The former Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Musa Nuhu, has projected that the global Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) industry market could exceed $160 billion by 2034 as autonomous aviation technologies continue to transform civil aviation worldwide.

Nuhu presented a technical paper, titled: ‘The Transformative Capacity of the UAV Industry in Civil Aviation’, at the 6th Drone Technology Conference and Exhibition (DRONETECX 2026), held in Lagos.

According to him, the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, autonomous navigation systems, Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM), and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) has reshaped the architecture of global aviation.

He noted that UAV technologies were already revolutionising logistics, infrastructure inspection, agriculture, emergency medical delivery, environmental monitoring, surveillance and passenger mobility systems.

He said: “The UAV industry has evolved from military reconnaissance applications into one of the most disruptive technologies in modern civil aviation. The industry is projected to exceed $160 billion globally by 2034 due to rapid advancements in AI, battery technology, edge computing, autonomous navigation, and sensor integration.

“According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the integration of unmanned aircraft into conventional airspace requires harmonised global frameworks for safety, interoperability, communication, surveillance, and airspace management.”

He explained that modern drone ecosystems had moved beyond traditional Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) operations and manual piloting to AI-driven autonomy, swarm operations, intelligent traffic coordination, predictive maintenance and integrated digital airspace systems.

The former DGCA said drones were increasingly being deployed for inspection of airports, power transmission facilities, oil and gas pipelines, railway corridors, telecommunication towers, bridges, wind turbines, and solar farms using advanced technologies such as LiDAR, thermal imaging, hyperspectral sensors, and digital twin systems.

On healthcare logistics, he emphasised that drone delivery systems were becoming commercially viable globally, particularly in transporting blood products, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, laboratory samples, and emergency medical supplies to underserved communities.

He added that Drone-as-a-Service (DaaS) models are helping to reduce emergency response time, transportation costs, and carbon emissions while improving healthcare accessibility.

Nuhu also mentioned the growing role of drones in agriculture, where AI-enabled UAVs are being used for crop monitoring, precision spraying, irrigation analytics, soil assessment and yield prediction.

He described such systems as “flying intelligent tractors” capable of reducing water consumption, chemical wastage, operational costs and environmental impact.

On the future aviation systems, Nuhu said Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft were gradually emerging as part of next-generation transportation systems.

According to him, international aviation regulators are currently developing certification frameworks for Advanced Air Mobility operations involving passenger transport, cargo mobility, emergency evacuation and regional transportation.

He identified Artificial Intelligence, autonomous navigation, edge computing, battery innovation, and BVLOS operations as the major technological catalysts driving UAV transformation globally.

Despite the opportunities, Nuhu warned that UAV integration also presented serious challenges, including cybersecurity threats, GPS spoofing, data hijacking, ransomware attacks, airspace congestion, privacy concerns and hostile drone operations.

He stressed the need for harmonised BVLOS regulations, the establishment of national UTM frameworks, investment in indigenous drone manufacturing, and the development of drone testing ranges and vertiports.