What is a drone?

What is a multicopter and what is a drone

A multicopter is a mechanically simple aerial vehicle whose motion is controlled by speeding or slowing multiple downward thrusting motor/propeller units.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), and also referred by several other names, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. The flight of UAVs may be controlled with various kinds of autonomy : either by a given degree of remote control from an operator, located on the ground or in another vehicle, or fully autonomously, by onboard computers

In the image we can see on the left a REAPER MILITARY UAV that is a "drone" due to his autonomous capabilities

On the right is commercial DJI Phantom that is also a "drone" but also can be controlled in manual mode.

Drone

The term "drone" is lazy and inexact.

The fundamental difference between the terms “drone” and “quadcopter” is one of characterization – drone is the general term used for all unmanned aerial vehicles, though quadcopter identifies with a particular set of drones with four engines that make lift for vertical takeoff through their propellers

• It isn't wrong to call almost any kind of remotely or self-directed vehicle a "drone."
• All unmanned aircraft may be considered "drones."
• It's basically impossible to come up with a currently flying example of a quadcopter that isn't an unmanned aircraft (part of an "unmanned aircraft system") and therefore, at the end of the day... a drone.

Quadcopter is drone, it’s a fact. Pretty much like bacon is pork or maybe...a cow ?

What is the difference between a multicopter and a a drone ?

A multicopter becomes a UAV or Drone when it is capable of autonomous flight. Normally this means taking the accelerometer and gyro information and combining it with barometer and GPS data so the flight controller understands not only it’s orientation but also it’s position.

What does it means ? We can program it to go somewhere autonomously do something and return home.

There is a video examplo of a "drone" multicopter wich can switch between "manual mode " and "autonomous mode"