07 Jul Ending the Drone vs UAV debate: Drone basics 101

Everyone is talking about them, but in plain English, what exactly are drones?

A drone is an unmanned aircraft or ship that is guided remotely or autonomously. Above is a multi-copter drone, named for it’s many propellers.

UAV stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, something that can fly without a pilot onboard. Above is a quad-copter UAV, named for it’s 4 propellers.

You’ll most commonly hear the term Drone used by the media and military, and UAV used most often by the FAA.  The words Drone and UAV mean the same thing, and can be used interchangeably. Both are aerial devices that can fly with a human remotely controlling them, or in the most advanced cases, fly themselves without any human intervention, such as the fixed wing drone below, named for it’s straight side wings that don’t move.

Whether you call them drones or UAVs, hiring a professional to remotely control them can cost thousands of dollars every single flight.  Identified Technologies offers aerial robots that pilot themselves so you can select the area you’d like to map or survey, and it will take off, collect your data, land, upload your data to the cloud, and swap out and charge its own batteries for you.

Self-Piloting Boomerang Drone Technology Demonstration Video