Page 10 - World Airnews Magazine October Edition 2020

DRONES

THE ADVENT OF

UNMANNED COMMERCE

By Bennie Broughton and Andre P. Meredith

commercial airborne cargo services. Al- of food, medicines and post are slowly

though the pandemic has had its fair share migrating from isolated, once-off experi-

he recent Coronavirus epidemic of negative effects, it may have created ments to regular, sustainable commercial

Thas, in no uncertain terms, created new awareness of the importance of ded- operations.

a new world. From lockdowns to social icated airborne, terrestrial and maritime However, in contrast to the military
distancing, the world has had to adapt to cargo services. Such services could prove domain, most commercial drone opera-

the “new normal” towards preservation of invaluable, even long after the pandemic tions today are only initial permutations

life, whilst innovating to ensure that essen- is over and forgotten, and may spearhead of steady-state operations, essentially
tial services remain operative. In order to new technologies to enable sustained cargo building blocks towards large-scale adop-

deliveries to remote, rugged, unreachable

survive, many businesses have moved from or dangerous regions. tion of unmanned technology. This does

not imply that the supporting technologies
person-to-person contact to electronic underscoring such operations are absent.

commerce, including online collaboration WHERE ARE WE HEADED A world where virtually all large cargo

(video conferencing) and point-to-point Due to the incredible pace at which aircraft fly around the world without pilots;

delivery. unmanned aircraft and their associated where every isolated village has a regular

The aviation sector was undoubtedly also technologies are progressing, one can unmanned postal delivery service; where
hard-hit by the pandemic, as airlines and easily imagine a not-too-distant future outlying regions receive their medicines
charters grounded their fleets, and authori- where unmanned aviation makes up a large and groceries via drones; where the pre-

ties banned general aviation from operat- proportion, potentially even the majority, cision application of pesticides over large

ing. During the most stringent lockdown of the aviation industry. The impact to farms is all automated using drones; and
levels, all passenger flights were halted, date is already apparent: aerial surveys where many dangerous air operations, such

and along with it, all co-sharing of airborne that previously were conducted with as aerial firefighting, have gone unmanned

freight; only dedicated airborne freighters expensive-to-operate manned helicopters thereby removing the risk to aircrews -

continued to operate to some extent, dras- or fixed-wing aircraft are more-and-more such operations appear to be well within

tically impacting delivery schedules leading being performed using commercial drones. the realm of possibility – and it does not
to any activities linked to such services Precision agriculture, where crops are necessarily require undiscovered technolo-

being delayed. sprayed using large multirotor drones, gy to achieve, either.

These events may cause the industry to are becoming more prevalent. In some
question the future of co-shared freight de- countries, drones are now used to regularly EXAMPLES OF CURRENT

liveries and other manned freight services, transport medical supplies and samples DEVELOPMENTS

which is now paving the way for unmanned between hubs and isolated areas. Delivery Although widespread adoption as sketched
World Airnews | October 2020
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