Making Drones Work for New York
A demonstration of drone technologies at Tech:NYC’s Mayoral Drone Forum.
On its face, New York City has never been an obvious home base for the drone industry — the busy, dense environment presents unique challenges for deploying the technology. But long-stalled updates to the city’s avigation statutes haven’t kept pace as drones evolved, and the technology holds a lot of potential to provide solutions that make NYC safer and more resilient.
Think less scaffolding when buildings need to be inspected; less traffic when bridges undergo routine maintenance checks; less disruption to residential buildings when construction is happening nearby.
New York is well-positioned to set the standard on drone usage in urban environments. Recognizing that opportunity, Tech:NYC recently hosted a half-day forum to bring together several NYC government agencies, drone manufacturers, and aerial mapping software providers to explore the ways drones could help government teams do their jobs more effectively.
Mayor Eric Adams kicked off the forum by citing all the ways drones have recently helped when an emergency arises — for example, first responders used drones to help locate victims and assess the damage in last month’s parking garage collapse in the Financial District.
The same technologies being used in emergency cases, said the Mayor, can be applied in non-emergency settings as well, helping the city meet its safety, development, and climate goals at scale.
Those applications are endless: Unmanned aircraft systems — to use a more technical term — can deliver intelligence that touches every corner of government.
Along with Mayor Eric Adams, that’s why the top Commissioners of some of NYC’s most critical teams — the Mayor’s Office of Operations, the Dept. of Transportation, the Dept. of Buildings, the Office of Emergency Management, to name a few — were all in attendance to identify ways to take advantage of UASs for their operations.
Among the presenting companies were:
Near Space Labs, a Brooklyn-based aerial imaging startup that deploys zero-emission balloon robots to generate high-resolution imagery to support New York’s urban planning and land use systems.
Cornea, a NYC-based predictive intelligence startup that uses machine learning with the capabilities to help New York monitor and react to climate emergencies.
DroneSense, a full-service drone hardware and data management platform that makes the drone the first responder for governments responding to high-risk public safety incidents.
Zeitview, an advanced inspection software provider that can help assess everything from roofs and building facades, solar facilities or wind turbines, and other critical assets, all with the goal of making them as sustainable as possible.
Drone Amplified, a drone company to help manage fires so that firefighters and other personnel are removed from the riskiest settings.
Our partners at NASA, the US Geological Survey, and Con Edison also spoke about their own efforts to use drones — and how NYC could take advantage of their insights to date.
Some applications we’re excited about include everything from spotting future flood zones on the edges of the five boroughs or even going underground to monitor the city's complex steam system that heats and cools buildings in New York.
The forum also featured two live demos from Skydio and Parrot — with the Mayor himself as pilot! Both companies launched drones to survey the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and send real-time, live imaging back to monitors on the ground below.
Parrot demonstrates the launch and land of its drone technology.
The forum was just the beginning of what we expect to be a longer collaboration with partners across city government. Tech:NYC remains committed to ensuring city officials have their finger on the pulse of all kinds of emerging technologies and are prepared to deploy them at scale — and in a way that directly benefits the lives of all New Yorkers. Stay tuned!
Photographs courtesy of Caroline Rubinstein-Willis/Mayoral Photography Office
