What is Drone and How Much Do You Know About It?

Drones are a buzz today, not just in military applications, everywhere, even in scientific, recreational, commercial, and agricultural fields. As I read today, ISIL is now using ‘weaponized’ drones in the Middle East, spurring future terrorism fears. Yes, really horrible. But it is a face of usage, not the characteristics of product.

In definition, drones, also called as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. It is operated with a remote control by a human operator or fully or intermittently autonomously by onboard computers.

Drones are often used for missions that are too difficult for humans to get done. Today drones are prevalent in policing and surveillance, aerial photography, agriculture, product deliveries, and drone racing. And the sale of civilian drones are significantly more than military drones and that crossed million in 2015. Even all sorts of businesses, including mobile app developers are checking out drones to achieve a competitive advantage. 

Benefits of drones in different fields:

Solar: Initial site surveying, now drones are increasingly used for site inspections and other aerial imagery collection

Infrastructure: Drones increase cost and safety benefits in infrastructure field

Film: Speed up and reduce the cost of filming

Agriculture: Decrease cost and increase efficiency

Delivery: Door to Door delivery of packages

How does drone work?

Drones are controlled by remote control system or a ground cockpit. Large size drones, including Predator drone, are mostly used for military purposes. Smaller drones can be launched by hand, and unmanned aircraft need short runways to be launched.

Below are the standard conditions for launching drone:

• Operations at speeds less than 45 knots
• Not higher than 400 feet above ground level
• Drone must be within visual line of sight (VLOS)
• Operations need a visual observer
• Permission from landowner must be granted

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Top 10 drone manufacturers in the world

• Parrot
• DJI
• Ehang
• 3D Robotics
• Squadrone System
• INSITU
• Airware
• Yuneec
• Aeryon
• MapBox

 Best drones to buy in 2017

• DJI Mavic Pro - $999 - extreme portability, rich controls, ease of use, 4K resolution camera
• DJI Phantom 4 - $871 - Easy to use and accessible to novice dronesters, Obstacle Sensing System, 4K camera, compact design and light body
• Yuneec Q500 4K - $459 - CGO3 Camera, user controlled video resolution, personal ground station with built-in touchscreen
• DJI Phantom 3 - $459 - Pro-level camera, with a 94-degree field of vision, 4K video with up to 30 fps
• Holy Stone F181 - $109 – Key return and headless security system, key 360° 4-ways flip, altitude hold function
• Hubsan H107D - $89 - 4.3 inch LCD remote control screen, 480p camera, lightweight airframe with nice durability and fashion design
• UDI 818A - $52 - Indoor-outdoor type drone with good stabilization
• Holy Stone HS170 Mini - $45 - 2.4GHz technology adopted for anti-interference, stable and flexible with 6-Axis Gyro Stablization System
• Syma X5C - $45 - beginners' drone, backyard flight allowed, and fly indoors too
• Hubsan X4 107C - $36 - Best beginner drone, great-looking video recording capability

Conclusion:

Technology has made the impossible things possible and invisible things possibly visible. Drones can be the tangible example for this. Today all sorts of companies, including mobile app development companies are leveraging drones to explore new opportunities in their field and turn their work simple.