How Do Drones Work And What Is Drone Technology
What is a drone and how do drones work is answered here in this easy to understand article. Drone technology is constantly evolving as new innovation and big investment are bringing more advanced drones to the market every few months.
Below, we discuss UAV technology on the most popular drones on the market which have all the latest drone technology. Most drones will have very similar systems incorporated.
Unmanned aerial vehicle technology covers everything from the aerodynamics of the drone, materials in the manufacture of the physical UAV, to the circuit boards, chipset and software which are the brains of the drone.
One of the most popular drones on the market is the DJI Phantom 3. This drone was very popular with professional aerial cinematographers. While slightly old now, it uses plenty of advanced technology which is present in the very latest drones. This UAV is ideal to explain drone technology because it has everything in one package. It includes the UAV, gimbal and camera and uses some of the top drone technology on the market today.
In only a few months since writing this article, some new and highly advanced drones such as the DJI Mavic, Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire 2 have come to the market. The fast pace of drone technological innovation is tremendous. I’ve included these latest drone technology advancements in the below article. So it is right up to date including the links.
How Drones Work
A typical unmanned aircraft is made of light composite materials to reduce weight and increase maneuverability. This composite material strength allows military drones to cruise at extremely high altitudes.
Drones are equipped with different state of the art technology such as infra-red cameras (military UAV), GPS and laser (military UAV). Drones are controlled by remote control system also sometimes referred to as a ground cockpit.
An unmanned aerial vehicle system has two parts, the drone itself and the control system.
The nose of the unmanned aerial vehicle is where all the sensors and navigational systems are present. The rest of the body is full of drone technology systems since there is no need for space to accommodate humans. The engineering materials used to build the drone are highly complex composites which can absorb vibration which decreases the noise produced and also light weight.
What Is A Drone – UAV Technology
Below we examine the science and drone technology behind the DJI Phantom 3 UAV. However, we also have plenty of information on the latest drone technologies from the newest drones on the market. There are plenty of links where you can read deeper into various components of drone technology. For example, here is a terrific drone components overview article. This gives you a breakdown of the individual components seen in most drones.
Drone Types And Sizes
Drones come in a wide variety of sizes, with the largest being mostly used for military purposes such as the Predator drone. The next in size are unmanned aircraft which have fixed wings and require short runways. These are generally used to cover large areas, working in areas such as geographical surveying or to combat wildlife poaching.
Next in size of drones and are what is known as VTOL drones. Many of these are quadcopters but not all. VTOL drones can take off, fly, hover and land vertically. The exact meaning of VTOL is “Vertical Take-Off and Landing”.
Many of the latest small drones such as the DJI Spark can be launched from the palm of your hand.
Radar Positioning & Return Home
Many of the latest drones have dual Global Navigational Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS and GLONASS. Drones can fly in both GNSS and non satellite modes. For example DJI drones can fly in P-Mode (GPS & GLONASS) or ATTI mode which doesn’t uses satellite navigation.
Highly accurate drone navigation is very important when flying and in drone applications such as to build 3D maps, surving landscape and SAR (Search & Rescue) missions.
When the quadcopter is first switched on, it searches and detects GNSS satellites. High end GNSS systems use Satellite Constellation technology. Basically, a satellite constellation is a group of satellites working together giving coordinated coverage and synchronized so that they overlap well in coverage. Pass or coverage is the period in which a satellite is visible above the local horizon.
The radar technology in the drone will signal the following on the remote controller display;
signal that enough drone GNSS satellites have been detected and the drone is ready to fly
display the current position and location of the drone in relation to the pilot
record the home point for ‘Return To Home’ safety feature
Most of the latest drone have 3 types of Return to Home drone technology as follows;
Pilot initiated return to home by pressing button on Remote Controller or in an app.
Low battery level where the UAV will fly back automatically back to home point.
Loss of transmission between the UAV and Remote Controller with the UAV flying back automatically to its home point.
The latest Mavic Air RTH feature can sense and actively attempts to avoid obstacles during automatic return to home. The Mavic Air RTH obstacle avoidance works as follows if the lighting is sufficient;
The Mavic Air slows down when an obstacle is sensed
It will stop and hover, then fly backward and ascends upwards until no obstacle is sensed.
Next the RTH process resumes and the Mavic Air will return to home point a the new altitude.