What is a drone (UAV)?

How do drones work?

Drones have two basic functions: flight mode and navigation.

To fly, drones must have a power source, such as a battery or fuel. They also commonly have rotors, propellers or wings and a frame. The frame of a drone is typically made of a lightweight, composite material to reduce weight and increase maneuverability.

Drones with propellers typically have four double-bladed propellers that stem off four arms connected to the frame. They generate lift using motors that rapidly spin the propellers. Drones that use wings, on the other hand, rely on the forward movement of the aircraft to push the wings through the air to generate lift.

Drones require a controller, which lets the operator use remote controls to launch, navigate and land the aircraft -- all while the pilot remains on the ground. The controllers communicate with the drone using radio waves, such as Wi-Fi. Drones also commonly have a camera onboard, which streams what it's seeing to the controller held by the pilot.

Some drones can fly on a set course automatically using a combination of obstacle avoidance sensors and GPS. A common implementation of this is the return to home function on some consumer drones.

What are common drone features and components?

Drones have many components, including the following:

• Electronic speed controllers, which manage a motor's speed and direction.
• Flight controller.
• GPS module.
• Battery.
• Antenna.
• Receiver.
• Cameras.
• Gimbals, which stabilize the camera from vibration, wind or other movement.
• Sensors, including ultrasonic sensors and collision avoidance sensors.
• Accelerometer, which measures speed.
• Altimeter, which measures altitude.

Drone features vary based on the intended use. Examples of features include the following:

• Various types of cameras with high-performance, zoom and gimbal steady cam and tilt capabilities.
• Artificial intelligence (AI), which enables the drone to follow objects.
• Augmented reality (AR) features that superimpose virtual objects on the drone's camera feed.
• Media storage format.
• Maximum flight time, which determines how long the drone can remain in the air.
• Maximum speeds, including ascent and descent.
• Hover accuracy.
• Obstacle sensory range.
• Altitude hold, which keeps the drone at a fixed altitude.
• Live video feed.
• Flight logs.
• Automatic return to home.
• Follow mode.

Navigational systems, such as GPS, are typically housed in the nose of a drone. The GPS on a drone communicates its precise location to the controller. An onboard altimeter can communicate altitude information as well as help keep the drone at a specific altitude if the controller designates one.

Drones can be equipped with sensors, including ultrasonic, laser or lidar distance sensors, time-of-flight sensors, chemical sensors and stabilization and orientation sensors. Visual sensors offer still and video data. Red, green and blue sensors collect standard visual RGB wavelengths, and multispectral sensors collect visible and nonvisible wavelengths, such as infrared and ultraviolet. Accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, barometers and GPS are also common drone features.

For example, thermal sensors enable surveillance and security applications, such as livestock monitoring and heat-signature detection. Hyperspectral sensors help identify minerals and vegetation, and are ideal for use in crop health, water quality and surface composition.

Some drones use sensors to detect obstacles and avoid collisions. Initially, these sensors were designed to detect objects in front of the drone. Some drones now provide obstacle detection in five directions: front, back, below, above and side to side.

For landing, drones use visual positioning systems with downward-facing cameras and ultrasonic sensors. The ultrasonic sensors determine how close the drone is to the ground.

What types of drones are available?

Drones are classified in several different ways, including by wing type, weight, range, power and activity type.

When classified by wing type, there are the following two main types of drone platforms:

1. Rotor, including single-rotor and multi-rotor, such as tricopters, quadcopters, hexacopters and octocopters.
2. Fixed-wing, which includes drones that need forward movement to generate lift through the wings, as well as hybrid vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drones that don't require runways.

Drones can also be classified according to their weight, as follows:

• Very small drones, which are 200 grams (.44 pounds) or less.
• Small drones, which weigh up to 1,000 grams (2.20 pounds).
• Medium drones, which weigh up to 44 pounds.
• Large drones, which weigh more than 44 pounds.

Classified by range, drones can fit into one of the following categories:

• Very close range, which can fly out to about three miles.
• Close range, which can fly out to about 31 miles.
• Short range, which can fly out to about 93 miles.
• Midrange, which can fly out to about 400 miles.
• Long range, which can fly out to more than 400 miles.

By power type, drones can be classified as follows:

• Battery.
• Gasoline.
• Hydrogen fuel cell.
• Solar.

By activity, drones can be classified into several types, which include, but aren't limited to the following:

• Toy drones.
• Photography or videography drones.
• Racing drones.
• First-person view (FPV) drones.
• Search and rescue drones.
• Military drones.
• Construction drones.
• Agriculture drones.

Personal drones

Many personal drones are available for consumer use. They've become standard Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, offering high-definition video and still camera capabilities. Operators are often beginners who are looking to simply fly them for fun or racing. These drones usually weigh 10 pounds or less, but they can be less than a pound.

Examples of personal drones include the following:

• Autel Evo Lite+, which is a competing option to the DJI mini but offers a 40-minute flight time and adjustable aperture.
• BetaFPV Cetus Pro Kit, which is an FPV drone designed for beginners.
• DJI Mini 4 Pro, which is a lightweight and compact drone for photography.
• DJI Mavic 3 Pro, which is a powerful camera drone with omnidirectional obstacle sensing.
• Emax Tinyhawk II, which is a racing drone designed for beginners.
• Ryze Tello, which is a lightweight, compact and affordable option for beginners.

Commercial drones

Stronger, more capable drones are also available for use in commercial settings. Insitu, a Boeing company, offers the ScanEagle, a UAV with a 10-foot wingspan that weighs 35 pounds. Insitu also builds the Integrator, an 81-pound aircraft with a 16-foot wingspan. Insitu drones don't take off from runways. Instead, they use VTOL capabilities in the company's launchers and recovery system. Sensors available include electro-optic imagers, mid-wave infrared imagers, infrared markers and laser rangefinders.

In 2018, Boeing announced it had prototyped an unmanned electric VTOL cargo air vehicle capable of transporting up to a 500-pound payload. As of 2024, however, Boeing hasn't announced any updates to its production or sale.

Tethered drones are another option. They're physically tethered to a base station. Tethered systems can solve the power-supply challenge many drones face if the tether provides a direct power supply. For example, the Elistair Safe-T 2 tethered drone station offers 2,200 watts of power and can fly to heights of more than 200 feet, with data transfer rates of up to 200 Mbps.

In addition to Insitu and Elistair, other commercial drone manufacturers include the following:

• 3D Robotics Inc.
• AeroVironment Inc.
• Autel Robotics.
• DJI.
• Ehang.
• Freefly
• Parrot
• PrecisionHawk Inc.
• Skydio
• Yuneec.

Commercial and enterprise drone applications

Nonmilitary drone use has increased over the past decade. Beyond surveillance and delivery applications, UAVs are used for drone journalism, search and rescue, disaster response, asset protection, wildlife monitoring, firefighting, communications relay, healthcare and agriculture.

The integration of drones and internet of things (IoT) technology has created many enterprise applications. Drones working with on-ground IoT sensor networks can help agricultural companies monitor land and crops; energy companies survey power lines and operational equipment; and insurance companies monitor properties for claims and policies.

A 2015 experiment in Austin, Texas, showed one way to combine drones and IoT. A security tech company teamed with a drone startup to hunt for Zigbee beacons to provide an overview of the IoT networks present in residential and business areas of the city. The companies reported that the results were quick and instructive.

From logistics to agriculture to security, unmanned aerial vehicles and IoT are often part of the same discussion. They offer ubiquitous connectivity and interactivity.

Other examples of how drone technology is used include the following:

• Agriculture. Drones measure and record the height of crops. They use lidar remote sensing technology that illuminates the crop with a laser and calculates distance by measuring what is reflected back. This can help farmers optimize agricultural production and promote sustainable farming practices.
• Biological monitoring. Drones with biological sensors fly to unsafe areas to take air or water quality readings. They can also check for the presence of specific microorganisms and atmospheric elements.
• Wildfire monitoring. Firefighters use drones to survey an affected area to determine the extent of the damage and how fast a fire is spreading. Images taken provide details of the damage.
• Sports coverage. Television networks use drones to capture sporting event footage, such as taped and live flyover footage, that would otherwise be difficult to capture. The use of drones must comply with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, as well as sports league, venue and local law enforcement agency rules.

The history of drones

Drones date back to 1849 Italy, when Venice was fighting for its independence from Austria. Austrian soldiers attacked Venice with hot-air, hydrogen- and helium-filled balloons equipped with bombs.

The first pilotless radio-controlled aircraft was used in World War I. In 1917, the U.S. Army developed the experimental Kettering Bug, an unmanned flying bomb aircraft, which was never used operationally in combat.

The first generally used drone appeared in 1935 as a full-size retooling of the de Havilland DH.82B Queen Bee biplane. It was fitted with a radio and servomechanism-operated controls in the back seat. The plane could be conventionally piloted from the front seat, but generally flew unmanned for artillery gunners in training to shoot.

The term drone dates to this initial use, a play on the Queen Bee nomenclature.

UAV technology continued to be of interest to the military, but it was often unreliable and costly. After concerns about the shooting down of spy planes arose, the military revisited the topic of UAVs. Military drones soon took on roles of dropping leaflets and acting as spying decoys.

In 1982, the Israeli Air Force used UAVs against the Syrian fleet with minimal loss of Israeli forces. The Israeli UAVs acted as decoys, jammed communication and offered real-time video reconnaissance.

Drones have continued to be a mainstay as part of military IoT in the following roles:

• Intelligence.
• Aerial surveillance.
• Force protection.
• Search and rescue.
• Artillery spotting.
• Target following and acquisition.
• Battle damage assessment.
• Reconnaissance.
• Weaponry.

Some recent drone milestones include the following:

• 2006. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency first used UAVs to monitor the U.S. and Mexico border.
• 2012. Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, retired to dedicate himself to his drone company, 3D Robotics Inc. The company started off specializing in hobbyist personal drones. Today, it markets UAVs for aerial photography and videography. It also sells to construction, utility, telecom and public safety businesses.
• 2013. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a plan to use commercial drones for product delivery.
• 2016. The FAA implemented new regulations for the commercial use of small UAVs.
• July 2016. Reno, Nev., startup Flirtey beat Amazon to the punch. It successfully delivered a package to a resident in Nevada using a commercial drone.
• September 2016. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, working with Project Wing, a unit of Google owner Alphabet, Inc., tested drone deliveries. They started with burritos from a local Chipotle restaurant.
• October 2016. San Francisco-based Zipline launched a service delivering blood and drugs to hospitals in Rwanda.
• March 2021. Zipline started delivering COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare providers in Ghana as part of the United Nation's COVAX initiative.
• August 2021. Alphabet's Project Wing announced that it would pass the 100,000 drone delivery mark, which is another step toward proving that drone delivery at scale is possible.
• 2021-2024. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, used an autonomous UAV that operated on Mars, called the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
• 2022-2024. Both sides in the Russian-Ukrainian war are using drones. This is one of the first modern examples of how drones are being used in active warfare. Notably, they're used for gathering intel and for bombing targets. Electronic warfare methods have also been used to block the drone's signals by jamming radio frequencies.

UAV reception and drone regulations

Rapid adoption of drones over the past decade has sparked privacy, security and safety complaints and concerns. Voyeurs and paparazzi use drones to obtain images of people in their homes and other locations once assumed to be private. Drones are also used in unsafe locations, such as urban areas and near airports.

Growth in commercial and personal drone use has also created the potential for midair collisions and loss of drone control. Specific concerns about drones flying too close to commercial aircraft have prompted calls for regulation. Because of this, some drones contain safety features that stop them from flying above 400 feet or from flying in restricted airspace.

Many countries have established UAV regulations. As drone usage grows in popularity, laws are continually changing. Personal and commercial drone pilots must check the laws of the country and locality in which they are operating the devices.

In China, flying higher than 400 feet requires a drone license from the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Drones weighing more than 15 pounds also require a license, and no-fly zones must be adhered to.

In the U.K., the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) restricts drones from flying above 500 feet. Any drone weighing more than a half-pound must be registered with the CAA. The agency has also published its "Dronecode":

• Don't fly near airports or airfields.
• Remember to stay below 400 feet and at least 150 feet away from buildings and people.
• Observe your drone at all times.
• Never fly near aircraft.
• Enjoy responsibly.

Until 2006, it was illegal to fly commercial drones under FAA regulations. Noncommercial flights were permitted below 400 feet only if operators followed Advisory Circular 91-57, Model Aircraft Operating Standards, published in 1981. Changes to the American rules followed the chronology below:

2005. The FAA issued its first guidelines on UAVs.

2006. The FAA issued its first commercial drone permit.

2007. The FAA published a drone operation policy.

2012. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 was released. It included Section 333, which gave the U.S. Secretary of Transportation authority to approve commercial drone use on a case-by-case basis.

2014. Only two companies in the U.S. were allowed to operate commercial drones -- the BP energy corporation and drone maker AeroVironment.

2015. An interim FAA policy governing the use of small drones for certain commercial uses under 200 feet was released. The FAA announced it had approved more than 1,000 applications for commercial drones.

2016. The FAA further relaxed its restrictions. Under its Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Regulation, Part 107, the FAA issued 3,100 drone permits in 2016 alone.

Part 107 places limits on autonomous or semiautonomous drone operations. Among other things, the 2016 FAA mandated the following:

• Unmanned aircraft must remain within visual line of sight of the remote pilot in command and the person manipulating the flight controls of a small, unmanned aircraft system, or, alternately within visual line of sight of the observer.
• Drones must always remain close enough to the remote pilot in command and the person manipulating the flight controls for those people to be capable of seeing the aircraft unaided by any device other than corrective lenses.
• UAVs can't operate over anyone not directly participating in their operation, under a covered structure or inside a covered stationary vehicle.
• Operation is allowed only during daylight or civil twilight -- 30 minutes before official sunrise to 30 minutes after official sunset, local time -- with appropriate anti-collision lighting.
• UAVs must yield right of way to other aircraft.

2018. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 was signed on Oct. 5, 2018. It set new conditions for recreational drone use. FAA rules differ for commercial and personal drone use. For example, a Remote Pilot Certificate issued by the FAA is required to fly drones commercially and commercial UAVs must be registered and flown at or under 100 mph. Both recreational and commercial pilots are limited to a maximum height of 400 feet.

2021. The FAA gradually modified Part 107 of the Small UAS Regulation. It changed the Operation of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Over People rule in April 2021 to allow routine operations over people and, in some cases, at night. This change amends the original 2016 rule, which called for daylight-only operations and didn't allow UAVs to operate over anyone not participating in the operation.

Drone use laws vary by state. For example, municipalities in Arizona that have two or more public parks must allow drones in at least one of them. A Minnesota law requires hobbyist drone operators to pay a license fee of $5. Commercial operators must pay a $30 licensing fee to obtain a Commercial Operations License and obtain drone insurance. Depending on the state, personal drone users might need to pass a safety test or obtain a license. For instance, in Massachusetts, all drone users are required to pass the Recreational UAS Safety Test. The FAA developed that test and recommends that all recreational users take it.

Drones 250 grams or over are also required to be registered by the FAA. Any income generated using a drone also requires the user to take the Part 107 certification.

Training in drone technology

Drone education is expanding. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has long been a training center for the aviation industry. It now offers a Bachelor of Science in Uncrewed Aircraft Systems and a Master of Science in Uncrewed Aircraft Systems.

There are several self-study resources available for individuals who want to become certified commercial drone pilots as well.

There are also several available training providers, including commercial and industrial centers and associations as well as universities.

Basic drone training topics might include material surrounding the following:

• Introduction to drones.
• Regulations and compliance.
• Basic flight training.
• Safety protocols.

More advanced topics can include the following:

• Advanced piloting skills.
• Mission planning and execution.
• Payload and sensor integration.

Other, more specific topics could include the following:

• Commercial applications.
• Industrial applications.
• Emergency and safety applications.

What is the future outlook for drone technology?

Forecasts for the drone market are aggressive and optimistic, as cited in the following:

• Grandview Research predicts revenue from the commercial drone market will reach $57.16 billion in 2030, up from $22.98 billion in 2023.
• MarketsAndMarkets predicts the drone services market will increase from $17 billion in 2023 to $57.8 billion by 2028.
• The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International predicts the drone industry will create more than 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025 -- an economic impact of $82 billion.

Drones and unmanned aircraft will become a component of many businesses and government organizations. The evolution of complementary technologies like fifth-generation wireless (5G), AR and computer vision is expected to drive drone market growth and improve drone communication and intelligence.

As both personal and commercial drone use increases, government agencies will refine their rules and regulations. Drones will also introduce new security vulnerabilities and attack vectors.

Some companies have also begun experimenting with drone-based deliveries. This includes uses for delivering food, mail and medicine.

Expected improvements to drones in the future include increased flight times and range due to battery and power innovations, better AI-based integrations and the creation of smaller and more capable drones and drone technology.

As drones continue to gain popularity in the enterprise, integration with well-constructed enterprise IoT networks will become increasingly important. Learn the components of developing IoT infrastructure in the enterprise.