Drone, Sweet Drone
Entrepreneurs take note: the FAA is taking a business-friendly tack on the rules it applies to commercial drone use. This includes plans to accelerate the permit approval process. Granted, it will be about a year before the rules have effect, but that’s probably just enough time to plan out your model and get funding. At the risk of committing listicle journalism, here are some uses for an airborne drone that you might not have thought of:
Food delivery – Amazon may have caused the biggest stir when it proposed deliveries by drone, but Dominos is giving it some thought, as has the less well known Darwin Aerospace, who are experimenting with “the world’s first airborne Mexican food delivery system“. YO! Sushi has tried bringing sushi-burgers to tables at a London restaurant with drones – can Seamless web be far behind?
Internet Access – Google is hoping that the solar-powered drones it bought with its purchase of Titan Aerospace will provide wireless access points in remote and undeveloped areas of the world.
Animal Control and Conservation – Ottawa is using drones to scare geese away and reduce the amount of poop they leave on city beaches. Malaysia is using them to keep track of its orangutans; the World Wildlife Fund flies drones to protect Nepalese rhinoceros and elephants.
Sports – A football team in Tennessee films their practices from the air. The Washington Nationals used drones to take aerial pictures of the team (Briefly. They stopped when it seemed the FAA disapproved; the might try again now that the atmosphere seems to have changed). There are plenty of other sports to which a camera untethered to the earth will be a boon, like for instance freestyle skiing.
Environmental Monitoring – Australia is using drones to observe bush fires. Indonesia is using them to peer into erupting volcanoes. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are using them as hurricane hunters. The United States federal government uses the drone project of the US Geographical Survey for a whole range of environmental applications. If you’re looking for the business model here, most governments would probably turn to a contractor first.
Juggling – Juggling? Yes, with both a ball and a vertically balanced pole. Okay, I don’t have a business idea for this, but the precision demonstrated in the videos is pretty darn amazing.
