drone technology: November 2019

All About Drone Technology

What is a drone?

A drone, in technological terms, is an unmanned aircraft. Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft systems (UASes). Essentially, a drone is a flying robot that can be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems, working in conjunction with on-board sensors and GPS.

Printed Quadcopter Drone How To Build Your Own

What are the four forces of flight and the four forces of flight?

Aerodynamics is the way air moves around things. The rules of aerodynamics explain how an airplane is able to fly. Anything that moves through the air reacts to aerodynamics. A rocket blasting of the launch pad and a kite in the sky react to aerodynamics. Aerodynamics even acts around cars, since air flows around the cars.

What is drag?

Drag is the aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft's motion through the air. Drag is generated by every part of the airplane (even the engines!). How is drag generated?

Drag is a mechanical force. It is generated by the interaction and contact of a solid body with a fluid (liquid or gas). It is not generated by a force field, in the sense of a gravitational field or an electromagnetic field, where one object can affect another object without being in physical contact. For drag to be generated, the solid body must be in contact with the fluid. If there is no fluid, there is no drag. Drag is generated by the difference in velocity between the solid object and the fluid. There must be motion between the object and the fluid. If there is no motion, there is no drag. It makes no difference whether the object moves through a static fluid or whether the fluid moves past a static solid object.

What is thrust?

Thrust is the force which moves an aircraft through the air. Thrust is used to overcome the drag of an airplane, and to overcome the weight of a rocket. Thrust is generated by the engines of the aircraft through some kind of propulsion system.

Thrust is a mechanical force, so the propulsion system must be in physical contact with a working fluid to produce thrust. Thrust is generated most often through the reaction of accelerating a mass of gas. Since thrust is a force, it is a vector quantity having both a magnitude and a direction. The engine does work on the gas and accelerates the gas to the rear of the engine; the thrust is generated in the opposite direction from the accelerated gas. The magnitude of the thrust depends on the amount of gas that is accelerated and on the difference in velocity of the gas through the engine.

What is weight?

Gravity is a force that pulls everything down to Earth. Weight is the amount of gravity multiplied by the mass of an object. Weight is also the downward force that an aircraft must overcome to fly. A kite has less mass and therefore less weight to overcome than a jumbo jet, but they both need the same thing in order to fly -- lift.

What is lift?

Lift is the push that lets something move up. It is the force that is the opposite of weight. Everything that flies must have lift. For an aircraft to move upward, it must have more lift than weight. A hot air balloon has lift because the hot air inside is lighter than the air around it. Hot air rises and carries the balloon with it. A helicopter's lift comes from the rotor blades. Their motion through the air moves the helicopter upward. Lift for an airplane comes from its wings.

How does a drone work?

The working procedure of a drone may appear simple to most of you but the device is actually carrying a complex technology inside.Actually it is a specially designed multi propeller system inside a drone that makes this device highly independent and also assists in reduction of failures. One important thing to note about this multi propeller system is that even if any motor inside this device stops working; it will keep on flying as it gets support from propellers that are working in group. Drones that possess large number of motors inside are able to gain more control over their elevation and hence can carry more loads during flight. These propellers get their power from a dedicated source and most of these devices contain removable batteries so that it can stay in air for long run. The flight time can be extended with use of powerful batteries in design.

Here are some evidences of us building a drone :

How does a drone fly?

Lot of people including me ask ourselves how do drones fly? Well it's pretty simple if you understand the science behind it. The first and fourth rotors spin clockwise and the second and third rotors spin counter clockwise. When the rotors spin together, they push down on the air and the air pushes back up on the rotors. When the rotors spin fast, the drone lifts into the air, but if the rotors slow down, the drone will descend to the ground. Many people also want to know how to turn, well here are the steps. If you want to right, you have to slow down the first and fourth rotor and slow down the second and third rotor for turning left. Keep in mind that you have to either speed up the first and fourth rotor or the second and third rotor for turning right or left. Also, drones are powered by Lithium-ion batteries and it's also very important to maintain healthy batteries for the maximum flight time. Finally, a lot of drones have built in GPS system so they know exactly where they are. If for some reason your remote control disconnects it knows to fly straight back to where it came from, Although, sometimes it doesn't come back and then just flies away. Overall, drones are an amazing tool to have and now since you know the science behind it, your pretty much a drone expert. So happy droning.