Blog Post #4 -Drones

EOTO Com Tech Timeline

When I say the word drone you probably think of the toy quadcopter with a camera on it that people use for fun but also for business.  If I were to say the word drone nine years ago you would have immediately thought of a Predator Drone that the military uses for surveillance and airstrikes.  

When consumer drones started out it was a very new technology that everyone was skeptical about.  As it is not clear who invented modern-day drones, pioneers of drones were the remote control (RC) aircraft hobbyists that would go fly every weekend.  Most hobbyists would fly RC planes or helicopters.  Drones are classified as quadcopters, helicopters, and even octocopters.  These pioneers started out calling drones by these names, based on how many propellers they had, as a way to get away from the big bad drone name.  

Then early adopters came along.  These were the people that were completely new to flying in general.  Early adopters could see the potential to use drones for areal photography and videography but the technology just wasn't there quite yet.  These people however were the ones to start normalizing the name drone, attaching it to something less scary than a Preditor.  At this point in time, companies were finding better ways to integrate cameras onto the drones creating one unified platform instead of keeping the two technologies separate.  

The early majority then hit when the market became flooded with drones.  The early majority were everyone from kids who got a drone for Christmas to retired people looking for something fun to do.  Everyone wanted to get their hands on one.  The technology was integrated with attaching a camera to the bottom but there was so much focus on the camera aspect that they forgot to advance the technology that mattered.  The fly-ability and control of the drone.  The early majority was hit with drones malfunctioning, flying away, or just up too hard to control.  

By the tipping point or the late adopters, the drone industry was not only use to the name drone but had also figured out how to produce a very versatile and put-together package.  Drones at this point had cameras on them that were better than your average consumer camera and were integrated to where there was no problems at all.  This allowed the late adopters to get straight into the drone scene whether it was for recreation or for business.  Several businesses started using drones for jobs or for media promotion.  This lead to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cracking down on laws and regulations.  At this point in time, the only laws were, a drone has to remain below 400ft in elevation, and that it has to be a mile and a half from any airport.  Several disagreements and lawsuits broke out regarding privacy laws in where people could fly.  

By the time the laggers got to drones the FAA had already put in place several laws determining who can do what and where.  Now that drones and the airspace were all cooperating together drones continued to take off, responsibly this time.  Modern drones have several safety features to ensure that people can fly safely with no training needed.  These safety features include GPS, multidirectional sensors, sonar, and even software that will not only inhibit an operator from flying too close to an airport but will also warn him/her about nearby manned aircraft that might pose a safety risk.  With all of these in place drones were finally mature enough for just about anyone to fly.  

After the FAA laws and regulations, people who wanted to operate a drone where they made a profit from doing so whether it was promotion or money had to get a special Unmanned Arial System pilots license.  This cracked down on the number of people who could produce media from a drone.  Overall however the modern-day consumer drone invention has really benefited the world in more than one way, allowing people to go out and produce new types of media for the world to see.  

Sources:

https://interestingengineering.com/a-brief-history-of-drones-the-remote-controlled-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-uavs

https://www.dronethusiast.com/history-of-drones/