Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design and Technology provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technology basics. The book presents clear, concise guidance on UAS system design, components, control, and operations fundamentals. Additional chapters look at unmanned aerial regulations and ethics and the historical background of UAS technology. This textbook offers a well-rounded look at unmanned flight technology, making it an ideal primer for aviation and aerospace students and anyone interested in learning more about unmanned aerial systems, including engineers, technicians, drone and flight hobbyists, and civil aviation organization officials.

A start-to-finish roadmap on incorporating drone technology into your AEC firm workflow Drone Technology in Architecture, Engineering and Construction: A Strategic Guide to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operation and Implementation is the only process-driven, step-by-step handbook to implement drone technology in AEC workflows. It provides a comprehensive and practical roadmap for architecture, engineering, and construction firms to incorporate drones into their design and construction processes. The book offers extensive information on drone data processing, and includes guidance on how to acquire, manipulate and use the various data types produced from drone flights. The creation of three-dimensional data and visualizations are covered in-depth. Drone Technology reviews how to select and fly drones based on data needs and initial costs, and how to collect and maintain required flight logs, licenses, and permits. Drone Technology uses several real-world project examples that demonstrate and explain how drones can be used to collect: · Full-color orthorectified imagery · Accurate 3D point cloud and mesh models · Topographic contours · Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) The project examples also describe how these datasets can be integrated with 3D models of proposed conditions, photos, and other project datasets. Drone Technology in Architecture, Engineering and Construction is an essential guide for a wide variety of professionals, from civil engineers to landscape architects. It provides information on professional use of drones for those just considering the technology, to those already flying drones professionally. It is an invaluable guide for anyone working in the design or construction of buildings and landscapes.

Over the last years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have gradually become a more efficient alternative to manned aircraft, and at present, they are being deployed in a broad spectrum of both military as well as civilian missions. This has led to an unprecedented market expansion with new challenges for the aeronautical industry, and as a result, it has created a need to implement the latest design tools in order to achieve faster idea-to-market times and higher product performance. As a complex engineering product, UAVs are comprised of numerous sub-systems with intricate synergies and hidden dependencies. To this end, Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is a method that can identify systems with better performance through the concurrent consideration of several engineering disciplines under a common framework. Nevertheless, there are still many limitations in MDO, and to this date, some of the most critical gaps can be found in the disciplinary modeling, in the analysis capabilities, and in the organizational integration of the method. As an aeronautical product, UAVs are also expected to work together with other systems and to perform in various operating environments. In this respect, System of Systems (SoS) models enable the exploration of design interactions in various missions, and hence, they allow decision makers to identify capabilities that are beyond those of each individual system. As expected, this significantly more complex formulation raises new challenges regarding the decomposition of the problem, while at the same time, it sets further requirements in terms of analyses and mission simulation. In this light, this thesis focuses on the design optimization of UAVs by enhancing the current MDO capabilities and by exploring the use of SoS models. Two literature reviews serve as the basis for identifying the gaps and trends in the field, and in turn, five case studies try to address them by proposing a set of expansions. On the whole, the problem is approached from a technical as well as an organizational point of view, and thus, this research aims to propose solutions that can lead to better performance and that are also meaningful to the Product Development Process (PDP). Having established the above foundation, this work delves firstly into MDO, and more specifically, it presents a framework that has been enhanced with further system models and analysis capabilities, efficient computing solutions, and data visualization tools. At a secondary level, this work addresses the topic of SoS, and in particular, it presents a multi-level decomposition strategy, multi-fidelity disciplinary models, and a mission simulation module. Overall, this thesis presents quantitative data which aim to illustrate the benefits of design optimization on the performance of UAVs, and it concludes with a qualitative assessment of the effects that the proposed methods and tools can have on both the PDP and the organization.

Introduction to UAV Systems The latest edition of the leading resource on unmanned aerial vehicle systems In the newly revised Fifth Edition of Introduction to UAV Systems, an expert team of aviators, engineers, and researchers delivers the fundamentals of UAV systems for both professionals and students in UAV courses. Suitable for students in Aerospace Engineering programs, as well as Flight and Aeronautics programs, this new edition now includes end-of-chapter questions and online instructor ancillaries that make it an ideal textbook. As the perfect complement to the author’s Design of Unmanned Aerial Systems, this book includes the history, classes, and missions of UAVs. It covers fundamental topics, like aerodynamics, stability and control, propulsion, loads and structures, mission planning, payloads, and communication systems. Brand-new materials in areas including autopilots, quadcopters, payloads, and ground control stations highlight the latest industry technologies. The authors also discuss: A thorough introduction to the history of unmanned aerial vehicles, including their use in various conflicts, an overview of critical UAV systems, and the Predator/Reaper A comprehensive exploration of the classes and missions of UAVs, including several examples of UAV systems, like Mini UAVs, UCAVs, and quadcopters Practical discussions of air vehicles, including coverage of topics like aerodynamics, flight performance, stability, and control In-depth examinations of propulsion, loads, structures, mission planning, control systems, and autonomy Perfect for professional aeronautical and aerospace engineers, as well as students and instructors in courses like Unmanned Aircraft Systems Design and Introduction to Unmanned Aerial Systems, Introduction to UAV Systems is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking coverage of the latest industry advances and technologies in UAV and UAS technology.

This book provides a complete overview of the theory, design, and applications of unmanned aerial vehicles. It covers the basics, including definitions, attributes, manned vs. unmanned, design considerations, life cycle costs, architecture, components, air vehicle, payload, communications, data link, and ground control stations. Chapters cover types and civilian roles, sensors and characteristics, alternative power, communications and data links, conceptual design, human machine interface, sense and avoid systems, civil airspace issues and integration efforts, navigation, autonomous control, swarming, and future capabilities.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems delivers a much needed introduction to UAV System technology, taking an integrated approach that avoids compartmentalising the subject. Arranged in four sections, parts 1-3 examine the way in which various engineering disciplines affect the design, development and deployment of UAS. The fourth section assesses the future challenges and opportunities of UAS. Technological innovation and increasingly diverse applications are two key drivers of the rapid expansion of UAS technology. The global defence budget for UAS procurement is expanding, and in the future the market for civilian UAVs is expected to outmatch that of the military. Agriculture, meteorology, conservation and border control are just a few of the diverse areas in which UAVs are making a significant impact; the author addresses all of these applications, looking at the roles and technology behind both fixed wing and rotorcraft UAVs. Leading aeronautical consultant Reg Austin co-founded the Bristol International Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) conferences in 1979, which are now the longest-established UAS conferences worldwide. In addition, Austin has over 40 years' experience in the design and development of UAS. One of Austin's programmes, the "Sprite UAV System" has been deployed around the world and operated by day and night, in all weathers.

This book provides fundamental principles, design procedures, and design tools for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with three sections focusing on vehicle design, autopilot design, and ground system design. The design of manned aircraft and the design of UAVs have some similarities and some differences. They include the design process, constraints (e.g., g-load, pressurization), and UAV main components (autopilot, ground station, communication, sensors, and payload). A UAV designer must be aware of the latest UAV developments; current technologies; know lessons learned from past failures; and they should appreciate the breadth of UAV design options. The contribution of unmanned aircraft continues to expand every day and over 20 countries are developing and employing UAVs for both military and scientific purposes. A UAV system is much more than a reusable air vehicle or vehicles. UAVs are air vehicles, they fly like airplanes and operate in an airplane environment. They are designed like air vehicles; they have to meet flight critical air vehicle requirements. A designer needs to know how to integrate complex, multi-disciplinary systems, and to understand the environment, the requirements and the design challenges and this book is an excellent overview of the fundamentals from an engineering perspective. This book is meant to meet the needs of newcomers into the world of UAVs. The materials are intended to provide enough information in each area and illustrate how they all play together to support the design of a complete UAV. Therefore, this book can be used both as a reference for engineers entering the field or as a supplementary text for a UAV design course to provide system-level context for each specialized topic.