Flight: Now without Humans Aboard

This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and monitoring, logistics or commercial payload delivery, and search and rescue and disaster relief. The pace of software and hardware innovation in the sector was transforming UAV capabilities on a rapid basis. Yet regulatory uncertainty and issues around ethics, privacy and security remained. As UAVs gained ground, an ecosystem had begun to take shape that included players in insurance, data analytics, law, and component developments, to name a few. Some players favored an open approach, others pushed toward a more closed ecosystem. The note raises the question: How might industry players work together as they contemplate the promises and challenges of UAVs?