2020 Commercial Drone Developments: 10 Key Highlights

As 2020 comes to an end we recap a rather extraordinary year and feature relevant developments with 10 highlights in the commercial drone industry 2020. In line with our global drone outlook for 2020, we saw that, despite a global pandemic, significant regulatory progress was made, products were improved, services were refined, and public acceptance grew.

From an article in DroneII by Kay Wackwitz.

It’s been a busy year with business growth, record funding, and company acquisitions. However, companies also struggled due to reduced demand. Same as always you might think, but in 2020 it was amplified to the extremes.

Of course, we have to start with the Coronavirus crisis since this was the underlying theme of 2020. We saw the effects on drone companies and we even measured the impact in our annual industry survey. A drop in demand (43%) was notably more common than the increase in demand (15%) – 19% were not able to see any effect at the time the survey was taken in mid-May. 54% answered the long-term effects for the industry as a whole would to be positive – only 17% answered they would be negative.

Looking at the drone market in December, we can see how the Coronavirus crisis had a catalytic effect especially for drone delivery but also for classic remote sensing applications like mapping, surveying, and inspection. In 2020, we saw new product releases – from small drones like the DJI Mavic Air 2 to large platforms like the Airbus VSR700. We saw many companies go out of business (e.g. Altus Unmanned) while others announced their market entry like Sony. Let’s recap the top 10 development from the drone industry 2020.

1. US Government Grounds Fleet of 800+ Drones Citing Use of Chinese Components
Started in 2017 and extremely controversial, drones from Chinese manufacturers were banned from government departments like the DoD for potential cyber vulnerabilities.

In January of this year, the U.S. Interior Department grounded its entire fleet of more than 800 drones based on the fact that most if not all of the drones contained Chinese-owned components.

For the complete article on 10 highlights CLICK HERE.