An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard. 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. 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.
APM, apm, or Apm may refer to:
An autopilot is a system used to control the path of a vehicle without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations.
The CarterCopter is an experimental compound autogyro developed by Carter Aviation Technologies in the United States to demonstrate slowed rotor technology. On 17 June 2005, the CarterCopter became the first rotorcraft to achieve mu-1 (μ=1), an equal ratio of airspeed to rotor tip speed, but crashed on the next flight and has been inoperable since. It is being replaced by the Carter Personal Air Vehicle.
Slugs is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and wide availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project started in 2009 and is being further developed and used at Autonomous Systems Lab of University of California Santa Cruz. Several vendors produce Slugs autopilots and accessories.
A backpack helicopter / helipack is a helicopter motor and rotor and controls assembly that can be strapped to a person's back, so they can walk about on the ground wearing it, and can use it to fly. It uses a harness like a parachute harness and should have a strap between the legs. Some designs may use a ducted fan design to increase upward thrust. Several inventors have tried to make backpack helicopters, with mixed results.
The Carter PAV is a two-bladed, compound autogyro developed by Carter Aviation Technologies to demonstrate slowed rotor technology. The design has an unpowered rotor mounted on top of the fuselage, wings like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft mounted underneath, and a controllable pitch pusher propeller at the rear of the fuselage. Heavy weights are placed in the rotor tips to enhance rotational energy and to reduce flapping.
LibrePilot is a Free software unmanned aerial vehicle project for model aircraft aimed at supporting both multi-rotor craft as well as fixed-wing aircraft. Initially founded by David Ankers, Angus Peart and Vassilis Varveropoulos in late 2009, under the name OpenPilot, it was conceived as both a learning tool and to address areas the developers perceived were lacking in other small UAV platforms. In July 2015 OpenPilot, was forked to create LibrePilot.
Paparazzi is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project began in 2003, and is being further developed and used at École nationale de l'aviation civile (ENAC), a French civil aeronautics academy. Several vendors are currently producing Paparazzi autopilots and accessories.
ArduSat is an Arduino based nanosatellite, based on the CubeSat standard. It contains a set of Arduino boards and sensors. The general public will be allowed to use these Arduinos and sensors for their own creative purposes while they are in space.
The Imperial Eagle is an Indian light-weight mini-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment, National Aerospace Laboratories and supported by private vendors. Its primary users will be the National Security Guard and the military services.
ArduPilot is an open source, uncrewed vehicle Autopilot Software Suite, capable of controlling:
The 1993 Llyn Padarn helicopter crash occurred on 12 August 1993, when an RAF Westland Wessex helicopter, serial number XR524, with 3 aircrew and 4 Air Training Corps cadet passengers on board suffered a catastrophic tail rotor failure and plunged into Llyn Padarn, a lake in North Wales. Three passengers were killed.
MAVLink or Micro Air Vehicle Link is a protocol for communicating with small unmanned vehicle. It is designed as a header-only message marshaling library. MAVLink was first released early 2009 by Lorenz Meier under the LGPL license.
The PX4 autopilot is an open-source system for autonomous aircraft. The project was started in 2009.
3DR, also known as 3D Robotics, is an American company located in Berkeley, California that produces enterprise drone software for construction, engineering and mining firms, as well as government agencies.
Jani Hirvinen is one of the early Finnish IT-technology pioneers. Hirvinen is also one of the first ones developing small private sector professional level UAVs. He is among the top developers of the ArduCopter platform that - together with the included autopilot - changed the way drones are being flown all over the world. He is also the co-founder of famous international unmanned institutions ArduPilot, DIYDrones and DroneCode.
An autonomous aircraft is an aircraft which flies under the control of on-board autonomous robotic systems and needs no intervention from a human pilot or remote control. Most contemporary autonomous aircraft are unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) with pre-programmed algorithms to perform designated tasks, but advancements in artificial intelligence technologies mean that autonomous control systems are reaching a point where several air taxis and associated regulatory regimes are being developed.
Pixhawk is a project responsible for creating open-source standards for the flight controller hardware that can be installed on various unmanned aerial vehicles. Additionally, any flight controller built to the open standards often includes "Pixhawk" in its name and may be referred to as such.
