Challenges of developing UAV applications: A project management view

With the recent advances in aircraft technologies, software, sensors, and communications; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can offer a wide range of applications. UAVs can play important roles in different applications such as search and rescue, situation awareness in natural disasters, environmental monitoring, and perimeter surveillance. This paper discusses the challenges of developing UAV applications from the information technology (IT) project management point of view. Developing UAV applications involves integrating hardware, software, sensor, and communication components with the UAV systems. UAV applications development projects are considered complex projects due to the complexity of the development stages and the components integration complexity. This paper addresses the business and technical challenges that face UAV applications´ development and project management.