We spend a lot of time here talking about the best drones for beginners, kids, and photography, but what about commercial use of drones? The average drone pilot should care about commercial use of drones because the more of a stake corporations have in the wide-spread use of drones, the more likely things will end up favorable for everyone. Commercial drone manufacturer Monarch, Inc has even begun offering commercial flight courses.
One of the biggest and most interesting commercial uses is drones for agriculture. Using a quadcopter to monitor crops gives farmers a wide variety of benefits which I’ll list below.
Benefits of Drones for Agriculture
- Time Savings – Farmers no longer need to monitor their crops on foot. They can survey land in minutes that used to take hours or days.
- Advanced Technologies – Agricultural drones can do amazing things like count plants, examine soil properties like moisture level, and analyze water usage. The result is more efficient and higher yielding crops.
- Stop Minor Issues – Being able to view your entire crop in an instant allows you to catch problem areas that would take days or even weeks to catch otherwise. This prevents minor issues from becoming major issues.
- Create Large Data-sets – The data gathered from a drone can be exported and used in a variety of other applications, which gives the farmers a lot of power. They can now share and compare crop data with neighbors and track their historic crop performance.
One of the leaders in the commercial and agricultural drone space is Aerial Technology International. ATI knows the importance of having easy-to-use solutions with training available to farmers and pilots. Their drones can carry the latest high-tech sensors or cameras based on what information the farmer is looking for. The AgBOT can cover a square kilometer of crops in one flight and features a quick-release battery pack so you can conduct multiple surveys in one outing.
FAA Restrictions Slowing Progress
As we’ve reported on previously, FAA UAV regulations are slowing the mass adoption of commercial drones. This is the last major hurdle for drone manufacturers in the US. Many are concerned if the FAA takes too long to loosen restrictions, other foreign companies will advance faster than US drone companies and overtake them when commercial drone use finally expands.