Sony is preparing to enter the consumer drone market

Consumer drones are one of the most popular new markets in the tech world at the moment, second only to virtual reality headsets, and Sony wants a piece of the action. Since Sony Mobile hasn’t been able to find much success with smartphones, the company has decided to turn to the consumer drone market with a new venture called Aerosense.

After the robot dog AIBO and the cute, humanoid bot QRIO, Sony’s next robotic adventure will take to the skies. In a departure from its consumer electronics focus, Sony has decided to dip its toes into the drone market. The company has formed a partnership with fellow Japanese firm ZMP to begin launching Sony-branded autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles. The purpose: Data collection for business customers. Called Aerosense, the venture will involve aerial image capture and cloud-based data processing in the interest of what Sony calls “measuring, surveying, observing, and inspecting” for enterprise customers. Using Sony robotics, camera and sensing technology and its telecommunications network, along with ZMP’s automated driving technology, the autonomous drones will extend Sony’s reach into the rapidly expanding field of drone-assisted data collection.