Pilotless drone

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller and a system of communications with the UAV. The flight of UAVs may operate under remote control by a human operator, as remotely-piloted aircraft (RPA), or with various degrees of autonomy, such as autopilot assistance, up to fully autonomous aircraft that have no provision for human intervention.

UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" 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.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,
A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework for Multirobot Systems
IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2021. These include forest fire monitoring,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. aerial photography, product deliveries, agriculture, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, entertainment, science, smuggling, and drone racing.

Terminology

Many terms are used for aircraft which fly without any persons on board:

The term drone has been used from the early days of aviation, being applied to remotely-flown target aircraft used for practice firing of a battleship's guns, such as the 1920s Fairey Queen and 1930s de Havilland Queen Bee. Later examples included the Airspeed Queen Wasp and Miles Queen Martinet, before ultimate replacement by the GAF Jindivik. The term remains in common use. In addition to the software, autonomous drones also employ a host of advanced technologies that allow them to carry out their missions without human intervention, such as cloud computing, computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and thermal sensors. For recreational uses, an aerial photography drone (as opposed to a UAV) is an aircraft that has first-person video, autonomous capabilities, or both.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is defined as a "powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload". UAV is a term that is commonly applied to military use cases. However missiles with warheads are not considered UAVs because the vehicle itself is a munition. Also, the relation of UAVs to remote controlled model aircraft is unclear, UAVs may or may not include remote-controlled model aircraft. Some jurisdictions base their definition on size or weight; however, the US FAA defines any uncrewed flying craft as a UAV regardless of size.

The term ''unmanned aircraft system'' (UAS) was adopted by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2005 according to their Unmanned Aircraft System Roadmap 2005–2030. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the British Civil Aviation Authority adopted this term, also used in the European Union's Single-European-Sky (SES) Air-Traffic-Management (ATM) Research (SESAR Joint Undertaking) roadmap for 2020. This term emphasizes the importance of elements other than the aircraft. It includes elements such as ground control stations, data links and other support equipment. A similar term is an ''unmanned-aircraft vehicle system'' (UAVS), ''remotely piloted aerial vehicle'' (RPAV), ''remotely piloted aircraft system'' (RPAS). Many similar terms are in use. "Unoccupied" and "uninhabited" are occasionally used as alternatives to "unmanned". Under new regulations which came into effect 1 June 2019, the term RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) has been adopted by the Canadian Government to mean "a set of configurable elements consisting of a remotely piloted aircraft, its control station, the command and control links and any other system elements required during flight operation".

Classification types

UAVs may be classified like any other aircraft, according to design configuration such as weight or engine type, maximum flight altitude, degree of operational autonomy, operational role, etc. According to the United States Department of Defense, UAVs are classified into five categories below:

Other classifications of UAVs include:

Range and endurance

There are usually five categories when UAVs are classified by range and endurance:

Size

There are usually four categories when UAVs are classified by size, with at least one of the dimensions (length or wingspan) meet the following respective limits:

Weight

Based on their weight, drones can be classified into 5 categories—

."Nano, micro, small: The different drone types in India & if Jammu-like strike can be averted"
''ThePrint'', 29 June 2021.

Degree of autonomy

Drones could also be classified based on the degree of autonomy in their flight operations. ICAO classifies uncrewed aircraft as either remotely piloted aircraft or fully autonomous. Some UAVs offer intermediate degrees of autonomy. For example, a vehicle may be remotely piloted in most contexts but have an autonomous return-to-base operation. Some aircraft types may optionally fly manned or as UAVs, which may include manned aircraft transformed into uncrewed or Optionally Piloted UAVs (OPVs).

Altitude

Based on the altitude, the following UAV classifications have been used at industry events such as ParcAberporth Unmanned Systems forum:
* Hand-held altitude, about 2 km range
* Close altitude, up to 10 km range
* NATO type altitude, up to 50 km range
* Tactical altitude, about 160 km range
* MALE (medium altitude, long endurance) up to and range over 200 km
* HALE (high altitude, long endurance) over and indefinite range
* Hypersonic high-speed, supersonic (Mach 1–5) or hypersonic (Mach 5+) or suborbital altitude, range over 200 km
* Orbital low Earth orbit (Mach 25+)
* CIS Lunar Earth-Moon transfer
* Computer Assisted Carrier Guidance System (CACGS) for UAVs

Composite criteria

An example of classification based on the composite criteria is U.S. Military's unmanned aerial systems (UAS) classification of UAVs based on weight, maximum altitude and speed of the UAV component.

History

Early drones

The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred in July 1849, with a balloon carrier (the precursor to the aircraft carrier) in the first offensive use of air power in naval aviation. Naval Aviation in the First World War: Its Impact and Influence
R. D. Layman, page 56 Austrian forces besieging Venice attempted to launch some 200 incendiary balloons at the besieged city. The balloons were launched mainly from land; however, some were also launched from the Austrian ship . At least one bomb fell in the city; however, due to the wind changing after launch, most of the balloons missed their target, and some drifted back over Austrian lines and the launching ship ''Vulcano''.

The Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo introduced a radio-based control-system called the "''Telekino''" at the Paris Academy of Science in 1903 with the intention of testing an airship of his own design without risking human lives.

Significant development of drones started in the 1900s, and originally focused on providing practice targets for training military personnel. The earliest attempt at a powered UAV was A. M. Low's "Aerial Target" in 1916.Taylor, John W. R.. ''Jane's Pocket Book of Remotely Piloted Vehicles''. Low confirmed that Geoffrey de Havilland's monoplane was the one that flew under control on 21 March 1917 using his radio system. Following this successful demonstration in the spring of 1917 Low was transferred to develop aircraft controlled fast motor launches D.C.B.s with the Royal Navy in 1918 intended to attack shipping and port installations and he also assisted Wing Commander Brock in preparations for the Zeebrugge Raid. Other British unmanned developments followed, leading to the fleet of over 400 de Havilland 82 Queen Bee aerial targets that went into service in 1935.

Nikola Tesla