{"id":1233,"date":"2019-11-30T22:51:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T22:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2021-12-10T16:13:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T16:13:02","slug":"when-were-drones-released-to-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/when-were-drones-released-to-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"When Were Drones First Released to the Public?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The world of drones has advanced rapidly, with an increasing number of people buying them for both entertainment and professional purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given how quickly things have developed, it&#8217;s strange to think that it wasn&#8217;t too long ago that drones weren&#8217;t even available to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>When Could The Public First Buy Drones?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The thought of having drones in the hands of the public first became a reality in 2006. That was the year when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the first commercial drone permits in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2006 is considered a watershed year in the history of drones\nfor two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, the issuing of permits by the FAA lifted some of\nthe restrictions on consumer drones being flown for recreational purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And secondly, the issuing of permits gave freedom to businesses and professionals who wanted to use drones for various business endeavors. Suddenly, the idea of having a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/drone-food-delivery\/\">drone deliver products<\/a>, for example, was no longer farfetched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"aawp\">\n\n            \n            \n<div class=\"aawp-product aawp-product--horizontal\"  data-aawp-product-asin=\"B07ZJZMFFH\" data-aawp-product-id=\"4470\" data-aawp-tracking-id=\"dronesvilla20-20\" data-aawp-product-title=\"DJI Mavic Mini CP.MA.00000120.01\" data-aawp-geotargeting=\"true\">\n\n    \n    <div class=\"aawp-product__thumb\">\n        <a class=\"aawp-product__image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B07ZJZMFFH?tag=dronesvilla20-20&amp;linkCode=ogi&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1\" title=\"DJI Mavic Mini Drone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener sponsored\" target=\"_blank\">\n            <img class=\"aawp-product__image\" src=\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/31iPTd2nOyL._SL160_.jpg\" alt=\"DJI Mavic Mini Drone\"  \/>\n        <\/a>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"aawp-product__content\">\n        <a class=\"aawp-product__title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B07ZJZMFFH?tag=dronesvilla20-20&amp;linkCode=ogi&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1\" title=\"DJI Mavic Mini Drone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener sponsored\" target=\"_blank\">\n            DJI Mavic Mini Drone        <\/a>\n        <div class=\"aawp-product__description\">\n            <ul><li>12MP \/ 2. 7K Quad HD 3-Axis Gimbal Camera<\/li><li>Up to 30 Minutes of Flight Time<\/li><li>Stream HD Video from up to 2. 5 Miles<\/li><\/ul>        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"aawp-product__footer\">\n\n        <div class=\"aawp-product__pricing\">\n            \n                            <span class=\"aawp-product__price aawp-product__price--current\">&#36;301.39<\/span>\n            \n                    <\/div>\n\n                <a class=\"aawp-button aawp-button--buy aawp-button aawp-button--amazon rounded\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B07ZJZMFFH?tag=dronesvilla20-20&#038;linkCode=ogi&#038;th=1&#038;psc=1\" title=\"Buy on Amazon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener sponsored\">Buy on Amazon<\/a>\n            <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n    \n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Reasons for the Rise of Consumer Drones<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By 2010, the French company Parrot rolled out their Parrot\nAR drone. It was the first ready-to-fly drone that could be controlled\ncompletely through WiFi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only was the Parrot AR drone a commercial and critical\nsuccess, it also earned the 2010 CES Innovations Award for Electronic Gaming\nHardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The consumer drone market has never looked back. There are\nseveral drone manufacturers operating today, all competing for a share of the\ngrowing market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rise of the consumer drone can best be attributed to\nfavorable regulations and the availability of vital tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the years following 2006, hobbyists and enthusiasts\nquickly took advantage of two separate technologies to make drones a reality:\nremote controlled aircrafts on the one hand and smartphones on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of the earliest drone pilots \u2014 and those who work in the drone manufacturing space today \u2014 started out by flying small remote controlled aircrafts powered by tiny petrol engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These engines were not as elegant as what exist in your\nmodern drone. They were messy, noisy, and shaky at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is thanks to the revolutionary combination of brushless\nmotors and lithium polymer batteries that are used in laptops and smartphones\nthat things could improve. Remote controlled aircraft were finally able to be\nelectrically powered, which made them lighter, quieter, and overall more\nreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Low cost microcontroller chips made it possible to squeeze a\nsmall computer into a box the size of a human palm or smaller. What this led to\nwas the development of open source autopilot software to support fixed wing\nhobbyist aircrafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microcontrollers also opened the doors to a new type of drone design, one that would have four or more helicopter-style rotors \u2014 a quadcopter. This is the design that most drones follow today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in 2005, many research groups had polished the literature on how a drone with four vertical-axis rotors could maintain and control its position and movement. All it required was adjusting the speeds of the various different rotors \u2014 and this was much easier to achieve than controlling the normal helicopter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experts quickly realized the potential impact of this new\ndesign on drone design and functioning. The multi-rotor design allowed for a\nnew way for drones to fly around; hovering on the same spot in the air also\nbecame feasible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before directed movement and control is feasible, a drone needs to know its orientation and the direction of its movement. The uplifting of the restrictions on recreational drone use coincided with a steep decline in the price or accelerometers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These accelerometers were used in micro-electromechanical\nsystems as tilt sensors in smartphones and became instrumental in enabling\ndrones have a sense of orientation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other technological features which drones owe to smartphones are their affordable high-resolution cameras, and also fast WiFi chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The smartphones themselves had easy-to-use touch screens and\nthe requisite processing power for hosting the necessary apps used to control\nthe drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is never a stretch to say that drones rode the wave of\nthe smartphone revolution. Smartphone affiliated tech led to the rise of stable\nmulti-rotor flight that, in turn, led to the all sorts of new possible ways in\nwhich drones could be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Reasons for the Rise\nof Commercial Drones<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The drone market can easily be separated into three distinct\ncategories: consumer drones, military drones, and commercial drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consumer drones and commercial drones make up the civilian\ndrone market. This section of the drone market outnumbers the military market,\nbut it is commercial drone market that has been identified as the fastest\ngrowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More drones are being integrated into wide sweeping fields\nlike agriculture, insurance, infrastructure inspection, mining, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps the FAA foresaw this trend and decided to uplift\nrestrictions in 2006 when the first commercial drone permits were issued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, commercial drones took a while to become the force\nthey are today. In fact, initially, very few businesses applied for licenses\nafter the restrictions were lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is not the case today, but the popularity of commercial\ndrones which we see today can be put down to three reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, the fierce competition in the consumer market\nafter 2010 led to machines that were increasingly cheaper, more reliable, and more\ncapable every single year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These were not just downsized versions of military drones or\nfancy hobbyist contraptions. The UAVs that were being produced in the wake of\nthe drone revolution were solid machines that consistently got better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suddenly, there were drones that cost less than $1,000 which were able to hold their positions in strong winds, fly in rainy weather, detect obstacles, and land on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some drones are capable of responding to hand gestures, can follow their pilot around and even take selfies, while being able to fold into a small backpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many ways, the competition among drone manufacturers led\nto drones that were more advanced than their much more expensive military\ncounterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The advanced capabilities and durability of these drones\nmeant that they could easily be adapted to commercial purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The innovations in the consumer market were easily carried\nover into the commercial drone space. This was an exchange akin to what\nhappened between the smartphone market and the consumer drone market,\ninnovations in one sector led to advancements in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, many people who initially bought drones to fly for fun\nquickly realized they could make them work for some extra revenue as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second factor that led to the rise of the commercial drone sector was the rapid production of consumer drones. In many places where regulators had been dragging their feet, the popularity and demand for drones pushed them to seriously consider introducing rules for commercial use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the US, for example, the rapid growth in the number of\nconsumer drone available among the public pushed the FAA to roll out the set of\nrules known as \u201cPart 107\u201d in 2016. Part 107 establishes ground rules and\nspecifies the conditions under which drones can be used for commercial\npurposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before that time, in the US, pilots required a special\nwaiver in order to use their drones for commercial purposes, and this was\ncostly and time-consuming to obtain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having so many drones circulating in the public space forced the prevailing official thought from <em>\u201ccommercial drone use is illegal\u201d<\/em> to <em>\u201ccommercial drone use is legal under the following circumstances and conditions\u201d.<\/em> Many people rushed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/drone-business-ideas\/\">start their own drone businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pretty soon after the FAA, many other countries worldwide\nloosened the restrictions on commercial drone use, even though they still struggle\nto keep up with the innovation that is taking place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third factor that led to the rise of commercial drones\nis the rise of major players among drone manufacturers. As the demand for\nconsumer drones rose sharply, so too did the number of manufacturers vying for\na piece of the resulting pie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, however, the Chinese manufacturers DJI ended up\non top with about 70% of the consumer drone market share. One thing that DJI\nhad going for it was its location in Shenzen. Shenzen remains one of the prime\nlocations where the world\u2019s technology firms go to develop and manufacture\nhardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This proximity to talent and favorable conditions helped DJI to beat out strong rivals, both local and foreign. The company was valued at $8 billion in 2019 and has established itself as a premium brand that is known globally for quality and reliability \u2014 something which Chinese firms are not typically known for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DJI typically prices its commercial drones at a minimum of $999 at the start, and then discounts them when newer models are rolled out. They also make slightly heftier models aimed specifically at industrial users. And for a few thousand dollars, you can get a fully equipped hexacopter drone ready to be deployed towards a wide array of uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of DJI\u2019s rivals, on the other hand, have either downsized their workforce or decided to join forces with what they could not beat. Parrot, the manufacturer&#8217;s of the AR drone that was so popular when they were first released back in 2010, has stopped manufacturing entry-level drones altogether because of the standard of competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>2006 was a watershed year in the history of drones. But it will not remain the only one \u2014 it may not even be the most important year as far as consumer drones are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As drone innovations continue to fly ahead, we may come\nacross advances that change the field completely, forever altering what we once\nthought to be possible with drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the first commercial drone permits in the US in 2006 which was a step towards public release&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg",825,457,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public-300x166.jpg",300,166,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public-768x425.jpg",768,425,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg",825,457,false],"img_rate_products_categories":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public-552x306.jpg",552,306,true],"img_rate_products_slideshow":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg",825,457,false],"img_rate_products_preview":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public-168x93.jpg",168,93,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg",825,457,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drones-released-to-public.jpg",825,457,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Sam","author_link":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/author\/sam\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the first commercial drone permits in the US in 2006 which was a step towards public release....","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3171,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/3171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dronesvilla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}