What is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle?

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), and also referred by several other names, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. The flight of UAVs may be controlled with various kinds of autonomy : either by a given degree of remote control from an operator, located on the ground or in another vehicle, or fully autonomously, by onboard computers.

UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for manned aircraft. They have and are mostly found in military and special operation applications. Though, UAVs are increasingly finding uses in civil and recreational applications, such as policing and surveillance, aerial filming, and drone racing.

Market trends

Though global forecasts appear hardly reliable, especially due to regulation concerns, the military UAV market will stay far ahead of the civil market with an expected $10bn out of $13bn in 2024.

The UAV global military market is still currently dominated by the United States and Israel, the pioneers in that field. USA held a 60% military-maket share in 2006 and a projected 70% in 2016. It operated over 9000 UAVs in 2014. Israel has been standing as the most important military exporter in the past fifteen years (citations time and prev UAV) – the military exports are very rare and the markets mostly national. Northrop Grumman and General Atomics are the dominant manufacturers in this industry on the strength of the Global Hawk and Predator/Mariner systems. However, China has committed to great effort and its first manufacturer is believed to become the leading global producer of UAVs by 2023.

Reports forecasts the small unmanned-aircraft-system market to reach $8bn in 2019, including services and applications : the professional and hobbyist share representing $1.1bn and the commercial share $5.2bn. The estimated leading civil-UAV companies are currently the Chinese DJI with $500m global sales, the French Parrot with $110m, and the US 3DRobotics with $21.6m in 2014.

Some universities offer now UAS research and training programs or academic degrees.

source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia