Drone - What is it ?                                             Home : www.sharetechnote.com

 

 

 

 

What is Drone ?

 

What is Drone ?  If you just hear of it, it might not so clear what it mean ? But if see a couple of pictures or couple of video clips, you would quickly catch what it is. However, some people like me :) may feel uneasy to start anything without any formal (or at least semi-formal) definition. The original meaning before we have this kind of technical stuff is 'Male Bee'. To me, the male bee well presents the fundamental features of the drone we will talk about. Think of how a Bee flies and hovers in the air.

 

Personally to me, the following definition from drone (unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV) sound best fit (I would recomment you to read the full page of the link. It is short, but well summarized history of the origin of the drone).

    A drone, in a technological context, is an unmanned aircraft. Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft systems (UASes). Essentially, a drone is a flying robot.

However, in many cases the definition keep changing as technology evolves and sometimes it changes so broadly to the point where even the originial inventor haven't intended. I think the definition of Drone is following the same path and now you would see a lot of drones which would not fit to the original definition.

I would recommend you to go through some of video clips in the Reference section and build up your own impression of drones

 

 

Basic Properties/Features of Drone

 

Like the definition, the basic property of a Drone is hard to be described because those properties would change as technology evolves. I am just to trying to write down some of the common properties or features of a drone as follows (as of the end of 2016). If you want to develop / design a drone whether as a hobby or as a job, you would need to consider these features in mind and need some knowledge on technlogies related to these topics.

 

  • Unmanned aircraft :  Definately a Drone is a kind of Air craft. I don't think this definition would not change. 'Unmanned' would be true for now (as of the end of 2016), but this situation may change in the future as some investigation / development is going on about 'Drone transporting Human'.
  • Remote Controlled or Self Flying : Since most of drones are unmanned, they flies by remote controler  or Self Driving Software. Most of the commericial drones for now are remote control based.
  • Driven by Electric Motor and Battery : Although I don't exclude any possibility of flying a drone with other types of fuel system, at least for now almost all drones are working with electric motor and DC batteries.
  • Vertical Take-off and landing : Most of the drones (especially commerical drones) are designed to take off and land vertically like helicopters. It means it can take off and land without any need of long run way.
  • 3 or more propeller : Most of drone for now (especially commercial drones) has three or more small propellers rather than one or two large propellers (like helicopters). Most commonly, you would see 4 propellers.  I think the main reason is that it is relatively easy to maitain the ballance with three or four properllers. Another reason for using many small propellers rather than one or two large propeller would be for safety reason. It would cause less damage when it hits another object (e.g, building) or especially human.

 

 

Major Application of Drone

 

I think the application of Drone can only be limited by your imagination. It can be applied for almost any purpose, but what I can see as of now (as of the end of 2016)

  • Military Application : I think this would be one of the original motivation and application of drone. Even though it tend to be called 'UAV (Unmanned Aviation Vehicle)', in modern sense these can be classified as a kind of drone. You would find a lot of video clips about this application in YouTube. Just try it.
  • Toy/Entertainment : I think as of now this would be the most common application. Just flying something would be a great fun even though there is not much of the practical meaning. Just in terms of number of units being sold, I think this would be the biggest market.
  • Filming  (Taking still or motion pictures) : I think this is the most widely adopted application as of now (except for Toy application). You would have watched a lot of video clips taken by drones in TV program or YouTube.
  • Delivery : This has become one of the hottest topic lately as some big players like Amazone or DHL are initiating projects of developing Drone system for delivery.

 

 

Reference

 

[1] drone (unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV)  

[2] Drones 101

[3] Drone On: the Future of UAV Over the US

[4] The Future of Drones

[5] TU Delft - Ambulance Drone

[6] The Battle To Develop USA's First Delivery Drone

[7] Delivery Drones | DHL steals UPS thunder

[8] Top 5 HUMAN TRANSPORT Drones  

[9] A field guide to drones

[10] STEMworks Curriculum: CAD UAV Design Module

[11] Getting started with drones