Miniature UAV
A miniature UAV or small UAV (SUAV), is an unmanned aerial vehicle small enough to be man-portable.
Miniature UAVs range from micro air vehicles (MAVs) that can be carried by an infantryman, to man-portable UAVs that can be carried and launched like an infantry Man-portable air-defense system.
Definitions
SUAVs have been given various definitions among national regulation authorities, often without including size precisions and differing about weight measurement specifications. Those defintions range from less than 2 kg for Canada to less than 25 kg for the United States. UE's SESAR prospective for the 2020 Air Traffic Management rules also proposed less than 25 kg, while UK's CAA stated less than 20 kg.
MAVs and mesicopters
The notion that small, even very small, UAVs might have practical uses arose in the early 1990s. In 1992, DARPA conducted a workshop titled "Future Technology-Driven Revolutions In Military Operations". One of the topics in the workshop was "mobile microrobots". The idea of using very small "microdrones" was discussed, and after initial skepticism the idea started to gain momentum.
