Unmanned aerial vehicle

Elbit Systems Hermes-450 taking off
Northrop Grumman Bat carrying EO/IR and SAR sensors, laser range finders, laser designators, infra-red cameras
A DJI Phantom quadcopter UAV for commercial and recreational aerial photography
A General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, a hunter-killer surveillance UAV
Although most large military UAVs are fixed-wing aircraft, rotorcraft designs (i.e., RUAVs) such as this MQ-8B Fire Scout are also used.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous"[1] for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications.[2] These include aerial photography, area coverage,[3] precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring,[4] river monitoring,[5][6] environmental monitoring,[7][8][9][10] policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling,[11] product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.

  1. ^ Tice, Brian P. (Spring 1991). "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – The Force Multiplier of the 1990s". Airpower Journal. Archived from the original on 24 July 2009. Retrieved 6 June 2013. When used, UAVs should generally perform missions characterized by the three Ds: dull, dirty, and dangerous.
  2. ^ Alvarado, Ed (3 May 2021). "237 Ways Drone Applications Revolutionize Business". Drone Industry Insights. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  3. ^ F. Rekabi-Bana; Hu, J.; T. Krajník; Arvin, F., "Unified Robust Path Planning and Optimal Trajectory Generation for Efficient 3D Area Coverage of Quadrotor UAVs" IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2023.
  4. ^ Hu, J.; Niu, H.; Carrasco, J.; Lennox, B.; Arvin, F., "Fault-tolerant cooperative navigation of networked UAV swarms for forest fire monitoring" Aerospace Science and Technology, 2022.
  5. ^ Remote sensing of the environment using unmanned aerial systems (UAS). [S.l.]: ELSEVIER - HEALTH SCIENCE. 2023. ISBN 978-0-323-85283-8. OCLC 1329422815. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  6. ^ Perks, Matthew T.; Dal Sasso, Silvano Fortunato; Hauet, Alexandre; Jamieson, Elizabeth; Le Coz, Jérôme; Pearce, Sophie; Peña-Haro, Salvador; Pizarro, Alonso; Strelnikova, Dariia; Tauro, Flavia; Bomhof, James; Grimaldi, Salvatore; Goulet, Alain; Hortobágyi, Borbála; Jodeau, Magali (8 July 2020). "Towards harmonisation of image velocimetry techniques for river surface velocity observations". Earth System Science Data. 12 (3): 1545–1559. Bibcode:2020ESSD...12.1545P. doi:10.5194/essd-12-1545-2020. ISSN 1866-3516. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
  7. ^ Koparan, Cengiz; Koc, A. Bulent; Privette, Charles V.; Sawyer, Calvin B. (March 2020). "Adaptive Water Sampling Device for Aerial Robots". Drones. 4 (1): 5. doi:10.3390/drones4010005.
  8. ^ Koparan, Cengiz; Koc, Ali Bulent; Privette, Charles V.; Sawyer, Calvin B.; Sharp, Julia L. (May 2018). "Evaluation of a UAV-Assisted Autonomous Water Sampling". Water. 10 (5): 655. doi:10.3390/w10050655.
  9. ^ Koparan, Cengiz; Koc, Ali Bulent; Privette, Charles V.; Sawyer, Calvin B. (March 2018). "In Situ Water Quality Measurements Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System". Water. 10 (3): 264. doi:10.3390/w10030264.
  10. ^ Koparan, Cengiz; Koc, Ali Bulent; Privette, Charles V.; Sawyer, Calvin B. (March 2019). "Autonomous In Situ Measurements of Noncontaminant Water Quality Indicators and Sample Collection with a UAV". Water. 11 (3): 604. doi:10.3390/w11030604.
  11. ^ "Drones smuggling porn, drugs to inmates around the world". Fox News. 17 April 2017. Archived from the original on 31 August 2018. Retrieved 17 April 2017.