An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a
vehicle
A vehicle () is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered land vehicle, human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velo ...
without a person on board. Uncrewed vehicles can either be under
telerobotic control—remote controlled or remote guided vehicles—or they can be
autonomously controlled—autonomous vehicles—which are capable of sensing their environment and navigating on their own.
It has been reported that the
armed forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...
of more than 100 countries have approximately 170 different types of drones in service.
Types
There are different types of uncrewed vehicles:
*
Remote control vehicle (RC), such as
radio-controlled cars or
radio-controlled aircraft
A radio-controlled aircraft (often called RC aircraft or RC plane) is a small flying machine that is radio controlled by an operator on the ground using a hand-held radio transmitter. The transmitter continuously communicates with a receiver (rad ...
*
Unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), such as the
autonomous car
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no User input, human input. They are sometimes called robotaxi, robotaxis, though this te ...
s, or unmanned
combat vehicles (UCGV)
**
Self-driving truck
**
Driverless tractor
* Unmanned ground and aerial vehicle (UGAV), unmanned vehicle with hybrid locomotion methods
*
Unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...
(UAV), unmanned
aircraft
An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...
, either
fixed-wing
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using Lift (force), aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircraft (in which a Helicopter rotor, r ...
or
rotorwing, commonly known as "drone"
**
Unmanned combat aerial vehicle
An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone, fighter drone or battlefield UAV, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance and carries aircra ...
(UCAV)
**
Medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (MALE)
**
Miniature UAV (SUAV)
**
Delivery drone
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Micro air vehicle (MAV)
**
Target drone
A target drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle, generally remote controlled, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews.
One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operation ...
*
Autonomous spaceport drone ship
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Unmanned surface vehicle (USV), also known as "surface drone" or "drone ship", for operations on the surface of the water
*
Unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), also known as "underwater drone" or "drone sub", for operations underwater
**
Remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROUV)
**
Autonomous underwater vehicle
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring continuous input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification tha ...
(AUV)
***
Intervention AUV
Intervention AUV or I-AUV is a type of autonomous underwater vehicle. Its characteristic feature is that it is capable of autonomous interventions on the subsea installations, a task usually carried out by remotely operated underwater vehicles ( ...
(IAUV)
***
Underwater glider
An underwater glider is a type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that employs variable-buoyancy propulsion instead of traditional propellers or Underwater thruster, thrusters. It employs variable buoyancy in a similar way to a profiling floa ...
*
Uncrewed spacecraft
Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which th ...
, both remote controlled ("uncrewed space mission") and autonomous ("
robotic spacecraft
Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which t ...
" or "
space probe
Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which th ...
")
See also
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Vehicular automation
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Optionally piloted vehicle
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Automatic train operation (ATO), such as the "Driverless Train"
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Robot
A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...
*
Robot control
References
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