Unmanned Aerial Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Once perceived as a niche application, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are now well established as a serious sector within the aerospace industry. The global marketplace for UAS technology has seen the sharpest growth of any aerospace sector for the past decade and this trend is predicted to continue well into the 21st century. Currently, the most prolific UAS application is military surveillance, where UAS systems have proven to be invaluable in recent conflicts. However, such uses merely scratch the surface of potential UAS applications—the real challenge facing researchers is to develop technologies to enable widespread adoption of UAS in civilian airspace, both controlled and urban.

Research in UAS requires expertise from disciplines across the academic and industrial spectra. Advances in computing and communications bandwidth for example have allowed aerodynamicists and aircraft structural engineers to explore the design space in a manner impossible even a few years ago. This is especially true in the domain of small-UAS, where a number of new platform designs from tail-sitters and stop-rotors to compound configurations have recently been proposed. Not new ideas, granted, but configurations now realisable within an unmanned aircraft setting. Unmanned systems have therefore created an opportunity for novelty, innovation and creativity in aerospace design not seen for half a century. Another key research area is in unmanned aircraft operations analysis. Here, new application areas for UAS are discovered as advances in airborne sensing, autonomy and precise platform control flow into UAS designs, yielding greater performance and capability.

The challenges in realising the true potential of UAS are not all technical. Societal factors must be addressed, particularly the negative stereotype of the ‘drone’. Such challenges may be overcome in part by developing innovative new design and analysis methods for improving and demonstrating UAS safety and reliability. We invite papers either addressing the research opportunities outlined here or in the general topic area of unmanned aerial vehicles that will make a substantive contribution to the state of the art.

Dr. David Anderson
Prof. Dr. Javaan Chahl
Dr. Michael Wing
Collection Editors

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