6 Ecosystem attributes: innovation
Innovation is a fundamental attribute of many ecosystems. Think of some of the products you use daily. The iPhone is an example of an innovation ecosystem. The product itself is a technical arrangement (or architecture) of different complementary components. Apple is the coordinating firm and collaborates with a wide range of component suppliers and software developers (creating the various applications) to provide innovative products of unique value to end users.
Innovation ecosystems can have a central coordinator (a firm or a hub); in this case they can also be known as platform ecosystems, such as the example of Apple above. Innovation ecosystems can also be non-platform based. In the latter case, the actions of different ecosystem actors are coordinated with various types of bilateral and multilateral relations and agreements and not by a single firm. Later sections in this week discuss the importance of such relations and how they can be managed in the context of networks.
The figure below shows how these concepts can be made relevant to drones.
Figure 7 above shows the different components of a drone, such as batteries, cameras and motors. There can be other types of components in a drone, such as multispectral or thermal cameras depending on the specific drone use. Moreover, as discussed in Week 1, the main body of the drone can take different forms such as fixed-wing, multi-rotor or helicopter. There are more parts in a drone architecture not captured in Figure 7, such as the software used to capture and analyse the data gathered (see Bojkova et al., 2023). Finally, drones can be piloted with hand-held controllers and these peripherals can also be considered as parts of the drone innovation ecosystem.
Innovations can stem from different parts of this ecosystem. In turn, innovations on each part can be led by a different firm or type of organisation. Currently drone ecosystems are dominated by a small number of large corporate organisations which produce both the main frame and most of the components (see Doornbos et al., 2024).

Modifying drones to better meet the requirements of specific uses can create ample opportunities for innovation. Understanding the specific requirements of users is crucial. For example, most ruminant farmers are currently using ‘generic’ drones which might not completely meet their needs. Users play a crucial role in innovation, and they need to be acknowledged as key actors in ecosystems. IDELE’s research aims at understanding user needs. Flying Eye of Figure 5, the main drone manufacturer and distributor in France can draw on such user needs and use them as a basis to develop a new range of drones to meet the demands of ruminant farming. Moreover, there is ample room for developing advanced software to more clearly identify individual animals in a herd. These can support further innovations in sophisticated analytics that can be used to get insights on animal health and nutrition, which can improve animal welfare and make farming more efficient.