A new report from Drone Industry Insights says the commercial industry can expect progress globally. DRONEII Editor Ed Alvarado writes that around the world, drone regulations – and the regulatory framework – are evolving rapidly. "This is a very welcome development given that the drone industry sees this as the most important driving factor. The movement on drone regulation in 2022 is global. In Korea, significant movement towards urban air mobility is underway: continuing the progress made this year with trial flights and the government committment to an early implementation of passenger VTOL aircraft.

You've heard the buzzword at CES, drone conferences, on forums and in tech company marketing. But what is 5G, and what does it actually mean for the drone industry? In human-speak, 5G means significantly faster networks than the current standard, 4G. For example, 5G is expected to allow you to download an entire movie to your phone within seconds, while it could take many, many times that to download a movie over 4G. In the drone industry, that means not just the ability to quickly transfer massive files from a mapping project.

Software engineers are the most sought after in the drone industry both by platform manufacturers and by software companies. This is partly because some companies like Thales Alenia Space or DELAIR are both hardware and software manufacturers. Another reason is that hardware companies like the recently acquired Aeryon Labs, Flyability and Matternet are hiring software engineers for their R&D divisions firstly in order to continue increase the level of automation within their products (e.g. Hardware engineers are exclusively sought after by hardware manufacturers and, thanks to the many features which drones can and must contain, they come from a variety of backgrounds: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and aeronautical engineering. Sales roles are the portion of drone jobs which are customer oriented and as drone companies grow bigger increasingly focus on specific regions (for example, companies seeking sales executives for specifically California, or the Eastern Cape).

Earlier this month the thermal imagery manufacturer FLIR bought the UAV developer Aeryon Labs for $200 million, beating their previous record in publicly disclosed drone investments of $134M. This has been yet another signal that even though the drone industry suffered some hard hits in 2018, the period of consolidation, larger investments and serious R&D advances is ahead. In fact, if one were to look at merely the investment figures for 2018, it wouldn't even be that easy to tell that the drone industry struggled. Records were set, partnerships formed, and accelerators continued to support exceptional start-ups. A total of $702 million was invested into the drone industry in 2018 (up from $625M in 2017), $483 million of which was funnelled into the top 20 drone deals.

The United States is home to the largest drone market in the world and has been for the past few years. The US will remain in the lead in the forthcoming years, but the Chinese drone market is slowly closing that gap. While in 2024 the US will still be the largest drone market in the world, the Chinese drone market will be catching up as it will grow faster. Even though the US market won't grow quite as quickly as some others (China, and India), it will still be one of the fastest growing drone markets in the world. By 2024 it is expected to be almost three times the size it was in 2018.

Meanwhile, other prominent companies on the Top 10 list include manufacturers like GoPro and 3DR who no longer produce hardware, and hobbyist manufacturers like Holy Stone whose platforms are not suitable replacements for these use cases. Moreover, as many have already noted, it will be difficult for the public sector with its budget limitations to replace DJI drones at the same or even competing price point. Currently it seems like European and American companies are poised to take up the helm, most specifically Parrot. Their Anafi drone appears to already be part of the DoI's'UAS Fleet' which means that they are a likely candidate for the replacements for the 600 DJI drones that would be removed from operations.

The energy sector was the largest industry in 2018 and will continue to be so in 2024. However, the Transportation & Warehousing industry will continue to be the fastest growing. This is partly because, as defined by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), this vertical includes industries providing transportation of passengers (although air taxis won't sell for some time still) and cargo, warehousing and storage for goods, and support activities related to modes of transportation like inspection and maintenance of infrastructure. While agriculture and construction currently follow energy as the top industries in the drone market, the growth of the transport sector will mean that in 2024 transport will be the 2nd largest industry on the market.

The changes and developments we saw throughout the drone industry in 2017 were incredible and deserve a proper examination. For the most part, the hype that drove so much misunderstanding and frustration in this space is gone,and that's a good thing. While the kind of hype we've seen associated with UAVs can create needed attention, it can also lead to irrational behavior and impossible expectations. Now that we can get a better sense of when drones will be able to reach the "plateau of productivity" from the Gartner Hype Cycle, we can finally talk about the organizations and uses of this technology that will truly drive and define the drone industry. How does our Drone Ecosystem Map help define what these developments look like in 2018 and beyond though?