The word “drone” can bring up a lot of heated debate. On one hand, there are many strong arguments against drone usage, and certainly it’s difficult to get into that conversation when drones are involved in situations where people die. It’s important to note, though, that drones are not just for deployment in a military context, but can also be put to work in more positive ways.

We at Exygy recently started thinking about these issues when we were introduced to a drone company as a potential client. They stated they provided “drones-as-a service” to enterprises to allow customers to “access data, video, and imagery via drone without the cost, liability, and time of owning drones or selecting service providers.” In the end we passed on the job because we weren’t sure a drone service fit into what we call our “good client matrix.”

However, in many areas, drones are not only being used for day-to-day practical purposes, but they may actually be helping to save people. The beneficial aspects of drone usage make the debate significantly more complicated, so these issues need to be taken into account when making decisions about how to handle public policy and regulation.

The beneficial aspects of drone usage make the debate significantly more complicated

Drones Can Save Lives

Naturally the drone-related death toll cannot be ignored, but on the other side of the coin, drones may actually be helping to save lives and contribute to medical advancements. The spread of Ebola is one of the more recent global health concerns, and drones could be used to deliver much needed supplies to areas that are hit the hardest, where aid workers continually need things like medications, first-aid supplies, and even food.

Because drones don’t need a landing zone, supplies can land anywhere, and can be sent directly where they are needed rather than to a central aid station, saving time and money for workers.

This type of usage can be expanded to include more general health concerns, particularly in areas where the transportation infrastructure is lacking. Companies like Matternet are developing ways to bring health care to hard-to-access areas, for example getting medications to families that live in villages without usable roads.

Even in urban areas, though, the possibilities are amazing. In the Netherlands, medical drones are being developed to deliver defibrillators directly to cardiac arrest sufferers, increasing their chances of survival from only eight percent, up to a potential eighty percent.

Drones could be used to deliver much needed medical supplies to areas that are hit the hardest by Ebola and other diseases

The Benefits of Data Collecting

This is an application that can make some people very uncomfortable, simply because of the visual aspects of actually being able to see a drone as it zooms along, collecting data. Questions of privacy are always going to crop up, and that’s certainly something that needs to be addressed with regulations, but in practice, data collection drones are currently being used more in non-human contexts.

For example, initiatives like The Sirens Project aim to send drones into tornados, to collect data that could help meteorologists better understand how these deadly storms work. Understanding the dynamics of a tornado could in turn lead to better prediction, and a sharp decrease in the loss of life and property.

Farming, as well, benefits greatly from data collected by drones. Monitoring crops has always been an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, usually involving a person actually walking around. With drones, however, the process becomes automated, and allows farmers to react more quickly to things like crop diseases and pest infestations.

Initiatives like The Sirens Project aim to send drones into tornados to collect data

In turn, those infestations can also be handled by drones, allowing for precision applications of fertilizer and pesticides and reducing the amount of toxins that end up in rivers and streams.

In a crossover with the other types of medical advancements mentioned above, drones can also be helpful in the area of medical data collection. In Malaysia, for instance, drones are currently being used to collect information about a strain of malaria, specifically tracking both human and macaque movements in high-risk areas to try to determine ways to keep the disease from spreading.

Assistance in Daily Life

Big-picture medical usage and data collection are not the only ways that drones can be helpful, though. Commercial enterprises all over the world are starting to see the benefits of having a collection of drones at their everyday disposal. Ease and speed of product delivery seems to be one of the more common applications, with companies from Amazon to independent restaurants using drones to bring products to customers quickly and easily.

There are countless other uses for drones, too, such as sports photography, pilot assistance, and providing temporary communication links in areas that usually don’t have service.

Drone usage is only going to increase as time goes on. As the price point of consumer-level hardware keeps dropping, more and more companies and individuals can be expected to enter the game, each bringing their own unique perspective to the industry. So if everyone’s jumping in regardless, and applications vary from the innocuous to the staggering, how can we judge whether drone usage is a positive or a negative thing?

As the price point of consumer-level hardware keeps dropping, more and more companies and individuals can be expected to enter the drone game

Perhaps there is no answer, and maybe judgment is not even appropriate in this case. After all, the same arguments were swirling around when computers first started becoming a part of daily life, but now we recognize that a computer itself is not inherently good or bad – it’s simply a tool that we can use in countless ways, to achieve any number of potential goals. It’ll be interesting to see, then, over the next few years, just how creative developers get with drone applications, and how this game-changing technology will be used to make life easier for communities across the globe.