Monitoring System to Prevent Misuse of Drones
Drones are very easily available and easy to operate. Due to the widespread availability and easy usage, anyone can use drones. Most drones today are equipped with cameras for photography and recording purposes.
Because of this anyone can covertly record or click photos of anything or anyone they want without any repercussions. Obviously this creates privacy issues, some bad characters might be stalking someone without leaving any clues and the victims might be completely oblivious.
This might be a new idea but in the coming years might be frequently used by criminals for illegally stalking people or obtaining data and cause serious problems. Besides there is not much regulation on drones.
However one could provide the counter argument that if a drone were to be spying on you, you could always go to it’s operator and complain to the police. But this is not always feasible because–
· Modern drone cameras ,on an average ,can have a range of around 7 kilometres, while some of the best have a range of 10 kilometres. Therefore they can be used for spying or stalking from long distances.
· Even if a drone is close to you, it can be difficult for you to know if the drone camera is pointing towards you or if you are just in the proximity of it’s lens and it isn’t focusing at you.
· Also if you are being spied on, it is not necessary that you will be able to find it’s operator.
Drones are already being used for used by terrorists against national interests. Therefore it is necessary that a monitoring system be created.
The idea is to create a real-time monitoring system which is connected to all drones globally that provides data via preferably an application. In conclusion the idea is to create an app that provides the data of all drones in proximity to the user and whether the drone is pointing towards you. It will obviously have an alarm to notify the police if someone is stalking you.
The drones’ GPS will communicate with all phones with the application and the application will use the phone’s GPS to detect the drone(s). If required a customized GPS system will be made
Market Demand — The best part of the app is that anyone who knows about drones would want to use the app for their safety. Therefore this app will have more demand than drones themselves. If enough money and energy is invested in this system it will become a daily use application.
Competition — This is a completely new idea therefore it will not have any competitors except for copycats or knockoffs (that will not have enough investment to create problems). It will create more awareness in the field of drone regulation.
Target Customers — Because of the need for privacy this app can become popular quickly. In developed countries the app will be popular among most age groups, however in developing countries the youngsters and some adults. Usage is expected to increase in most countries however.
Required Knowledge –
· Artificial intelligence(Human detecting Software) will be used to analyse if a human is being observed. The drone camera will be equipped with the software. Some AI models are –
1. Fast R — CNN
2. Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG)
3. Region Based Fully Convolutional Network(R-FCN)
4. Single Shot Detector(SSD).
5. Spatial Pyramid Pooling(SPP — net).
· Augmented reality -This will be used to direct the user towards the drone. It will be installed on the phone and will pair with the phone’s camera. Marker based A.R. model will be used as the location of the drone will be needed.
· Global positioning system — This will not be external ,but rather, the GPS of the phone and the drones in proximity will be used to measure and provide the distance between them.
· User Interface — The app will obviously require a user interface for the user to interact with the application. The user interface will probably be built using Java which is the official language for android app development, some other language could also be used if the need arises. For macOS however Objective — C might be used, as it is the most popular app development language for macOS .Swift could also be used. C++ will be used for Windows.
· A small messaging platform — To contact the police if the user is being observed. Will be present in the app on the phone.
· Various Software Modules will be required to–
1. To connect the phone’s GPS to the app.
2. To connect the drone to the app.
3. To connect the app to the camera.
4. To connect the app to the phone’s A.R. resources.
· Anti hacking software — Will be required to keep the app free from hackers.
· The system works in the following manner -
· Estimated Budget — The Budget will be divided among various resources such as –
1. Human Resources / Required Staff –
Technical Staff — Around 50 lakh rupees
Training and development Staff — Around 14 lakh rupees.
Compensation and Benefits — Around 3 lakh rupees.
Employer — Employee relations — Around 2 lakh rupees.
Safety and health — 70,000 rupees
Labour relations — 10 lakh rupees
2.Hardware and Software procurement –
A.I. model — If Custom model is used around 20 lakh rupees might be needed but if a 3rd party A.I. model is used it will cost around 3 lakh rupees annually.
Augmented reality — 3 lakh rupees approximately.
User interface — Around 3 lakh rupees.
Other software modules — 1 lakh approximately.
3.App publishing — Around 10,000 rupees annually.
4.Cyber safety ,testing and maintenance — a few lakhs annually.
The total budget comes around — 1,20,00,000 lakh rupees.
The total budget is divided in the different sectors is approximately as follows -
Product Pricing -
The product will be available for free on app stores on various platforms such as Android , KaiOS , Linux and Windows.
The app has been kept free on these platforms globally .For these platforms, revenue will be generated by hosting ads in a small section of the app screen.
A premium mode will also be available for the customers who want a better experience , the premium mode will have a better UI design, better A.R. guiding ,more functions , no ads and faster speeds. The premium mode will require a standard monthly subscription of 150 rupees, but other subscription plans will be available according to the nature of markets around the world , for high quality markets (where people can pay a good amount of money ),a fee of 2 $ will be required. For other markets the strategy will be to open them and increase their quality by marketing aggressively , the initial fee will be low but will increase in accordance with the market growth.
For the ios and macOS platforms , a one-time fee of 5 $ will be required to purchase the app.
A premium mode will also be available for subscription which will have the best features of the app –
· Customisable A.R. tool.
· Faster A.I. and faster operating speeds.
· Partially Customisable U.I.
· Better integration of the app with the phone.
· Customisable notification bell.
· Partially Customisable data, processor and memory usage.
The subscription plan will have a pricing of around 10 $ per month.
For all platforms a mini plan (weekly) will also be introduced.
Marketing Plan — The marketing strategy is to be aggressive but also patient. The Indian market is not very open and has many problems therefore a lot of initial effort will be required, however, once the app is able to enter other markets, lesser effort will be required.
Risks and difficulties to be encountered -
Although a lot has been taken into consideration, still there are some problems that will occur –
· The market in India is difficult to conquer , even big contenders such as General Motors and Harley Davidson had to exit the Indian market due to excessive losses.
· The best way of surviving would be to enter low risk markets which creates another problem — expansion is easier said than done
· A lot of initial investments will be required. The A.I. will cost a lot. In fact if we look at the budget — the A.I. will take 74 % of the software/hardware budget.
· The A.R. tool although might make it easier but will take more processing time and memory and has increased the cost, despite not being very crucial to the application.
· For such a type of project , optimal profits will only occur in the long term.
Milestones and timelines –
This Gantt Chart depicts the timeline.
A few milestones are –
· Procure hardware and software components at a good price.
· Proper and well trained workforce to be employed.
· Properly settle in the Indian market.
· Expand in other markets.
