Applications of Quadcopter

Research platform

Quadcopters are a useful tool for university researchers to test and evaluate new ideas in a number of different fields, including flight control theory, navigation, real time systems, and robotics. In recent years many universities have shown quadcopters performing increasingly complex aerial manoeuvres. Swarms of quadcopters can hover in mid-air,fly in formations,and autonomously perform complex flying routines such as flips, darting through hula hoops and organising themselves to fly through windows as a group.

^{There are numerous advantages to using quadcopters as versatile test platforms. They are relatively cheap, available in a variety of sizes and their simple mechanical design means that they can be built and maintained by amateurs. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of operating a quadcopter, academics from a number of fields need to work together in order to make significant improvements to the way quadcopters perform. Quadcopter projects are typically collaborations between computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering specialists.}

Military and law enforcement

Quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles are used for surveillance and reconnaissance by military and law enforcement agencies, as well as search and rescue missions in urban environments. One such example is the Aeryon Scout, created by Canadian company Aeryon Labs, which is a small UAV that can quietly hover in place and use a camera to observe people and objects on the ground. The company claims that the machine played a key role in a drug bust in Central America by providing visual surveillance of a drug trafficker's compound deep in the jungle (Aeryon won't reveal the country's name and other specifics).

After a recreational quadcopter (or "drone") crashed on the White House lawn early in the morning of January 26, 2015, the Secret Service began a series of test flights of such equipment in order to fashion a security protocol against hostile quadcopters.

Commercial use

The largest use of quadcopters in the USA has been in the field of aerial imagery. Quadcopter UAVs are suitable for this job because of their autonomous nature and huge cost savings.

In the United States, the legality of the use of remotely controlled aircraft for commercial purposes has been the source of legal issues. Raphael Pirker, a professional photographer, was fined by the FAA in 2012 for "endangering people on the ground" (a regulatory infraction) after he used a Zephyr fixed-wing drone—a "a five-pound Styrofoam model airplane"—to take aerial photos of the University of Virginia's campus in 2011. In March 2014, a federal administrative law judge ruled in Pirker's favor, determining that his drone was a "model aircraft" and thus not subject to FAA regulations on other types of aircraft.The FAA appealed to the National Transportation Safety Board; the NTSB appointed a new administrative law judge, who overturned the earlier finding and ruled that under the FAA's enabling act, the FAA had jurisdiction to regulate "any contrivance invented, used or designed to navigate, or fly in, the air," irrespective of whether it was unmanned or manned. Pirker was fined $10,000, but in January 2015 settled the matter with the FAA, agreeing to pay a $1,100 fine without admitting guilt. According to a report in Aviation Week, the matter "became a cause célèbre among the model aircraft and recreational and commercial small drone communities."

In December 2014, the FAA released a video detailing many best practices for new drone pilots, including advisories such as keeping their machines below 400 feet and always within visual sight.

In December 2013, the Deutsche Post gathered international media attention with the project Parcelcopter, in which the company tested the shipment of medical products by drone-delivery. Using a Microdrones md4-1000 quadrocopter packages were flown from a pharmacy across the Rhine River. It was the first civilian package-delivery via drones.

As quadcopters are becoming less expensive media outlets and newspapers are using drones to capture photography of celebrities.

As of March 2015, the United States created an interim policy for the legal use of unmanned aerial vehicles for commercial use where each operator can apply for an exemption filed under Section 333 with the FAA. As of August 2015 the FAA had granted over 1300 petitions to different use cases and industries.