The FAA recently gave Amazon clearance to use drones for testing purposes. The “Prime Air” subscription would allow consumers to receive a same-day delivery for certain products thanks to a delivery made by drone. Licensed pilots are going to be required to pilot the drones and they have to stay below 400 feet. If it works, you could be seeing lots of Amazon boxes shipping fiber supplements, Easter toys, and other hopefully non-fragile items.
Amazon might be pioneering the drone delivery industry right now, but there are plenty of other ways to use drones besides shooting missiles at terrorists or having boxes delivered to a front yard. Here are some of the other potential ways that drones will change our lives in the future. And be sure to check out Dronesinsite.
#1. Early Warning Systems
Imagine if there were drones that were constantly in the sky, monitoring weather conditions in areas that were prone for tornadoes or hurricanes? They could instantly notify weather monitoring stations of the changing conditions, give accurate data that is measured on-site instead of by radar or satellite, and had minutes or even hours to the current warning system. Tsunamis and earthquakes could even be included in an early warning system that is powered by drones.
#2. Reality Games
Who needs virtual reality or video games when drones could provide real gaming? From air combat to racing, it is easy enough to see having specific areas of air space dedicated to the use of reality games. Drone sports could even take off enough to create professional circuits and get some ESPN coverage in theory.
#3. Drone GoPro
It’s already pretty cool to have an HD camera strapped to your head or your bike while doing stunts. Now imagine having a Drone equipped with a GoPro that can automatically track your best tricks and capture them from any angle. Not only would this help to push the world of extreme sports to new heights, it would add an artistic element to it as well based on drone placement.
#4. Advertisements
This one might be as close as Amazon’s Prime Air idea. It’s not that difficult to equip a drone with a video projection system. For a certain fee, advertisers could put their branding onto that system and have stills or video play out on walls, on sidewalks, or even on your smartphone if Bluetooth tech is equipped to the drone. Get close enough to activate the drone and BOOM! you’ve got a 30 second spot about why you should make Chef Boyardee ravioli for dinner tonight.
#5. Farming
Maybe we should be spending less time with GMOs and more time developing drones. Seriously. What if you could release drones into a farm field with self-sustaining power, programmed to remove pests and weeds from the field that could affect the viability of the crop? Not only could this completely remove the need for harmful chemicals, the drones could potentially fly water in from far away sources in drought years to keep a farm sustainable. Then the harvested products could be sold via drone through Amazon, right?
#6. Law Enforcement
The idea of police agencies having drones is a somewhat scary notion. It’d be like having traffic cameras up everywhere at every moment, tracking everyone’s public movements with great scrutiny. Your phone is ringing. It’s George Orwell. He says you shouldn’t speak in front of your TV or leave your webcam on, by the way.
Here’s one way that law enforcement could easily benefit from using drones: high speed chases. Forget putting cops into cars at 100 mph in rush hour traffic. Throw up a drone, track the suspect, and put fewer lives at risk. Is it going to stop bad guys from driving fast? Doubt it. You won’t have a helicopter in the sky and five police vehicles all behind the suspect with the drone in place, however, and that could be a good thing.
#7. Artwork
Music is being composed by computer right now, so why can’t we have art being created by drones? Just like a modern artist will compose through the use of computer programming and samples, drones could be programmed to paint in certain ways. Imagine having an entire mural being painted in 45 minutes after 5 minutes of programming or having drones paint highway lines instead of those cumbersome trucks that back up traffic for miles and future drone usage doesn’t seem so bad.
Drones have the power to do many good things. Where do you see the future of drone technology heading?
