UAVs, it seems, are never far from the news these days. But usually the media headlines concern 'killer drones' -referring to the vast growth in military unmanned air systems (UAS) (to give them their full designation) in the past decade. These UAS have brought unique capabilities to the battlefield, allowing persistent surveillance and more precise and accurate lethal force to be applied. Yet the civilian applications of UAS, though promising, have lagged due to the challenges of mixing unmanned air vehicles and manned aircraft in the same airspace. Once unlocked, some predict that civil UAS could be the airborne equivalent of the mobile phone - a 'disruptive' technology whose killer 'app' or 'must-have' service hasn't even been thought of yet.
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