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" 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, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.
A radio-controlled aircraft is a small flying machine that is controlled remotely by an operator on the ground using a hand-held radio transmitter. The transmitter continuously communicates with a receiver within the craft that sends signals to servomechanisms (servos) which move the control surfaces based on the position of joysticks on the transmitter. The control surfaces, in turn, directly affect the orientation of the plane.
A radio-controlled helicopter is model aircraft which is distinct from a RC airplane because of the differences in construction, aerodynamics, and flight training. Several basic designs of RC helicopters exist, of which some are more maneuverable than others. The more maneuverable designs are often harder to fly, but benefit from greater aerobatic capabilities.
A quadcopter or quadrotor is a type of helicopter that has four rotors.
First-person view (FPV), also known as remote-person view (RPV), or simply video piloting, is a method used to control a radio-controlled vehicle from the driver or pilot's view point. Most commonly it is used to pilot a radio-controlled aircraft or other type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as a military drone. The vehicle is either driven or piloted remotely from a first-person perspective via an onboard camera, fed wirelessly to video FPV goggles or a video monitor. More sophisticated setups include a pan-and-tilt gimbaled camera controlled by a gyroscope sensor in the pilot's goggles and with dual onboard cameras, enabling a true stereoscopic view.
The Parrot AR.Drone is a discontinued remote-controlled flying quadcopter, built by the French company Parrot. The drone is designed to be controlled by mobile or tablet operating systems, such as the supported iOS or Android within their respective apps or the unofficial software available for Windows Phone, Samsung BADA and Symbian devices.
ArduPilot is an open source, unmanned vehicle Autopilot Software Suite, capable of controlling autonomous:
SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. or DJI is a Chinese technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, backed by several state-owned entities. DJI manufactures commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for aerial photography and videography. It also designs and manufactures camera systems, gimbal stabilizers, propulsion systems, enterprise software, aerial agriculture equipment, and flight control systems.
Yuneec International is a Chinese aircraft manufacturer based in Jinxi, Kunshan, a town in Jiangsu owned through an off-shore Cayman Islands holding company, Yuneec Holding Limited. Yuneec was originally a manufacturer of radio-controlled model aircraft and marketed its man-carrying aircraft in the United States through GreenWing International. Yuneec produced the Yuneec International E430, the first electric aircraft designed to be commercially produced, although only prototypes were ever built. In the late 2010s, the company moved to specialize in the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for the aerial photography role.
3DR is an American company situated in Berkeley, California, that makes enterprise drone software for construction, engineering, and mining firms, along with government agencies.
The DJI Phantom is a series of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), typically quadcopters, developed by Chinese technology company DJI. DJI Phantom devices were released between 2013 and 2019.
First Person View, or FPV, is what is used in the sport of drone racing. Drone racing is a sport where participants control "drones", equipped with cameras while wearing head-mounted displays showing the live stream camera feed. Similar to full-size air racing, the goal is to complete a course as quickly as possible. Drone racing began in Germany in 2011 with a number of amateur pilots getting together for semi-organized races in Karlsruhe.
An autonomous aircraft is an aircraft which flies under the control of automatic systems and needs no intervention from a human pilot. Most autonomous aircraft are unmanned aerial vehicle or drones. However, autonomous control systems are reaching a point where several air taxis and associated regulatory regimes are being developed.
Primoco UAV is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for civilian use, designed and manufactured in the Czech Republic. Its first flight took place in July 2015 and the UAV Model One 100 started full production in January 2016.
Freefly Systems is an American corporation that designs, manufactures, and markets camera movement systems and camera stabilizers used in cinematography including unmanned aerial vehicles for aerial cinematography, gimbals, and remote controlled vehicles. The company headquarters are in Woodinville, Washington.
Movidius is a company based in San Mateo, California, that designs low-power processor chips for computer vision. The company was acquired by Intel in September 2016.
The DJI Mavic is a series of teleoperated compact quadcopter drones for personal and commercial aerial photography and videography use, released by the Chinese technology company DJI.
PrecisionHawk is a commercial drone and data company. Founded in 2010, PrecisionHawk is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with another global office in Toronto, Canada and satellite offices around the world. PrecisionHawk is a manufacturer of drones (Lancaster) and has more recently focused heavily on developing software for aerial data analysis (DataMapper) and drone safety systems (LATAS). PrecisionHawk is a member of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Pathfinder Initiative and the NASA UTM Program. An angel investor in the company, Bob Young, founder of Red Hat, became CEO in August 2015. In August 2016, PrecisionHawk became the first U.S. company to receive an FAA exemption to commercially fly drones beyond the operator's visual line of sight.
