UAV

Drone technology

By
Keesara Arvind
1601-15-735-330
Contents
◦ Motivation ◦ Sensors
◦ What is drone ◦ Actuators
◦ History ◦ Software
◦ Classification ◦ Loop principles
◦ UAV components ◦ Flight controls
◦ Body ◦ Communications
◦ Power supply and platform ◦ Applications
◦ Computing
Motivation
◦ Drone technology is constantly evolving as new innovation and big investments are
bringing more advanced drones to the market every few months
◦ A bird like drone shown in URI movie.
What is drone
◦ Drone is an acronym of Dynamic Remotely Operated Navigation Equipment.
◦ UAV stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
◦ unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has two parts UAV and GSC(Ground station
controller).
◦ GSC is also called as cockpit area
History
◦ The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred on
July 1849.
◦ Dayton-Wright Airplane Company invented a pilotless aerial torpedo that would
explode at a pre-set time during world war 1.
◦ In 1959, the U.S. Air Force, concerned about losing pilots over hostile territory, began
planning for the use of unmanned aircraft.
◦ By 2013, 50 countries used UAVs.
◦ USA has Federal Aviation Administration for UAV regulation.
◦ India also has Ministry of Civil Aviation which regulates usage of drones.
Classification
UAVs typically fall into one of six functional categories:
◦ Target and decoy – providing ground and aerial gunnery a target that simulates an
enemy aircraft or missile
◦ Reconnaissance – providing battlefield intelligence
◦ Combat – providing attack capability for high-risk missions ( Unmanned combat aerial
vehicle (UCAV))
◦ Logistics – delivering cargo
◦ Research and development – improve UAV technologies
◦ Civil and commercial UAVs – agriculture, aerial photography, data collection
UAV components
◦ Body
◦ Power supply and platform
◦ Computing
◦ Sensors
◦ Actuators
◦ Software
◦ Loop principles
◦ Flight controls
◦ Communications
Body
◦ The primary difference for planes is the absence of the cockpit area. Tailless quadcopters
are a common form factor for rotary wing UAVs while tailed mono- and bi-copters are
common for manned platforms.

Power supply
o lithium-polymer batteries (Li-Po)
o Battery elimination circuitry (BEC) is used to centralize power distribution.
Computing
UAV computing capability followed the advances of computing technology,

◦ Analog controls

◦ Microcontrollers

◦ System-on-a-chip (SOC)

◦ Single-board Computers (SBC)

◦ Flight Controller (FC)

◦ Flight Controller Board (FCB)

Sensors
Degrees of freedom (DOF) refers to both the amount and quality of sensors on-board:

◦ 6 DOF implies 3-axis gyroscopes and accelerometers (a typical inertial measurement

unit – IMU)

◦ 9 DOF refers to an IMU plus a compass

◦ 10 DOF adds a barometer

◦ 11 DOF usually adds a GPS receiver

Actuators
◦ Digital electronic speed controllers.
◦ motors/engines and propellers, servomotors
◦ weapons
◦ payload actuators
◦ LEDs and speakers.
Software
Layer Requirement Operations Example
From machine code
to processor
Firmware Time-critical ArduCopter-v1.px4
execution, memory
access
Flight control,
Middleware Time-critical navigation, radio Cleanflight, ArduPilot
management
Optic flow, obstacle ROS, Nuttx, Linux
Operating system Computer-intensive avoidance, decision- distributions,
making Microsoft IOT
Loop principles
◦ Open loop

◦ Closed loop

Flight controls
o landing/perching
o varying flight modelisation
Communications
◦ Command and Control (C&C)

◦ Telemetry data

◦ For very long range flights, military UAVs also use satellite receivers as part of satellite
navigation systems.

◦ In cases when video transmission was required, the UAVs will implement a separate analog
video radio link.

◦ Instead of having 2 separate links for C&C, telemetry and video traffic, a broadband link is
used to carry all types of data on the a single radio link. These broadband links can
leverage quality of service techniques to optimize the C&C traffic for low latency.
Applications
There are numerous civilian, commercial, military, and aerospace applications for UAVs. These
include:

Civil:

Disaster relief, archaeology, conservation of biodiversity and habitat, law enforcement, crime, and
terrorism

Commercial:

Aerial surveillance, filmmaking, journalism, scientific research, surveying, cargo transport, and
agriculture

Military:

Reconnaissance, attack, and target practice

conclusion
By this seminar, we came to know about UAV and its components and their role in its
working. Use of these drones instead of manned air craft in defence may reduce human
loss to a large extent. Drones can be used not only in military applications but also in
civil and commercial applications where it reduces human efforts.
References
◦ Tice, Brian P. (Spring 1991). "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – The Force Multiplier of the
1990s". Airpower Journal. Archived from the original on 24 July 2009. Retrieved 6 June
2013. When used, UAVs should generally perform missions characterized by the three
Ds: dull, dirty, and dangerous.
◦ Franke, Ulrike Esther (26 January 2015). "Civilian Drones: Fixing an Image Problem?". ISN
Blog. International Relations and Security Network. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
◦ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#Military
◦ https://www.dronezon.com/learn-about-drones-quadcopters/
Any Queries?
Thank you