Flying high
Drone firms find not even sky’s the limit
New Zealand’s commercial drone manufacturers are successfully finding niche markets as the potential for the unmanned flying machines takes off.
Several Kiwi companies are finding specialised uses for drones, which are saving companies time and money.
Currently, 70 per cent of commercial drones are used for aerial photography, 8 per cent for power line inspection and 2 per cent for agricultural work, according to information provided by UAVNZ.
The industry body’s chairman, Andy Grant, said there was “huge” potential for drone use in core New Zealand industries such as agriculture, construction and forestry.
For example, Grant’s company ASG Technologies has developed a drone capable of carrying out forestry work in six minutes that would ordinarily take six workers up to a day.
Instead of requiring workers to haul 1km of steel rope above felled trees in order for them to be collected , ASG’s drone — one of the largest industrial drones in the country — is able to carry 14kg of rope the entire distance in a single flight.
The savings in time and money were enormous, Grant said.
The drone in question was currently being used by forestry company Hancock Forest Management.
Drones are also being used to inspect tall buildings and other inaccessible infrastructure, something that had proven extremely useful in the Christchurch rebuild.
Farmers, too, could be saving hours and thousands of dollars using drones for spraying, observation, stock management and, potentially, preventing cattle rustling by automatically sending out a drone when an animal is stolen from its paddock.
“The agricultural stuff, when you consider New Zealand, that is really, really low-hanging fruit,” Grant said.
Two major drone manufacturers in this country were Altus Intelligence, which provided drones to American news giant CNN, and Raglan company Aeronavics, which had been successfully making drones that perform specialist tasks, Grant said.
There are also a number of smaller and hobbyist drone makers that regularly come up with new and innovative technologies.
Commercial drones could cost anywhere between $4000 to $50,000, while recreational drones could be picked up for under $100, Grant said. New Zealand companies were looking at the emerging technology of “tethered” drones; aircraft connected to an operating box by a thin wire allowing them to fly for hours, even days. without needing the battery to be charged. Another growing sector was survey work, using drones to produce 3D models accurate to within a few centimetres with the aircraft taking an image every few of seconds. “This technique was . . . used to produce a 3D model of an air accident site and to quickly map the relative location of all of the crashed aircraft parts,” Grant said. The software could also seamlessly stitch together thousands of high-resolution pictures to create images of vast areas. One real estate company had become registered with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and established an in-house drone operation.
“An aerial overview is quickly becoming a required offering in real estate marketing.”
The next major breakthrough in drone technology would be when drones were allowed to work beyond the line of sight of operators, something that was being trialled in a dedicated drone airspace in Canterbury.
“The speed of development in the drone-sector is breathtaking,” Grant said.
“The drones themselves are almost daily increasing in payload capacity, endurance and range.
“Their on-board sensors are increasing in sophistication and they are becoming progressively more autonomous.”
Within 20 to 30 years, drones the size of 787 aircraft would come into existence, he said.
New Zealand’s regulations around drone use are more relaxed than elsewhere in the world, because of updated civil aviation rules which were introduced in 2015.
“If you could dream it, and prove you could do it safely with a drone, you were allowed to do it,” Grant said.
To date, the CAA has issued certificates to 92 New Zealand companies to operate drones.
Airways New Zealand, the country’s air traffic controller, has also been involved in creating the foundations of a drone traffic management system.
The agricultural stuff, when you consider New Zealand, that is really, really lowhanging fruit. Andy Grant, UAVNZ chairman