Move over, smartphones, the latest craze in technology may be to own a drone of your own, according to an Indian-origin researcher at Nasa, suggesting that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may transform aviation.
Every home may have a drone in next five to 10 years and people will use them for a myriad purposes from doing rooftop inspections to buying a screw driver, said Parimal Kopadekar, manager of Nasa's Safe Autonomous System Operations Project at Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, California.
"I see a time when every home will have a drone. You're going to use a drone to do rooftop inspections. You're going to be able to send a drone to Home Depot to get a screw driver," he said.
"This is in five or 10 years," Kopadekar said in a conference at Nasa's Ames Research Centre in California.
"We can completely transform aviation. Quickly," said Dave Vos, lead of Google'ssecretive Project Wing, which is working with Nasa on an air traffic control system for small, low-altitude drones.
"We have 125 collaborators and it's growing," said Kopadekar. An effective air traffic system will play a major role in turning drones into an engine of the economy, one affecting package delivery, agriculture, hazardous waste oversight and more, USA Today reported.
Kopadekar said multiple companies could provide this kind of air traffic control for different needs. Vos imagines using the same technology that allows cellphones to talk to each other and the network-systems that also decide which messages go first and ensure that everything gets through in milliseconds.
"We think everyone who wants to build one should be able to build one," Vos added.