An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as an aerial drone or simply drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers on board, which instead is either autonomous or controlled remotely. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, weather observation, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.
Terminology Many terms are used for aircraft which fly without any persons on board. 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 in military use cases. A missile with a warhead is generally not considered a UAV because the vehicle itself is a munition, but certain types of propeller-based missile are often called "kamikaze drones" by the public and media. Also, the relation of UAVs to remote controlled model aircraft is unclear in some jurisdictions. The US FAA now defines any unmanned flying craft as a UAV regardless of mass. Similar terms are remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and remotely piloted aerial vehicle (RPAV). UAVs and RPAVs can also be seen as components of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), which also include ground-based controllers and systems of communications with the aircraft. 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. Similar terms are unmanned aircraft vehicle system (UAVS) and remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS). Many similar terms are in use. Under new regulations which came into effect 1 June 2019, RPAS 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". In common usage, drone is often applied to both military and civilian UAVs, while technical and regulatory documents may prefer terms such as UAV, UAS, RPAS, or uncrewed aircraft. The term drone has been used from the early days of aviation, sometimes being applied to remotely flown target aircraft used for practice firing of a battleship's guns, such as the 1920s Fairey Queen biplane floatplane and 1930s de Havilland Queen Bee biplane. Later examples included the Airspeed Queen Wasp and Miles Queen Martinet, before ultimate replacement by the GAF Jindivik. The term remains in common use. The term uncrewed is sometimes used rather than unmanned when referring to UAVs. Autonomous drones also employ various advanced technologies 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 has first-person video, autonomous capabilities, or both.
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 five categories:
NATO uses a similar classification shown below:
Degree of autonomy Drones can also be classified based on the degree of autonomy in their flight operations. ICAO classifies unmanned 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 manned or optionally piloted UAVs (OPVs). 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.
Altitude Based on the altitude, the following UAV classifications have been used at industry events such as ParcAberporth Unmanned Systems forum:
Hand-held 2,000 ft (600 m) altitude, about 2 km range Close 5,000 ft (1,500 m) altitude, up to 10 km range NATO type 10,000 ft (3,000 m) altitude, up to 50 km range Tactical 18,000 ft (5,500 m) altitude, about 160 km range MALE (medium altitude, long endurance) up to 30,000 ft (9,000 m) and range over 200 km HALE (high altitude, long endurance) over 30,000 ft (9,100 m) and indefinite range Hypersonic high-speed, supersonic (Mach 1–5) or hypersonic (Mach 5+) 50,000 ft (15,200 m) 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
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