First Person View

Have you ever wanted to fly? It is certainly possible to take a ride in an aircraft, but to get an unobstructed and first person view is unfortunately impossible. However, with the emergence of non-military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it may be possible to finally simulate the freedom of unrestricted flight.

Drones provide an excellent opportunity for equipment with advanced technological systems, including First Person View technology, abbreviated as FPV. This involves the outfitting of drones with high-quality cameras, broadcasting live video to the pilot. This enables the pilot to immerse themselves a surreal flying experience, giving them a view of the stunning vistas which can be observed in air, and allowing them to maneuver as they please. Consequently, the drones are able to fly through forests, and in smaller areas more efficiently. A gushing waterfall, a vibrant sunset over the ocean, and the depths of a deep gorge or canyon are all experiences available through FPV technology.

Now, if you think that the only use of FPV technology’s application is for sightseeing, you’d be mistaken. The creative and slightly eccentric members of the civilian drone community have created a new sport, FPV drone racing. In this thrilling sport, UAV users race each other through challenging courses in the first person, described a combination of flying and RC car racing. It has gained massive popularity in the United Kingdom and in California, where some enthusiasts have even created leagues in which they stand in a row, viewing and controlling through virtual-reality headsets. Yes, it may be an exclusive sport available only to those who can spare a small fortune for racing-quality drones, but is gaining massive worldwide attention and following.

Overall, FPV drone technology is an exciting and lucrative sector of civilian drone application. Its revolutionary impacts not only in pleasure and sport, but in aerial cinematography and photography will mean that drones will shed their reputation of being spying, militaristic tools to being recognized for their entertaining and exciting nature.

360° Camera Technology

All over YouTube, the most subscribed videographers have a knack for choosing high-quality and cutting edge technology to make the viewing experience better. From some investing in Hollywood grade cameras to document their mundane daily activities in Vlogs (think blogging, but documented in videos), to some pioneering various new technologies such as the formerly unknown selfie-stick and FPV drones, they have largely predicted and pioneered the trends of online entertainment. The next great thing on YouTube: the 360 Degree Camera.

When YouTube megastars Casey Neistat and Roman Atwood announced their partnership to document all 360 degrees of their lives, it didn’t seem like much. While being able to pan around their settings in all directions was novel, the image quality was grainy and the ideas were frankly unimpressive, such as showing the entire interior of a dirty airplane bathroom as a customer complaint, YouTuber style. However, this all changed when a firework accident was documented in Neistat’s Manhattan work loft, and it was captured in 4k, YouTube’s crispest resolution. The audience was stunned and exhilarated.

“You my friend just blew my mind!” exclaimed one.

“When watching this, I feel like I’m in your office right now! It is delighting to pan around your studio!” commented another enthusiastically.

Now, these are expensive cameras, and will likely be available to average consumers in the future. But, what if we were to attach these cameras on drones? It would be the closest thing to flying in real person; soaring through the air and panning about to observe the various sites in a full rotation of the viewer. The new high-quality versions of these cameras would be superb in documenting such footage, and the viewer experience would be one of a kind.

There are currently no plans to rig 360 degree cameras onto UAVs. However, the aforementioned YouTuber and businessman Casey Neistat has made hints to the idea, suggesting that other rigs for these cameras such as onto vehicles and drones would lead to cinematography in a reimagined scale of interactivity. And he is right; wouldn’t you want to experience a stunning wonder of the world or a scenic flight in high resolution without leaving your home? It’s an excellent idea, and would be marvelous to see implemented with drones in the future.

Complete Autonomy

Currently, the operation of drones is very labor intensive. Every action must be monitored carefully, even when performing basic data analysis jobs in the geometric, flat areas used for agriculture in America. Millions of military and civilian hours are pored over basic flight missions, and many have deemed it a massive waste of work hours. To address this problem, many solutions are being developed to grant complete autonomy to UAV users.

The military is the biggest proponent of autonomy for drones. With over 700 known drones in their fleet and many unregistered ones, they have to employ many thousands of pilots for constant operation. To save on the millions of dollars of salaries and benefits they must pay, they have sought a solution to create unmanned drones.

A solution for this problem would involve using GPS technologies to create flight patterns for drones. Commercial airplanes already use a basic form of this technology in the form of the autopilot, but a far more advanced and independent version with greater sensory information analysis would need to be created to fully remove humans from the process. Additionally, takeoff and landing are the most difficult aspects of flying. To tackle this, industrial-grade catapults are being deployed near the battlefront to use the principles of propulsion and to monitor physical forces with the intent of launching drones without the use of humans.

These technologies when combined will be instrumental in removing humans from drone operation. The cost saving measures sought by the military will be applicable in many other industry-related aspects of drone use, and complete autonomy will be an amazingly beneficial technology in the near future.

Avoidance Systems

Amazon’s announcement for the Amazon Prime Air service was one fraught with suspicion and amusement. Internet bloggers mercilessly mocked the service, humorously claiming that they would become ‘drone catchers’, marauding the drones for the potentially valuable contents inside. With this, Amazon realized that they had not considered a multitude of potentially harmful scenarios, and went on to create and patent the revolutionary ‘Sense and Avoid’ avoidance system to prevent collisions with objects, other UAVs, and even to repel and steer clear of attacks.

This software, if implemented, will a range of technologies to fulfil its needs. Firstly, Amazon’s patent included a range of compact sonar and laser sensors to prevent collisions. It is assumed that this, with the addition of highly detailed GPS technology and flight-tracking software for all drones could nearly eliminate the risk of crashes and accidents. Next, a large rotating laser viewfinder would be used as an extra level of protection against unnoticed obstacles.

And lastly, while Amazon is still in the process of formulating anti-marauder software, it is already evident that the use of heat-sensors will be key. Detection of body heat and of suspicious human activity will be key in avoiding robberies. If projectiles are fired at the Prime Air drones, basic versions of military anti-missile technology will likely be used, giving the drone a strategic shield to prevent it from being stricken by bullets or objects thrown at it.

The successful implementation of non-civilian drones is largely reliant on a sense of public goodwill and support which realistically does not exist. It will be in the best interests of mankind as a whole to promote and develop avoidance systems so that we can reap the substantial benefits of UAV implementation into various industries.

Piloting via Smartphone

As drone technology advances other technologies advance in parallel, such as more powerful smartphones to match more powerful drones. This means that people are starting to pair the two, turning drone piloting from something only for trained professionals or dedicated enthusiasts into a hobby that most people can practice with.

The use of smartphones allows for intuitive piloting using an accelerometer, or the use of a video stream to the phone that grants an exciting piloting experience. It also removes the need to carry a sometimes bulky control panel in favor of something that most people would have on them anyway, fitting neatly into a back pocket. As drone piloting moves to be more of an accessible hobby, there are also intuitive and useful programs that can be efficiently created and shared for smartphones using the infrastructure already put in place by the popularity of these devices.

GPS Tracking

GPS (global positioning system) tracking is used to pinpoint the location of an object that might otherwise need to attempt to locate itself with surrounding features, which can be difficult when the surrounding features are ocean as far as one could see or if the pilot is unfamiliar with the area. It uses an array of satellites and a lot of advanced math to accomplish this.

GPS navigation is used in car navigation systems, cell phones, airplanes, many boats, and also drones. In drones it is mostly be used on a professional level for flights that go far beyond where the pilot can have line of sight, in which case it helps by giving a precise reading on the drones current position, so that it can be navigated successfully to it’s destination without being lost. For example, a military drone pilot would use the onboard system to navigate the drone to its target over unknown areas without fear of getting lost.

If the drone does not have a pilot, it is unlikely it would be able to navigate using the surrounding landscape and a GPS system would be essential to complete it’s task, such as Amazon's package delivery drones knowing where the doorstep that they are headed to is.

Image Recognition

Most drones contain cameras that either record photos or videos, or stream them live to the ground. But as more and more drones are piloted by computers, there can’t always be a human receiving the media taken by the drone to interpret the images. It’s clear to see that having the ability to make programmes that are capable of searching through an image and identifying what it contains.

Image recognition programmes do just that, ranging from faces to places. It is used by everything from photo library programmes to sort photos based on things that would otherwise need to be tagged by a user, to government facial recognition used to identify people in videos or pictures taken from above by drones.

This is a relatively new technology and is therefore still developing, and it improves all the time. As it gets more and more powerful, it gains more potential applications. One example is that it could be used to automatically spot blights in fields from the sky, or wildfires before they spread to anything dangerous, giving an early warning that could save many billions of dollars. It could be used for drones to track criminals, removing the need for manhunts that put police into potential danger.