Defining an unmanned system.

Unmanned systems have been a popular term for the last decade with the commercialization of hobby drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) and autonomous cars and planes. However, the term unmanned system is somewhat vague as to the actually meaning of the phrase. An unmanned system is a vehicle or computer that autonomously completes an action without the assistance or interaction of a human being. This definition is also a little vague but begins to narrow down the functions of an unmanned system. However, this does not mean that an unmanned system completely removes the human from the equation. Generally, unmanned systems are operating with or concurrently with humans to ease task saturation or provide a service.

There are many different types of systems that are currently being explored to use this technology to include automobiles, aircraft, and boats. Each of these industries has there own abbreviations for its specific form of transportation. UAV stands for unmanned aerial vehicle and UGV stand for unmanned ground vehicles.

Being to understand the terminology of unmanned systems helps bring clarity and thought-provoking ideas to the applications and industries that would benefit from these systems.