Drone output includes volumetric analysis data, like this image from Identified Technologies.

We asked some of the top drone solutions firms where they see the technology in three to five years. How will drone technology improve? How will it change? Here a few of their answers.

AEROVISTA

“We predict that the FAA will remove some of the barriers to entry in airspace that will enable widespread adoption. The equipment will continue to improve with increased flight time, obstacle avoidance and ease of operation — but the need for proficient pilots will not go away.”

AIRWARE

“Drones are going to become the norm. We predict that at least one major mining enterprise will begin a large-scale commercial drone deployment by the end of 2017, and two major construction companies will do so. From a technological perspective, we expect major advances to be driven by integration and automation. Until very recently, drones have been used primarily as stand-alone tools.”

DRONOMY

“There is no doubt that drones for construction will become an important and fundamental tool in almost every project — similar to how enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems became a basic system for every manufacturing project. It will be about the analytics capabilities, breadth of solutions, ease-of-use, vertical and horizontal integrations of such solutions to make them successful.”

IDENTIFIED TECHNOLOGIES

“The drone industry is leaning away from hardware and toward data processing and analytics. The reason for this is that the basic drone hardware is increasingly commoditized. The real value to businesses is no longer in the drone flying and capturing data, but in everything that comes afterwards. Also, the IOT trend will only increase as companies strive to continually increase their efficiency by tracking, automating, and optimizing every single thing happening on their job sites.”

KESPRY

“We’ll see greater autonomy in the workflow, removing the need for repeat tasks, lowering the bar of accessibility without compromising performance, and the retooling of traditionally manual of physical jobs to include operation and management of workplace technology solutions. This will evolve into artificial intelligence and machine learning that will allow users to draw greater value from their systems and enhance the data outputs. We will also see significant advances in industry specific applications around particular use cases that will augment the human potential of employees.”

Read about these drone companies and more in our FREE guide on drones/UAVs: