Drone technology offers a powerful way for enterprises to conduct remote asset inspections during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The demand for drones among enterprises is forecast to continue to grow over the next few years. Telcos and MNOs are already leveraging drone technology to automate cell tower inspections, boost operational efficiency, and accelerate the rollout of 5G infrastructure. As connectivity improves and automation increases, we can expect to see drones at the edge, completing autonomous missions, and uploading data directly to the cloud, bringing substantial business benefit to telcos and other enterprises.
The edge gives drones the ability to process data far more efficiently and far more reliably than legacy connectivity solutions. It provides lower latency and better use of computing and network resources to support applications that are part of the drone-based Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. With edge computing capabilities, drones can automate data management and stream data directly to the cloud for processing and analytics. Edge computing also makes it possible to upload data directly from the drone’s location, for example at a cell tower or local edge data center.
Drone inspections of cell towers use automation to great effect: flight planning, data capture, and data processing are all automated. Drone automation software enables telcos and MNOs to create high-precision digital twins of their infrastructure, establish precise inventories of their base station equipment, measure their antenna tilts, spot rust, and plan tower maintenance remotely at scale. Towercos will lease prime edge real estate to data center operators, enabling edge cloud and real time management of drones-in-a-box. Those drones will be deployed at local edge positions around the world and autonomously conduct missions in their vicinity, including tower inspections and many other shared commercial missions. They’ll then return to their towers, where they can recharge and continue to send data to the cloud. It’s a fully automated solution that makes the most of edge computing and mobile connectivity and will give enterprises access to low-cost drone and edge computing resources.
Many cases this full stack is justified by the initial use case, like cellular tower inspection, with additional utility and use cases coming for free. Drones at the edge represent a new frontier of automation technology that will revolutionize telcos, transform industrial inspections, and create exciting new use cases that serve society and industry alike.