The Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering, first published in 2010, represents a singular attempt to capture the aero- space community’s ever-expanding collective body of knowledge into an easy-to-use, cohesive, universal reference framework.
The past few years have marked rapid growth in aerospace systems and technology – as new and innovative designs and applications come to the fore, new ways of thinking about old challenges emerge, and as existing technology and systems have continued to evolve in new and exciting directions. This growth has been especially dynamic in the field of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
No longer solely the tools of the military, UAS have experienced a cost and capability revolution, performing important missions across many fields – agricultural sensing, infrastructure inspection, scientific research, and logistics – with significant implications for the research and development enterprise. The new complementary technologies involving intelligent systems are continually changing how we think about the capabilities and applications of UAS technology and how it will continue to transform our lives.
The absence of the human payload and its associated systems has inspired and delivered remarkable innovations in our industry. Yet unmanned systems still face extraordinary challenges to deliver comparable situational awareness to the operator, and we are all aware of the potential threats to safety and security associated with the widespread availability and increasing affordability of small-scale, remotely piloted air- craft. To address these challenges and to leverage these associated innovations fully, we need ongoing access to information. We therefore welcome this addition to the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering as both timely and comprehensive, covering a remarkable range of UAS issues from platform technology, autonomy, security, and fail-safe systems through to integration with manned aviation and the regulatory and legal regimes – all critical pieces of knowledge if we are to continue developing the UAS enter- prise to its fullest potential.
The year 2016 marks both the 150th anniversary of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the 85th anniversary of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). With a combined membership of more than 50,000 aerospace professionals, our two organizations celebrate these milestones and our members’ never-ending quest for knowledge and solutions not just to the problems and challenges of today but also of the next impossible thing. It is our members who evolve UAS technology to even greater capabilities and uses than that exist today.
Aerospace make the world safer, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous. We hope that the addition of this volume to the Encyclopedia continues this trend and is as professionally valuable and influential to its readers – and the industry – as were the preceding volumes.
As we write, there is perhaps no issue more timely in aviation than unmanned aircraft systems. That is why it is our pleasure to jointly commend to you this new contribution to the aerospace engineering body of knowledge.
Hidden Content
The past few years have marked rapid growth in aerospace systems and technology – as new and innovative designs and applications come to the fore, new ways of thinking about old challenges emerge, and as existing technology and systems have continued to evolve in new and exciting directions. This growth has been especially dynamic in the field of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
No longer solely the tools of the military, UAS have experienced a cost and capability revolution, performing important missions across many fields – agricultural sensing, infrastructure inspection, scientific research, and logistics – with significant implications for the research and development enterprise. The new complementary technologies involving intelligent systems are continually changing how we think about the capabilities and applications of UAS technology and how it will continue to transform our lives.
The absence of the human payload and its associated systems has inspired and delivered remarkable innovations in our industry. Yet unmanned systems still face extraordinary challenges to deliver comparable situational awareness to the operator, and we are all aware of the potential threats to safety and security associated with the widespread availability and increasing affordability of small-scale, remotely piloted air- craft. To address these challenges and to leverage these associated innovations fully, we need ongoing access to information. We therefore welcome this addition to the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering as both timely and comprehensive, covering a remarkable range of UAS issues from platform technology, autonomy, security, and fail-safe systems through to integration with manned aviation and the regulatory and legal regimes – all critical pieces of knowledge if we are to continue developing the UAS enter- prise to its fullest potential.
The year 2016 marks both the 150th anniversary of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the 85th anniversary of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). With a combined membership of more than 50,000 aerospace professionals, our two organizations celebrate these milestones and our members’ never-ending quest for knowledge and solutions not just to the problems and challenges of today but also of the next impossible thing. It is our members who evolve UAS technology to even greater capabilities and uses than that exist today.
Aerospace make the world safer, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous. We hope that the addition of this volume to the Encyclopedia continues this trend and is as professionally valuable and influential to its readers – and the industry – as were the preceding volumes.
As we write, there is perhaps no issue more timely in aviation than unmanned aircraft systems. That is why it is our pleasure to jointly commend to you this new contribution to the aerospace engineering body of knowledge.
Hidden Content