As industrial drone adoption grows, startups are finding bigger opportunities in infrastructure, inspections and field operations.
Updated
May 25, 2026 3:21 PM
An oil pump on a field. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
As drone adoption grows across industrial sectors, more startups are moving beyond hardware sales and into service-based business models. Instead of simply selling drones, companies are increasingly trying to build recurring revenue through inspection, mapping and infrastructure-monitoring services. That shift is shaping ZenaTech’s latest expansion strategy.
ZenaTech is a Vancouver-based startup that develops AI drone and Drone as a Service (DaaS) technologies. The company has signed an offer to acquire an Alberta-based land surveying and geomatics business operating across Western Canada. If completed, the deal would mark ZenaTech’s first land surveying acquisition in Canada and its first major push into the oil and gas sector.
The move gives the startup something more valuable than just another acquisition target. It provides direct access to an industry where drones are already becoming part of everyday operations.
The Alberta surveying company works with oil and gas producers across Alberta, Eastern British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Its services include land surveying, geomatics, mapping and environmental support for infrastructure and energy development projects.
According to ZenaTech, drones are already used in roughly 80 percent of the target company’s existing projects. That matters because it reduces the operational gap between traditional surveying work and AI-powered automation.
Rather than introducing drones into a completely manual workflow, ZenaTech is entering a business where drone-based data collection is already established. The startup says it plans to build on that foundation by integrating more AI-powered capabilities across surveying, mapping, inspections and infrastructure monitoring.
Shaun Passley, Ph.D., CEO of ZenaTech, said: "This proposed acquisition represents an important strategic expansion of our Drone as a Service business into Canada’s oil and gas sector, one of the most significant energy markets in North America. This company brings an established commercial customer base, strong regional expertise, and extensive experience supporting surveying and geomatics projects including for some large producers. We believe there is a significant opportunity to further enhance these services through AI-powered drone technology for surveying, mapping, inspections, and infrastructure monitoring applications, enabling us to establish a core expertise that we can bring to this fast-growing global industry."
The timing is also significant. ZenaTech pointed to estimates showing the global oil and gas drone inspection services market is currently valued at around US$ 2.3 billion and projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 28.5 percent.
Much of that growth is being driven by energy companies looking for faster ways to inspect infrastructure, monitor remote sites and reduce manual field operations.
ZenaTech’s broader strategy centers around building a global DaaS network through acquisitions. Instead of creating local operations from scratch, the startup is acquiring existing service businesses with established customers and then layering drone automation and AI systems into those operations.
The company says its DaaS platform offers businesses and government clients subscription-based or on-demand drone services across areas such as inspections, surveying, maintenance, inventory management and precision agriculture.
The larger opportunity for startups in this space may not be drone manufacturing alone. Increasingly, the focus is shifting toward startups that can build scalable drone service networks and integrate them into industries that already rely on large-scale field operations. Oil and gas appear to be one of the next major targets for that expansion.
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A turbine-inspired generator shows how overlooked industrial airflow could quietly become a new source of usable power
Updated
February 12, 2026 4:43 PM
Campus building of Chung-Ang University. PHOTO: CHUNG-ANG UNIVERSITY
Compressed air is used across factories, data centers and industrial plants to move materials, cool systems and power tools. Once it has done that job, the air is usually released — and its remaining energy goes unused.
That everyday waste is what caught the attention of a research team at Chung-Ang University in South Korea. They are investigating how this overlooked airflow can be harnessed to generate electricity instead of disappearing into the background.
Most of the world’s power today comes from systems like turbines, which turn moving fluids into energy or solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. The Chung-Ang team has built a device that uses compressed air to generate electricity without relying on traditional blades or sunlight.
At the center of the work is a simple question: what happens when high-pressure air spins through a specially shaped device at very high speed? The answer lies in the air itself. The researchers found that tiny particles naturally present in the air carry an electric charge. When that air moves rapidly across certain surfaces, it can transfer charge without physical contact. This creates electricity through a process known as the “particulate static effect.”
To use that effect, the team designed a generator based on a Tesla turbine. Unlike conventional turbines with blades, a Tesla turbine uses smooth rotating disks and relies on the viscosity of air to create motion. Compressed air enters the device, spins the disks at high speed and triggers charge buildup on specially layered surfaces inside.
What makes this approach different is that the system does not depend on friction between parts rubbing together. Instead, the charge comes from particles in the air interacting with the surfaces as they move past. This reduces wear and allows the generator to operate at very high speeds. And those speeds translate into real output.
In lab tests, the device produced strong electrical power. The researchers also showed that this energy could be used in practical ways. It ran small electronic devices, helped pull moisture from the air and removed dust particles from its surroundings.
The problem this research is addressing is straightforward.
Compressed air is already everywhere in industry, but its leftover energy is usually ignored. This system is designed to capture part of that unused motion and convert it into electricity without adding complex equipment or major safety risks.
Earlier methods of harvesting static electricity from particles showed promise, but they came with dangers. Uncontrolled discharge could cause sparks or even ignition. By using a sealed, turbine-based structure, the Chung-Ang University team offers a safer and more stable way to apply the same physical effect.
As a result, the technology is still in the research stage, but its direction is easy to see. It points toward a future where energy is not only generated in power plants or stored in batteries, but also recovered from everyday industrial processes.