Growing Market for UAVs - $80bn by 2020

Tuesday 5 April 2011, Amsterdam

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are viewed as the most exciting development in the aerospace industry since powered flight began. Ongoing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and to a limited extent Libya have particularly shown the usefulness of UAVs for military tasks like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Other useful and potential military roles include strike, communications relay, transport, electronic warfare, signals intelligence, re-supply and casualty evacuation.

The military remains currently the biggest market for UAVs and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future with the US the main operator and investor in these systems. Defence budgetary pressures are expected not to make a major impact on the development of these systems, although several programmes might not be pursued due to high costs and technical risk. The UAV market will no doubt be buoyed in the coming years by a growing interest for civilian usage. Possible civilian UAV applications include law enforcement, traffic control tasks, aerial photography, fire fighting, scientific research, environmental monitoring, energy and electrical facility monitoring and coast guard support.

There are literally hundreds of different UAVs of all shapes and sizes now in production or undergoing development, ranging from small bird-like nano and micro air vehicles up to fully stealth strike aircraft. The latest edition of the "International Military and Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Survey", published in April 2011, provides an invaluable and unique independent assessment of the current UAV market, focusing on the operators, manufacturers and requirements in 57 countries packed with details of more than 610 UAVs available for military and civilian use. It also provides a fascinating insight into programmes and UAVs in less known countries developing these systems like China and Iran.

Aimed at current and potential operators of UAVs and those working within the UAV industry, the "International Military and Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Survey" additionally provides a directory of addresses of more than 250 companies involved in the sector as well as a detailed excel file providing specifications of UAVs, payloads and engines mentioned in the report.