Unmanned aerial vehicle

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), and also referred by several other names, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. The flight of UAVs may be controlled with various kinds of autonomy : either by a given degree of remote control from an operator, located on the ground or in another vehicle, or fully autonomously, by onboard computers.

Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircrafts, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed : UAV stands nowadays at the crossroads of aviation, electromagnetics, radiocommunication, computer science, avionics, automation, cybernetics, and even core fields of artificial intelligence such as computer vision, decision-making, machine learning and robotics.

UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for manned aircrafts. They have and are mostly found in military and special operation applications. Though, UAVs are increasingly finding uses in civil applications, such as policing and surveillance, aerial filming and hobbyist FPV racing.

Aircraft systems

Aircraft systems is a complex system. In the design stage and in the operating process to ensure continued airworthiness of the aircraft. It is broken down into simpler sub systems that carry out homogeneous functions. Some examples include but are not limited to:

AAI RQ-7 Shadow

The AAI RQ-7 Shadow is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the United States Army, Marine Corps, Australian Army and Swedish Army for reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and battle damage assessment. Launched from a trailer-mounted pneumatic catapult, it is recovered with the aid of arresting gear similar to jets on an aircraft carrier. Its gimbal-mounted, digitally stabilized, liquid nitrogen-cooled electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera relays video in real time via a C-band line-of-sight data link to the ground control station (GCS).

The US Army's 2nd Battalion, 13th Aviation Regiment at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, trains soldiers, marines, and civilians in the operation and maintenance of the Shadow UAV.

Development

The RQ-7 Shadow is the result of a continued US Army search for an effective battlefield UAV after the cancellation of the Alliant RQ-6 Outrider aircraft. AAI Corporation followed up their RQ-2 Pioneer with the Shadow 200, a similar, more refined UAV. In late 1999, the army selected the Shadow 200 to fill the tactical UAV requirement, redesignating it the RQ-7. Army requirements specified a UAV that used a gasoline engine, could carry an electro-optic/infrared imaging sensor turret, and had a minimum range of 31 miles (50 kilometers) with four-hour, on-station endurance. The Shadow 200 offered at least twice that range, powered by a 38 hp (28 kW) rotary engine. The specifications also dictated that UAV would be able to land in an athletic field.