Drones Lifting Industry to New Heights

March 6, 2025

Drones are soaring to new heights in today’s tech landscape.

Once viewed as futuristic gadgets, drones have found robust applications elsewhere. From revolutionizing agriculture to transforming construction and insurance, drones are proving their worth.

Agriculture stands as one of the biggest beneficiaries of drone technology. But they’re making waves in diverse sectors like public safety, construction, insurance, entertainment and infrastructure inspection.

The IEEE Computer Society’s comprehensive list of technology predictions identified drone adoption as one of the top technologies in 2025, right behind the adoption of large language models.

Drones in Agriculture

Drones are used in various ways in the agricultural sector. When outfitted with sensors, they can perform low-cost analysis of soil conditions, monitor for the presence of diseases, pests, and weeds and evaluate the health of plants. They’ve also been deployed for irrigation and to spray fertilizer and pesticides in a waste-reducing practice known as precision agriculture.

“Certain types of farming benefit more from drone technology than others,” said IEEE Senior Member Inderpreet Kaur. “Large-scale crop farming like wheat, corn and rice gain efficiency as drones monitor vast fields, assess crop health and manage resources. Orchard and vineyard management also see advantages, as drones help monitor tree and vine health, optimize irrigation and detect diseases early.”

The subject of drones in agriculture has been a significant area of scholarly research over the past decade. For an article that appeared in IEEE Access, researchers searched databases of scholarly articles for entries that contained the words “unmanned aerial vehicle” (another term for drones), and “agriculture.” They found that 4,621 articles contained both those terms in 2022, up from about 900 in 2017. They also found more than 1,400 that contained both terms in the title.

Driving the Adoption of Drones

Advancements in hardware, including longer-lasting batteries and compact, high-quality sensors, have made drones more powerful and versatile. Meanwhile, enhanced GPS systems and real-time data transmission through IoT technology enable drones to gather and share information quickly, improving decision-making across industries.

Much like smartphone cameras, drone sensors have become smaller without sacrificing quality. In addition to capturing visible light for imagery, many drones contain multispectral and hyperspectral sensors to capture data not visible to the naked eye.

For guidance, drones now rely on an array of advanced GPS sensors, inertial measurement units and visual positioning systems that use cameras and computer vision to navigate and maintain stability in areas where GPS is unreliable.

Lastly, improved connectivity has been a boon to drone users. Drones can communicate with sensors and other devices on the ground. In agriculture, for example, they may gather data from soil moisture sensors in the field. They also need to send the data they collect somewhere, like to a person watching a screen or to a data center. The improvements in how drones communicate have also helped make them more useful, as they can quickly send the data they collect to be processed and analyzed.

“IoT technologies are crucial for real-time data gathering, sharing, and analysis,” said IEEE member Juan Galindo.

Leading Drone Applications

Aside from agriculture, public safety applications like search and rescue have emerged as leading applications.

According to a review of drones used by the U.S. Coast Guard that appeared in IEEE Computer Magazine, drones are less expensive to operate and can often be launched faster than it takes to assemble helicopter crews for oceanic rescues.

In the construction industry, building contractors can use drones to quickly measure land and buildings, which helps them rapidly determine the cost of jobs. In the energy sector, drones inspect everything from wind turbine blades to power transmission lines to critical infrastructure like hydroelectric dams. In the mining sector, drones are used to estimate the size of stockpiles.

Insurance companies use drones to rapidly assess damage after major disasters, and also to evaluate properties before offering new insurance policies.

Who Operates the Drones

In most cases, drones are operated by trained pilots, many of whom operate small businesses by performing services to various sectors.

“While some tech-savvy farmers are learning to use drones themselves, many prefer hiring certified drone pilots due to the technical skills required for operation, maintenance and compliance with regulations,” Kaur said. “In some regions of India, government and private organizations are providing training to farmers to use drones. For instance, a group of 20 women from Punjab, India, have been trained as drone pilots to spray fertilizer on farmlands. These women received free drone units, empowering them to manage their fields and reduce manual labor efficiently.”

Future Innovations in Drone Technology

Despite their rapid uptake, some aspects of drone technology leave room for improvement.

Battery technology is the subject of significant research. Many drones can only fly for 20 to 40 minutes before they need to be recharged. More powerful motors and lighter materials would increase payloads, allowing drones to carry more weight.

And some improvements could benefit different applications. Better LiDAR and mapping capabilities could help evaluate construction progress, while quieter drones would improve their use in entertainment and media.

Learn More: Like their robot cousins, some drones are inspired by examples from the natural world. Check out this drone featured in IEEE Spectrum, which walks like a bird on the ground to conserve energy.