorist-attacks-security-thinktank
Thank you for your post John. Drones are really exciting and I am curious to see what will be the limits for drones’ integration in all the industries. I recently read an article about Amazon Prime Air and surprisingly one of the main concerns of Amazon is not about the technical and regulatory hurdles but rather about the customers adoption because of the extra delivery fees charged and the limited (for now) catchment area. Plus, an important challenge for Amazon to be able to deliver within 30 minutes is that they have to have stocks in warehouses near enough (max 15 minutes) to any point of shipment. Because of this, holding costs (warehouses + products) are likely to increase significantly. There is still a lot to overcome for Amazon before its Prime Air initiative can be fully implemented but I firmly believe that on a long-time scale none of this is impossible especially for Amazon given its determination and its means.
Hi John,
Thanks for writing this blog. Really interesting to see the development of drones and how they can be used. I also read a couple of articles about the research of Amazon’s Prime Air shipment via drones and we even considered it to use for our DTP project, however reasoned the technology was still too much in its infancy stage. Besides, the airspace issue, we questioned whether using drones would increase the number of theft issues (especially when you are shipping scarce, high quality, medicines such as is the plan now). Besides, we wondered if there is a sort of maximum weight and size that the drone is able to carry. Additionally, we figured that most customers do not actually need or want it and therefore do not feel the urge to pay extra for such a privilege. Although, fast delivery is important, why do you want to pay extra to get it the same day, while it is free if you receive it one day after? Most of the shopping behavior online is not surprise driven (e.g. it is not a surprise that people need new shoes for the winter) and therefore the need to get a purchase the same day is probably not that large.
Regards,
Laura Hofstee
Hi John, thanks for your interesting blogpost on the benefits and dangers of drones. Although the possible applications of drones seem endless, companies in the US are still inhibited from making use of its full potential due to regulation restrictions.
Recently, the much anticipated Part 107 drone regulations were passed. They allow civilians and companies to fly drones with just a $150 certificate, instead of the expensive $7,000 airman’s certificate that the old regulations required. Although these new regulations will certainly give a boost to the development of the drone industry, they still do not unleash the full potential. They restrict the application of drones to so-called VLOS (Visual Line of Sight) flights. This means drone operators should at all times remain a visual line of sight with the drone. This poses a limit on its potential application, since especially the deployment of autonomous drones, called BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) flights, is where the future of drones is heading. Countries like Finland already allow these types of flight, which are very successful. Therefore, I argue that the current regulations should be broadened to also include the BVLOS flights, if the US wants the drone industry to flourish.
Hi John,
This is a interesting subject indeed. We did a project about the drone delivery, and I have to say, you covered all subjects pretty well in this small blog. In my opinion every new innovation has pro’s and con’s, but for drones I have to say the pro’s outweighs the con’s. Especially in areas which are hard to reach like rural Africa or high density urban areas it is much easier to help a customer. Since more people are moving to urban areas nowadays, this could be an emerging market. It’s success depends not the implementation and the regulations.
Amazon, for example, proposed a layer model which is now under investigation of the Federal Aviation Administration. This model distinguishes between the different purposes of the drones and assign them to different heights. If the FAA approves this model and the drones make good use of the sense and avoid systems a lot of problems could be solved.