Forget military missions and state surveillance, the big future for ‘unmanned aircraft systems’ or drones is much, much closer to home…and the office…and the local cafe. That’s if the regulators will allow it.
Lately I have started to feel as though I am living in an episode of the Jetsons – the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon set in the imagined high tech future of the 2060s.
I was listening to the technology reviewer, Peter Marks on ABC Radio National recently, discussing the growth in the availability and use of drones or, as they are officially known, ‘unmanned aircraft systems’. It was the third time in a few weeks that I’d come across discussions about the use of drones and some of the issues and implications involved.
I love a good gadget but I confess I’ve been a bit in the dark about the expanding availability and growing range of applications for this technology. Last time I checked they were being used in nice, normal, predictable ways, by the military for example, to fly missions over scary territory in countries like Syria and Iraq, targeting Islamic State forces.
I guess I had a hazy understanding that they were being used in surveillance and spying work and maybe in some forms of scientific field work to ‘see’ into difficult locations and gain a range of perspectives. I’ve seen that in some movies and on the telly.
But it turns out that drone technology may well become as ubiquitous as cameras, delivery vans and, well, people.
The drones are comin’
What twigged me to this sleeping giant was a story back in February about a restaurant group in Singapore that was using drone waiters in their restaurants, at least partly, according to the management, as a means to cut staffing costs.
Once again I was listening to a radio program and the segment quickly segued into the question of whether drones might be used in Australia in the same way. Suddenly here was a union leader being interviewed (a woman; it might have been ACTU chief, Ged Kearney but I can’t recall exactly who or which union) asserting that the union would oppose the introduction of drones as waiters in the hospitality industry in Australia. Bizarrely – at least that’s how it seemed to me – she didn’t pause to comment on the myriad questions of safety, noise, cost, or indeed the (ahem) likelihood of drone waiters taking over at the local Flavour of India anytime soon. Rather she went straight into a defence of human hospitality industry workers’ rights and conditions as if the threat of flying robots taking over waiters’ jobs was all part of her brief.
The other relatively recent time I had heard discussion about drones was in relation to an announcement a year or so ago by online retailer, Amazon, that they were trialing the use of drones to deliver parcels under a certain weight to customers. Watch the video demo – it’s quite something.
Then I heard that Dominos pizzas in the US was trialing drones to deliver their pizzas. Since looking into this new pheomenon, I now realise that Google is trialing its own parcel delivery business using drones too. In fact the trial is taking place in Australia and you can watch the video here. And Chinese mega e-commerce business, Alibaba, is also getting in on the drone delivery act. Of course!
Can you see where my Jetsons image is coming from? It’s the thought of our future skies humming with space-age flying machines, buzzing to and fro across our cities and countrysides, hovering outside our windows, no doubt texting us along the way to update us about when they are likely to arrive.
Have you seen these things? OK, so they are frequently big insect-like, clunky looking things with limited appeal for civilians and non-boffins. But they’re not all like that. They all have cameras and some, according to the tech expert, Peter Marks, are the size of your hand and cost as little as $50, making them a new favourite hobby for many.
It will be interesting to see how these various trials evolve and what happens over time. With some of the biggest business brands getting behind the push, there are no doubt thousands of scientists, technicians and designers around the world busily working to overcome the current shortcomings (specifically noise, frequent breakdowns, propensity for accidents, safety for humans, damage to property etc ) of drones and similar technology.
We humans have shown ourselves to be mighty adaptive when it comes to new-fangled stuff. Maybe the world of George and Jane Jetson isn’t actually so far away. The way the years are whipping by, 2060 certainly isn’t.
