23 uses humans have found for drones

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Quadrocopters can be useful not only for filming weddings, but also for fishing, guarding or rescuing people.

1. Helping farmers

Thanks to sensors installed on special drones, farmers can measure planting height and planting density, monitor livestock movements over large areas, and even assess water quality. Also, from a bird's eye view, it is easier to detect a lack of moisture or pest infestation of plants in remote areas.

Drones not only monitor, but also help in work: with the help of special irrigation devices, they can, for example, irrigate plants.

2. Shooting a movie

Capturing breathtaking landscapes from a bird's eye view is no longer the domain of filmmakers with rented helicopters. Now such shots can be made by any wedding cameraman with a good drone with a camera.

Since 2014, quadcopters have also been used in filming real movies, commercials and sports events. For example, skiing and snowboarding competitions at the Sochi Olympics were filmed.

3. Study of wild animals

Where a person scares away animals or harms them by their mere presence, drones will sneak up unnoticed, having previously tracked down the subject of photography using thermal imagers.

Also, drones are indispensable in the study of marine and oceanic animals. In 2016, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials used drones to track the movements of humpback whales off Hawaii. Before the advent of quadrocopters, such observations were inaccurate: whales swam away from the large ships on which the forwarders moved.

Owners of the most common drones with cameras can make their discoveries: find hidden lakes within mountain ranges and observe views from other points that cannot be reached on foot.

4. Filming in hazardous locations

The best example is a photo taken by the National Geographic team from the mouth of a volcano. As a result, several drones were out of order, but the footage turned out to be mesmerizing.

5. Research of natural disasters

American meteorologists are puzzled by the creation of drones for researching natural disasters after Hurricane Sandy. These powerful drones can approach tornado and tropical cyclone areas and read wind pressure, strength and direction using sensors installed in the devices.

With drones, you can better understand the nature of disasters and make more accurate predictions about the timing and destructiveness of a disaster.

6. Protection of the area and tracking of offenders

Drones can replace surveillance cameras, watchdogs, and even police officers. They will cope with the protection of state borders, observing large crowds and patrolling the streets. Due to their small size, silent models can be used to determine the location of criminals and hostages in terrorist attacks.

These statements are supported by examples. So, developed in 2014, the Cupid drone with six propellers is equipped with a smart autopilot, a face recognition system and an 80,000 V electric shock.

Also, drones are used by the Mexican police: drones with video cameras patrol dangerous areas of Tijuana.

There are also examples of civilians seeking to punish offenders using drone footage. For example, the Anti-Corruption Foundation often shows the properties of government officials, and the filmmakers of the Netflix movie Forks Instead of Knives backed up their claims in favor of plant-based foods with violent footage from animal farms.

7. Delivery of parcels

Online shopping drone products aren't just a futurist idea. Everything for this has already been tested and debugged, delivery services are ready to send their quadcopters with your pizza, beer and small goods. Take, for example, an Amazon Prime Air drone that can deliver a package in 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, the introduction of air deliveries is hindered by bureaucracy and the concern of aviation services for our safety. Perhaps soon all permits will be obtained and dozens of drones in the sky will replace delivery men with yellow and green bags on their backs.

8. Saving people

Drones can search for people under debris after earthquakes, locate fires and extinguish fires, or deliver medicines and water to victims before rescuers arrive.

There is a known case when the use of a drone turned out to be more effective than helicopters and rescue teams. It happened in Canada in 2013. The driver had an accident and disappeared from the scene. The rescue service combed the area with a radius of 200 meters, but did not find the victim. Observation from the helicopter also yielded nothing.

Soon, 911 received a call from the missing driver, and rescuers managed to locate his approximate location. At this stage, a Draganflyer X4-ES quadrocopter with a thermal imager joined the process and quickly found the victim in the snow under a tree without outerwear and shoes. Rescuers admitted that they would not have found the unfortunate driver by dawn without the help of a drone.

Since 2014, the development of the Zipline service has been going on in America. This service delivers medicines and blood for transfusion to remote areas of the country. They will be transported by Zips drones, which can fly up to 120 kilometers on a single charge. So far, Zipline has delivered nearly 16,000 packages that may have saved lives.

9. Helping tennis players in training

The international fitness chain Virgin Active uses drones to train tennis kicks. Drones drop balls to athletes at a certain angle and at a given speed, and a camera installed in the device helps coaches keep track of their players.

10. Search for mines

The Care movement's Facts About Landmines estimates that around 110 million landmines have still not been cleared worldwide, and 70 people are detonated every day. Most of the explosive devices are concentrated in Afghanistan, Angola, Kabodja, Laos and Iraq.

Scientists at the University of Bristol have developed drones that can detect hidden landmines by the chemicals they contain. Quadrocopters will help make the planet safer faster and save the lives of people searching for mines.

11. Internet distribution

At the end of June 2019, Facebook successfully tested a drone system dubbed Aquila. It looks like a glider, but is supported in the air by propellers. On its body there are solar panels that power the device.

As conceived by the creators, Aquila should rise to an altitude of 9,000 to 18,000 meters and distribute broadband Internet using special lasers. The radius of action of each glider is up to 50 kilometers.

Thousands of such systems can cover an area of inhabited land and provide the world with the global Internet.

12. Mapping

Drones reach hard-to-reach places: blurry coastlines and peaks of steep mountains. The obtained data helps to create three-dimensional maps of the area.

The technology is available not only for cartographers, but also for ordinary users. The obtained data can be loaded into "folk" maps. Thanks to drones, for example, ordinary Americans are complementing OpenStreetMap.

13. Wall painting

A team of engineers from McGill University in Montreal programmed the drone to create artistic paintings. We managed to teach a small drone to a point drawing technique with the help of a small sponge - this is how it turns out to paint a picture without smudges.

In the future, this system will help to paint the facades of buildings on which it is inconvenient for a person to draw.

14. Help in choosing a place to live

In 2014, Chinese authorities used drones to combat air pollution, and in 2015, South American researchers introduced drones to measure air purity in the Peruvian Andes.

In the future, people will be able to use personal drones to conduct similar checks. Based on the data received, we will be able to make a decision about buying an apartment and find out if we should move from the place where we live now.

15. Calculating the location of the disease-carrying mosquitoes

The Texas authorities, together with Microsoft researchers, have used drones to locate clusters of mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus. This was the next step in the Project Premonition program, in which Microsoft has already installed special traps that identify dangerous insects.

16. Creation of light shows

Special LEDs for drones can be purchased on Amazon on request LED Quadcopter, and LED strips with a battery compartment from any electronics store can be attached to a sufficiently powerful device.

And instead of an LED strip, you can attach an advertisement. Such a flight will cost much less than renting a corn plant with similar advertising.

17. Fishing

Developed in 2015, AguaDrone can not only fly, but also swim in fresh or salt water. If necessary, you can use a standard echo sounder, a waterproof camera and a lure with a hook on the stem.

If you want to go fishing with a drone right now, you don't need to buy AguaDrone: you can attach the end of the line to any drone. With it, you can throw the bait further than you would do it yourself.

18. Participation in races

Drones can fly around racing tracks. A similar "race" has already been arranged by engineers and fans of "Star Wars". The drones raced between the tree crowns at an insane speed, and their owners controlled the devices using virtual reality glasses.

Nowadays drone competitions are the lot of amateurs and enthusiasts, but someday drone racing may become a professional sport.

19. Cutting vegetables

Use drone blades to peel potatoes, chop greens, whip cream and knead mashed potatoes. We do not recommend using the device in cooking, but you can watch a funny video.

20. Transport

A sufficiently powerful drone can lift a person into the air. In this video, American filmmaker and blogger Casey Nysttet, dressed as Santa, used a drone instead of a lift to climb the slope to the top of the ski slope.

And the English stuntman and inventor Colin Furze has built a two-propeller drone that looks like a flying bike.

21. The last memory for the dying

Aerial Anthropology, a small Cleveland-based company, helps hospice patients see their favorite places, where they grew up or lived memorable moments, for the last time. Sick people no longer leave their wards, but drones quickly get to the desired locations and transmit videos to the dying so that they leave with a smile on their face.

22. Weapon

It would be naive to believe that drones will not be included in the military arsenal. But there are also civilians who use drones in conjunction with remotely controlled machine guns. For example, the FPSRussia blogger showed in the video a drone armed with a 100-cartridge machine gun.

23. Hunting other drones

The laws of different countries regulate the rules for drone flights over strategically important objects, such as nuclear power plants. Hunting quadcopters are being created to track intruders.

One of these developments is called Rapere. As conceived by its creators, the quadrocopter catches up with the intruder drone, takes a position from above and drops a piece of rope that winds around the blades of the drone. The motor stalls and the device falls.

Rapere only exists in prototype form, but other hunting drones are already poised to catch intruders. Such, for example, are in the arsenal of the Japanese police. In 2016, she conducted drone launches with nets to catch enemy quadcopters.