Most people would
associate drones, otherwise known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), with a
warzone. Their use has been changing continuously into activities that affect
our daily routines. In fact, they could be affecting you more than you realize.
Beyond the warzone, drones are now used for aerial surveying of crops,
acrobatic aerial footage in filmmaking, search and rescue operations, inspecting
power lines and pipelines, and counting wildlife, delivering medical supplies
to remote or otherwise inaccessible regions, transport medicines and vaccines,
and retrieve medical samples, into and out of remote or otherwise inaccessible
regions. Drones are gaining popularity in aerial filming services for TV, Film
and Web. Your favourite commercial could be as a result of this technology.
Further afield, the
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shocked the world when he announced that Amazon is
working on drones that can deliver packages within 30 minutes. He called
the service Amazon Prime Air. An Australian textbook
rental startup Zookal will also begin utilizing drones to make its deliveries
in Australia in 2014, with ambitions of bringing the unique, unmanned delivery
method to U.S. customers by 2015. Wonder if Rupu is working on something for the Kenyan
market?
On a greater scale, journalism has certainly
taken an interesting turn with the use of drones. One recent instance was the coverage
of the Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, the Philippines, by a British journalist,
Lewis Whyld. The demonstrations in Bangkok, Thailand were most coverage using
UAVs, giving aerial view of the events to the rest of the world. Probably, the
most memorable one was the coverage of the demonstrations in Egypt by freelance
journalists who uploaded their clips on YouTube. The BBC used a drone to gather information for a report on a
high-speed train planned to travel from London to Manchester. The Associated
Press and News Corporation have used them to show the scale of large disasters.
News Corporation has also used them to shoot sports in Australia. Sophisticated
nature documentaries use them to get intimate shots of wildlife. Paparazzis use
them to chase celebrities in Europe, and reports suggest they have been used to
pursue celebrities in the United States, too.
How do drones work?
These devices are controlled by a remote pilot from the ground and are fitted
with a camera head which has a unique anti-vibration bracket resulting in clean
video with no vibration or shake. Its flight is controlled either autonomously
by computers in the vehicle or under the remote control of a pilot on the
ground or in another vehicle. The typical launch and recovery method of a drone
is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on the
ground. They are usually deployed for military and special operation
applications, but also used in a small but growing number of civil
applications, such as policing and firefighting, and nonmilitary security work,
such as surveillance of pipelines.
There will be several
advantages of using drones. If Amazon's
plan to deliver packages using drones in place of trucks, the impact will be
reduced fuel emissions and more use of renewable energy. The drones are battery
powered, in comparison to oil, the providing an opportunity to use alternate
source of power such as solar. This
delivery method will also increase efficiency by ensuring customer get their
merchandise within 30 min. The downside to this is that there will be need for
more manpower to load the drones, monitor and control them. In terms of
journalism, the main benefit is that journalists are able to cover risky areas
without endangering their lives. There has been a public outcry due to the
infringement of people’s privacy by these devices and in some instances; news
delivery in this method has lacked credibility. Quality of some images taken by
drones has mostly been low and lacks a professional regulatory approach.
Armature journalist can easily obtain the technology, cover an incident and
upload on YouTube. There is dire need to regulate these devices and the
popularity grows.
