Why unmanned UAV application industry is growing slowly
The past three years have seen many launches of smart unmanned drone charging solutions. In addition to the cool cabinets, the solutions also integrate intelligent analytics systems. However, such a smart application has never seen the massive demands form the market.
As we all know, 70% of drone accidents are caused by man-made operations, a fully autonomous operation is much safer and more reliable. Besides, the cost of hiring a pilot is very high. The market has been long waiting for true unmanned UAV solutions, especially in scenarios where high-frequency flights are needed, such as transformer substations, seaports, mines, farms. But as the years passed, why is the unmanned drone charging solution industry still growing slowly.
After a thorough investigation, the author uncovers the true under the attractive and fascinating product marketing narratives.
The unmanned drone charging technology is yet to be improved, there are a lot of problems need to be solved, such as the telemetry (live video can be streamed back remotely and smoothly), the improvement of the intelligent cabinet (waterproof structure, weather sensors, etc.), data analysis and so on. However, these are not the most critical issues, after all, no product is perfect and all products need to be improved gradually. The two things that lead to development bottlenecks in unmanned drone charging solutions are the followings:
First, precision landing.
When promoting the drones, most manufacturers choose not to their precision landings technology. But this simple technology should be the most important key to a fully autonomous drone charging solution. It wouldn’t be a good product as long as the failure rate for accurate landing doesn’t fall below one in a thousand times, user experience is bad.
Imagine, if the drone carries out hundreds of missions, yet fails to return to the charging station once, how it can continue for the next mission? If requires a man to put the drone back into the charging station, will it still be called full autonomous operation?
How many solution providers can make it to fully autonomous operation? “More than 80 percent of the drones have failed to perform well in precision landing,” Said MD from HEISHA, after they have purchased drones from around the globe. No doubt, this bad user experience won’t persuade the users for continuous purchase. While the other 20% relies on DJI’s drone for precision landing rather than their technology.
The price of a drone charging solutions costs up from 50,000 USD, plus the large space it occupies, the cost would be higher. In many countries, such prices have led to a significant discount on the value they bring, and many customers will choose to continue hiring pilots.
The drone auto-charging industry is much like an early booming stage of the drone industry. A few years ago, a set of MICRODRONES drone costs $200,000, which has fewer functions than the current DJI MAVIC. I believe that with the development of technology, and the growth of the market, the drone auto charging solution manufactured on large-scale, that would lead to a substantial reduction in the cost. Moreover, some key components, such as the HEISHA charging pad, have already been mass-produced.
Bottlenecks will always be broken, the market will certainly thrive, but the key is to see who can take the lead, to be the first to make a stable product that can perform precision landing and the first one makes massive production and costs down.
