Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market

[345 Pages Report] The Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market is projected to grow from USD 11.6 Billion in 2022 to USD 23.0 Billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 14.6% from 2022 to 2027.

Drones are increasingly used for monitoring and inspection by industries as part of their maintenance practices. A visual inspection is essential to ensure the appropriate maintenance of a company’s resources. Drones are used for pipeline and infrastructure inspection, wildlife population & activity monitoring and inspection, remote infrastructure and aircraft monitoring, agricultural yield inspection, oil & gas sector inspection, and utilities inspection, among various other applications. Drone cameras usually perform the task of a human eye during inspection and monitoring applications. By employing drones to accumulate visual data, inspectors can avoid visiting hazardous areas or sites like scaffolding, chemical spills, or a tall, lean tower.

The following sections discuss the market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges pertaining to the drone inspection and monitoring market. There is an increasing demand for drones for inspection and monitoring due to their accuracy, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and safety benefits. These factors are anticipated to fuel the growth of drone providers, namely Intertek Group plc (UK), MISTRAS Group, Inc (US), Wipro (India), Lockheed Martin Corporation (US), Intel Corporation (US), ideaForge (India) and several others.

Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market Forecast to 2027

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Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market Dynamics:

Driver:  Rising usage of drones as remote visual inspection (RVI) tool for critical infrastructure applications

Automated and remotely piloted drones are popular in the asset management sector due to their various advantages. For instance, a compact, nimble drone can effortlessly be sent to isolated locations or into hard-to-access nooks and corners such as offshore platforms, tank tops, flare tips, windmill blades, and powerlines. By employing drones, personnel can complete inspections from a safe distance without the need for utilizing expensive ladders or scaffolding. Large areas can be included in much less time, even for more complex inspections, such as thermal imaging. Some of the critical infrastructure applications that widely use drones for Remote Visual Inspection (RVI) are solar farms, wind farms, and power lines among others.

Restraint: Issues with drone safety and security

The usage of drones by malevolent entities to conduct physical and cyber-attacks threatens society by violating its residents’ privacy and threatening the public’s safety. In reality, numerous technical and operational drone properties are being misused for potential attacks. This comprises performing critical operations based on aggressive reconnaissance, as well as surveillance aimed at tracking specific people and certain properties, causing safety and privacy issues. Hacking a drone is like hacking into one’s personal computer, and hackers can access drones from miles away. They just need to establish a connection to the drone by intercepting the signal. The radio signal is typically unencrypted, so there is a provisional step to decode it with a packet sniffer. After achieving this, the hackers block the signal and connect the drone to their device in order to manipulate the drone as per their desire. Some of the existing threats and vulnerabilities associated with drones, including susceptible to spoofing, susceptible to malware infection , susceptible to manipulation, susceptible to technical issues, prone to wi-fi jamming.

Opportunity: Advancements in LiDAR technology for commercial drones

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a vital tool in the commercial drone industry. The highly accurate and precise LiDAR sensors are attached to drones to send a pulse from a laser to accumulate measurements, which are utilized to generate precise maps and 3D model of objects and surroundings. Routine photogrammetry or other survey technologies might skip the surface elevation value that is concealed by vegetation or forest cover. However, LIDAR can penetrate all through the object and identify the surface value. Hence, it finds wide applications related to inspection and monitoring like flood modeling, precision agriculture, forest planning and management, and environmental assessment.

Currently, multi-sensor payloads are popular in the commercial drone market (e.g., E/O+IR sensors). However, merging a LiDAR scanner and an optical camera in a very small and very light payload is a significant step forward. In the last quarter of 2020, DJI introduced the Zenmuse L1 sensor for its Matrice and Terra platforms. It comprises a Livox LiDAR module, a high-precision IMU, and a camera having a 1-inch CMOS on a three-axis stabilized gimbal. The L1 sensor offers 3D data in real time while securing the details of complex structures. The miniaturization of technology seems to be a budding technical innovation that will strive in the coming years.

Challenge: Regulatory hurdles and budgetary & other constraints

Drone industry is thriving at faster pace. From monitoring active fire and real-time activities to sending messages via light shows, unmanned aerial system have come to be widely used by civilians, and government agencies. However, the rising demand for drones would put huge pressure on the manufacturers to meet with customer demand and drone design regulation and also on the government authorities for procedures of permits as well as exemptions that all countries required for the drone utilization. Challenges to expanding the use of drones for public safety application include limitations on flying beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), flying at or below 400 feet, inadequate battery life, community-based concerns over privacy, and not flying in restricted airspace, especially near airports. Moreover, Drones create challenging circumstances for insurance companies owing to the damage caused to someone’s personal or government assets and liability.

Despite these present-day challenges, drone adoption within public safety fields is likely to speed up once regulatory concerns are tackled, pilot programs gain achievement, and drone funding shifts from optional budget items to operational budget line items.

Based on Solution, the software segment witness strong growth during 2022-2027

Based on solution, the drone inspection and monitoring market has been segmented into platform, software, infrastructure, and services.  The user’s flight experience and photo editing/taking experience can be enhanced using various drone-based software. The drone inspection and monitoring market by software is segmented into route planning and optimization, inventory management, live tracking, fleet management, and computer vision & object detection depending on the application area.

Route planning and optimization software offer inspection drones the capability to make their way through chaotic spaces. This software is essentially required when inspection and monitoring drones operate in clogged city environments, fly between buildings or far-off locations, as well as inspect powerlines, windmills, solar farms, etc. The software helps in deciding the most optimum route for drones to carry out operations with maximum safety.

Based on Type, multirotor registered largest share in the base year

Based on type, the drone inspection and monitoring market has been segmented into fixed-wing, multirotor, and hybrid. The multirotor drones are usually outfitted with two, three, four, six, or eight rotors and are known as bicopters, tricopters, quadcopters, hexacopters, and octocopters, respectively. Quadcopters are the most conventional design of multirotor drones. Their stabilizing process is less complicated than tricopters. They have fewer parts (implying less manufacturing costs) than hexacopters or octocopters. The larger the number of rotors in a multirotor drone, the more thrust it can produce and, thus, the heavier payload it can lift. Hexacopters or octocopters are the most commonly used multirotor drones for lifting heavy industrial cameras or delivery payloads. Drones with more than four rotors also possess a degree of dismissal, which permits them to still make a steady descent in instances wherein individual rotors malfunction or collapse. Upgrades in rotary drone performance and the integration of robust onboard sensors have opened tactical use cases for military implementation. In February 2020, the Swiss Armed Forces selected Europe’s prominent drone company, Parrot, to deliver multirotor drones for its Mini UAV program.

Based on distribution channel, offline segment to hold the largest market share during the forecast period

The intermediaries consist of distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and e-tailers or e-commerce intermediaries. The drone inspection and monitoring market has been segmented based on distribution channel into online and offline. The offline distribution channel is projected to have the largest market share in the base year, whereas the online distribution channel would have the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The Asia Pacific region is projected to Grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period

Countries such as China, Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea contribute to the growth of the drone inspection and monitoring industry in the Asia Pacific. Political tensions in some Asia Pacific countries have led to the deployment of drones for border security in the region. This serves to be one of the most significant factors driving the growth of the drone inspection and monitoring market in the Asia Pacific.

In addition, China is one of the prime manufacturers and buyers of drones globally. There are more than 500 drone manufacturers across the globe, out of which 400 are based in China. UAV manufacturers in the country have witnessed an increased demand from various countries of Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, simultaneously positively affecting the drone inspection and monitoring market. Moreover, In 2019, the Government of China introduced new drone regulations, making it easier for applicants to obtain licenses with lowered entry conditions and convenient online applications. The regulations apply to the operation of drones weighing 250 grams and above.

Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market by Region

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The break-up of the profiles of primary participants in the Drone inspection and monitoring market is as follows:

• By Company Type: Tier 1–35%; Tier 2–45%; and Tier 3–20%
• By Designation: C Level Executives–35%; Directors–25%; and Others–40%
• By Region: Asia Pacific–30%; North America–30%; Europe–20%; Middle East–10%; and Rest of the World–10%

Top Drone Inspection and Monitoring Companies - Key Market Players

The drone inspection and monitoring companies are dominated by globally established players such as Intertek Group plc (UK), MISTRAS Group, Inc. (UK), Wipro (India), Lockheed Martin Corporation (US), and Intel Corporation (US). These players have adopted various growth strategies such as contracts, acquisitions, agreements, expansions, investments, and new product launches to further expand their presence in the drone inspection and monitoring market.

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Scope of the Report

Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market Highlights

This research report categorizes the drone inspection and monitoring market based on solution, type, application, mode of operation, distribution channel, and region

Recent Developments

• In December 2022, Intertek Group plc launched an innovative integrated solution, Intertek Group plc Green R&D. The new solution could ensure the safety, quality, and sustainability attributes optimized during the product lifecycle.
• In December 2022, DJI developed a compact, ultra-lightweight camera drone, DJI Mini 3, which weighs less than 249 grams. It is designed to be use by anyone anywhere.
• In June 2022, DJI launched DJI RS 3 and DJI RS 3 Pro, which incorporated a range of new features. It includes a redesigned axes-locking system which means the process is now automated. By turning on the gimbal, the automated axis locks release and unfold the gimbal, allowing the operator to get started in seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

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