Drones That Don’t Fly
When we think of drones, we often concentrate on flying drones. But drones can also roll, float, swim, crawl, and eventually will walk. When we use the term, “UAV” it means Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, implying flying. But Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) and Unmanned Water Vehicles (UWV) can also be useful. The key component in drones is that they are vehicles, therefore capable of moving and carrying some form of payload, and that they are unmanned, therefore capable of moving under remote control or some form of programmed or autonomous control.
Unmanned Ground Vehicles will find uses as:
- Deliveries – external/public, internal/warehouse/inventory
- Inspection and data collection
- Search and rescue
- Agriculture – planting, weeding, feeding, harvesting
- Cleaning – home, industrial, public
- Excavation and exploration (by swarm?)
- Many military applications
Unmanned Water Vehicles will find uses as:
- Search and rescue
- Exploration and scientific data collection
- Repair and installation
- Environmental cleanup (by swarm?)
- Deliveries (including inland waterways)
- Many military applications
It is intriguing to consider collaborations amongst different forms of unmanned vehicles.
SEE ALSO:
Robot Deliveries
UAV/Drones Tending Crops
