Environmental monitoring
There are numerous applications within the environmental sector that make use of DC motor technology as well. Biodiversity monitoring, both on land and at sea, may be done with a variety of unmanned vehicles. Providing minimal disturbance to wildlife environments, it’s possible to make use of robotics to monitor endangered species, as well as to conduct research into biodiversity within a given area. Onboard cameras may be combined with AI to take images, categorise them, and report on observed findings.
Another potential application is atmospheric and air quality monitoring. Stationary sensors are commonly used to measure pollution and other metrics relating to air quality — but they don’t always provide the most comprehensive outlook of an area. Instead, it’s possible to mount the sensors onto drones in order to obtain measurements over a larger area.
This helps to factor in potential hotspots, such as industrial plants and buildings, with the overall picture of a town or city. This technology can be used in emergency scenarios as well, such as studying the atmospheric effects of volcano plumes or smoke generated by wildfires.
DC motors working in these scenarios must be lightweight enough to minimise the power requirements of the drone. A quick response is paramount to ensure precise control, and to ensure that the drone can keep itself still even in variable, high-wind conditions.