The Pros and Cons of Drones (UAVs)

The drone industry is growing rapidly. More and more businesses are utilizing drone technology to manage their business and deliver services. In the near future we may be receiving products and services delivered to us via drone. With this new technology, drones have their own advantages and disadvantages. By definition, drones are unmanned aerial vehicles that are operated and navigated by a computer or a remote control. A few years ago still overpriced and barely circulating, the mini drones are now available in almost every shop at low price. Anyone who has ever played around with a drone knows how much fun it is. So let’s see what characteristics these drones have. Here we will present to you a full list of the Pros and Cons of Drones.

The PROS of Drones

“As a pilot, I can tell you drones may be a lot of things; airplanes they are not.”

1. Drones Are Cheap

Drones have gained their popularity precisely because of their affordability price. Every technology starts really expensive, hard to use, unattainable for most people and then in a relatively short period of time it becomes very cheap and easy to use. Cost of drones today is under a $500 or less. You don’t need a pilot’s license anymore to fly. You just pick up the drone and fly. Also if you want drones with advanced features, they are also available at an affordable price. The background is the expansion of global demand.

2. They Are Fun to Use

Drones are fun and you can do incredible things with them. For the hobbyist, drones are just downright fun. It’s also an emerging profession that can be an enjoyable way to make a living. Drone racing has also become very popular and growing sport. Sure, everyone knows that our quadrocopters are designed to fly, but that’s not the only field of application. Just because we use drones outside, we have the opportunity to meet new people. Since not many people own a drone, one quickly attracts attention and is in conversation. So if you want to meet new people quickly, just go to the park and let your drone go up.

3. They Are Used For Security and Surveillance

Law enforcement and security forces such as the military, first responders and the police are taking advantage of the drone technology. The police use drone, for example, in car chases. This reduces the accident risk by daring maneuvers many times over. The fugitives can be easily followed by air. A major disadvantage of helicopters and aircraft during surveillance work is their volume. We now have drones that are specially designed and have highly efficient motors that provide discrete, almost silent, monitoring. Also, drones are easy to use. There are no expensive and time-consuming training programs required. Security experts usually learn how to plan and carry out missions within a few hours. Real-time monitoring and coordination is the advantage of drones. If you want to know more about use of drones in surveillance, click HERE.

4. Drones Can Save Lives

Drones can also be used as lifesavers. For example, mountain rescuers use drones in hard to reach areas. The quadcopter can be equipped with thermal imaging cameras or avalanche transceivers. The acquisition and operating costs are much lower compared to a conventional helicopter. Since 2017, DJI, brand specialized in drones, saw the rate of people saved from an accident by drones increase.  In Minnesota, a police drone pilot used a thermal camera to find an 84-year-old man who had disappeared into a swampy area. This was useful because that night, the weather was very bad and prevented a police helicopter fly to find the man, thanks to the drone, it could be possible. In Canada, a snowmobiler crossed the ice and found himself buried under several meters of icy water, thanks to drones, firefighters were able to act quickly and find the that person. Unfortunately, even though drones can not save lives all the time, they also make it possible to identify victims in a delicate situation. If you want to know 10 Ways Drones Can Help Save Lives, click HERE.

5. Faster Delivery System Using Drones

Drones are very important for the economy. How about your pizza or mail being delivered through the air soon? Sounds unimaginable at the moment. The new delivery drones announced by Amazon would be able to deliver small parcels in less than 30 minutes. After years of experimentation under more or less real conditions, Amazon will soon release its new delivery drones. Intended only for Premium subscribers, for parcels up to 3 kg (which, according to Amazon, represents more than 75% of all orders placed on the site), and reserved for journeys of less than 25 km, these new drones from Amazone could allow express deliveries in less than 30 minutes. A new service that will soon be known as Air Prime, at least for American consumers. More about the future of drone delivery you have HERE.

6. They Can Be Used in Agriculture

The agriculture uses more and more the drones for various missions of analyzes, controls, surveillance or treatments. These drones can be equipped with different equipment, cameras, sprayer or other sensors coupled to the GPS to realize detailed maps fields. Drones in aerial view have the simplest mission of control and monitoring of crops and to have a more or less detailed global view of the different plots, to easily visualize their levels of evolution and growth due to lack or absence of fertilizer, to detect degradations made by wild animals, diseases or others, in order to be able to remedy it as quickly as possible. Recent innovations coupled with the drone can go much further and provide more accurate information to the farmer by establishing maps report areas more or less fertile to help him make the right decisions and increase or decrease irrigation, which allows saving water as well as treatments for the benefit of our planet and the farmer.

7. You Can Take Aerial View Photography

In photography, long exposure has always been a creative tool for obtaining interesting effects, day and night, but above all allows to capture images of moving subjects. Drone photography is one of the most dynamic and fun new types of photography. Whatever you have previous experience with photography and videography, drone photography offers unique opportunities and new challenges. In particular, consumer drones and prosumers have small sensors with fixed apertures. With a drone, you can shoot without going directly in any environment. The photographer will be able to shoot without encountering danger, and will be able to shoot images that he has never seen before. Some design schools in the US have already taken up drone operations called J-bots in their classes. Any event can be taken as long as the plane can fly, and the cost of a news helicopter may be reduced.

8. Capturing Incredible Moments in Sports

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles is also expected for speedy professional sports such as soccer. In sports, not only athletes, but also those who are referees need physical strength equal to or higher than that of sportsmen. This is because the eyes and body must catch up with the movement of the sportsman in order to make an accurate judgment without missing the movement. The same is true for photographers who shoot sports. If the photographer cannot keep up with the quick movements of the players, no matter how good they play, the filming will not be in time. Therefore, it is said that “Nixie” that combines “GoPro” and “Drone” is effective. Photographers will no longer run around with heavy equipment and may be able to shoot exciting scenes simply by operating the drone.

9. Drones Can Easily Make 3D Maps

High-density point cloud data taken by drones can be obtained from continuously photographed photos and position information captured by various sensors, and high-precision 3D models can be easily generated by digital processing with mapping software. In other words, drones can very easily create 3D maps and models. Because it is digital data, the deliverables can be shared with construction sites, offices, and customers in real time, so it is possible to quickly identify problems in the process and to identify improvements to improve the efficiency of construction. In addition, since the courses set in advance can be automatically navigate, it is useful for verifying the construction process, so that the exact same route can be traced over and over again. More about Drone Mapping and 3D Maps, you have HERE.

10. Surveying Dangerous Places

Drones are good at shooting a wide range photos, which allows them to spot dangerous places very lightly. Even in complicated terrain, a small turn with a drone can make possible to make a big difference, which can sometimes be crucial for saving lives. Because the flight altitude of the drones is low, it is less affected by clouds, so you can take clear pictures. In order to obtain accurate location information, if the measurement range was widened, more GCPs (ground control points) were required to be installed, but technical improvements are progressing so that fewer installations are required. This is not only more efficient by shortening the advance preparations, but it can also be used for drone surveying even further in places that are difficult to reconnaissance such as swamps and forests and dangerous sites such as collapsed cliffs.

The CONS of Drones

“Brutality and injustice made us raise our hands towards the sky for years; God didn’t respond us, but drones came to our rescue.”

1. They Have Short Flight Times

The drone is powered by high-performance lithium polymer batteries. In recent years, although the flight time has increased, frequent battery replacement is required for use in a wide range of sites. Taking DJI’s Phantom 4 series, which is also used for surveying, as an example, it is possible to fly for 30 minutes on a full charge, but in reality it is about 20 minutes. In headwinds and under strong winds, power consumption is further increased and flight times are shortened. Clearly, these batteries are discharged very quickly and its fragile. This is obviously the point that annoys the most when we talk about autonomy in flight. The mini-drones have an average flight duration of 5 to 6 minutes maximum, while most of the normal drones have flight time of 25 minutes, with most often only 15 minutes of actual flight.

2. Weather Can Easily Affect Drones

Lithium polymer batteries used in drones are very sensitive to moisture, so flying on rainy days is strictly prohibited. In dense fog, the field of view is not good, and in addition to the visual flight, the non-visual flight by the camera image remains. In addition, the fog can be drawn into the drone and cause water droplets, which may cause a malfunction. In addition, strong winds are the enemy of stable flight, as the „Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism“ stipulates that the wind speed must be 5 m/s or less in the “Safety Manual”. Therefore, any of these weather conditions can significantly affect the drone. It would be advisable to fly under normal conditions, but in most cases this is not quite so.

3. Precise Operation is Difficult

In surveys that require accuracy, drones that collect data also require stable flight capabilities. Manual remote control of the drone accurately is difficult even for a highly trained pilot. Some of the factors that can also affect the drone during flight is wind and bad weather conditions. So we cannot rely on drones to do certain tasks with great precision. However, in recent years, it has become possible to automatically acquire data by setting a surveying range and method in advance and using automatic navigation.

4. Drones Will Take Away Future Jobs

A lot of people are open-minded about new technologies. Drones will for sure replace one part of human labor, which is estimated at approx of $127 billion. These are mostly industries such as agriculture, parcel delivery, surveillance, rescue services, etc. Amazon has already started testing and working on package delivery, together with other big companies like Walmart. It is difficult to say, however, whether drones will take over jobs so that they will replace people, or whether they will just be a complement for better quality tool when performing those jobs. Maybe I am too pessimistic, but I can not imagine, for example, how unmanned flying objects suddenly take over the job of my Pöstlers and deliver packages to my home. Topic about Will Drones Take Away Future Jobs, you have HERE.

5. Drones Can be Easily Abused

Drones are not only a hot topic in the military field, but also in other areas.  We can’t ignore the criminal element of our society and the option for them to use drones for bad purposes. Drones can also be used to for all kinds of nefarious activities such as corporate espionage, illicit videos and more. In the press, more and more often reported by the growing abuse potential of the drones. Flights over nuclear power plants, through prison facilities or other sensitive areas are the subject. There are regulations that the pilots of amateur drones must adhere to. Airports, for example, are taboo zones, as well as private land, industrial plants or accident sites. The Berlin government district is also closed to drones. If, after all, drones fly over sensitive areas, this is either due to ignorance, negligence or, more and more often, intentionally.

6. Accidents Can Easily Happen

If a drone flies over a crowd, there is always a potential chance of some kind of a malfunction, and that kind of  malfunction can be really dangerous. And if that kind of accident were to happen and that drone would fall on someone, it could have consequences to kill someone. Not all drone operators are properly trained and now how to operate their drones. In extreme cases drones can possibly have an impact on airplanes and helicopters, leading to potential disastrous effects. In the United States, several incidents between drones and helicopters occur as more warnings come from air traffic managers and companies. Therefore, you need to really be careful when you fly your drone.

7. They Can be Used For Hunting Animals

Hunters are now increasingly using drones to hunt animals. Because hunting is a sport, and drones are quite affordable and inexpensive, and they come in all shapes and sizes, hunters use them to track their prey. While many hunters are against of this type of hunting, there are those who enjoy this and use this drone technology for bad purposes. Some have even managed to make armed drones, although they are prohibited by law. People are very unpredictable nowadays, so this issue is very worrying. But this is only the first step, who knows what other bad methods of use will be in the near future. It is also something that must be considered well. For more info about topic: can you legally hunt with a drone, you have HERE.

8. Drones Are Vulnerable To Hackers

Most drones are equipped with restrictions areas, for example, prevent flights in „no-fly zones“. But this is not a problem for hackers, they avoid these protective measures. Between drone hackers and companies like DJI comes the head-to-head race: As the technology magazine Motherboard reported, the Chinese drone manufacturer has drawn the displeasure of jailbreakers. The background is therefore restrictions that are activated by default on DJI drones, for example, to prevent flights in no-fly zones. Today you have guidelines on Internet forums and chat groups on how to overcome these restrictions. With some hacking softwares you can also bypass speed limits of the drones. Advanced hackers can easily intercept the data link network of your drone and take the control over. So hackers can easily control your drone and all the data you collect.

9. Drones Can Get in a Legal „Gray Area“

When we talk about privacy, we can say that this can be the number one thing that is linked to the use of drones. Drone pilots can fairly easily fly their drones anywhere. There are emerging laws and rules to regulate drones but the legal. The FAA has strict rules when it comes to the use of drones and their privacy. There are still some grey areas and also local laws that are being developed which can cause some confusion. When someone is using a drone to record a person, and that footage is misused for bad purposes it can be a very big problem and it falls under the “Gray Area”. But these are things that can be very difficult to deal with.

10. They Are Threat to Airports

Yes, the threat is real, despite the fact that around the world, it is strictly forbidden to fly over an airport with a drone. Illegal overflights are regularly reported, disrupt the air traffic at airports and threaten the safety of passengers, planes and other aircraft. It is not uncommon to hear television news or to read in the press and on social networks, „Photo of a drone over an airport“. Faced with all these threats, airport authorities are speeding up the security system tests to obtain effective anti-drone devices. Many companies offer different techniques to capture or neutralize a drone, and more about that topic you have on: Could a Drone Really Bring Down a Plane. Manufacturers also participate in the safety of aerodromes by equipping their aircraft with „no fly zone“, a system that is preventing a drone from taking off if it is near an airport or other prohibited areas.

The 5 Most Popular Drones on The Market Today

Conclusion

Drones are here to stay, whether you like it or not. And our society will have to continue to grapple with the pros and cons of this technology and determine how we can best use it. There is no doubt that our businesses and lives will continue to be impacted by drone technology. During the development of drones, we often emphasize only the pros of new technologies in order to increase the number of supporters and advance the development. Here we also paid attention to the cons that drones have. However, how drones become more widespread, the number of people and environments that use new technologies will increase. If i missed something out, or want to add your pros and cons, feel free to comment below.