The Brave New World Of Unmanned Vehicles

While the FAA, other legal and regulatory agencies, and privacy advocates catch up in terms of the legality and ethics o,f such uses of unmanned vehicles, manufacturers are envisioning a future in which UAVs will be a prevalent part of everyday life. "It's going to spark a lot of creativity," said UAV manufacturer Zenon Dragan. "It's going to be great for artists, videographers and photographers."

Remote-control vehicles once primarily inhabited the territory of hobbyists. People would take their planes out to a field on a Saturday afternoon and spin a few lazy circles in the sky.

With the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles, drones and other high-tech applications, however, it has quickly become a brave new remote-control world, where the lines between toys and surveillance equipment, hobbyists and professionals, are becoming increasingly blurred.

"I grew up building and flying model airplanes since I was 9 or 10 years old," Zenon Dragan, president of UAV manufacturer Draganfly Innovations, told TechNewsWorld. "It turned into a hobby, and the hobby turned into a business."