CHAPTER 1: WHAT DRONES CAN DO AND

HOW THEY CAN DO IT

KONSTANTIN KAKAES

On June 16, 1861, Thaddeus Lowe, a 28-year-old man from cable; he could effectively observe only with his own eyes;
New Hampshire, hovered 500 feet over the White House, he could fly only where the wind would take him. In the
hanging in a tiny basket from a balloon of his own design. century and half since Lowes flight over the White House,
This point of observation commands an area near fifty military needs have been the primary driver of innovation in
miles in diameterthe city with its girdle of encampments aerial observation techniques. In the past decade, however,
presents a superb scene, Lowe wrote in a telegram to a number of technologies have evolved to the point where
Abraham Lincoln, who waited far below. This was the first they are small, cheap, and light enough to enable a
Photograph from PGHCOM via Wikimedia commons

electronic message to be sent from the air to the ground.1 dramatic democratization of aerial observation. Crucially,
Aerial observation has a long history; Lowe was not its first small aircraft are now capable of flying themselves and
practitioner. But the point he made remains true today; gathering information with minimal human intervention
aerial views command a great deal, in both senses of the and without a person on board. These aircraft, which
word. Lincoln would support Lowe in his struggles with range widely in size, cost, and endurance, are known as
the military bureaucracy, which was largely uninterested drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial
in his ballooning innovations. On the night of May 4, 1862, systems (UAS), remotely piloted aerial vehicles (RPAVs),
Lowe saw the Confederates attempt to secretly retreat from and remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). We will use
Yorktown, Va., under the cover of night: The greatest these terms interchangeably, but mostly, we will call them
activity prevailed, which was not visible except from the drones.
balloon, Lowe wrote.2 Nevertheless, Lowes balloon corps There is no one element that makes a drone possible. Nor
would soon be disbanded after General George McClellan, is there a clear dividing line between drones and manned
who had been a supporter of Lowes, was forced out of his aircraft. Automation has become increasingly important
command following a massive retreat up the James River. in manned aircraft. Drones require human intervention.
Lowe failed to fully realize his ambitions for aerial Some planes are optionally piloted. Nevertheless, drones
observation in part because of bureaucratic inertia, but also constitute what W. Brian Arthur, in his book The Nature of
because of the technological limitations he faced. He could Technology, called a new technological domain.3 Domains,
communicate with the ground only through a tethered Arthur wrote:
The first quadcopter, built by Louis and Jacque Brguet with Charles Richet, weighed over 1,100 pounds and got 5 feet off the ground.

DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION 9

 are more than the sum of their individual which is discussed in Chapter 6. The U.N. peacekeeping
technologies. They are coherent wholes, families force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, discussed in
of devices, methods, and practices, whose coming Chapter 10, is indisputably a military force, but one whose
into being and development have a character that intervention is fundamentally motivated by the protection
differs from that of individual technologies. They of civilians. This work also does not much discuss the use
are not invented; they emerge, crystallizing around of drones for delivery of physical goods. This is potentially
a set of phenomena or a novel enabling technology, an important application, particularly in parts of the
and building organically from these. They develop world lacking good surface transportation infrastructure.
not on a time scale measured in years, but on one However, it is one whose technological maturity is
measured in decades. somewhat farther off. This book focuses on examples of
work using drones in the recent pastsurveying land in
As a new technological domain emerges, Arthur explained, Albania, Guyana, and Indonesia, or responding to disasters
different industries, businesses, and organizations like the 2015 earthquakes in Nepaland considers how
encounter the new technology and reconfigure themselves. similar work can be done in the immediate future using
A new version of the economy slowly comes into being. todays drone technology.
The reconfiguration that drones are catalyzing is an ongoing
This short book is about some of these reconfigurations
process. This primer presents some views about how it
insofar as they affect the nexus of humanitarian work
ought to take place, as well as concrete guidance about how
and development, with particular attention to the role
to use a drone effectively.
drones can play in enunciating, and thus protecting,
property rights. It does not consider the use of drones for Much of this primer is devoted to drones as mapmaking
offensive military purposes, or for law enforcement or devices; it is perhaps the most important transformative
counterterrorism purposes. It also does not discuss purely use of drones today. Drones are very good at making maps
commercial ventures such as the use of drones to film scenes far more cheaply than the techniques they are replacing.
in Hollywood or to inspect oil pipelines or bridges. These Drones now far outnumber manned aircraftbut it is the
are all worthy subjects, but beyond the scope of the present very small drones, like DJIs Phantom, that account for the
work. These boundaries are not hard and fast; militaries and vast majority of unmanned aircraft. These small drones are
police forces are normally involved in disaster response, good at taking pictures, and computer image-processing

Electronic
speed
controller

Left aileron

Motor

Radio

Flight
GPS controller Battery Propeller

Right aileron

Airspeed tube

Servo actuator

Delta-wing drones like the one depicted here are not aerodynamically stable, and could not fly if not for sophisticated
electronics. The wing is usually made of foam. Some fixed-wing drones resemble traditional model aircraft, with a fuse-
lage, wings, and a tail, and are more stable.
Illustration Valerie Altounian
10 DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION
software is good at processing those pictures into maps. As Jacques Brguet, brothers from a family of clockmakers,
Denis Wood puts it, Maps are engines that convert social built the first quadcopter, the Gyroplane No. 1, with the
energy to social work. Maps convert energy to work by help of Charles Richet, who would receive the 1913 Nobel
linking things in space.4 Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Brguet-Richet
quadrotor consisted of four long girders made of welded
A recurring theme in this book is that a dronebe it a small
steel tubes and arranged in the form of a horizontal cross,
quadcopter that can fit comfortably on a cafeteria tray or a
looking somewhat like an assemblage of ladders. Each rotor
half-ton Selex Falcois useful only insofar as it is part of a
consisted of four light, fabric-covered biplane type blades,
larger technological and social system. As Arthur explains,
giving a total of 32 separate lifting surfaces. The rotors were
A device seems to be a piece of hardware and not at all like
placed at each of the four corners of the cross.6 As J. Gordon
a process. But this is just appearance.5 This primer points
Leishman explains, Diagonally opposite pairs of rotors
to the importance of social processes surrounding drones;
rotated in opposite directions, thereby canceling torque
when sufficient thought is not given to those processes,
reaction on the airframe. This was the first implementation
even well-intentioned and well-resourced efforts can fail in
of the same principle used in small quadcopters today. The
their promise.
Brguet-Richet quadcopter weighed over 1,100 pounds; the
Nevertheless, its worth examining the drones as devices pilot sat in the middle below a 40 horsepower engine. The
to understand their limitations and possibilities. What are quadcopter flew in August 1907. It got about 5 feet off the
the technologies that make them possible and what are ground.
the limits of those technologies? Why do drones look the
Gyroplane No. 1 was limited not by power, but by stability.
way they do? How do they, as devices, compete with other
Though in principle the opposite spin of the propellers
similar devicesmost importantly, satellitesin doing the
would cancel out one another and allow the aircraft to rise
work they do?
straight up into the air, in practice small imbalances in the
Since the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the force generated by each propeller meant that for the aircraft
20th century, inventors, from the Wright brothers themselves to fly, it would have to be able to detect these imbalances
onward, have wrestled with the challenge of controlling and correct them. Devices for achieving stability were
an airplane without a person on board. In 1907, Louis and easier to implement in fixed-wing aircraft. In 1909, Elmer

Power Receiver
distribution
board

Flight controller
Battery
(on underside)

Telemetry
module

GPS

Propeller
Electronic speed
controller

Motor

Multirotor UAVs are laid out in a variety of different ways. This image displays one possible configuration.

DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION 11

 MODEL P
No drone better represents the industrys turn toward inexpensive and accessible drones than DJIs line of Phantom UAVs. They are
common first drones, but are capable enough to belie their toy-like appearance. As of 2015, DJI sells three series of the Phantom:
the new 2015 Phantom 3 series, the Phantom 2 series first released in 2014, and the Phantom 1 series first released in early 2013.
Models are differentiated within each series by their cameras and control systems.
As of this writing, unlike the Phantom 2 and Phantom 2 Vison+, the newly-released Phantom 3 does not yet have an established
track record.* Furthermore, it has two serious drawbacks for mapping and fieldwork more generally. Neither its camera nor its
gimbal can be removed or changed. Furthermore, it has no support for waypoint navigation.
The Phantoms use proprietary lithium-polymer batteries to power their rotors, cameras, and gimbal systems. DJI claims the
quadcopters can achieve a maximum flight time of 25 minutes; however, users report actual flight times of around 12 to 15
minutes. While this may sound paltry, it is adequate for mapping small areas and other photography needs, with copious use of
expensive $149 spare batteries.
The Phantom 2 Vision+ is favored by hobby users and casual drone pilots for its plug-and-play functionality. It uses a camera
of DJIs own design to shoot video and still photography. The camera, the angle of the camera, and some flight features, such
as creating navigation waypoints and tracking battery life and altitude, can be controlled remotely with the DJI Vision app
on Apple and Android mobile devices. Things get more complex but also considerably more customizable with the Phantom
2, which ships without a camera, waypoint navigation abilities, or a gimbal. If it is to be used to make maps, the owner must
separately purchase a gimbal and a camera. A popular combination is the H3-3D gimbal and the GoPro Hero line of cameras.
Some Phantom users doing mapping projects prefer to use small, lightweight point-and-shoot cameras instead, which prevent
the bothersome fish-eye effect of both DJIs Phantom Vision+ and Vision cameras and the GoPro line. Some point-and-shoot
cameras, such as the Canon S100, are also equipped with GPS-logging abilities, making it easier to georeference aerial maps.
Using a point-and-shoot camera with the Phantom 2 requires some technical ability, as the camera must either be controlled
remotely or be programmed to take pictures at intervals, which is only possible with some camera models. Furthermore, off-
the-shelf gimbals for the Phantom 2 that accommodate these point-and-shoot cameras are not available, so users have to
hack together their own solutions, though ample advice on how to do this is available online.
Though the Phantom 2 cannot fly autonomously between waypoints out of the box, it can do so with the purchase of an
additional DJI datalink system. The Phantoms are all reasonably rugged, although the plastic arms of the drones body
have been known to snap off after hard crashes. In a crash, the gimbal and the camera are much more likely to be seriously
damaged than the drone itself. The Phantom 3 and Phantom Vision+ models are less durable in this respect, since the gimbals
and cameras are integrated into the body. Phantoms are not waterproof. Flight shouldnt be attempted in rain or heavy winds.
The Phantom is reasonably portable with the propellers removed and can be comfortably and successfully transported in a
large backpack. Many users purchase foam-lined hard cases to take the Phantom across international borders.
Sometimes Phantoms fly away. The pilot loses control of the dronean expensive and potentially dangerous mishap. While
this may sound intimidating, the problem doesnt seem pervasive. DJI has corrected the firmware problems thought to be at
the root of some recent crashes. Safety-minded pilots (and those with limited budgets for replacements) should ensure the
Phantom 2s internal compass is always calibrated prior to flight, reducing the risk of an expensive miscommunication.
Matt Merrifield of the Nature Conservancy, a research and advocacy group, used the Phantom 2 Vision+ to count migratory
bird populations on Staten Island, a protected area in Californias Bay Delta. To Merrifield, the Phantoms utility goes beyond
collecting data on migratory birds: aerial footage helps the public understand what the Nature Conservancys work truly
entails. It becomes immediately apparent what were doinginstead of a long document, its an extremely powerful
visualization tool. [The benefits are] hard to quantify.
While alternatives exist, the Phantom family of drones is the worlds most widely used in the under-$1,000 category for good
reason. Considering the Phantoms low price, ease of use, and integration with mobile devices, its a hard system to beat in its
class and a compelling choice for new
drone pilots on a budget.
Faine Greenwood

* The Phantom 2 Vision is not often used

Vicki Burton via Wikimedia Commons

due to its diminished range of communication

and its lower-quality gimbal, which often
produces poorly stabilized footage.
DJI is developing a software development
kit (SDK) and is inviting others to create new
featuresbut as of this writing, the waypoint
problem hasnt been addressed.
As a number of epic crash videos on You-
Tube demonstrate. See: http://makezine.com/
magazine/drowned-drones-when-a-multicopter-
hits-the-water/.

12 DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION

 Sperry, an American inventor,
began developing a gyroscope
that would enable him to Satellite
develop the Hewitt-Sperry
Automatic Airplane, one of the
first drones, a few years later.
Although Sperrys intent was
Position data
to improve the safety of flight
by providing a pilot with vertigo
or disorientation a mechanical
sense of wings level, in doing
so he also solved a key technical
impediment to unmanned flight:
stabilized flight in the absence
of a pilots inputs. But his 30-
lb gyrostabilizer, besides being GPS
excessively heavy, performed
poorly when it encountered
the three dimensions of
flight.7 Before World War I
ended, Sperry would develop
a working unmanned aircraft, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers work by inferring their position from timing data sent by a constella-
though interest in them would tion of satellites. At least 4 signals are needed to do so.
fade after the war.8 order of several hundreds meter per minute.11 GPS, on the
In place of Sperrys 30-pound gyrostabilizers, todays drones other hand, cannot update its position often enough and
have autopilots that contain gyroscopes, accelerometers, has its own fluctuations, so combining both sources of data
magnetometers, and barometers, at a total weight of less is necessary. GPS relies on precisely measuring how long it
than a tenth of a pound.9 For a drone to fly successfully, takes radio signals to get from distant satellites to the GPS
these sensors must replicate what a pilot used to be able receiver. Because light travels so quickly, an error of just
to dowhat Wolfgang Langewiesche, in his book Stick and 10 billionths of a second in measuring that time of flight
Rudder, described: The pilot needs this sense of buoyancy results in a positioning error of about 10 feet.12 Maintaining
also when climbing out of a tight airport. His life depends stability without GPS input is an active area of research
on his ability to sense lift or the loss of it; most accidents for both commercial drone manufacturers and academic
happen only because the pilots sensing of his buoyancy aeronautical engineers. For instance, the DJI Inspire drone
failed him, and he stalled or spun.10 Though the difficulty has some capability of doing this, but users report that it
of duplicating this pilots instinct in hardware and software does not work as well as advertised.13
is hidden from the end user who purchases a drone at We will not go into great detail here on the functioning
Radio Shack, it is worth underlining the intricacy of the of autopilots. (The best succinct explanation can be
engineering challenges involved. Obviously, a crash of a found in Fundamentals of Small Unmanned Aircraft
drone does not imply loss of life; however, if drones were Flight.)14 However, it is worth emphasizing how difficult a
constantly crashing,* they would be unable to achieve what computational task is being accomplished under the hood ,
they set out to do. as it were, of drones. The equations of motion for a [drone]
Most drones use a variety of sensors to accomplish what is are a fairly complicated set of 12 nonlinear, coupled, first-
order, ordinary differential equations. Because of their
Illustration Valerie Altounian

called state estimation. They use microelectromechanical

(MEMS) chips to measure acceleration and rotation. Some complexity, designing controllers based on them is difficult,
carry lightweight onboard echolocation systems to measure as one textbook on drone design explains.15 For a drone to
the distance to the ground; some also carry barometers fly, this sensor data must be reconciled; this is normally done
to measure air pressure. Some carry heat sensors called using something called an extended Kalman filter, which
thermopiles, which can see the horizon. Some have takes into account not only sensor data, but also a physics-
magnetometers to measure the Earths magnetic field, and based model of how the given state of a drone affects its future
most contain GPS (global positioning system) sensors. GPS states. (For instance, if a drone is moving forward at 60 miles
is needed because the MEMS sensors used in low-cost UAVs per hour, or a mile per minute, in a minute it should have
are not very accurate: When operating as a standalone traveled one mile. So if your GPS measurement says it has only
navigator, these sensors produce positioning errors on the traveled only half a mile, your position measurement is likely
off. The extended Kalman filter is a mathematical technique
for reconciling inertial measurements of acceleration with
* Drones crash substantially more often than manned aircraft, but not so
often as to make them impracticable, as was the case in, say, the 1920s. GPS and other data sources. In practice, the time steps are

DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION 13

on the order of fractions of a second, rather than a minute.) ground instead of crashing abruptly. Fixed-wing drones are
Techniques like this smooth out the volatility of sensor data. generally faster; though they can fly in small circles, they
cannot hover, and cannot easily move vertically. Smaller
In general, autopilots operate at two levels. A low-level loop
fixed-wing drones can take off and land in fairly confined
maintains stability, while a higher-level autopilot, if engaged,
spaces, but not so confined as multi-rotors. Several hybrid
follows a predetermined path from one GPS waypoint to
models that have features of both types of drone are in
another.16 That higher-level autopilot may also include
development, though none as of yet has succeeded in
systems for detecting and avoiding obstacles; such systems
the marketplacethe transition between vertical and
are only now becoming available for consumer drones and
horizontal flight is technically difficult.
are limited in functionality.17
The DJI Phantom, the worlds most popular drone, has
From a practical perspective, the would-be drone operator
four propellers. This quadcopter design is quite common.
faces two major high-level choices: to use a fixed-wing or
It is, however, less efficient than a traditional helicopter
multi-rotor aircraft, and to buy a commercial system or build
design. Single-rotor RC helicopters commonly have higher
a DIY drone using commercial components. Open-source
thrust-to-weight ratio, reduced drag, stiffer rotors, and
DIY solutions (of which the most popular are the ArduPlane
more aggressive head mixing. As such, they can generally
fixed-wing http://plane.ardupilot.com/ and ArduCopter
achieve greater agility.18 The advantage of quadcopter (and
multi-rotor http://copter.ardupilot.com/) can be put together
other multi-rotor) drones is their mechanical simplicity. In
for a fraction of the cost of their commercial counterparts
a traditional helicopter, the angle that each blade has with
from two to 10 times cheaper, depending on how exactly one
the rotating hub at the center, called the pitch, must change
counts costs and capabilities.
in order to provide stability and maneuverability, a process
The choice between fixed-wing and multi-rotor UAVs is in part called actuation. This complexity is, from a distance,
dictated by the exigencies of the market. The DJI Phantom hidden, but it makes helicopters difficult to build and
is a low-cost, easy-to-use multi-rotor. No analogous fixed- maintain. On the other hand, in a quadcopter, each blade is
wing model currently exists. Low-priced model airplanes like set at a fixed angle, and stability and maneuverability come
the Bixler require some skill to fly and assemble. It is surely from varying the speed of each rotor individually, which is
only a matter of time until a drone company starts selling a made possible by the sophisticated electronics in drones. In
Phantom-like fixed-wing. For the moment, though, novices fact, adding rotors further reduces efficiency and therefore
seeking ease of use are pushed toward multi-rotorsnot flight time. It does, however, make it possible to carry a
because they are necessarily more suited for a particular heavier weight and allows for redundancythe aircraft can
task, but because cheap and easy-to-use models are more keep flying even if one rotor goes out.
widely available.
Octorotors like the DJI Spreading Wings S1000 tend to
The trade-off between fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones have limited endurance. The greater number of rotors
is, obviously enough, one between endurance and (which are, like those in most quadcopters, not actuated)19
maneuverability. There is also a trade-off in safety; fixed- provides a degree of redundancy in case one motor fails and
wing drones can be very lightweight. A foam body or delta- allows the drone to carry more weight (up to 11 kilograms
wing craft can carry a small camera and still fly for over an total takeoff weight,20 of which nearly 7 kg can be payload).
hour. Fixed-wing drones are, all else being equal, safer than But because of the high energy demands of eight rotors, the
multi-rotorsif one loses power, it will likely glide to the S1000 can fly for only a maximum of 15 minutes, per DJIs

Satellite image resolution Drone image resolution

VA0613

Illustration Valerie Altounian

Pictures taken by simple drones flying at typical altitudes show details as small as 1cm. The highest resolution commercially-available satellite
imagery has 30cm resolution.

14 DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION

 MAPPERS DELIGHT
The black-and-yellow SenseFly eBee looks like an unremarkable flying-wing UAV, with a 38-inch wingspan and a body
constructed from foam.* It is propelled by an electric pusher-propeller driven by a 160-watt brushless dc motor. The propeller
is secured to the wing with a rubber band to allow it to bend with the wind. If the foam body breaks, which is quite possible,
SenseFly will send another one.
It can afford to. The eBee costs $25,000. This is not because of its airframe, but because of the software and hardware it
comes with. The eBee weighs just under a kilogram and has a cruise speed of about 40 kilometers per hour. Its light weight
makes it inherently safe and easy to travel with. However, the eBee is prone to being blown off course in heavy winds.
But its central appeal is that it flies itself. Most fixed-wing UAVs require the user to develop at least some piloting skill. However,
the eBee has been developed as a fully autonomous system. To begin a mission, the user has simply to shake the eBee until
the motor starts and then fling it into the air. The eBee will begin circling a previously set point to gain altitude and will then
carry out its preprogrammed mission.
The eBee can even land itself with a reasonable degree of accuracy: it is able to detect how far it is from the ground when
it comes in for a landing, and if users have defined a landing path ahead of time, it can make its way into narrow spaces.
The eBee ships with proprietary software for both mission planning and post-flight image processing and photogrammetry.
SenseFlys software can create a low-quality orthomosaic preview of aerial data that the eBee has just collected while still in
the field. After processing the images for hours, users can also fly through 3-D point clouds the eBee generates.
The main downside of all this indisputable convenience? Price. The SenseFly eBee is expensive for a foamie fixed-wing
mapping UAV. Technologically savvy researchers can build comparably capable systems for an order of magnitude less
money. Such models evade another issue with the eBee. It is a black box system, not amenable to being modified or
tweaked. Nevertheless, the eBees ease of use and reliability make its popularity easy to understand. FAINE GREENWOOD

* eBee senseFly, senseFly, https://www.sensefly.com/drones/ebee.html

Baptiste Tripard, interview with the author, June 22, 2015.
See, for instance, the Unicorn (http://unicornwings.stores.yahoo.net/) or Zagi (http://www.zagi.com/zagi-rc-electric-wings).

specifications.21 By contrast, DJI says its smaller quadrotor of reflected light to infer what kind of vegetation is present,
Phantom 2 can fly for 25 minutes.22 and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) systems, which
use lasers to measure distance, are growing cheaper and
These 300 grams, in the case of a Phantom, must be divvied
lighter. At present, the gap in capabilities between a small
up parsimoniously. Assuming one is using the drone as an
drone and a large one is profound. The importance of this
image-gathering device, it must carry, aside from a camera,
gap will diminish with time, but for now it is substantial.
a gimbal that can both point and stabilize the camera.
Mapping drones can get away with simpler gimbals, but if To take the comparison of cheap to expensive drones to
you want to surveil a particular location with a video camera, its extreme, the most capable image-gathering drones are
for instance, the gimbal must be able to compensate for the satellites, which are effectively very high-altitude drones.
drones motion. This adds weight and complexity. WorldView-3, a modern reconnaissance satellite operated
by DigitalGlobe, cost $650 million to build and launch.23
If a mission requires a drone with a longer endurance or
However, the cost comparison between drones and satellites
larger payload capacity, the cost rises very quickly. Low-
is not so straightforward. A humanitarian customer can buy
cost drones, which can fly for roughly an hour in the case
imagery, at 30-centimeter resolution, from DigitalGlobe for
of fixed-wings or 20 minutes in the case of multi-rotors and
$250 to $30024 for a 25 square kilometer image (ie one whose
carry a small camera, can be had for about $1,000. However,
sides each measure 5 km). Whether this is cheaper or more
if one wants to implement persistent surveillance, say, in a
expensive than using a drone obviously depends on how
conflict zone, costs rise very quickly. At some point, solar
extensively a drone is used, and therefore amortized. Other
power might allow for low-cost, lightweight drones that can
relevant questions include cloud cover. In the tropics, cloud
stay in the air for long periods and thus, though they travel
cover obscures about 40 percent of Landsat images, which
slowly, survey large areas. Algorithms for autonomy are
capture large areas; the figure will be higher for higher-
also likely to improve substantially in the coming decade,
resolution DigitalGlobe images.25 Additionally, cloud cover
perhaps allowing for landing, refueling (or recharging),
can introduce systemic errors: Cloud cover can be very
and takeoff to happen without human intervention. The
misleading because it might obscure only a very small (and
capabilities of sensors (discussed in more detail in Chapter
thus presumably irrelevant) percentage of the total land
4) will also improve, allowing a drone of comparable
area, but even this small amount of ambiguity can have
payload capacity to gather higher-quality data, or data of
large effects on the forest loss estimates.26 Although small
a different kind. For instance, both hyperspectral cameras,
drones will never be able to cover as large an area as, say,
which can use detailed measurements of the wavelengths

DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION 15

 Landsat can, they can be used in combination with satellite because drones can be sent up at specific times more easily
imagery to improve estimates of things like deforestation. than satellites, they have the capacity to capture smoking-
gun evidence of human rights violations, Lyons says. Such
Additionally, as is discussed in Chapter 2, the fact that
evidence might elude satellites that arrive too late to help
drone images can be made in collaboration with a local
determine the who and why of, say, a destroyed village, but
community, while satellite images cannot, is important. The
can verify only that the village has been destroyed.
higher resolution (1-2 cm instead of 30 cm) obtainable from
drone imagery is not always technically necessary; however, As drones become more common, another limiting factor in
it can make it far easier for non-specialists to interpret their utility may be sheer data overload. Digital memory is
imagery, an important consideration as drone technology is cheap, and it is easier to gather data than to analyze it. The
democratized. As Josh Lyons, who works with both satellite temptation to indiscriminately gather data is a risky one,
and drone imagery at Human Rights Watch, says, Drone as discussed in Chapter 2. In some cases, it makes sense to
imagery shows you a picture of a house and every single gather more data than human intervention can effectively
thing is far more readily identifiable to an untrained eye. analyze, and to use computer vision algorithms to parse it,
This difference matters not only to untrained observers, but as discussed in Chapter 7.
also to seasoned ones.
It is a mistake to think of government regulation as a force
Of drone imagery Lyons gathered in Haiti, he says , What
from the outside, hampering the capabilities of a technology
was quite profound, what I realized as I started to process
such as drones. Droneslike manned aircraft and cars
the imagery: I took this. This was my imagery. I havent
are part of a network. The best car is of little use without
just bought it from some big American company. What
good roads; air traffic control systems enable airplanes
became immediately clear was the development capability.
to fly without crashing into one another. Vast increases
Everywhere kids would follow and watch; kids wanted to
in the number of drones will require both new, smart
know about the battery and the camera. Though the price
regulation and new technological systems for managing
of satellite imagery is declining rapidly, Lyons points out
drones interactions with one another. Not all of the privacy
that satellites will not ever have this social effect. The lower
quandaries that drones give rise to can be addressed by
resolution of satellite imagery, though useful for many
regulation, but many can. More on these issues is found in
purposes, systematically underestimated the damage by
Chapter 3.
a factor of almost two after the 2010 earthquake in Port-au-
Prince, Lyons says. UAV imagery, he says, wouldnt have Drones will, in certain respects, be a transformative
been perfect, but nothing ever will. technology. It is difficult to imagine a future for aerial
Additionally, he says, the real analytic benefit of drone surveying by manned aircraft, for instance. In other
imagery over satellite imagery is not the spatial resolution. respects, drones will be a useful tool on the margins.
Its the temporal resolutionthat is, capturing timely This is a consequence both of their evolving technical
images. There are, today, five satellites taking images of capabilities and of political decisions about how they ought
the same area in Damascus at 8:45 in the morning. (This to be employed. As Arthur wrote, We should not accept
is a better time for commercial satellite imagery providers technology that deadens us; nor should we always equate
because clouds are statistically less likely.) However, what is possible with what is desirable.27

ENDNOTES

1 Richard Holmes, Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air (New York: Vintage, 2014), 127; Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of
War (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 86.
2 Holmes, Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, 139.
3 W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 145.
4 Denis Wood, Rethinking the Power of Maps (New York: Guilford Press, 2010).
5 Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, 30.
6 J. Gordon Leishman, The Brguet-Richet Quad-Rotor Helicopter of 1907, Vertiflite 47, no. 3 (2001): 58-60.
7 Laurence R. Newcome, Unmanned Aviation: A Brief History of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Reston, VA: AIAA, 2004), 16.
8 Konstantin Kakaes, From Orville Wright to September 11: What the History of Drone Technology Says About the Future, in Drone
Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy, ed. Peter Bergen and Daniel Rothenberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)
359-387.
9 Pixhawk Overview, APM Plane, http://plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-autopilots/common-pixhawk-overview/.
10 Wolfgang Langewiesche and Leighton Holden Collins, Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (New York: McGraw

16 DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION

 Hill Professional, 1944), 56.
11 Gabriel Hugh Elkaim, Fidelis Adhika Pradipta Lie, and Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, Principles of Guidance, Navigation, and Control
of UAVs, in Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, ed. Kimon P. Valavanis and George J. Vachtsevanos (New York: Springer,
2012) 353.
12 Randal W. Beard and Timothy W. McLain, Small Unmanned Aircraft: Theory and Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2012).
13 RandyH, Indoor Flight Stability Issues, Inspire Pilots, March 23, 2015, http://www.inspirepilots.com/threads/indoor-flight-stabil-
ity-issues.1836/.
14 Jeffery Barton, Fundamentals of Small Unmanned Aircraft Flight, Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 31, no. 2 (2012).
15 Beard and McLain, Small Unmanned Aircraft: Theory and Practice, 60.
16 Elkaim, Lie, and Gebre-Egzaibher, Principles of Guidance, Navigation and Control of UAVs.
17 Guidance, DJI Developer, http://dev.dji.com/en/products/devices/guidance.
18 Guowei Cai, Ben M. Chen, and Tong Heng Lee, Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems (New York: Springer Science and Business Media,
2011), 6.
19 DJI Innovations, Spreading Wings S1000 User Manual V.100, http://download.dji-innovations.com/downloads/s1000/en/S1000_
User_Manual_v1.10_en.pdf.
20 DJI Innovations, Spreading Wings S1000 User Manual V.100.
21 DJI Innovations, Spreading Wings S1000 User Manual V.100.
22 Phantom 2: Specs, DJI, https://www.dji.com/product/phantom-2/spec. The Phantom 2s actual flight time in practice is shorter,
but so too is the S1000s .In both cases we refer to the manufacturers claimed flight time, to compare apples to apples.
23 Warren Ferster, DigitalGlobe Adding Infrared Capability to WorldView-3 Satellite, SpaceNews, April 17, 2012, http://spacenews.
com/digitalglobe-adding-infrared-capability-worldview-3-satellite/.
24 Christoph Koettl, interview with the author, February 17, 2015.
25 J.S. Butler and Christine Moser, Cloud Cover and Satellite Images of Deforestation, Land Economics 83, no. 2 (2007).
26 Butler and Moser, Cloud Cover and Satellite Images of Deforestation, 166.
27 Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, 216.

DRONES AND AERIAL OBSERVATION 17