Industry information
Owing to its rapid development, the Polish unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, drone) market has become increasingly popular over the last years. The drone sector was named as “forward-looking” in one of the recent government strategies for the development of Polish economy. This will further enhance the expansion of the sector and the advancement of technologies used by local manufacturers.
Around 300 companies were present in Polish done market in 2019. According to experts’ estimates, in 2019 Polish manufacturers produced drones worth 39.5 mln USD. The sector is projected to furtherly expand by showing a yearly growth rate of around 10% during the next 10 years.
The drone production sector in Poland is divided into drone manufacturers (with or without their own research facilities), start-ups, creative companies which design platforms for new applications or components, spin-offs of companies developing technologies or integrating solutions for their own needs, component manufacturers (e.g. microprocessors, sensors), software producers and scientific institutes or university spin-offs developing platforms and components as a part of grant funded initiatives.
Polish manufacturers provide a wide range of drone models in various sizes, weights and payload carrying capabilities which support a broad range of commercial applications, public order services and offer military solutions. Drones produced by Polish companies are being used in various sectors – agriculture, entertainment, infrastructure, logistics, security, tourism and transport among others.
It is noteworthy that Poland was the first country in Europe to introduce operational infrastructure supporting drone traffic management – the PANSA UTM system. The main task of the system is to manage drone flights in Polish airspace and provide their safe separation from conventional air traffic. The functionality of the system has already been confirmed. In 2020 locally manufactured drones were used by Polish institutions to support the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.