Nowadays drones appear as an innovative tool with many possibilities. One of the known uses of drones is as messaging tool for transporting products. According with this use, as my colleagues mentioned before, Amazon is working on the Prime Air program where the drones are used to deliver its products to the customers. But, can drones be used for another purpose?
At present, there are many companies which offers different services related with the use of drones. Being a flightless element with suitable proportions for carrying cameras and sensors, drones are used to take aerial images and videos. In the agricultural sector, drones are used for taking pictures of the field, create 3D maps, or for phytosanitary treatments. Drones can also be used as operational support to replace the use of helicopter monitoring for prevention and control of fires, people search or first aid transport, among others.
Figure 1. Phytosanitary treatment with drone. Source: Reproduced from <http://www.dronetools.es/control-de-plagas-y-tratamientos-fitosanitarios/>
The different uses of drones explained before help the logistics of the companies. A drone reduces time of delivery and costs, improves the treatment of the field, generates more security and, in general, improves life of people.
One interesting application of drones is the delivery of drugs to remote places where the people can’t achieve medicines in winter due to the snow, or because they need to travel a lot of kilometers to arrive to a pharmacy, or maybe because they are too old. This is an interesting example where a technology facilitates the distribution and at the same time the life of people.
References:
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011
http://xn--airdroneespaa-tkb.com/
http://www.dronetools.es/aplicaciones/
http://www.dronplanet.com/servicios-drone/
Aurea Jordán
The blog of Logistics at MGEPS at UPV 