Monday, 28 August 2017

Drone Sales Taking Off

Over 3 million drones are expected to be sold in the U.S. 2017, with 4.45 million forecast to be sold in 2018.

This data comes from The Consumer Technology Association via the Axios article Demand for Drones is Exploding. The chart below (click to enlarge) is from the article.

Drone sales

Most of these drones are for personal use, but a growing number are being used in business. Examples include real estate and insurance photography and broadcast TV. 

More advanced applications are also starting to happen, including 3D mapping and the inspection industrial equipment such as power lines, train tracks and dams.

We recently toured the facilities at the University North Dakota's Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

The first thing we learned is real drone people don't call them drones, they are unmanned aircraft systems, or "UAS". 

And every time we said "drone", they looked at us quizzically and asked "do you mean UAS?". 

We also learned the University of North Dakota was the first to offer degree programs in unmanned aircraft systems and has the largest drone pilot training program outside the military. 

They are also doing extensive research on drones and helped developed the Grand Sky Business Park, the nation's first (and maybe only) business park focused on drones.

There's no doubt the use of drones (oops ... unmanned aircraft systems) is going to continue to grow at a rapid clip.  There are simply too many solid business use cases for this not to happen.



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