Welcome to Lesson 1! In this lesson, you will become familiar with the history behind the use of the UAS. You will also be familiar with the current status of the UAS development. In addition, you will be exposed to the different classes of UAV/UAS according to their size, weight, and missions.
At the end of this lesson, you will have a working knowledge about how the unmanned aerial missions started, the current status and the classes of the UAV/UAS.
Lesson Objectives
At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Explain why aircraft classification is mature for manned aviation but still evolving for UAS.
- Apply common UAS classification approaches based on size, range/endurance, and mission performance.
- Interpret the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) five-group UAS framework.
- Describe civil/commercial UAS classification practices used in industry.
- Treat FAA Part 107 as a regulatory overlay and map operational limitations and waiver pathways to UAS missions.
Lesson Readings
Course Textbooks
- Chapter 1 of the textbook: Unmanned Vehicle Systems for Geomatics: Towards Robotic Mapping
- Chapter 1 of the textbook: Bankhart et al., Introduction to the Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 2nd edition
- Chapters 1 & 2 of textbook: Fahlstrom, et al., Introduction to UAV Systems (Aerospace Series), 4th edition
Web Articles
- Pacchioli, D., "Programming autonomous vehicles to fly like birds"
- Chiles, J., "Drones for Hire"
- Maksel, R., "Robot Reporters"
Google Drive (Open Access)
- Commercial UAV News report: "6 Predictions for 2016: UAV Experts Discuss Important Developments for Commercial Drone Applications"
- Parts I, II, & III of Collier Crouch, C., thesis "Integration of mini-UAVs at the tactical operations level : implications of operations, implementation, and information sharing" (pdf)
- Watts, et al., Remote Sensing
Lesson Activities
- Study lesson 1 materials on Drupal and the text books chapters assigned to the lesson
- Start your first post for the discussion on "Agreements and Differences in UAS Classification"
- Review Final Project Idea Assignment Details
- Attend the weekly call on Thursday evening at 8:00pm ET
- Study Quiz 1 materials