Within the last couple of years, the usage of drones in both the public and private (military) sector has exploded. People are talking about drones, building drones, and something most people didn’t know of a few years ago is now a household name. Build a Drone will not only teach you how to build your very own drone, but will explain their history in the military and the impact they will have—and are starting to have—on our everyday lives. Author Barry Davies has built drones for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and AAI (one of America’s largest drone manufacturers), as well as six experimental ones for MIT. He not only understands their use in the world, but knows the ins-and-outs of how they can be created and handled. Explained in simple terms with full-color step-by-step directions, Davies will explain how to build your very own drone from ones created specifically for this book. Whether you plan on using drones for recreation or a more serious purpose (from search and rescue through farming to scanning construction work on a high-rise apartment buildings), Build a Drone will make sure that you not only understand how to construct a drone, but the proper and safe ways to maintain and handle them.

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are rapidly emerging as flexible platforms for capturing imagery and other data across the sciences. Many colleges and universities are developing courses on UAS-based data acquisition. Fundamentals of Capturing and Processing Drone Imagery and Data is a comprehensive, introductory text on how to use unmanned aircraft systems for data capture and analysis. It provides best practices for planning data capture missions and hands-on learning modules geared toward UAS data collection, processing, and applications. FEATURES Lays out a step-by-step approach to identify relevant tools and methods for UAS data/image acquisition and processing Provides practical hands-on knowledge with visual interpretation, well-organized and designed for a typical 16-week UAS course offered on college and university campuses Suitable for all levels of readers and does not require prior knowledge of UAS, remote sensing, digital image processing, or geospatial analytics Includes real-world environmental applications along with data interpretations and software used, often nonproprietary Combines the expertise of a wide range of UAS researchers and practitioners across the geospatial sciences This book provides a general introduction to drones along with a series of hands-on exercises that students and researchers can engage with to learn to integrate drone data into real-world applications. No prior background in remote sensing, GIS, or drone knowledge is needed to use this book. Readers will learn to process different types of UAS imagery for applications (such as precision agriculture, forestry, urban landscapes) and apply this knowledge in environmental monitoring and land-use studies.

Groundbreaking exposé of the rapid shift to robot warfare, by a leading antiwar activist. Drone Warfare is the first comprehensive analysis of one of the fastest growing—and most secretive—fronts in global conflict: the rise of robot warfare. In 2000, the Pentagon had fewer than fifty aerial drones; ten years later, it had a fleet of nearly 7,500, and the US Air Force now trains more drone “pilots” than bomber and fighter pilots combined. Drones are already a $5 billion business in the US alone. The human cost? Drone strikes have killed more than 200 children alone in Pakistan and Yemen. CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin provides the first extensive analysis of who is producing the drones, where they are being used, who controls these unmanned planes, and what are the legal and moral implications of their use. In vivid, readable style, this book also looks at what activists, lawyers, and scientists across the globe are doing to ground these weapons. Benjamin argues that the assassinations we are carrying out from the air will come back to haunt us when others start doing the same thing—to us.

How small-scale drones, satellites, kites, and balloons are used by social movements for the greater good. Drones are famous for doing bad things: weaponized, they implement remote-control war; used for surveillance, they threaten civil liberties and violate privacy. In The Good Drone, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines a different range of uses: the deployment of drones for the greater good. Choi-Fitzpatrick analyzes the way small-scale drones--as well as satellites, kites, and balloons--are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy, and advancing climate change research. In fact, he finds, small drones are used disproportionately for good; nonviolent prosocial uses predominate.

An unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. Its flight is either controlled autonomously by computers in the vehicle, or under the remote control of a navigator or pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. Drone Warfare is one of the first books to examine the development and use of such aerial drones. Drones have been much maligned in the media and popular culture and there has been much controversy over their deployment. This book reveals the history of unmanned aircraft, their recent development, and why they have emerged onto the scene, setting the record straight about drones and their use. Drone Warfare answers questions such as: Why did the United States invest so highly drone technology? When did all that start? What barriers had to be overcome? What was there before drones arrived? What roles did drones play in Iraq and Afghanistan? Were they successful? What new developments emerged during operations? Did they save lives? How many have been shot down and where? Will all air forces be drone based in the future? What other applications may arise in the civilian market? In a timely publication, Drone Warfare sets the record straight on unmanned aerial vehicles and explores technology and usage around the globe. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.