The slides give a brief description of the technical characteristics, classification, level of autonomy, types of drones available, merits, demerits, future development, and applications.

4. The technical characteristics of drones play
a significant role in their categorization.
 Technology used
 Level of autonomy
 Size
Weight
 Energy sources

5. The first important characteristic is the technology
used to keep the drone flying, defined as the type of
drone, which defines the difference between the fixed
wing systems, multi-rotor systems and other systems
like ornithopters, hybrid systems, and drones that use
turbofans, and determines the shape and appearance of
the drone.

6. A second important characteristic is the
level of autonomy of the drone which
may vary from being fully autonomous to
fully controlled by a remote pilot.

7. Size and weight are also important
characteristics where the size of the drone may
vary from that of an insect to the size of a
commercial airplane and weight may vary from
hundreds of grams to hundreds of kilograms.

8. Last characteristic defining drones is the
difference in energy sources like battery
cells, solar cells, and traditional airplane
fuels.

9. These technical characteristics are
significant as the drone payloads and
related applications depend on them.

11. Wing System
Level of Autonomy
Size and Weight
Differences in Energy Sources

12. The main drones types are fixed wing and
multirotor systems. Other systems include
the hybrid systems and ornithopters.

13. Fixed-wing systems use
fixed, static wings
combined with forwarding
airspeed to generate lift as
used in traditional
airplanes like Raven that
are fast and suitable for
large distances.

14. Multirotor systems, like
the DJI Phantom, use
multiple rotary wings for
stability and generating lift
and they do not need a
landing strip, make less
noise and can hover in
their air.

15. A hybrid quadcopter is an
example of hybrid
systems having
characteristics of both the
fixed wing and multirotor
systems as it uses multiple
rotors for vertical take-off
and landing along with
wings for long distance
flight.

16. Ornithopters, like Delfly
explorer, follows the
wing motions of birds
and insects and is
neither a multirotor nor
a fixed-wing system.

17. The unmanned systems are classified by
four basic levels of autonomy as defined
by the United States Department of
Defense.

18. A human operator makes all
the decisions regarding
drone operation in an
human-operated system
which is the most basic
level of autonomy and it
does not have any
autonomous control over its
environment.

19. The second level of
autonomy is the human
delegated system which can
perform tasks like engine
controls, automatic controls
and other automation that
must be activated or
deactivated by a human
controller.

20. A human supervised system
forms a higher level of
autonomy where the system
can perform tasks on the
basis of permissions and
directions by a human
depending on the sensed
data within the scope of the
current task.

21. The final level of autonomy
is a fully autonomous
system in which the system
receives commands from
human, translates them into
specific tasks without
further human interaction.
However, human
intervention is
acknowledged in the case of
emergencies.

22. Different criteria for distinguishing drones
are used by different organizations and
countries.

23. Clarke (2014)
distinguishes drones
using a minimum weight
criterion i.e minimum
weight of 150 kg for large
fixed wing drones and
lower weight limit for
small drones is 100 kg as
in multirotor drones.

24. The Dutch Human
Environment and
Transport Inspectorate
(ILT) defines heavy
drones with a minimum
weight of 150 kg and
light drones with a
maximum weight of 150
kg.

25. Custers et al. (2015)
distinguish between large
drones and small drones as
classifies large drones as
fixed-wing drones between
20 kg and 150 kg and
multirotor drones between
25 kg and 100 kg, and small
drones are fixed-wing
drones up to 20 kg and
multirotor drones up to 25
kg.

26. Further sub-categorizing
small drones, mini drones
vary in weight from
several grams to
kilograms and are
suitable for indoor and
recreational applications.

27. Large drones are
mainly used for
military purposes
while smaller and
lighter drones are
preferred for the
general public.

28. Traditional Airplane Fuel, Battery cells,
Fuel Cells and Solar Cells are the four
main categories of energy sources.

29. Kerosene is an airplane
fuel used in large fixed-
wing drones like the
military Predator
drone, equipped with
sensors, rockets and
other types of
ammunitions, used by
the US army.

30. The phantom drone,
which is an example of a
smaller multirotor drone,
uses battery cells and has
a short range, require less
operating time, often used
for recreational purposes.

31. A fuel cell is an
electrochemical device to
convert chemical energy from
a fuel directly into electrical
energy. Fuel cells provide an
advantage of longer flight time
without the need of recharging
and is used in heavyweight
fixed-wing drones like the
Stalker drone with a flight time
of 8 hours.

32. Solar cells, rare in the drone
industry today are highly
suitable for ornithopters.
Companies like Google and
facebook struck deal with solar
drone manufacturers to fulfill
their goal of improving the ease
of Internet connectivity for a
massive area by ensuring
permanent flying of solar-
powered drones.

33. Delfly Explorer, Hubsan x4 Drone, Parrot
AR Drone, DJI Phantom, Raven, and
ScanEagle are some popular drones widely
used across the world today. Their
characteristics vary as mentioned above
and they find applications in various
sectors of society from civilians to military
purposes.

35. The military drones fall into six functional
categories:
Target and decoy
Reconnaissance
Combat
Logistics
Research and Development
Civil and Commercial

37. The UAVs find an
advantage over manned
aircraft as they are good for
“dull, dangerous and dirty”
tasks, provide a persistent
presence over a specific area
to provide still and video
imagery, provide capabilities
for intelligence,
surveillance, and
reconnaissance to ground
troops, provide air strike
capabilities, and are
relatively cheap.

38. Their disadvantages include
low maneuverability, low
operational speed, little
defensive measures,
vulnerability to attack from a
sophisticated air defense
network, cyber or
communication link attacks or
lost data links, limited area,
and requirement of a
sophisticated data analysis.

40. Different security issues arise in the commercial and
private use of UAVs as they could be used for lethal
purposes, for criminal activities like drug smuggling,
and for terrorist activities when hijacked by terrorist
networks under third-party control situations.
Another issue relates to the safety concerns when
operating drones like the operating and control
abilities of people over their drones failing which
paves the way to a number of accidents.

41. The safety, security and privacy concerns need to be
taken into consideration in the technological
development of drones, their market development,
and in their use by public and private parties.
The market itself must be able to develop
technological solutions to accommodate some of the
concerns. In addition, adequate regulation must ensure
that UAVs be flown under safe conditions and provide
clarity of the limits to use such devices.

43. UAVs provide applications in aerospace, military for
reconnaissance, attack, defense against UAV, and targets for
military training, demining, civil for hobby and recreational
use, commercial aerial surveillance, professional aerial
surveying, commercial and motion picture filmmaking,
journalism, law enforcement, search and rescue, scientific
research, conservation, anti-poaching, pollution-monitoring,
surveying, oil, gas and mineral exploration and production,
disaster relief, archaeology, cargo transport, agriculture,
precision farming (it involves farmers to recognize each plant
individually to estimate the yield and its watering cycle),
construction, passenger transport, light show, and monitoring
criminal and terrorist activities.

45. Future developments of drone technology
include drones becoming smaller, lighter, much
more efficient, and cheaper. Therefore, drones
will become widely available to the general
public and will be used for a wider scope of
applications. It is expected that drones will
become more autonomous and capable of
operating in swarms in the near future.