Local circles see the majority of drone deployments being implemented in areas such as border surveillance, disaster monitoring and agriculture, according to a survey of the top 5 years of drone use.
Community and consumer platform Local Circle said that only 23% of respondents see drone deliveries being used for ecommerce, food and drug delivery. Additionally, only 6% of respondents indicated they would be willing to pay for drone delivery on such orders, while nearly 87% of respondents said they “wouldn’t want to pay anything extra.”
This comes as fast commerce, ecommerce and logistics players are testing drones for last mile delivery, especially on a chargeable basis.
A major challenge for drone delivery plans is the DGCA regulation that limits all drone operations to visual line of sight (VLOS). This requires pilots to maintain direct visual contact with drones, limiting their range compared to Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), which allows control beyond the pilot’s line of sight.
In 2022, the government allowed private players to use drones for delivery purposes subject to compliance. Previously, the government has been using drones in recent years for tasks such as inspecting oil pipelines, power lines, anti-locust operations, agricultural spraying, and land and mine surveys.
This is reiterated when about 91% of LocalCircles survey respondents still see drone deployments to be driven by surveillance and border security, while 80% of respondents see disaster monitoring and relief as key emerging use cases.
About 47% of respondents see drones being used for surveillance in cities, while 30% see them being used to monitor farms for crop health and spray them with fertilizers and pesticides, measuring accurate doses and producing yield estimates.