page_title: Unmanned aerial vehicle
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Unmanned aerial vehicle / Classification
caption_attribution_description: English: Schiebel S-100 Camcopter (registered OE-VXX) fitted with a Lightweight Multirole Missile on display at Farnborough Airshow 2008
context_page_description: An unmanned aerial vehicle is an aircraft without a human pilot on board and a type of unmanned vehicle. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system; which include a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator, autonomously by onboard computers or piloted by an autonomous robot.
  Compared to crewed aircraft, UAVs were originally used for missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans. While they originated mostly in military applications, their use is rapidly expanding to commercial, scientific, recreational, agricultural, and other applications, such as policing and surveillance, product deliveries, aerial photography, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, and drone racing. Civilian UAVs now vastly outnumber military UAVs, with estimates of over a million sold by 2015.
context_section_description: UAVs typically fall into one of six functional categories (although multi-role airframe platforms are becoming more prevalent):
  Target and decoy – providing ground and aerial gunnery a target that simulates an enemy aircraft or missile
  Reconnaissance – providing battlefield intelligence
  Combat – providing attack capability for high-risk missions (see: Unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV))
  Logistics – delivering cargo
  Research and development – improve UAV technologies
  Civil and commercial UAVs – agriculture, aerial photography, data collection
  The U.S. Military UAV tier system is used by military planners to designate the various individual aircraft elements in an overall usage plan.
  Vehicles can be categorized in terms of range/altitude. The following has been advanced as relevant at industry events such as ParcAberporth Unmanned Systems forum:
  Hand-held 2,000 ft (600 m) altitude, about 2 km range
  Close 5,000 ft (1,500 m) altitude, up to 10 km range
  NATO type 10,000 ft (3,000 m) altitude, up to 50 km range
  Tactical 18,000 ft (5,500 m) altitude, about 160 km range
  MALE (medium altitude, long endurance) up to 30,000 ft (9,000 m) and range over 200 km
  HALE (high altitude, long endurance) over 30,000 ft (9,100 m) and indefinite range
  Hypersonic high-speed, supersonic (Mach 1–5) or hypersonic (Mach 5+) 50,000 ft (15,200 m) or suborbital altitude, range over 200 km
  Orbital low earth orbit (Mach 25+)
  CIS Lunar Earth-Moon transfer
  Computer Assisted Carrier Guidance System (CACGS) for UAVs
  Other categories include:
  Hobbyist UAVs – which can be further divided into
  Ready-to-fly (RTF)/Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)
  Bind-and-fly (BNF) – require minimum knowledge to fly the platform
  Almost-ready-to-fly (ARF)/Do-it-yourself (DIY) –  require significant knowledge to get in the air
  Bare frame – requires significant knowledge and your own parts to get it in the air
  Midsize military and commercial UAVs
  Large military-specific UAVs
  Stealth combat UAVs
  Crewed aircraft transformed into uncrewed (and Optionally Piloted UAVS or OPVs)
  Classifications according to aircraft weight are quite simpler:
  Micro air vehicle (MAV) – the smallest UAVs that can weigh less than 1g
  Miniature UAV (also called SUAS) –  approximately less than 25 kg
  Heavier UAVs
caption: Schiebel S-100 fitted with a Lightweight Multirole Missile
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