Drone research company Drone Industry Insights has released its latest round of research on the current state of the commercial drone market. In its findings it pointed out the top three drone applications as of April 2022.
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The top three applications are mapping and surveying, inspection, and photography and filming out of a total of seven listed below falling under two categories, sensing and action/interaction.
- Sensing
- Photography and Filming
- Mapping and Surveying
- Inspection
- Localisation and Tracking
- Other
- Action/Interaction
- Spraying and Dispensing
- Delivery
- Other
The first thing you notice when breaking it down into the above two categories is that all three applications fall under sensing, which by nature is faster and often easier to undertake than something like deliveries or dispensing a material, where more regulations are involved as well as development time.
Mapping and Surveying
A natural evolution from photography and filming, mapping and surveying has been undertaken by drones for some time now, thanks to the technology being available and affordable and the data being a lot easier to capture than other applications. Not to mention the massive cost savings drones introduce when compared to more manual methods.
Inspection
Inspections via drones are one of the easier drone applications thanks to not needing any additional sensors when not looking to inspect with thermal data. Inspections also save companies a lot of money, improves the safety of its personal, and increases the inspection rate of critical components.
Photography and Filming
Photography and filming has been around since the beginning of drones mostly due to the fact that the first thing you do after buying a drone is figure out how to attach a camera to it and go from there. Overtime as drones have become more sophisticated and the price of drones and payloads come down other applications have taken over.