In This Chapter

Creating video tours for property listings

Strategizing your golf game

Performing inspections

Monitoring crops for agriculture

Providing security

Filming weddings and special events

Aiding in search and rescue efforts

Delivering goods

Surveying land

Assessing damage for insurance claims

Over the next 10 years, it will be exciting to see how drones will affect life domestically and abroad. Currently, operating a drone for commercial purposes is illegal in the United States. The skies will not officially open to commercial drones until the FAA releases an official set of rules and regulations for commercial drone usage. At the writing of this book, the legislation was pending but has yet to be updated and implemented. In addition, NASA is engineering a system for monitoring and policing drones in American airspace.

This nationwide moratorium on commercial drone usage has created space for numerous companies to get into the drone business by alleviating the need to quickly race a product into the marketplace. If you are thinking about how you might make some money with your drone, consider some of the commercial ideas listed in this chapter.

Real Estate

Real estate is big business all over the world. The buying, selling, and building of property has much to benefit by incorporating drones into the day-to-day business of real estate. Listing agents of residential properties can use drones to create beautiful video tours of their properties inside and out. Using a drone to capture video footage of particularly large properties also makes it easier to capture areas that may be somewhat difficult to reach on foot during a showing. Homebuyers’ agents can also use drones to verify the quality and integrity of a home’s outside features that would likely require a ladder and a different pair of shoes.

It’s not just the buying and selling agents that can benefit from drones; home services companies can benefit, as well. Exterior home inspections can now be performed with a drone, saving inspectors time, energy, and liability. Masons can inspect hard-to-reach stone and brick work to remotely assess the integrity of stones and tuck pointing. Chimney companies and roofers have the same sort of benefit by being able to scan structures without having to set foot on a ladder or lift truck. Drones also make it possible to inspect and document areas that may otherwise get overlooked.

The commercial real estate industry stands to benefit from drones much in the same way as residential real estate. Commercial properties range in size and complexity, from strip malls to high-rise buildings. Drones can help developers inspect buildings without needing to bring in heavy equipment and put humans at risk. Developers and construction companies can also use drones to track construction progress with photos and videos. Drones can also be used for safety inspections, land surveying, and high-quality aerial imagery and videos that would previously cost a small fortune.

Golfing

Serious golfers are always looking for a way to improve their golf game, whether it’s the new clubs, special golf balls, shoes that fit and flex just right, or a snazzy pair of pants that make you look amazing while you’re cranking your 9 iron. Drones are next in line for innovating the golf game. Drones can be used to gather fantastic video of the golf course for marketing purposes. But beyond that, imagine stepping up to the 4^th hole on St. Andrew’s old course on the eastern coast of Scotland and being able to review a video of the hole before you take a club from the bag. Using a drone to carefully map out each hole on a golf course can give golfers a unique look at the task at hand.

Golf spectating just got more up close and personal as well. Drones can be used to capture the game in ways that were previously not possible. Forget about blimps and helicopters, golf can take a page out of the Sochi Olympics book and use drones to bring golf to life on television.

Drones can provide great value to golf coaches and pros as they work to improve the golf game of their protégés. Drones can provide photos and videos from a variety of locations, making it possible to more comprehensively analyze a golf swing, chip, putt, or even a victory dance. Figure 16-1 shows a drone being used to give you a better picture of your golfing terrain.

Drones can also be used to calculate environmental differences at each hole in real time. Temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, and relative humidity can all impact the golf game. With a drone, you can gather environmental data at green level, and at a variety of variations.

Inspections

Inspections are a big business in many industries. The cost for inspecting can vary greatly depending on the accessibility of the location, the equipment needed to conduct the inspection, and the risk to human life to conduct the inspection. Drones may prove useful for several types of inspections. For instance, oil companies can use drones to inspect pipelines in remote areas. Drones can be programmed to follow the pipeline in an autopilot mode capturing imagery and various sensor data along the way. Drones could also be used to identify and report precise geo coordinates of breaks or other issues with the pipeline.

Wind energy engineers can perform inspections on wind turbines and turbine props without needing to bring in heavy lifting equipment, or put humans at risk of injury. Engineers could also quickly deploy numerous drones to inspect multiple wind energy machines at once. High speed and high-definition inspections mean faster, more efficient inspections without a loss of productivity or risk to human life.

Bridge repairs, bridge maintenance, and bridge construction all require very close inspection by civil engineers to ensure structural integrity. Bridges, however, come in all shapes and sizes. Inspecting a typical interstate overpass is much different than inspecting a suspension bridge over water like the Golden Gate Bridge. A drone can capture high-definition video of every joint, support, crack, and crevice which can be more thorough than what a human engineer on the job might be able to do because of environmental variables and safety restrictions. Video documentation is also good for insurance purposes.

Agriculture

Farming is tricky business because you have to anticipate Mother Nature and be ready to respond on a moment’s notice and even then, your response may not make a difference. Giving farmers an additional tool to be able to cope with whatever nature throws at them is a benefit to the world. Drones make it possible for farmers to be able to address hydration issues by measuring water content of soil. This can help farmers identify whether they have drainage issues or irrigation problems. Drones can also be used to help farmers measure how fast their crops are growing in remote fields. Advanced sensors such as LIDAR can measure the distance from plant tops to the ground giving farmers an idea of how crops are progressing throughout the growing season.

Farmers spend big bucks on pesticides to deal with bugs that come in and devastate their crops. Drones can be used to detect the presence of crop-wrecking bugs and then even deploy hyper accurate pesticide applications instead of spraying an entire field. That saves time and money.

Drones aren’t just for growing crops; they are also for animal growers. With GPS technology, drones can be used take livestock out to pasture and keep the herd together. Drones can also be used to detect and protect against predators that may be waiting for the opportunity to bag an unsuspecting mammal.

Security

Drone surveillance has already been in the news quite a bit as it has been used to protect the American border with Mexico. Drones have been used to track and apprehend criminals. Drones are also being used in warzones to track fugitives and terrorists. Facial recognition and other advanced technology has greatly aided in military efforts around the world. Back home, securing property with aerial monitoring systems will be a big deal for businesses and institutions of all types and sizes.

Educational institutions have an obligation to students and their parents, staff, and faculty to ensure their safety and security while on campus. Colleges and universities have to deal with crime of all types, especially on urban campuses. Drones can help educational institutions monitor campuses, detect abnormal activity and potential threats, and send help signals immediately to school administrators and law enforcement agencies.

Security is also a major concern for businesses. Major corporations with sprawling campuses in urban centers and small businesses in rural areas all take security seriously. Using drones to provide employee escorts to their vehicles at night, or even providing full-time drone surveillance of parking lots and structures, can help reduce incidents. One-button panic assistance can page drones and simultaneously contact authorities in the event of an emergency.

Weddings & Special Events

The most epic events of your life deserve epic documentation, and drones are the answer. Choosing a wedding photographer has always been a balance of capabilities, qualities, and cost. Well, now you can bet your bottom that drones will make it easier for your photographer and videographer to get the money shots that you and your family are paying for. Drones can be used to get aerial shots that were once unobtainable for the vast majority of couples. Drones also enable you to get beautiful footage of the bride walking down the aisle. Your big day just got more cinematic.

Aerial photography and video of major events such as concerts and sporting events are about to get much better with drones, as well. Suspending cameras from massive wires has been the normal mode of operation for sporting events until now. The 2014 Sochi Olympics was one of the first major sporting events to use drones to capture footage of a live sporting event. Like those awesome shots of the snowboarding and ski slope sports? Those shots were captured from octo-copters (8 blades) like the one shown in Figure 16-2.

Another great use for drones is to capture well-choreographed footage of live concerts. Bands, event producers, record labels, you name it — they can leverage drone technology to capture breathtaking video footage and still imagery of concerts. This kind of footage would normally require renting expensive booms, dollies, jibs, and more.

Search and Rescue

In 2005, the southern states of the United States were blasted by Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was a category 5 hurricane when it blasted up against Louisiana, causing 108 billion dollars in damages. The levees in and around New Orleans were overwhelmed, and the city went underwater. The damage was so extensive that it made getting and keeping support personnel on the scene extremely difficult. Clean water, electricity, and food were all scarce, and the damaged roads and high water made it very hard to perform search and rescue for people stuck in their homes in areas that were completely destroyed.

In 2012, wild fires across New Mexico and Colorado ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres of forest, destroying hundreds of homes and displacing many people. More than 1,800 firefighters were brought in, but widespread drought and constantly shifting wind patterns made combating the fires difficult. The area decimated by the fire was so vast and the areas so remote that it made search and rescue extremely difficult, as well.

In 2014, drones were introduced as a critical tool for locating people in areas ravaged by fire, flood, or other natural disaster. Drones can be equipped with sensors like infrared that can be used to locate humans in remote areas by their heat signatures. Streaming video can be used for visual identification of people in distress and GPS information gives rescue personnel the ability to precisely locate the distressed and send in aerial support to rescue people. Lifesaving is getting more and more advanced and successful thanks to drone technology!

Special Delivery

Technology giant Google recently gave the world a sneak peek into their drone project called Project Wing. Due to flight restrictions in the United States, Google has been developing and testing their drone delivery system in Australia. Their custom-built drones take off and land vertically, but then switch orientation to fly more like a glider or plane, which gives them a greater flight distance. Google envisions their Project Wing initiative will help deliver supplies to humans in remote areas of the world like the Australian outback or rural areas of Third World countries that lack the infrastructure needed to get deliveries in and out expediently.

Google isn’t alone in their push to create a fleet of drone delivery vehicles. E-commerce giant Amazon has also announced that they are developing and testing their own fleet of drones for offering product deliveries. The grand vision is same-day service for packages under a certain weight. Amazon’s aerial package delivery system will be loaded with a delivery and programmed with GPS coordinates and then using advanced imaging technology, the drone would lower the package to a safe location like a front porch or driveway. The service would give customers the ability to track their package in flight as it travels the skies to reach them.

Of course, these are nothing more than high-flying dreams until the new FAA regulations for commercial drone use in America are updated and released. This framework will also impact drone usage around the world as the FAA’s regulations impact many countries. Currently, legislation is in process but will take time to open up enough to support the grand visions of American entrepreneurs.

More important than package delivery and transporting supplies to remote areas, how about never having to tip the pizza delivery guy again? When the new regulations are released, you better believe the world will need piping hot pizza delivered by an UAPDV (unmanned aerial pizza delivery vehicle).

Land Surveying

Land surveying is a big business and entirely critical for anyone that is building any sort of structure or preparing an area of land for a specific use or establishing property boundaries. You’ve probably seen land surveyors as you’ve been going about your business where ever you live. Figure 16-3 shows some site surveyors. Surveying requires crew, gear, and heaps of time especially if the land mass being surveyed is particularly vast.

Drones, however, have made it possible to do site surveying more accurately and in less time. Drones can be programmed to fly over hundreds of acres, take pictures and video, map elevation changes with LIDAR or other sensors, locate water and water flow patterns, detect the presence of different minerals and resources, you name it. The information can be analyzed and processed in shorter time because the process is automated with drones.

In addition to saving time and money, drones also reduce the risk that humans experience when surveying remote and treacherous land. Drones can be programmed with coordinates to stay within a specific area and can survey all the hard to reach places in remote areas.

Insurance Claims

Have you been in a car accident recently? They are terrifying, embarrassing, and costly — and that’s before you get insurance involved. You wait for days sometimes until your insurance company sends someone out to inspect your damage. With new technology, you could notify your insurance company of your accident using a mobile app on your phone. The app could then transmit information including coordinates back to the insurance company whom could then take your coordinates and dispatch a drone to come out and gather pictures and video of the accident scene. The information could then be used to get the insurance claim process started much faster.

Drones aren’t just for car wrecks. If you’re a home owner, you may be terrified (or thrilled) when you hear or see a thunderstorm barreling down on the homestead. Thunderstorms can produce winds that can bring down trees, and hail that can destroy your roof and your car. With drones, your insurance inspector no longer needs to climb onto your roof to inspect damage, or to get aerial imagery of a tree that fell on your garage. Drones can come in to document your damage with photos and video and speed the process up while reducing risk of accident on the insurance inspector. Less liability to their employees means lower insurance for you, right? Probably not. But at least the claim process will go faster.