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Future-proofing your drone program amidst uncertain regulations

Vaibhav

A Wingtra Q&A with Senior Product Manager, Vaibhav Sawhney

Future-proofing your drone program amidst uncertain regulations

What are the key things engineers and project managers should consider when choosing a drone solution for long-term gains?

First, they should be focusing on the core value that the solution provides—how it solves their specific needs. It should also be easy to use and train people on while providing reliable, high-quality results.

You also want to know that the drone manufacturer stands behind you in terms of offering fast, personal and expert-level support plus regular updates to increase the capability of the system.  

Along these lines, the drone manufacturer needs to take care of you and your operations in terms of preventing downtime due to regulations.

ES2 drone survey pilot and WingtraOne GEN II in the field

Make sure the drone company you invest in has its grip on compliance realities, because that will future-proof your investment.

Vaibhav Sawhney
Senior Product Manager at Wingtra

Tradepoint Atlantic using WingtraOne GEN II on site.
A good question to ask is: Does the drone manufacturer have compliant hardware for highly-regulated areas?

How do changes in regulations affect drone operations, and what steps can firms take to stay ahead of these changes?

That’s a great question. To be clear, what we call regulations involves more than just air traffic rules. They can also reflect things like data privacy and security policy, or even geopolitical will.

You want to ensure that the company is looking out for you, so you don’t have to worry about your fleet being grounded. So you need to ask: does the drone manufacturer produce compliant hardware for highly-regulated areas?

For example, simply being on the Blue UAS list implies a lot of passed checks and opens the door for doing sensitive projects with government bodies, such as DoDs, Army Corps and DoTs. They have very strict entry barriers to fly drones over their sites. Blue UAS drones are automatically accepted on such projects.

Regulations changes can ground your fleet overnight, so you want to make sure that the drone company you invest in is well ahead on those trends.

Vaibhav Sawhney
Senior Product Manager, Wingtra 

President of Environmental Science Services (ES2), Andrew Milanes, explains why having a drone on the Blue UAS list is so critical to business.

Blu SUAS approved drone for surveying

What are the strategic benefits of partnering with drone manufacturers that are compliant with stringent government regulations?

All of what we are talking about boils down to having uninterrupted operations. As you build your operations around drone data, you want to make sure that your fleet isn’t going to suddenly be grounded. 

You also want to be able to bid and deliver on any range of projects that come your way, now and into the future.

With a drone on government lists such as the Blue UAS, you can easily integrate such a platform into your operations.

In the case of Wingtra, when you get a government project, you simply enable air-gapped operations via a BLU-enabled software package. All our hardware is compliant from the get-go, so you simply add the software.

Vaibhav Sawhney
Senior Product Manager at Wingtra

Ask these questions to vett a platform:

  1. Are they launching new payloads and sensors to unlock more use cases for your company?
  2. Are they regularly updating their software to make the system more reliable, easier to use and more efficient?
  3. Are they adding features that make it safer and more tuned to your needs across all industries?

So let’s say that some drones are grounded by regulations, how can a company minimize disruption in their operations?

That’s definitely a very interesting conversation these days. Drones have introduced unprecedented ways in which we capture aerial data. 

You now have views of areas at speeds and accuracies you never had before, so you’re enabling many new ways of doing things across all industries based on rich data and insights.

But of course as you produce more data, and data becomes prevalent, so does the concern around things like data security, data privacy.

PCL drone pilot looking up amidst solar panels
Solar farms and fast-paced construction projects have come to depend on drone data, and risk major setbacks if their platforms are grounded.

You want to look for drone companies that take data very seriously. Again, look for labels such as Blue UAS, which also means that they are NDAA compliant. These drones offer certain capabilities, such as air-gapped operations for sensitive sites.

Vaibhav Sawhney
Senior Product Manager at Wingtra

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