Unmanned Aerial Systems is a broad ranging term used to describe various types of automated flying platforms capable of user delivery applications. Originally and still predominantly operated by our military for weapons delivery and reconnaissance purposes, the term “drone” has pretty much stuck in the minds of most and although in the family of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that term is pretty specific to military applications. The use of UAVs by other countries as an economical and effective means of strengthening their reach and influence is also on the rise.
There are many applications where UAVs would be of great benefit in many instances where it would be impractical or outright too dangerous to involve human interaction and that is now coming to the forefront more often. Additional and no less important are new use applications in areas of humanitarian assistance, disaster response and lifesaving measures, general damage assessment, and agriculture. Imagine the benefit of having a system that can go into places where boots on the ground is either impractical or impossible, fly right into the affected area, access the situation with a myriad of capabilities, including audio, video, infrared and send that information back real time, possibly even providing lifesaving items such as water or food to someone trapped.
Of course there will always be concerns about privacy and as with any technology, the opportunity for abuse exists, and as Americans we should expect nothing less when it comes to protecting those rights but when this type of technology can provide so many potential benefits we should seriously consider embracing and managing it effectively. The wholesale use of these flying devices is not and should not be the goal here (unless we want to live in a George Jetson world) but in certain situations, especially after a major disaster, in particular areas of concentration, and with professionally trained operators adhering to established best practices, the time has come for us to recognize that these systems are here, they work, and they are improving with each passing day.
Early on Civil Logistics realized the important role these devices can perform, not only in a lifesaving, humanitarian and disaster capacity but also in the world of insurance and how the rapid and real time gathering of information on the ground can be used as an effective damage assessment tool, and took steps to develop the technology, markets and partners. Because a good portion of what we do deals with disaster response, we see tremendous upside in the further progress of UAV usage. With our partners in the insurance industry, we feel the need to immediately access damage after disasters will be crucial as it relates to adherence to the terms of a policy and rapid and proper indemnifications. Our water resources and energy segments see value in UAV use when it comes to accessing crop health and the monitoring of pipeline integrity. We currently are teaming with our university and administration partners on the continued development of a UAV as a a rapid deployment fleet with trained damage assessment operators, used for situational and risk assessment, long-term victim location, resource (human and mechanical) planning/deployment and post event support.
Civil Logistics is a veteran owned small business providing infrastructure support for water resource management, disaster response and recovery, and cross mission representation.
