Drone Services Research Articles

Bloodstream: notes towards an anthropology of digital logistics in healthcare.

Based on ethnographic research in northern Ghana, this article explores the complex logistics of blood and the ways in which the availability of blood has been transformed through the introduction of drones. We explore how drone services affect this ecosystem of supply and contribute to reshaping the practices of physicians, nurses, facility pharmacists and stock managers, as well as the expectations and experiences of patients and their families. Situated at the interface of medical anthropology, critical studies of infrastructure and anthropological studies of digital innovations in healthcare, our paper attends to the emerging anthropological research on medical logistics as a means of connecting people with medical resources. It demonstrates the fundamentally ambivalent nature of technological innovation: on the one hand, drones have fueled health workers' hopes and transformed access to blood. On the other hand, their introduction has also led to connectivity without stock. In line with STS scholarship, we highlight the important role of the physical properties of objects such as blood in shaping their circulation.

Using Reinforcement Learning and Error Models for Drone Precise Landing

We propose a novel framework for achieving precision landing in drone services. The proposed framework consists of two distinct decoupled modules, each designed to address a specific aspect of landing accuracy. The first module is concerned with intrinsic errors, where new error models are introduced. This includes a spherical error model that takes into account the orientation of the drone. Additionally, we propose a live position correction algorithm that employs the error models to correct for intrinsic errors in real time. The second module focuses on external wind forces and presents an aerodynamics model with wind generation to simulate the drone’s physical environment. We utilize reinforcement learning to train the drone in simulation with the goal of landing precisely under dynamic wind conditions. Experimental results, conducted through simulations and validated in the physical world, demonstrate that our proposed framework significantly increases landing accuracy while maintaining a low onboard computational cost.

GALTrust: Generative Adverserial Learning-Based Framework for Trust Management in Spatial Crowdsourcing Drone Services

GALTrust: Generative Adverserial Learning-Based Framework for Trust Management in Spatial Crowdsourcing Drone Services

Corporate Valuation of Indonesian Drone Service Company: Case Study of PT Kelana Geospasial

Indonesia's drone industry is expanding rapidly, fueled by significant investments and the growing necessity of drone technology in agriculture, offshore mining, and aerial photography. The global and Asian drone markets are also on the rise, with a projected 7.1% CAGR increase driven by industrial use and substantial investments. However, valuing Indonesian drone businesses is difficult due to their intangible assets and the startup nature of many companies, which focus more on value creation than financial stability. Established in 2016, PT Kelana Geospatial (PT KG) utilizes Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology for aerial mapping services and collaborates with sectors like agriculture, offshore mining, and aerial photography. They also offer UAV pilot certification and sell related products and parts. Despite their diverse offerings, PT KG faces stagnant growth and needs to enhance productivity with existing resources. The management struggles with valuing potential mergers, maintaining clear financial records, and addressing industry risks. PT KG's growth is mainly driven by mapping and maintenance services, although product sales have declined. Despite an improving financial situation, high production costs and expenses challenge profitability. While positive GPM and OPM indicate potential, NPM remains negative. Recommendations include expanding services, boosting efficiency, and leveraging technology and partnerships. By utilizing These strategies could foster sustainable growth and increase PT KG's enterprise value, currently estimated at IDR 3.84 billion.

Secure session key pairing and a lightweight key authentication scheme for liable drone services

Recent advancements in drone technology have created new application opportunities, particularly for small drones. However, these advancements raise concerns about security, adaptability, and consistency. Data security is jeopardized by flying intelligent devices. The distributed nature of drones, their accessibility, mobility, adaptability, and autonomy will all have an effect on how security vulnerabilities and threats are identified and controlled. However, attackers and cybercriminals have begun to employ drones for malevolent reasons in recent years. These attacks are frequent and can be fatal. There is also the matter of prevention to consider. The communication entities of the drone network can communicate securely via authentication procedures. Such solutions, however, must strike a balance between security and portability. However, the proposed technique is implemented to improve security to avoid attacks and provides a secure, lightweight, and proven solution to a key agreement for drone communication. A novel certificate-less Drone integration approach that depends on trusted authorities centres to help communication entities establish their key pairs while keeping those same trusted authorities centers from knowing about them has been devised. The proposed scheme results achieved higher security of 94 percent than existing schemes.

Challenges for the Routine Application of Drones in Healthcare: A Scoping Review

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have emerged as transformative tools in the healthcare sector, offering the potential to revolutionize medical logistics, emergency response, and patient care. This scoping review provides a comprehensive exploration of the diverse applications of drones in healthcare, addressing critical gaps in existing literature. While previous reviews have primarily focused on specific facets of drone technology within the medical field, this study offers a holistic perspective, encompassing a wide range of potential healthcare applications. The review categorizes and analyzes the literature according to key domains, including the transport of biomedical goods, automated external defibrillator (AED) delivery, healthcare logistics, air ambulance services, and various other medical applications. It also examines public acceptance and the regulatory framework surrounding medical drone services. Despite advancements, critical knowledge gaps persist, particularly in understanding the intricate interplay between technological challenges, the existing regulatory framework, and societal acceptance. This review highlights the need for the extensive validation of cost-effective business cases, the development of control techniques that can address time and resource savings within the constraints of real-life scenarios, the design of crash-protected containers, and the establishment of corresponding tests and standards to demonstrate their conformity.

Exploring factors affecting the adoption and continuance usage of drone in healthcare: The role of the environment.

Drone technologies and healthcare delivery have attracted scholarly attention over the years. Studies have acknowledged the positive impact of the adoption and usage of drone technologies for healthcare delivery. We argue however that, knowledge is lacking on the role of the environment in drone technologies adoption, usage and continuance usage. An examination of 330 health facilities that engage in the use of drone services from Zipline Ghana showed that the environment inversely moderates the relationship between actual usage and intention to continue usage, suggesting that reducing the influence of environmental factors will increase the impact actual usage has on the continuance usage of drone technology in healthcare delivery.

A Conceptual Framework for Economic Analysis of Different Law Enforcement Drones

The widespread use of drones in various fields has initiated a discussion on their cost-effectiveness and economic impact. This article analyzes in detail a methodological evaluation framework for the levelized cost of drone services for law enforcement purposes. Based on the data availability, we compared two vehicles: Phantom 4 Pro and Thunder-B. Moreover, we calculated their levelized costs per surveillance time and trip distance. Our approach helps users calculate the real costs of their vehicles’ services and produce equations for rapid estimations. We observed economies of scale for time and distance and showed differentiations per aircraft capacity. Furthermore, using the produced equations, we formulated a case study and compared the costs in a 4 km area constantly monitored by the two types of drones to support the best vehicle selection. We found that the Phantom 4 Pro costs less than the Thunder-B drone, for example. Thus, we demonstrate how, by applying this methodology beforehand, decision makers can select the most appropriate vehicle for their needs based on cost. Cost research estimations will improve UAV use and will help policymakers include UAV technology in crime prevention programs, especially when more data are available.

FARM AUTOMATION IN PADDY PLANTATION: CASE OF KEDAH

Today’s paddy cultivation is more advanced and efficient than in the past. Various advanced technologies used by paddy operators to ensure the paddy plantation process become efficient and provide high quality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the application of current technology in paddy plantation and explore the management of drones in paddy plantations in Kedah. In this sense, a 9,425 km2 region surrounding Kedah was chosen as the study area. Kedah is among the states with the most paddy crops in Malaysia. The questionnaire was distributed among the farmers in Kedah to gather statistics and information on how they manage their paddy plantation. In gathering correct information about the use of drone technology and the energy required for rice farming, drone service providers were also contacted and interviewed. The results of this study demonstrated that the process of planting rice involves highly automated technologies. It also revealed that farmers in Kedah were using mechanisation technology effectively. The government should make aggressive efforts to improve the role of mechanised technology to assist in achieving the nation's rice supply targets.

Reframing Civil–Military Relations in the EU: Insights From the Drone Strategy 2.0

AbstractIn November 2022, the European Commission presented its Drone Strategy 2.0 with two main objectives: to build the European Union's (EU's) drone service market and to strengthen the Union's civil, security and defence industry capabilities and synergies. From the Commission's perspective, accelerating the integration of drones in Europe's airspace has the potential to enable progress on numerous policy objectives, such as the green transition, urban mobility, industrial renewal and cutting‐edge R&D in the civil–military domain. In this commentary, though, we argue that the Strategy is indicative of wider contemporary trends in EU policy‐making regarding cross‐cutting policy agendas, industry‐centred R&D ambitions and the identification and promotion of infrastructural goals enabling further civil–military co‐operation. These tendencies capture the growing importance of dual‐use technologies, both in society at large and in the security and military domains. This is particularly relevant in the current European context of growing military expenditure with the war in Ukraine.

Delivery network design of a locker-drone delivery system

ABSTRACT Drones are increasingly used for last-mile delivery due to their speed and cost-effectiveness. This study focuses on a novel locker-drone delivery system, where trucks transport parcels from the warehouse to lockers, and drones complete the final delivery. This system is ideal for community and intra-facility logistics. The research optimises the network design by determining the location of lockers, the number of drones at each locker, and the assignment of demands to lockers, minimising operating costs. Both single-parcel and multi-parcel capacity drones are examined. We build an optimisation model for each system, considering drone service capacity as a critical constraint. We design an algorithm combining average sample approximation and a genetic algorithm to address demand uncertainty. The algorithm's efficiency is validated through comparative analysis with Gurobi. Numerical experiments, using real and generated data, optimise the network design. Results show that the multi-capacity drone system requires fewer lockers and drones than the single-capacity system. Although the single-capacity system yields lower drone delivery costs, it incurs higher truck delivery costs. Additionally, a comprehensive cost analysis compares the cost-efficiency of the locker-drone system with a conventional drone delivery system, revealing the cost-saving advantage of the locker-drone system.

Unlocking Drone Potential in the Pharma Supply Chain: A Hybrid Machine Learning and GIS Approach

In major metropolitan areas, the growing levels of congestion pose a significant risk of supply chain disruptions by hindering surface transportation of commodities. To address this challenge, cargo drones are emerging as a potential mode of transport that could improve the reliability of the pharmaceutical supply chain and enhance healthcare. This study proposes a novel hybrid workflow that combines machine learning and a geographic information system to identify the fewest locations where providers can initiate cargo drone services to yield the greatest initial benefits. The results show that by starting a service in only nine metropolitan areas across four regions of the contiguous United States, drones with a robust 400-mile range can initially move more than 28% of the weight of all pharmaceuticals. The medical community, supply chain managers, and policymakers worldwide can use this workflow to make data-driven decisions about where to access the largest opportunities for pharmaceutical transport by drones. The proposed approach can inform policies and standards such as Advanced Air Mobility to help address supply chain disruptions, reduce transportation costs, and improve healthcare outcomes.

Digital Twin Development for the Airspace of the Future

The UK aviation industry is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 through sustainable measures and one of the key aspects of this effort is the implementation of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems. These UTM systems play a crucial role in enabling the safe and efficient integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the airspace. As part of the Airspace of the Future (AoF) project, the development and implementation of UTM services have been prioritised. This paper aims to create an environment where routine drone services can operate safely and effectively. To facilitate this, a digital twin of the National Beyond Visual Line of Sight Experimentation Corridor has been created. This digital twin serves as a virtual replica of the corridor and allows for the synthetic testing of unmanned traffic management concepts. The implementation of the digital twin involves both simulated and hybrid flights with real drones. Simulated flights allow for the testing and refinement of UTM services in a controlled environment. Hybrid flights, on the other hand, involve the integration of real drones into the airspace to assess their performance and compatibility with the UTM systems. By leveraging the capabilities of UTM systems and utilising the digital twin for testing, the AoF project aims to advance the development of safer and more efficient drone operations. The Experimentation Corridor has been developed to simulate and test concepts related to managing unmanned traffic. The paper provides a detailed account of the implementation of the digital twin for the AoF project, including simulated and hybrid flights involving real drones.

Analysis of airport design for introducing infrastructure for autonomous drones

PurposeConnecting autonomous drones to ground operations and services is a prerequisite for the adoption of scalable and sustainable drone services in the built environment. Despite the rapid advance in the field of autonomous drones, the development of ground infrastructure has received less attention. Contemporary airport design offers potential solutions for the infrastructure serving autonomous drone services. To that end, this paper aims to construct a framework for connecting air and ground operations for autonomous drone services. Furthermore, the paper defines the minimum facilities needed to support unmanned aerial vehicles for autonomous logistics and the collection of aerial data.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the state-of-the-art in airport design literature as the basis for analysing the guidelines of manned aviation applicable to the development of ground infrastructure for autonomous drone services. Socio-technical system analysis was used for identifying the service needs of drones.FindingsThe key findings are functional modularity based on the principles of airport design applies to micro-airports and modular service functions can be connected efficiently with an autonomous ground handling system in a sustainable manner addressing the concerns on maintenance, reliability and lifecycle.Research limitations/implicationsAs the study was limited to the airport design literature findings, the evolution of solutions may provide features supporting deviating approaches. The role of autonomy and cloud-based service processes are quintessentially different from the conventional airport design and are likely to impact real-life solutions as the area of future research.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provided a framework for establishing the connection between the airside and the landside for the operations of autonomous aerial services. The lack of such framework and ground infrastructure has hindered the large-scale adoption and easy-to-use solutions for sustainable logistics and aerial data collection for decision-making in the built environment.Social implicationsThe evolution of future autonomous aerial services should be accessible to all users, “democratising” the use of drones. The data collected by drones should comply with the privacy-preserving use of the data. The proposed ground infrastructure can contribute to offloading, storing and handling aerial data to support drone services’ acceptability.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper describes the first design framework for creating a design concept for a modular and autonomous micro-airport system for unmanned aviation based on the applied functions of full-size conventional airports.

Future Trends in UAV Applications in the Australian Market

The world has been proactively seeking solutions to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus since 2020. A major defensive action is implementing contactless services into everyday activities to reduce viral spread. Drones can provide contactless services in transporting goods and medical supplies, thus reducing the risk of spreading the virus. This paper aims to investigate the future trends of commercial uses for drones in Australia in the next five years. It will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) industry and its different applications in Australia over the same timeframe; it also considers whether the use of drones in medical services will increase due to the epidemic. Primary data are gathered and evaluated to consider these issues, supported by a set of secondary data. The research aims to provide a holistic direction for the UAV industry, and in particular, for the Australian drone service providers and regulator to modify their operation strategies.

Strategic Planning for Drone Company in Indonesia (Case: PT Terra Drone Indonesia)

Terra Drone Indonesia has the vision to be the No. 1 drone service company in Southeast Asia and contribute to the nation’s sustainable growth. The drone business condition in Indonesia is getting tight with competition and regulation. A new strategic plan should be proposed to answer the vision of Terra Drone Indonesia. Understand drone business opportunities to explore more for Indonesia’s drone industry business issues. The internal environment (SWOT Analysis) and the external environment (5 forces, PESTEL) will be a study for the proposed business strategy. The feasibility study and new business strategy comparison analysis turn into a strategy implementation for Terra Drone Indonesia. 2 new drone businesses might be applicable in Indonesia. Those are Drone spraying and Drone light show businesses. These 2 applications also the drone services that can comply with the waiver drone operation in Indonesia. Drone Spraying complies with a specific airspace operation and drone light show is more than one drone operation. New business strategic planning should be arranged by TDID as a more narrow Strategy. Based on the analysis, drone light show business fit more. Low competition and higher financial projections are the key points compared to the drone spraying business. The implementation plan should be monitored well to make sure the new strategy solves the problem.

Multisensor Avionics Architecture for BVLOS Drone Services

This ADACORSA demonstrator focuses on the implementation of a fail-operational avionics architecture combining Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) elements from the automotive, the aerospace and the artificial intelligence world. A collaborative sensor setup (Time-of-Flight camera and FMCW RADAR from Infineon Technologies, stereo camera, LiDAR, IMU and GPS) allows to test heterogeneous sensor fusion solutions. A Tricore Architecture on AURIX™ Microcontroller supports the execution of safety supervision tasks as well as data fusion. A powerful embedded computer platform (NVIDIA Jetson Nano) accelerates AI algorithms performance and data processing. Furthermore, an FPGA enables power optimization of Artificial Neural Networks. Finally, a Pixhawk open-source flight controller ensures stabilization during normal flight operation and provides computer vision software modules allowing further processing of the captured, filtered and optimized environmental data. This paper shows various hardware and software implementations highlighting their emerging application within BVLOS drone services.

AI Wings: An AIoT Drone System for Commanding ArduPilot UAVs

Recent advances in drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have enabled many innovative applications, such as package delivery, reconnaissance, and search and rescue, to name a few. In this article, we propose AI wings, an artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) drone system for commanding multiple unmanned aerial vehicles and deploying AI models. We integrated ArduPilot with the Android mobile platform, which equips DIY drones with AI computing power and 4G/5G connectivity. Embedded control software is developed to cooperate with the AI Wings cloud. Users can easily convert ArduPilot drones into AIoT drones using Android phones, and connect to a cloud server to create their own Internet of Drones. Our cloud server is also integrated with the drone simulation software AirSim for simulating drone missions in virtual reality (VR) worlds. The virtual simulation enables users to test software/hardware configurations as well as train AI models. Moreover, to ensure secure communication, we propose an authentication protocol based on elliptic-curve cryptography with pseudoidentities and time freshness check. In summary, AI Wings provides a cloud server for commanding drone fleets securely, software/hardware design for AIoT drones, and VR simulation for training and testing AI models. Users can install the AI models on the drones directly. To test the system, we built an experimental medical drone service, which delivers an automated external defibrillator to people with a sudden cardiac attack in the shortest time possible.

Tackling different aspects of drone services utilizing technologies from cross-sectional industries

Enabling autonomous and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the Very Low Level (VLL) airspace requires further advancement of technologies such as sensing the environment or secure and reliable communication. This paper addresses these challenges by presenting solutions developed within the project Airborne Data Collection on Resilient System Architectures (ADACORSA). Here, findings from cross-sectional areas such as the automotive industry are being further enhanced to fulfill the demands of aviation, in particular for use in the UAV domain. The developed technologies include an advanced Ethernet-based deterministic network for reliable onboard communication, a multi-sensor architecture for sensing the spatial environment as well as a multi-link communication gateway that provides reliable communication to the ground and a secure handover architecture.

Drone Services, Surveying, and Free Speech: The Dilemma

Professional engineering and surveying registration boards are being challenged to balance the need to protect life, safety, and welfare against the work that has traditionally been conducted by licensed professionals. Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) capabilities have increased dramatically and have disrupted the surveying sector. These systems provide high-resolution images and enable the collection of accurate data. Today, many aerial photography firms utilize UASs to conduct flyovers, capturing images that can be further processed to produce a desired output for their customer. The scope of services varies depending on the customer, who at times requests the identification of their own parcels with metadata, including coordinates derived using Global Navigation Satellite Systems. In addition, by processing the data with appropriate software one can approximate the volume of materials on site, approximate parcel boundaries, and related information such as utilities. The challenge for registration boards is to determine if these tasks, as well as others, are required to be performed by licensed personnel. Over the past several years boards have been challenged in interpreting the tasks requiring licensure. The intent of this article is to present a review of relatively recent cases that have caused consternation among the surveying community. The question to answer is whether professional registration boards can require licensing to perform these and other similar tasks and, at the same time, prevent a company from disseminating its work. One case relies on statutory interpretation whereas the two other cases rely on the right to free speech protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.