IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020 - 50

It is not difficult to imagine that a
range of services associated with
drones will emerge in the near future,
sometimes referred to as Drones-asa-Service, which will have significant
social impact.
also be an ability to enforce controls associated with
the service delivery, for example, delivering at a prespecified time and place. These can be enforced using
technology (e.g., drone tracking, smartphone applications, bar codes, and electronic tags).

Safety, Air Traffic Management, and Regulations
Safety is going to be a major challenge with drone services - not only safety of the drones but of people
potentially affected by the drones. As is often the case
with the emergence of a new technology or service,
there is a lag between the introduction of the technology and the technology safety standards for use (e.g., airplanes have become safer compared to when they were
first introduced).
According to [17] some drone safety related challenges include the unsupervised nature of recreational
drones and their interactions with commercial drones,
air-traffic-management-related issues including the interaction with manned aviation, and issues related to
obstacle detection and drone system failures. Gatteschi
et al. [15] reinforced the need for rules and regulations,
which will allow drones to fly without making them a
danger to people and things. They also raised concerns
about obstacle detection related issues. The issue of
drones dropping out of the sky in case of malfunction,
accidents (collisions with other drones and birds), or
weather conditions, are of concern to the general population. There are already drone rules in many countries,
e.g., in Australia the Civil Aviation Safety Authority
(CASA) issues rules regarding drones. It will be important for service providers to follow relevant regulations,
with conformance perhaps aided or automated by software. Adherence to certain common technical systems
might also be required.
Regulation-supported priority flights paths might also
be provided for drones that are used by police, or by
emergency services, e.g., to deliver defibrillators [21], or
ambulance drones. No one party should be allowed to
pay to "own" the sky. Mandating particular "highways

in the sky" might be a means to manage the flight
paths of drones, requiring wide area connectivity for
drones, e.g., using LTE-enabled drones in a UAS Traffic
Management (UTM) system, allowing beyond-line-ofsight flights [20].
License plates for drones, analogous to registration
for vehicles, are also being developed, using physical
tagging [12] or electronic radio-based tagging [9].

Insurance
There is a need to have insurance for drones and
drone services so that incidents like physical loss,
third party damage, product liability, and failure to provide service can be covered. Third party insurance for
drones is already mandatory in many countries including Canada, China, U.K., Germany, and Poland [17]. As
drone and drone services become more prevalent, the
necessary insurance systems will have to evolve to
minimize liability and risk for drone owners and service providers.

Efficiency
The efficiency of drone services has yet to be measured
in a tangible way as the services are not yet widely used
or fully implemented. The efficiency of any drone service may depend upon several factors. For example,
weather inconsistencies, attempted capture by others,
malfunction while out on delivery, and security concerns by law enforcement may interfere with the functioning of drone services, making them less efficient.
Moreover, the exact energy it would take to serve clients, how this energy would be replenished on a regular
basis, and whether it would indeed be more expedient/
efficient to use drones instead of alternative delivery
methods, remains to be explored in real-world settings.
Another factor that may challenge efficiency is the
number of orders that can be serviced in a single
delivery and how efficient it would be if the drone
would be required to return to the point of origin multiple times in order to process multiple deliveries.
Where automation fails, efficiency may also be maintained via human judgement to adapt when the circumstances on the ground have changed. The issue of
efficiency relates to safety (in not saturating the sky
with drones), yet still providing good quality (e.g., timely, available) drone services.

Environment
Another challenge that drone services may face is the
effect of increased drone usage on the environment.
This is an avenue that is still under-researched [1].
According to Thaller et al. [22], a higher freight transport
volume generates more noise and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions using traditional transport approaches.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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SEPTEMBER 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020

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