The tethered drone market is expected to grow from US$ 78.66 million in 2022 to US$ 730.17 million by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 45.0% from 2022 to 2028.

Commercial enterprises, law enforcement agencies, and military forces are among the major end users of tethered drones. In military applications, tethered quadcopters provide persistent surveillance for situational awareness. Tethered military drones are used for several purposes, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); disaster response; event management and security; and traffic monitoring. In defense, tethered drones help in border security, general security, checkpoints surveillance, and entry/exit points monitoring. In commercial applications, tethered drones are used to monitor vehicle checkpoints, entry and exit points for foot traffic across large open areas, music concerts, sports events, wind turbine inspections, mining surveys, oil and gas equipment inspections, and crowd monitoring applications. Other major stakeholders in the tethered drone market ecosystem include ground power suppliers to ensure continuous operational power to the drones. They can maintain high levels of endurance for up to 24 hours, at heights up to 200m in most weather conditions which is one of the key factor behind the growth of tethered drone market size.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Tethered Drone Market

The deployment of tethered drones during the COVID-19 pandemic is driven by law enforcement and military operations. The governments across the countries worldwide had already put a lot of restrictions on commercial industrial operations, travel, and lockdown/curfew implementations that led to the deployment of drone technologies to ensure the implementation of government rules across the countries worldwide. For instance, in 2020, a foreign drone company donated around US$ 0.5 million worth of drones and sensors to Malaysian police forces in Kuala Lumpur for surveillance purposes. These drones included tethered drones that provided continuous support for surveillance operations to Malaysian law enforcement forces to retain law and order across Kuala Lumpur city in Asia Pacific. Such developments have driven the tethered drone market growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in FY 2020.

Based on country, the South America tethered drone market is segmented into Brazil, Argentina, and the Rest of South America. Various benefits of tethered drones drive the tethered drone market in the region. A few South American countries, such as Brazil and Colombia, are heavily deploying tethered drones for different applications. For instance, Colombian police forces uses tethered drones for their respective operations supported by government fundings for the procurement of such technologies. In August 2020, the city of Medellin, Colombia used tethered drones in securing the crowd gathering. The drones helped the police officers to gain uninterrupted surveillance information and provide visual support during the mass gathering. Also, the long-range camera transmitted live images, which benefited police officers with enhanced situational awareness.

The tethered drone gets its power from the ground stations. Thus, they have a longer flight time than free-flying, battery-operated drones. This helps them stay afloat until a problem occurs within the grounded power source, such as a motor or propeller failing. Thus, the rising demand for 24/7 surveillance and monitoring is fueling the tethered drone market growth in South America. In addition, the use of tethered drones is increasing in the defense industry for border surveillance and monitoring. Thus, the rising use of tethered drones in various sectors is expected to contribute to the growth of the South America tethered drone market during the forecast period.

Further, the demand for tethered drones for several commercial applications, including wind turbine inspection, buildings restoration, and bridge monitoring & inspection operations, is likely to generate huge opportunities for the tethered drone market players during the forecast period.

Wind turbines require periodic maintenance regularly for efficient and constant operations, owing to which different technologies are used to perform the quality check and inspections of the turbines. Tethered drones can support the detection and identification of faults in the turbines by providing real-time visual footage to the operators. Wind farms have numerous wind turbines installed across onshore and offshore platforms wherein various challenges, such as immediate identification of faults and defects, are more often faced by the operators at the time of their respective operations.

Moreover, most wind turbine operators outsource their periodic maintenance activities for better management of their wind turbine operations. Wind turbine maintenance companies face a severe challenge in manually checking turbines for all defects, leading to operational errors. Tethered drone helps reduce the overall inspection time that can be utilized for applying the solution for those errors.

Similar to wind farms, building restoration operations require periodic maintenance for better management of older buildings. These include thermographic images and inspections of elaborate ornamentation on historic buildings to comprehensive checks for the smallest building cracks that can occur due to environmental impacts or land surface conditions. Tethered drones provide real-time inspection and monitoring of such buildings that help identify the restoration work areas in less time another major factor acting as an opportunity for tethered drone market players.

Elistair, Acecore Technologies, ECA Group, Fotokite, Menet Aero, Hoverfly Technologies, Novadem, Sky Sapience, Skyshot Private Limited, and Yuneec Holding Ltd. are among the tethered drone market players profiled in this market study.

The overall tethered drone market size has been derived using both primary and secondary sources. To begin the research process, exhaustive secondary research has been conducted using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the tethered drone market. The process also serves the purpose of obtaining an overview and forecast of the tethered drone market growth with respect to all market segments. Also, multiple primary interviews have been conducted with industry participants and commentators to validate the data and gain more analytical insights into the topic. Participants of this process include VPs, business development managers, intelligence managers, and national sales managers, along with external consultants such as valuation experts, research analysts, and key opinion leaders, specializing in the global tethered drone market.