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DRONES BIG DATA & CLOUD SERVICESUnderstanding the impact that small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) will have on the future of business.

August 6, 2014Prepared by:

Colin Snow

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Table of Contents In this blog I discuss what I believe is the largest impact: big data cloud-based services.

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Hardware is already a commodity

Software isn’t the differentiator either

The greater value is in the data captured

Big farms mean big data Cloud-based services are the future

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Hardware is already a commodity

For buyers it’s a question of how much you’re willing to spend

What is considered an innovation today gets quickly mass-produced tomorrow.

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Hardware is already a commodity

What is considered an innovation today gets quickly mass-produced tomorrow.

Today, much of the buzz about drones is focused on the technology itself – their components, their payload capacity, how fast they fly, how long they stay up, the latest camera, etc. But honestly, those are quickly becoming non-differentiated product features. What is considered an innovation today– such as a stabilization gyro or avionic CPU –gets quickly mass-produced in Taiwan, China, or Mexico tomorrow.

Airframe materials are generally the same—made of tried and true materials like light-weight shapeable foam and carbon fiber. For the buyer, it’s more a question of how much you’re willing to spend — like with a bicycle or laptop.

For buyers it’s a question of how much you’re willing to spend

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Software isn’t the differentiator either

For all drones, the interaction between the user and the aircraft is mediated by software.

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Software isn’t the differentiator either

The quality of the pilot experience can be driven by the features and the quality of software implementation, but this, too, is quickly becoming commoditized.

For example, consumer-level vendors like 3DRobitics, DJI, and MikroKopter have software running at “ground level” for mission planning. The basic feature set includes: setting altitude, waypoints, speed, camera angles, and capture points.

All vendors import Google Earth to help with that, and what once was done on a notebook PC and ‘uploaded’ to the aircraft prior to mission start is now performed on a tablet in real-time.

Surely in the months ahead, usability will increase as planning software begins to import 3D models and perform pre-flight simulations, but that too will be a common feature across vendors.

FAA regulations and public sentiment aside, we could, in fact, see Jeff Bezos’ vision of ‘Amazon Prime Air’ drone delivery technically feasible soon enough.

For all drones, the interaction between the user and the aircraft is mediated by software.

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The greater value is in the data captured

Because small drones can fly at low-altitude, they make perfect precision image and data capture vehicles.

Good cameras are now small enough, light enough, and cheap enough to mount on a drone

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The greater value is in the data captured

Because small drones can fly at low-altitude, they make perfect precision image and data capture vehicles.

Right now, it’s more efficient to fly an inexpensive drone over a large land area than it is to traverse it in a vehicle — and even more efficient than sending out an expensive multi-person surveying team. Keep in mind a digital photograph or video is not simply an image or composite of images. Rather, it is the result of processing visual light (blue, green, and red) as a binary numeric representation of a two-dimensional image—in other words, light becomes digital data.

As cameras become more resolute, the amount of data captured goes up — as does the potential value of those images. But prices are coming down. For example, what once was available a few years ago only from a high-value satellite image service provider now comes from a drone affixed with a consumer level camera and off-the-shelf PC software. The software can automatically build textured 3D models from still images. And then there’s infrared cameras. They are now small enough, light enough, and cheap enough to mount on a drone. Infrared cameras don’t just let you see differences in heat; they let you measure those differences. So, there’s even more valuable data to evaluate.

Good cameras are now small enough, light enough, and cheap enough to mount on a drone

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Big farms mean big data

Small drones are agile enough to provide ‘anywhere, anytime’ remote access.

Drone images provide valuable information that can be used to improve farm productivity.

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Big farms mean big data

Small drones are agile enough to provide ‘anywhere, anytime’ remote access.

Dr. Kevin Price of Kansas State University says that about 80% of the money that will be spent on unmanned aerial vehicles in the next 10 years will be spent in the area of agriculture.

Agriculture applications for drones currently in development include data collection on:

• crop health• vigor and yields• tracking the spread of invasive

plant species• monitoring cattle feedlots

Field images from cameras mounted on drones can be captured within an inch of accuracy. You can’t get that from a satellite or commercial aircraft image.

Small drones are agile enough to provide ‘anywhere, anytime’ remote access. That means farmers and ranchers can do daily surveys to find exactly the right time to harvest or replenish feed stock. Similarly, changes over time can be equally revealing. By doing regular surveys and using software to highlight differences over time, it’s possible to zero in on anomalies. This valuable information, of course, can be used to improve productivity.

Drone images provide valuable information that can be used to improve farm productivity.

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Cloud-based services are the future of drones

The first thing you need to realize is that flying a drone and taking pictures is merely the first step in the data collection process. Images need to be corrected, calibrated, processed, stored, and evaluated.

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Cloud-based services are the future of drones

The first thing you need to realize is that flying a drone and taking pictures is merely the first step in the data collection process. Images need to be corrected, calibrated, processed, stored, and evaluated.

You can buy a decent image-capture drone off the shelf for about $1200 US, but that doesn’t make you an image information specialist.

For precision agriculture, data quality and post-processing are critical to getting real value from the images. And helping the customer attain that value is the role of a data services provider.

Already PrecisionHawk offers a service they call PrecisionMapper, “a cloud-based application that gives anyone the ability to upload, store, process, and share their aerial image data.”

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Cloud-based services are the future of drones

The first thing you need to realize is that flying a drone and taking pictures is merely the first step in the data collection process. Images need to be corrected, calibrated, processed, stored, and evaluated.

By gathering data on a large scale over time, service providers will be able to process unprecedented levels of detail data and turn it into usable information for farmers.

This vision is confirmed in a recent article where PrecisionHawk’spresident Ernest Earon says:

“the company views itself as a data company, rather than a drone company. He envisions an “app store” model that would allow, say, somebody in North Dakota with a top-notch algorithm for detecting potato blight, to license it to other farmers.”

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Takeaway

There you have it. This is the future of small drones and I suspect as their use and applications increase niche service providers will flourish. And as they flourish these firms will differentiate themselves based on processing speed and the salience of their insights. Certainly the use of a cloud-based in-memory computing platform to accelerate analytics, processes, and predictive capabilities will be foundational to that differentiation.

Feel free to leave a comment telling me about your interest in this innovation.

Write:

colin@droneanalyst.com

Follow:

@droneanalyst

Web:

www.droneanalyst.com

Niche service providers will flourish

Differentiation will be based on speed and insights

Providers will use in-memory computing and predictive analytics