Present State and Future Prospect of Autonomous Control Technology for Industrial Drones

This article includes of a technical and general discussion about a future prospective of flying robot. Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) should be evolving to real and bio-inspired flying robots. The concept of guidance, navigation and control is first explained and defined. Next, the autonomy (safety) class of drones, future roadmaps, and a correlation diagram between the flight level of drone and autonomy (safety) will be described, and a fault-tolerant control system is introduced. Finally, the ideal state of autonomous control in the near future and realization of autonomy, as well as top-level autonomy as Class A by a supervisor (guidance system), will be defined. (C) 2019 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.