skymineUAV recently attended the 2017 UAV Expo in Las Vegas, NV spending three days discussing industry trends and meeting with a variety of hardware and software providers thus ensuring we continue to remain at the forefront of the industry knowledge curve for clients. Our team learned about the next developments in UAV technology, ones we are now busy exploring further for mining operations.

Attending speeches that ranged in topics from the evolving rules and regulations in the US, the industrial use of drones and drone technology, future advancements in technology and interestingly Donald Trumps executive order for drones; it became apparent things are moving forward in the industry. However we did also notice a negative trend in the form of a current lack of industry knowledge for safe and legal UAV operations beyond US borders. It also quickly became apparent that many hardware providers were focusing solely on surveying in relation to mining operations as their solution; which from our perspective showed a slight lack in understanding to what our mining clients end use needs truly are. Don’t get me wrong here, using a UAV for surveying say an open pit or to assist more timely stockpiling is a fantastic value add but what makes skymineUAV different is understanding these are but a small proportion of use cases for UAV technology at an active site. From this deeper understanding of a mine’s lifecycle I felt skymineUAV distinguished itself as a leading global mining and UAV industry expert at the expo.

There is a unique diversity of people within the UAV industry at the moment, some serious and professional players who really wish to improve their clients working experience, but dare I say it there is also a number of ‘cowboys’ at present. We stumbled across a number of ‘world leaders’ in UAV training, insurance, mapping etc. but ask them about assisting operations say in Peru and it gets lost. In a nutshell this industry is ever expanding and growing day by day and it would be naive to think skymineUAV have all the answers, but we do work tirelessly to ensure our clients receive the very best possible. We will certainly be returning next year to the expo, cowboys aside there was so much to be learned from the experience and many positive connections made.

We hope we have left a positive impression with those who had questions about our services and when people think of UAVs and mining, we hope they will remember skymineUAV and it’s distinctive role in the UAV industry. #drones #Mining #UAV #UAS #RPAS