The Application of UAV’s in Logistics

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s), also known as drones, are aircraft which can be remotely controlled or flown autonomously via software. Recent advances in drone technology have encouraged us to think about how we can apply this technology to our society. The benefit of near-future drone applications has been estimated to replace an existing $127B worth of business services and labor, with a significant portion of this affecting logistics.

Rapid increase of urban populations has been the trend of recent years and is expected to continue. Urban sprawl causes transportation inefficiency in cities that infrastructure projects will not be able to keep up. With 60% of policymakers anticipating laws which will limit the use of private cars in cities in the next 15 years, drones may be able to provide relief by taking over the small-package deliveries market. Amazon has already created a patent for docking stations which would sit upon streetlamps in anticipation of the emerging drone delivery market.

Rural locations are particularly well-positioned for adaptation to drone networks. Rural areas suffer from poor infrastructure and challenging geographic conditions. UAV’s would be able to cheaply deliver to low-volume locations that have been historically characterized by high transportation costs. This September, UPS began testing the use of drones to deliver emergency supplies in rural Massachusetts.

The use of drones to monitor infrastructure such as warehouses, docks, yards, or other facilities has the potential to increase efficiency for logistics companies. UAV’s would be able to verify capacity and locate items in a warehouse significantly faster than humans. The first commercial use of drones in the US was by BP to patrol their Alaskan oilfields and pipelines; this was a dangerous task for crews that would take weeks that is now done safely by drones in minutes. Taking these activities to a higher level, infrastructure surveillance could also be sold as a service by logistics companies.

Naturally, there are many challenges that restrict the use of drones to support modern life. UAV technology has not advanced to the point of being able to carry large payloads without significant cost. There are also growing privacy concerns regarding the widening usage of internet-networked everyday items, which drones would be a part of. On the legal front, drones are currently banned from making commercial deliveries and thus drone regulation laws would need to be passed. To realize the full potential of UAV’s, a full rework of logistics systems as we know may be required. Supply chains have the opportunity to evolve from the old standard to a fluid system of continuous movement and supply. Whether this is possible depends on the flexibility and innovation of the existing system and may require infrastructure investment similar to the creation of the Interstate Highway System. There are certainly challenges ahead, but a complete rework of the way we view logistics may be on the horizon and we should be poised to take advantage of it.