Delivery drones are already in use today by small enterprises such as Zipline International (for the delivery of medical products in Africa). The forecast growth in delivery drone fleets is based in part on the strong interest expressed by large multinational companies such as Amazon, DHL and Google. Drones for delivery are attractive to manufacturers (Molina and Oña, 2018) as they have very substantial potential for long-term growth (EC, 2014 SESAR, 2016 Doole et al.,2018). Of the latter figure, 150 000 units are expected to be used in agriculture, 70 000 for delivery, 60 000 for public safety and security, 10 000 in the energy sector and 100 000 units in other growth sectors, such as media and mining and construction (SESAR, 2016). The number of commercial drones is forecast to rise rapidly, however, reaching projected sales in Europe of 200 000 units in 2025 and 395 000 units in 2035 (SESAR, 2016). In Europe, the estimated number of commercial drones operating in 2016 was 10 000 units, compared with 1-1.5 million consumer drone units (SESAR, 2016). Some specialised analysts consider that the global drone market could grow from USD 14 billion in 2018 to USD 43 billion in 2024 (Drone Industry Insights, 2019).Īt present, the sale of customer drones (for personal use) is much higher than that of commercial drones, which include delivery drones. In 2016, approximately 2.2 million drones were sold for personal and commercial use worldwide (Gartner, 2017). This potential is reflected in the exponential growth of drone-related markets recently, benefiting both manufacturers and service providers (Santamarina Campos, 2018). Such sectors include research, observation and monitoring, nature conservation, agriculture, emergency response for humanitarian action and civil protection, leisure, competitive sports, tourism and cultural heritage, cinema and photography. Emergency remote control enables an operator to activate manual operation of the drone at any time (Krishna et al., 2016 Brunner et al.,2018).ĭrone technology is evolving at a very fast pace and has increasing potential to compete successfully with more traditional alternatives in a number of sectors beyond retail and delivery. The autonomous mode is essential for delivery drones, as an individual pilot behind each drone would be too costly (Nentwich and Horváth, 2018a). Drones can be piloted remotely by an operator or fly automatically without any kind of human intervention. They can take the form of either an aeroplane with fixed wings or a helicopter using a tilt rotor system (Nentwich and Horváth, 2018a). The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) defines a drone as:Īn aircraft without a human pilot on board, whose flight is controlled either autonomously or under the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle.ĭrones can vary in size, speed, endurance and take-off weight (EC, 2014). Although often referred to as ‘remotely piloted aircraft systems’ or ‘unmanned aircraft/vehicles/systems’, drones are commonly defined simply as flying objects or ‘robots’ with no pilot on board (Santamarina Campos, 2018). Drones, originally developed and used for military purposes, have found applications in many civil sector areas during the last decade.
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