From the course: Autodesk ReCap Pro: Processing Drone Images

What is a drone?

From the course: Autodesk ReCap Pro: Processing Drone Images

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What is a drone?

- [Narrator] What is a drone anyway? Well drones come in two main flavors. Fixed-wing, like this MQ9 Reaper. Or Multirotor, like this DGI Phantom. Drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs, typically have a payload, such as a video camera, often they have an autopilot mode, and usually they have a built-in GPS within the vehicle or in the camera itself. They should be flown within the visual line of sight, or VLOS, especially for most recreational or commercial uses. The mulitrotor Uavs, the ones with the many blades, are best for oblique imagery or imagery on an angle. They are hoverable and can fly in almost any direction- up, down, left, right, or backwards. They have a fairly short range, less than an hour typically. And they are good for vertical takeoff. You don't need a runway or any distance to get them up into the air. Now the fixed-wing UAVs, they're best for vertical imagery or photos straight down at the ground. They're non-hoverable, they have to keep flying or keep moving in order to stay airborne. They have a fairly long range. For example the Swinglet eBee you see can actually fly up to an hour on a battery. The fixed-wing UAVs do require takeoff space or a bit of a runway to get off of the ground. Using Hybrid UAVs, they can take both vertical and oblique imagery. They are hoverable. They have a middle range, meaning they can't fly as far as a fixed-wing, and they can stay in the air longer than a multirotor vehicle. They have a vertical takeoff, meaning they don't need a runway to get airborne. Now Alternative UAVs are very interesting. They're quite experimental and they may include kites or blimps. I've actually seen a kite UAV working where they use the kite to take photographs of a sensitive area. There are variable payloads, including cameras, but most may not have autopilot software yet.

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