An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a vehicle 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 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
- Unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), such as the autonomous cars, or unmanned combat vehicles (UCGV)
- Unmanned ground and aerial vehicle (UGAV), unmanned vehicle with hybrid locomotion methods
- Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), unmanned aircraft, either fixed-wing or rotorwing, commonly known as "drone"
- Autonomous spaceport drone ship
- 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
- Uncrewed spacecraft, both remote controlled ("uncrewed space mission") and autonomous ("robotic spacecraft" or "space probe")
See also
- Vehicular automation
- Optionally piloted vehicle
- Automatic train operation (ATO), such as the "Driverless Train"
- Robot
- Robot control
References
- Mark Levels, Jean-Pierre Schouwenaars and Jeroen Vleij (18 October 2024). "Drones: kansen voor de Nederlandse krijgsmacht". Militaire Spectator (in Dutch).
- Huang, Hui-Min (September 2004). Autonomy Levels for Unmanned Systems (ALFUS) Framework. Volume I: Terminology. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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