Talk:Unmanned aerial vehicle/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Altitude

Does anybody know what height these typically fly at or fire missiles at?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:21, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The reaper article says about 50,000 odd feet but I'm surprised that it can fly without being spotted on radar. The recent ISIS attack you'd think ISIS would have some form of counter surveillance for that sort of thing. Does radar only work up to a given altitude and it operates above it?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:38, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

What is the distinction from R/C aircraft

We have articles on radio controlled helicopters and radio controlled airplanes, which seem to be a subset of the larger subject of drones, but I don't see that this article defines "drone" in the context of radio-controlled hobby aircraft, which have existed for decades and only have recently come under scrutiny due to increasing mainstream popularity. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:56, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

This is I think because UAV got their fame with military aircrafts with high communication and embedded-intelligence capabilities. Those capabilities later extended to small aircrafts for hobbyists, with miniaturisation of intelligent flight systems, especially on multirotors. It explains to me why older RC planes and helis are not considered "drones", as the two semantic branches, RC model and UAV, grew separately.

Planes and helis tending to carry more and more embedded systems : cameras, LIDARs, mapping algorithms, small flight controllers... they "branch" from model aircrafts to become drones. The same question arose in the wikiaviation project.

Take a look at my proposal below if you want!Maxorazon (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

UAV - conservation / animal right use Update

Hello, According to what I've read in both sub contents, Animal rights are talking about using UAV's for anti poaching methods which still fall within the subject of conservation. So having two sections is unnecessary, but overall the section is understandable and reliable sources are used. I also think that new information needs to be developed, which I will be adding very soon, i also think that UAV Uses could be split into two subtopics such as Commercial and non Commercial.

I'd like to talk to anyone that also has suggestions regarding this.

Hello, totally approve your changes regarding animal rights. For your split proposal I think it is better to keep all the scope in this article, military UAVs already have a dedicated one. BR Maxorazon (talk) 09:27, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

About splitting commercial vs non-commercial, approve! Although a bit tricky : FPV racing is non-commercial? What about police surveillance and law enforcement? Anyway the section needs serious cleaning and overhaul to me.Maxorazon (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

UAV update

Hello,

I have been thinking for three weeks in revamping this article. Some major areas of rework are the update of autonomy levels, the transfer of the events, near-miss incident and accident headings to a new article so as not burdening the UAV one, considerably cleaning the citation list and a few others. I am also planning to create/revamp the section about autopilots in a new section, that would be named UAV control systems.

Please let me know if you have any criticism or suggestion, BR Maxorazon (talk) 21:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The UAV rework that I issued aimed at focusing the article more on science, systems and technology, as I thought it was way too much bending toward literary topics. Charts and some content that I used can be found here : https://www.dropbox.com/home/UAV%20rework%20Feb%202016

Some further work that would be great, in the project of raising this frequented wikipedia article to a 'good article' rating :

• downsizing the article from 140 kb to 100kb with complete overhaul of history, uses and regulation sections to incorporate most of the content in the dedicated articles, and improve the density of information
• considerably reducing the citation volume (250-->150) and raise the quality of the links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxorazon (talk • contribs) 17:26, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• improve general prose flow by A LOT (I have not native English alas...)
• introduce a timeline in history linking the history of all the topics involved (aviation, radiocommunication, computers, electronics-avionics, AI, robotics, sensors, actuators, control theory...)
• improve the telecommunication section
• consider moving general autonomy and control content to vehicular automation
• create a dedicated template for the end-of-page "portals".

Maxorazon (talk) 15:23, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, where have the accident and near-miss sections been moved to? Autarch (talk) 01:06, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

On a separate note, the subsection Endurance has some broken citations - they have square brackets and a number, but they don't link to the references section. Autarch (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks like someone did a cut and paste job from some other text - another wiki article perhaps. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Events have been split, see history. https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/UAV-related_historical_events,_near-incidents,_incidents_and_accidents. The link thing is on me, correcting this within the end of the day Maxorazon (talk) 09:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Unmanned_aerial_vehicle&curid=58900&diff=705415015&oldid=705414157 thumbs up, can go even further, much content is redundant and present on the linked articles https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Regulation_of_UAVs_in_the_United_States +why a paragraph on US, Ireland or South Africa specifically in the mother article. Applies to a lot of other things, especially uses. Maxorazon (talk) 10:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

even when content is in other articles, important points and summaries need remain in the parents. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Sentences with problems

• "Most UAVs integer an old-fashioned radio frequency front-end," - should "integer" be "utilise"?
• "Liability improvements target both UAVs and UAV swarms," - should "liability" be "reliability" (ditto for whole subsection).

Autarch (talk) 16:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello, I did wrote this and my English is real bad : just go on when you find weird things :) BR Maxorazon (talk) 10:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion for separate article: "List of applications for unmanned aerial vehicles"

Please comment below whether you would or would not support a separate new article "List of applications for unmanned aerial vehicles", modeled after List of crowdsourcing projects divided into organized sub-lists in respective sub-sections. A lot of the miscellaneous disjointed "stuff" from this main article would be moved there.
Such a list-article would alleviate much of the clutter that has plagued this main article, and would be easier to organize and monitor since it would be (mainly) one-sentence list entries with specific sources. Comment below. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC) —modified RCraig09 (talk) 14:49, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Have to agree as this article has become a bit of a dumping ground for every use of UAVs when it should be an overview of the history and development so should be reasonable stable if the operational side is moved out. MilborneOne (talk) 18:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Approve 100% : just checked it would withdraw 50kbytes of content, and about 100 citations of overall poor or at least sparse quality - much needed. Maxorazon (talk) 17:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Disagree with modelling it on List of crowdsourcing projects which is alphabetical and very un-user friendly. Why not just split out the section as Use of UAVs in the USA which reflects its current bias. - Rod57 (talk) 12:57, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Good point, Rod57. Actually, my original suggestion was intended to describe a list of concise (one-phrase) items, to prevent bloat. I didn't mean to make the new List-article merely alphabetic, but would be divided into meaningful sections and sub-sections, an organized hierarchy such as: (very rough draft)

==Gathering information==

===Civil reconnaissance===

==== Gathering information for disaster response management====

==== Gathering information for search and rescue====

etc.

===Military reconnaissance===

etc.

==Delivering physical items==

=== Delivering consumer goods===

=== Delivering medical supplies===

=== Delivering military ordnance

etc.

==Retrieving physical items==

=== Retrieving medical specimens===

etc.

References' content would quickly determine exact hierarchical structure of the List.
Aside: List should try to expand to worldwide use, not purposely limit to U.S. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:49, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This is the best way imo, go ahead! Btw, can this article compete in GA CUP by 15th March?Maxorazon (talk) 13:43, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed to split out Uses section as Use of UAVs

It's a huge section and would split out nicely and logically from the rest of the article. Less work than converting it into a list as suggested above. Alternative names : UAV applications, or since this current section so US-centric : UAV applications within USA, UAV applications outside USA ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:53, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Rod57, I suggested a List-article because the present "Uses" sub-sections are kind of like a blob, a bit disorganized and wordy and sometimes rambling. Contrast: A hierarchical list of concise phrases (e.g., "Retrieving blood samples. ...") would solve that problem, admittedly with a lot of work. But I agree that a separate non-list article, as you suggest, would be better than keeping it in the present article. However, I would definitely not purposely limit to U.S. uses —RCraig09 (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Apologies for the tongue-in-cheek suggestion re USA. New article could be UAV applications or Use of UAVs or Uses of UAVs or Use of unmanned aerial vehicles - not sure what WP guidelines would suggest. Sections within could be commercial:emergency-services:military but a split by country could be useful too due to differing regulations - I'll let someone closer to the topic do it. - Rod57 (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Other uses of UAV seem nicely covered in Droning it In on Scientific American and Tornado Drones on Nature World News. Disclosure: I now work for one of the people (Elston) interviewed in the SciAm article. Travelbyrocket (talk) 21:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Sources need to be changed

Under the section titled 'Archaeology' the link to citation 177 doesn't work anymore. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/archeologists-use-drones-to-protect-and-explore-ancient-peruvian- This site archived the article it seems. I would do it myself but I'm new and don't know how to edit a source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Temporalarcheologist (talk • contribs) 14:50, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

@Temporalarcheologist:  Done. Cited both the links for references. - Ninney (talk) 15:26, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Data point incorrectly labeled in picture

Point V in this chart should be labelled green and not red (fixed wing, not rotorcraft) https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#/media/File:Flight_time_against_mass_of_small_drones.svg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vrrp (talk • contribs) 12:46, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

NPOV/Encyclopedic tone

"Later that year, General John C. Meyer, Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command, stated, 'we let the drone do the high-risk flying ... the loss rate is high, but we are willing to risk more of them ... they save lives!'"

This line sounds like it came straight out of a television commercial. Why is "they save lives!" in bold-face? And why does it end with a exclamation point?

If these features can't be removed without misquoting, we should strip out the entire quotation and find a better one. Laodah 20:26, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

RC models need mentioning

RC helicopters and RC planes definitely need to be mentioned, if not have their own section. "Quadrotor drones" are literally RC helicopters with four propellers. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 05:27, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

RC models need to be mentioned and UAV flight planning methods and the importance of companies providing flight safety should be discussed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.238.134.34 (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Latent sexism in the title?

When I searched for this article my initial temptation was to type "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle", but I stopped myself and entered "Unpiloted" instead. That got me a hit in the academic literature. But surely the title in wikipedia should be gender-neutral? Unpiloted is any case a more accurate description and still works well with the commonly used "UAV". Dtprice (talk) 19:19, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

As the father of two daughters, I'm all for gender-neutral (I think we should use "actor" rather than "actress", for example, and it is only the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's continued use of "actress" that prevents me from proposing a mass RM of the various "actress" categories); but I think here WP:COMMONNAME controls. The common name is indeed unmanned aerial vehicle (i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems Association, Martin UAV's use of "unmanned"). Wikipedia should not try to impose a nomenclature that does not yet have widespread usage. To change this to "unpiloted" or something else (the usual gender-neutral form of "manned" is "crewed", so presumably the alternative here would be "uncrewed") would need to evidence consistency with COMMONNAME. TJRC (talk) 19:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. On second thoughts, "unpiloted" is not accurate, since most UAVs do have a pilot, on the ground. "Uncrewed" would be better, but unlikely to catch on just yet. Dtprice (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

OK thanks for telling me that Amanda 297 Chloe (talk) 12:46, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Splitting away of the applications section

It is now at List of unmanned aerial vehicle applications.

See here.

Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Terrible views

This is the consequence. Terrible. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. It just means that one subject is less interesting or less searched than another. The views will likely improve with improved linking. And I wouldn't call 2000/day average "terrible". ~Anachronist (talk) 21:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough, Anachronist, but the 2,000 is the main article. This breakaway gets 20. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Still, that's more than a lot of articles get, and I think the low hits are likely due to the low number of internal links to it. I spent days writing this one about an AI subject for example, and it even made the DYK list, but it gets a handful of hits per day, if that. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:08, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Anachronist, good points. Well, I do hope it improves anyhow. Many thanks for the thoughtful reply. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:46, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Redundant Sentence

From the second paragraph:

"Compared to manned aircraft, UAVs were originally used for missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous"[2] for humans. While they originated mostly in military applications, their use is rapidly expanding to commercial, scientific, recreational, agricultural, and other applications,[3] such as policing, peacekeeping,[4] and surveillance, product deliveries, aerial photography, agriculture, smuggling,[5] and drone racing."

Do we need "agricultural" and "agriculture"?--Cheeseball701 (talk) 10:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

UAV Usage by Non-State Actors

I was very surprised to see that the history section doesn't touch on the phenomenon of armed groups using remote-controlled vehicles for reconnaissance, and even dropping explosives, in war zones in Iraq and Syria (and perhaps elsewhere) as of late. As for UAV development it seems rather notable that armed groups such as Daesh have now taken to retrofitting commercial UAVs and are successfully employing them in their activities. 2601:87:4400:AF2:84D7:679C:1DA0:C7F6 (talk) 20:10, 7 August 2018 (UTC)