A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle controlled remotely that can perform numerous tasks. Used in both wars and for pizza delivery, these devices are increasingly present in various places around the world.
In Portuguese, the device can also be called VANT, an acronym for “veículo aéreo não tripulado” (unmanned aerial vehicle), or VARP, an abbreviation for “veículo aéreo remotamente pilotado” (remotely piloted aerial vehicle) — “drone” is an English word that means “drone bee.”
It is obvious that the drones used in war are different from those that Amazon tried to use for deliveries. However, this type of device, which was “imported” from the military industry, is gaining more and more useful and ingenious applications within society.
Although created for less than noble purposes, drones have been “appropriated” by civil society and are currently employed 
in various useful tasks, such as monitoring borders, roads, and forests, assisting in farming, cinematography, photography, and much more.
It resembles a bat, although its official name is eBee (from electronic bee, in English). It weighs less than one kilogram, flies at a speed of 45 kilometers per hour, has a 16-megapixel camera attached, and a 45-minute autonomy. Employees of the cellulose manufacturer Eldorado, in Três Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul, however, nicknamed it “snitch.” The nickname makes sense. This small flying robot, manufactured by the Swiss senseFly, flies over the eucalyptus plantations of the company owned by the J&F holding, of the Batista family.
Its mission: to find seedlings that were not planted correctly. If located in time, there is still time to replant them and avoid loss. Hence the nickname. With over 160,000 hectares of eucalyptus planted, the raw material for making cellulose, drones are the best way to monitor this gigantic area, which 
is equivalent to 160,000 soccer fields. “Drones are a great innovation that will change the business landscape,” says José Carlos Grubisich, president of Eldorado, who owns several drones. It is wise to take Grubisich’s words seriously.
Emerging as powerful and controversial weapons of war, these unmanned aerial vehicles are invading the business world and will influence various sectors, from global commerce to logistics, including the service sector. One way or another, they will all be inexorably influenced by drones. The figures generated by civil drones are already in the billions worldwide, according to calculations by the American consulting firm Teal Group, which specializes in the aerospace industry. In seven years, this market is expected to more than double, reaching $11.2 billion.
Many analysts believe this is a conservative forecast, given the number of projects that are expected to start coming to fruition from now on. Moreover, they note that these figures do not take into account the lack of regulation of this activity, which constitutes a barrier to greater expansion (in summary, it is necessary to define the spectrum of 
frequencies to operate these flying machines and establish airspace occupancy rules).
Just in the American market, for example, there is an annual potential of an additional $10 billion, should there be legislation for the use of civil drones, according to Auvsi, an American association representing manufacturers of these aircraft.
None of this, however, seems to dampen companies’ appetite.
Like Eldorado, many are already using drones in their operations or working on innovative pilot projects that promise to forever transform the landscapes of large cities and rural areas. This is the case of the energy generation company AES Tietê, from São Paulo, which uses the same drone as Eldorado to monitor its transmission networks. “Before, a report of irregular occupancy took a week to be completed,” says Ítalo Freitas Filho, general director of generation at AES Tietê, which invested R$ 200,000 in a drone. “Now it only takes two days.”
Agriculture is leading the adoption of drones in Brazil. It is estimated that at least 200 of them are flying over plantations. “Drones are the farmers’ eyes in the field,” says Lúcio André de Castro Jorge, a researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), from São Carlos, in the interior of São Paulo. “They are an essential tool for precision agriculture.” The case of Eldorado is again illustrative. The company 
uses photographs taken by the eBee to assess the planting. “It is possible to compare images captured at different times and monitor the development of the forest,” says Carlos Justo, planning manager at Eldorado.
Globally, drone projects are bolder, as if they had come out of science fiction books.
American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is at the forefront of this area. Bezos has already revolutionized global commerce with Amazon, turned the book market upside down with his e-book Kindle, and was one of the first to invest in cloud computing services. Now, he is reinventing the logistics sector. Drones are an essential part of this. In 2013, Bezos revealed that he could start delivering products weighing up to 2.2 kg via drones – the weight of 86% of Amazon’s orders – since 2015.
The service even has a name: Prime Air. The proposed “flying postman” transports goods in up to half an hour through a quadcopter that safely and quickly leaves packages at people’s doorsteps. Bezos’s project is far from seeming like a typical visionary’s delusion – many of his “hallucinations” have turned into billion-dollar businesses, as evidenced by the trajectory of the Seattle-based company, which in just two decades has become the world’s largest online retailer, with revenues of 
$61 billion. The logistics sector, indeed, is one of those that is expected to transform the most with drones.
The German delivery company DHL, controlled by Deutsche Post, also approves the use of drones for urgent deliveries, such as medicines to remote areas far from urban centers. A small yellow quadcopter has already made deliveries, such as a package with pharmaceuticals from one end of the city of Bonn, where its headquarters is located. The American pizza chain Domino’s also delivers pizzas in the UK.
Called Domicopter, the aerial robot was created and operated by the company AeroSight and acts as a flying delivery person. In addition to its effectiveness in the services provided, drones are proving to be an efficient marketing tool.
The American real estate industry discovered this, as it began using unmanned aircraft to capture images that are impossible to record even with helicopters. “Properties worth several million dollars require marketing tactics worthy of Madison Avenue,” said Matthew Leone, marketing director of Halstead Property, in an interview with The New York 
Times, referring to the traditional avenue that houses the main advertising agencies in the United States, in Manhattan. Halstead Property used a drone to film a house valued at $7.6 million, whose video has already been viewed half a million times on YouTube.
A New Industry
Drones create the opportunity for the development of a new market. Although they emerged as a war machine, they are first-degree cousins of aeromodelling, the practice of piloting miniature airplanes via remote control.
Around the world, there are a number of start-ups taking advantage of this boom in unmanned civil-use vehicles. The Swiss senseFly, owner of the eBee used by Eldorado and AES Tietê, for example, is only two years old. However, no company has managed to achieve the status of the Chinese DJI, which developed the Phantom II model, the cheapest in the world, sold for only $1,200.
Its drones have been compared by the chairman of the board of the American investment fund Sequoia, Michael Moritz, to the legendary Apple II. Despite being the second of its generation, it was indeed the first personal computer in history – the Apple I needed to be assembled, something only nerds could manage. It is wise to pay attention when Moritz is speaking. Sequoia was one of the first funds to invest in Apple and Google, two giants 
of American technology, when they were still just interesting ideas. Brazil is not left out of this wave of drone manufacturers.
Embraer, the third-largest manufacturer of commercial aircraft in the world, has entered this area with the project of a military drone. São Carlos, in the interior of São Paulo, and Porto Alegre lead the production of these autonomous flying robots. XMobots, founded in São Carlos in 2007, manufactures drones, two of which are aimed at the agricultural segment and one for monitoring power lines, with an enhanced camera. “The aerospace industry doesn’t change overnight,” says Giovani Amianti, founder of XMobots. “But the drone market will grow naturally.” A compatriot of XMobots, AGX was acquired by Transpreserv, a company from Minas Gerais specialized in topographic surveys of rural areas.
AGX has developed three models of drones that vary in payload capacity and price. “Our drones are data collection platforms,” says AGX’s research and development coordinator. “Just attach any sensor and fly over any area to obtain the information.” Another innovative company in this area is the gaucho Skydrone. Its creator, Ulf Bogdawa, who previously worked with aeromodelling, sold his automation company to invest in drones. “In 2008, my partners and I built a quadcopter drone and realized the potential this market had,” says Bogdawa.
A sign of the popularization of drones in Brazil is that there is a specialized store for this product on Santa Ifigênia street, a technological hub in São Paulo. Called DroneMania, the store offers models ranging from R$ 500 to over R$ 10,000, most of them imported. There is also an e-commerce site specializing in the sale of drones. It is DroneStore, founded by entrepreneur Luis Neto Dorça Guimarães in the second half of 2013. “I started making videos for companies, but I noticed the growing interest from people in buying drones and decided to open the store,” says Guimarães. His next step is to open a physical store. This is yet another indication that the drone market is more than ready to take off and forever change the business world.
War Machines
Sixteen-year-old Tariq Aziz, a soccer fan, attended an anti-drone conference in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was concerned about civilian deaths caused by drone strikes in the region where he lived, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. A few days later, an American unmanned aircraft killed him. The story of 
Aziz and dozens of other victims is portrayed in the film Unmanned: America’s Drone War, by documentarian Robert Greenwald.
The American government does not disclose official data on deaths caused by drones. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham estimated that there are around 4,700 victims each year. Drones have become a sort of signature of the military tactics of former President Barack Obama’s administration. The aerial robots allow the military to detect and destroy targets miles away. The U.S. has the Reaper super-drone, manufactured by General Atomics. Weighing over four tons, the aircraft can carry and fire four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.
In Brazil, the Air Force acquired drones from Israel. But the strategy is to develop its own technology, and leading this process is Embraer in association with Avibras, its neighbor in the aerospace sector, from São José dos Campos, the company that created the Harpia Systems, which developed the drone named Falcão to carry out intelligence and surveillance missions. The Falcão has been used as a starting point for studies that include sensors, communication systems, and a ground control station. Embraer’s drone weighs 630 kilograms and has a flight autonomy of 16 hours. It is made of carbon fiber and has a wingspan of 11 meters. It can detect a person from up to 15 kilometers away. For now, no missiles.