Top Drone Industry Trends 2020

The global Drone market is valued at USD 6.67 Billion in 2018 and expected to reach USD 16.97 Billion by 2025 with the CAGR of 14.27% over the forecast period.

Global Drone Industry Scope:

A drone is an unmanned aircraft and more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Basically it is a flying machine that can be remotely controlled by software based applications with embedded systems, which is working in conjunction with onboard sensors and GPS. In the past years, UAVs were most often associated with the military, where they were used initially for anti-aircraft target practice. Drones are now also used in a wide range of civilian roles ranging from surveillance, rescue operations, traffic monitoring, weather monitoring and firefighting. Skydio, one of the most innovative companies in the drone industry is trying to develop the world’s most advanced autonomous flying camera.

 Global Drone Dynamics:

Increased use of unmanned aircraft in range of applications from emergency services to agriculture, new advances in mapping & tracking illegal activities and favorable government initiatives to adopt drones in services are some major factors contributed to the increasing demand of global drone market. For example; Federal Aviation Administration has reported that, many drone industry players now seeking to build apps for drones on a shared platform. In 2019, there was more than 4, 30,000 commercial drones in the sky. Due to new software development and innovations in cameras, sensors and processing technology, it is estimated that commercial drones will be at a strong phase of growth and continue to increase in the coming few years. In 2016, there were around 780, 270 drones in the United States growing around 40%per year.

Commercial drone is expected to register the highest growth rate during the forecast period. It is estimated that the annual growth of the commercial drone market will be growing at around 18.27%. Due to the reasons that it is being used for wide range of industries out of which construction, agriculture ad mining industry is the fastest growing industries using drones. For example; Non-model UAS are mainly used for real estate photography (45%) and agricultural industry (17%) for crop inspection applications.

Recent News:

Boeing rolled out Australia’s first Loyal Wingman combat drone.

On 5 May 2020; Boeing rolled out the first airpower teaming system unmanned aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force in May, 2020. The Loyal Wingman will be played critical role in exploring the critical capabilities to the Air Force needs in order to protect entire nation. Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is panning to buy three more drones from Boeing airpower teaming system which is a part of the loyal wingman advanced development program. In 2019, Boeing first introduced the Airpower Teaming System at the Australian International Airshow, which was the unveiled full-scale model of Boeing. Since then, the company has come forward to develop the first of three aircraft.

DJI has unveiled the latest drone to link its Mavic consumer range of flying machines.

On 28 April 2020; DJI has unveiled the latest drone to join its Mavic consumer range of flying machines. This drone is known as Mavic Air 2 which is the company's most advanced consumer drone. The Mavic Air 2 improves virtually everything to offer the best version to even the most novice pilot. DJI Company has also introduced a new photo capture technology called SmartPhoto which can be operated in three modes such as HDR, Hyperlight and Scene Recognition. In addition, the company has equipped additional sensors and lights which help the drone land automatically even when light conditions are not perfect. 

Top Trends Shaping the Future of Drone Industry:

• Drone Industry Trends 1- Counter drone technology:

Counter-drone technology is also called as counter-UAS or counter-UAV technology, are systems that are used to detect unmanned aircraft. In drone industry, the counter-drone technology is rapidly emerging, as security threats concerns are growing around the world. So that drones can pose significant entity to both civilian and military.  Currently, around 235 counter-drone products either on the market or under development. Counter-unmanned aircraft system (UAS) technologies are focusing on a defense sector. For example; The U.S. military is currently accepted multilayered counter-drone approaches to solve with the threat drones pose. The increased use of drone technology has resulted in a growing demand for counter drone systems to detect, identify and map them.

• Drone Industry Trends 2- Urban Air Mobility (UAM):

At present, half of the world’s population lives in urban areas generating about 75% of global GDP. Urban air mobility refers to the transport side of smart city initiatives. In the Europe, currently traffic congestion alone costs roughly USD 109.06 billion a year and is predicted to increase to roughly USD 327.19 billion per year by 2030. Drones play crucial role in the UAM as passenger and delivery drones will be beneficial for transporting people and goods in urban areas. At this point, drone industry companies are aimed at testing their platforms to acquire UAM technology approaches, while aviation agencies begin to hold new technological advancements in the commercial drone industry.

• Drone Industry Trends 3- Automation:

Nowadays, drone needs to be controlled remotely. The automation is rising at a fast pace in the field of launch and maintenance of UAVs. Automated drones refer as an automation platform which delivers drone agnostic software solutions to deploy fully automated & cloud-based commercial drones. Cloud connectivity with pre-built onboard intelligence modules and enhanced features offers all the essential building blocks for creating sophisticated drone applications such as warehouse-management, security & surveillance, agriculture crop inspections, emergency entities, etc.

• Drone Industry Trends 4- Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM):

The emergences of new aerial vehicle such as drones are changing the way of travelling. Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) has now become a critical component to allow new generation of aerial vehicles to safely enter at urban areas. Now drone industry working on UTM systems along with national airspace agencies to get situational awareness of emergencies like road accidents and oil leaks. High resolution real time videos from drones can be transmitted to the panel and control centre to help in determining road traffic guidance, traffic activity analysis and track individual vehicles. Drones can be combined with various types of components like HD camera and thermal camera for day and night.