I've seen increasingly heated debates between Skydio, DroneXL and DJI on the value and impact of autonomous drones, and shared some of my thoughts on a recent post at DroneAnalyst here. There isn't one answer as the industry has many different types of adopters, but I wanted to share a few excerpts and start a conversation here on MavicPilots.
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Breaking Down Common Statements About Autonomous Drones
Claim #1 Autonomous drones reduce training costs for larger drone programs
The argument for this claim is pretty simple – if my organization uses autonomous drones, we won’t have to train pilots, right?
There is truth to this in the long term, but it’s a bit more complicated today. To currently operate a drone – regardless of its capabilities – you need to carry a Remote Pilot’s license and have the ability to take control of the drone. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to cut down on pilot training.
More importantly, drones today performing at Level 4 are relatively immature in the larger sphere of enterprise/government solutions. Organizations will wait to adjust their operations to account for them, and operate as normal until these products have a track record of safety across their own sites, with trained pilots on the sticks.
Claim #2 Autonomous drones are going to make Part 107 pilots redundant
Not so fast, previous DroneAnalyst research has shown Part 107 operators are primarily concentrated in the photography / videography sectors. Autonomous drones are able to track an object and take photos, which can help replace piloting skills for routine data capture missions. However, more creative and expressive applications will be better off with a highly skilled Part 107 (or equivalent) pilot.
In fact, we may likely see pilots prefer more automated drones over less automated ones, so they can safely capture from risky angles and streamline their work. These benefits are already unlocked with Level 3 drones that accurately and safely record waypoints and “play back” flights.
The Part 107 pilots should see this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Drone pilots can’t expect to earn their wages by going to a site and pressing go – and that isn’t what is happening today. Pilots need to continuously upskill, whether that be going further into creative applications, building complimentary skills in drone engineering/maintenance/repairs or moving into drone program management/training/SOP development.
Claim #3 Autonomous drones will help ease regulatory concerns and more quickly attain advanced operation waivers
This one has logic and a track record to boot. Recently, through the deployment of Skydio drones, the FAA has allowed the North Carolina Department of Transportation to conduct Below Bridge BVLOS operations throughout their state.
And it makes sense. With autonomous drones, regulatory bodies like the FAA can more easily assess the risks associated with advanced operations by making the common denominator – behaviour of the flying aircraft – predictable. That means any operation with enough data and a standard approach, can be proven to be safe (or unsafe).
Claim #4 The Drone Industry is waiting for autonomous drones
While the promise of automated flights is exciting, I don’t see many applications waiting for autonomous drones. The barrier to entry for drone flight today – from a cost perspective – is already low. If it requires a business to have near 0 marginal costs of operation to adopt a technology, then it isn’t a valuable enough operation to spend the man-hours to automate it.
When reflecting on this claim, it’s interesting to take a look at the intelligent features DJI – the market leader and largest employer of drone engineers – has invested in with its new M300 platform. Nearly all of these features focus on streamlining the process of data capture and making missions more replicable or easier to execute by augmenting the pilot’s capabilities. These have the same benefits to users as improving flight autonomy, but more directly work within their current operating infrastructure and methods.
In summary, drones are becoming more efficient, and increased competition in the hardware space should hasten their development. Despite this, drone technology is sufficiently powerful that lack of full autonomy isn’t holding the industry back, but will make scaling faster.
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What do you think? DJI's Mavic series already packs in a lot of automated features, do you use them or do they mostly get in the way? Autonomy would be great to help enterprise applications scale, but would you ever see yourself investing in a product like the Skydio S2 for its automated flight capabilities?
_____________
Breaking Down Common Statements About Autonomous Drones
Claim #1 Autonomous drones reduce training costs for larger drone programs
The argument for this claim is pretty simple – if my organization uses autonomous drones, we won’t have to train pilots, right?
There is truth to this in the long term, but it’s a bit more complicated today. To currently operate a drone – regardless of its capabilities – you need to carry a Remote Pilot’s license and have the ability to take control of the drone. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to cut down on pilot training.
More importantly, drones today performing at Level 4 are relatively immature in the larger sphere of enterprise/government solutions. Organizations will wait to adjust their operations to account for them, and operate as normal until these products have a track record of safety across their own sites, with trained pilots on the sticks.
Claim #2 Autonomous drones are going to make Part 107 pilots redundant
Not so fast, previous DroneAnalyst research has shown Part 107 operators are primarily concentrated in the photography / videography sectors. Autonomous drones are able to track an object and take photos, which can help replace piloting skills for routine data capture missions. However, more creative and expressive applications will be better off with a highly skilled Part 107 (or equivalent) pilot.
In fact, we may likely see pilots prefer more automated drones over less automated ones, so they can safely capture from risky angles and streamline their work. These benefits are already unlocked with Level 3 drones that accurately and safely record waypoints and “play back” flights.
The Part 107 pilots should see this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Drone pilots can’t expect to earn their wages by going to a site and pressing go – and that isn’t what is happening today. Pilots need to continuously upskill, whether that be going further into creative applications, building complimentary skills in drone engineering/maintenance/repairs or moving into drone program management/training/SOP development.
Claim #3 Autonomous drones will help ease regulatory concerns and more quickly attain advanced operation waivers
This one has logic and a track record to boot. Recently, through the deployment of Skydio drones, the FAA has allowed the North Carolina Department of Transportation to conduct Below Bridge BVLOS operations throughout their state.
And it makes sense. With autonomous drones, regulatory bodies like the FAA can more easily assess the risks associated with advanced operations by making the common denominator – behaviour of the flying aircraft – predictable. That means any operation with enough data and a standard approach, can be proven to be safe (or unsafe).
Claim #4 The Drone Industry is waiting for autonomous drones
While the promise of automated flights is exciting, I don’t see many applications waiting for autonomous drones. The barrier to entry for drone flight today – from a cost perspective – is already low. If it requires a business to have near 0 marginal costs of operation to adopt a technology, then it isn’t a valuable enough operation to spend the man-hours to automate it.
When reflecting on this claim, it’s interesting to take a look at the intelligent features DJI – the market leader and largest employer of drone engineers – has invested in with its new M300 platform. Nearly all of these features focus on streamlining the process of data capture and making missions more replicable or easier to execute by augmenting the pilot’s capabilities. These have the same benefits to users as improving flight autonomy, but more directly work within their current operating infrastructure and methods.
In summary, drones are becoming more efficient, and increased competition in the hardware space should hasten their development. Despite this, drone technology is sufficiently powerful that lack of full autonomy isn’t holding the industry back, but will make scaling faster.
_____________
What do you think? DJI's Mavic series already packs in a lot of automated features, do you use them or do they mostly get in the way? Autonomy would be great to help enterprise applications scale, but would you ever see yourself investing in a product like the Skydio S2 for its automated flight capabilities?