The Future of "Drones for Good"

In 2020, we partnered up with the UNDP on the COVID-19 Detect & Protect Challenge and had over 2,400 participants from around the world responding to our contest with nearly 360 submissions to support developing countries through the sharing and transfer of open source technology. It was one of the largest design and engineering challenges that Hackster had hosted and a favorite of many Hackster users. With this, UNDP has became an important "#tech4good" partner of ours.

Hackster recently ended a monthlong initiative aimed at empowering the developer community to explore the drone space, coming full cycle with buyer guides for DIY drones, drone kits giveaways, and interviews with the leaders in the open source drone space. During this time, the UNDP published a comprehensive report on how lower-income cities can leverage drones (UAVs) to reshape urban governance and support key urban objectives. Hackster reached out to the authors of the report at UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development for a deeper look into the tech and social infrastructure. We wanted to understand how drones play a role in the overall SDG goals, and how open source and open standards act as crucial and practical tools to push this technology forward worldwide.

Drones (UAVs) can play an active role in achieving each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the following ways:

• No poverty: Aerial mapping informs urban settlements redistributive efforts and equitable economic policy.
• Zero hunger: Smart urban farming efforts benefit from aerial crop health imaging, spraying, and irrigation, particularly in vertical farms.
• Good health and well-being: UAV networks between hospitals deliver essential health-care products and services, such as vaccines.
• Quality education: UAVs foster engagement with the interest in technology from a younger age, serving as an entry point into STEM education.
• Gender equality: New opportunities in the emerging UAV economy empower women, unhindered by histories of systemic exclusion in traditional industries.
• Clean water and sanitation: UAVs monitor the health and quality of waste and sanitation systems affordably and efficiently.
• Affordable and clean energy: UAVs are energy-efficient alternatives to heavy industry, especially in the construction and inspection of urban infrastructure.
• Decent work and economic growth: Increased public engagement with UAVs serve as an entry point into the wider digital economy, innovation, and economic growth.
• Industry, innovation and infrastructure: UAVs support local industries, aid with infrastructure inspections and upgrades, increase efficiency, and are environmentally cleaner alternatives to industrial processes.
• Reduced inequalities: UAVs deliver internet connectivity to marginalized communities, improving digital inclusion, visibility and access.
• Sustainable cities and communities: Aerial urban mapping of disaster risk and human settlements could inform resilient built environment planning.
• Responsible consumption and production: UAVs improve supply chain functioning through just-in-time delivery.
• Climate action: Aerial mapping and UAV data collection inform climate action, awareness, and warning measures in cities.
• Life below water: Aerial surveys inform recovery efforts for marine litter from anthropogenic activities near coastal urban centers.
• Life on land: UAVs map endangered urban ecosystems, and monitor urban wildlife health with little disturbance.
• Peace, justice and strong institutions: UAVs facilitate open data and public project accountability.
• Partnerships for the goals: The UAV industry catalyses partnerships for sustainable and scalable UAV deployment.

The {full stack}

What it would look like in 2030 with drones in smart cities? The report from UNDP introduced the UAV 'Urban Stack' – what cities needed for effective adoption of UAVs.

For UAVs to be effectively implemented in cities, what we call the UAV ‘Urban Stack’ is required. This refers to three components needed to create a favourable UAV environment: 1) digital, physical, and innovation infrastructure; 2) community buy-in and positive public perception towards UAV initiatives; and 3) mechanisms like sustainable financing to embed UAVs within various urban activities.

We have seen many "urban drone arena" research projects on Hackster News, and it is well-known that drones have been playing important roles in international development fields of conflict monitoring, disaster management, and the delivery of essential supplies. However, the UNDP indicated that such explorations have mostly been limited to higher-income cities. Building upon the growing ubiquity and accessibility of drones, the report provided some practical advice for policymakers on how lower- and middle-income cities too can take leadership in leveraging their potential to address a number of development challenges.

Unbound by legacy infrastructure, these cities can be more agile in incorporating drone infrastructure and service deployment considerations in their city master plans. In particular, drones can help lower-income cities re-shape urban planning, public utilities maintenance, logistics optimisation and security monitoring.

The power of open source technology and open standards

Open source software – like Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)’s OpenAerialMap,OpenDroneMap, and the World Bank’s Geonode – can help process and share data at low costs and boost the local and broader innovation ecosystem. The Pixhawk Open Standards provides readily available hardware specifications and guidelines for drone systems development. Leveraging these open source technologies, developers and innovators from anywhere in the world can innovate!

Tanzania-based innovator, Bornlove Ntikha, used bamboo, a locally sourced material for the frame of his DIY drone. Paired with Pixhawk-based electronics and 3D-printed parts, he was able to compete and demonstrate in front of East African government officials at the World Bank's Lake Victoria Challenge to explore how autonomous cargo drones might help in the region.

Beyond research and prototypes, when looking at some of the different commercial drones in the world, it is of no surprise that most of their core operating software is based on kernels like PX4. Similar to how the Linux ecosystem is built upon open source principles, the developers and adopters from around the world collaborate and provide a standard to deliver the common stack, enabling a distributed ecosystem to build and maintain hardware and software in a flexible and scalable way. Each individual system integrator then creates and designs its own tailored and differentiated solutions for drone applications. Such an open system allows a vibrant developer community to spur innovation. As a media partner of the PX4 Developer Summit every year, Hackster has witnessed how open source communities has propelled the industry in terms of accessibility, flexibility, transparency and cyber security.

Technological developments have accelerated the growth of an open source and non-proprietary UAV market. They now allow drones to be equipped with various payloads – such as cameras, sensors, or cargo – to collect different types of data or perform a wide range of actions. To leverage UAVs to their maximum efficacy in urban environments, utilizing open source technology is especially important. For this, systems must be established so that navigation and precision landing technologies such as GPS – or other commercial or open source approaches – can enable UAV tracking, guide flight paths, and facilitate the delivery of goods and services.

This also leads to a diverse drone portfolio. There will be many different types of drones operating in the future skies due to the need for different flight ranges and levels of autonomy in the different uses and applications. For example, fixed-wing drones can fly longer with heavier payloads, which make them suitable for larger mapping projects or delivery of goods over long distances, while multi-rotor aircrafts are best suited for real-time or on-demand aerial data acquisition over short distances. Hybrid drones (or called VTOL drones) have combined traits of fixed-wing and multi-rotor, which increase all of payload weight, flight time and distance.

The UNDP advises urban governments to carefully consider which types of drones are the most suitable for their local needs and realities. In addition, cities will need to consider proportional regulations, financing infrastructures, and forging partnerships between the public and private sectors in order to balance innovations and risk management.

Going forward

Globally, the urban drone space is still in its infancy. Just our own Hackster community alone shows that drones have had a strong following amongst consumers and hobbyists for some time, with lots of activities happening in all parts of the world.

To actively use drones for public benefits and drive "drones for good" efforts, the UNDP's report acts as a good handbook to provide direction for policymakers like city governments on how to recognize this future technology in their governance, eventually bridging cross-sector conversations between regulators and technologists.

At Hackster, we will continue to support innovators from around the world in developing technology that uses drones in a meaningful way to advance our humanity. Keep in touch with all the happenings in our community:

• Contest: NXP HoverGames3: Land, Sky, Food Supply (pre-registration now open)
• Topic Hub: Drones
• Platform Hub: PX4

Learn more about open-source drone technologies from our interview series:

• Iain Galloway, Head of Mobile Robotics Team at NXP
• Chad Sweet, CEO of ModalAI
• Ramon Roche, General Manager at Dronecode Foundation

Download the UNDP's full "The Sky's Not The Limit: How Lower-Income Cities Can Leverage Drones" report here.

Thanks to UNDP's Gandhar Desai,Junghee Oh, Charlotte Arribe, and Calum Handforth for contributing to this article.