http://droneanalyst.com/2014/12/01/drones-are-the-future-of-iot/

"For those of you following the technology, you already know that unmanned aircraft systems (a.k.a. drones) are finding their way into Internet of Things (IoT) implementations. IoT applications are typically composed of:

• A sensor “at rest,” e.g., on a highway or a bridge or a thermostat that gathers input (like weather conditions or seismic activity)
• A connection (via the Internet) between the sensor and a back-end data collection infrastructure
• A back-end data collection infrastructure that’s commonly based in the cloud"