UAV Applications
UAV applications grow over time and so far, we find new application areas instantly. They appear as flight logic and autonomy level rises thanks to the technology development Yet, there is a number of already well-known UAV applications that we describe below. UAV applications in general share into the military and civil. We do not consider military-specific applications in this document, yet, many of them are common.
Majority of drone operations are one (or more) of the following ones:
- Video registration (i.e. weddings filming);
- Movie making - drones became handful tool to replace aerial photography and introduce new capabilities, replacing i.e. helicopters;
- SAR (Search and Rescue) - searching for lost and castaways, delivery of the elementary rescue resources (i.e. AED, medicaments, bandage, etc.);
- Agriculture (precision, mass-scale) and forestry (i.e. vaccine distribution for animals);
- Hygiene and sanitary work (i.e. anti-covid disinfection of the streets);
- Delivery (commercial, specialized);
- Surveillance: guarding (i.e. industrial complex monitoring for unauthorised entry), disaster-related (i.e. aerial observations after earthquake or flood), environment-related (i.e. air pollution monitoring), natural resources-related (i.e. Earth's magnetic field measurements to detect the anomaly and estimate natural resources like gas, oil, rocks);
- Law-enforcement: surveillance-based, used by Police to monitor the crowd and note individuals breaking the law;
- Aerial inspections (i.e. power lines inspection);
- Entertainment (i.e. light shows, fun flying, FPV);
- Construction (i.e. spray wall painting);
- Surveying (i.e. photogrammetry and surface analysis to create 3D surface models, like in Google Maps / Earth);
- Racing and competition;
In general, a variety of UAV hardware constructions suits many categories, but each category presents specific requirements regarding airframe type, flight duration, equipment, methods of control and flight mode. It is also notifiable, that applications differ by flight modes, in particular: autonomy level, operators' qualification understood as VLOS/BVLOS/FPV certification and most of all: operator skills.
