Drones, in a technological context, are more formally known as

unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Essentially, a drone is a flying robot. The

aircraft may be remotely controlled or can fly autonomously through
software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems working in
conjunction with GPS. UAVs have most often been associated with the
military but they are also used for search and rescue, surveillance, traffic
monitoring, weather monitoring and firefighting, among other things. Other
applications include drone surveillance and drone journalism, because the
unmanned flying vehicles can often access locations that would be
impossible for a human to get to.
More recently, the unmanned aircraft have come into consideration for a
number of commercial applications. In late 2015, Amazon announced a plan
to use drones for delivery in the not-too-distant future. Personal drones are
also
becoming
increasingly
popular,
often
for drone-based
photography. There is a DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone in Automation and
Mechatronics Engineering (Microprocessor Lab.) which is used for teaching
about wireless communication. It costs IDR 18,000,000.
The Phantom 3 is quadcopter type drone which has 4 propellers to fly.
The Phantom 3 body and propellers are made of plastic, it is 1280 g in
weight. Even it is made of plastic, but the plastic has a strong durability
which makes this drone can be used for 7 years or more. It has maximum
speed 16 m/s and can fly about 23 minutes.
GPS and GLONASS combine to make the Phantom 3 completely aware of
its location and relation to user. It hovers more precisely, moves more
accurately, and locks onto satellites faster. With the new availability of

GLONASS, a minimum of 36 satellites are available to user around the world

at any time. Through the DJI GO app, the user can track its location on a live
map, and record the takeoff point so user can bring it back to you with the
tap of a finger.
The Phantom 3 has an intelligent battery which consists of built-in
sensors and bright LEDs that let the user know the status and remaining
power of its battery in real time. The battery capacity is 4850 mAh and the
drone will continuously calculates its current distance from you and the
amount of power needed to return, so the user always know how long it can
continue flying and when it is time to recharge.
Flying the drone is quite tricky and needs practice frequently. For
beginners there is the simplest way to control the drone. First, we need to
know is it already safe to flight or not. Both of the controller and drones
battery should have been fully charged and connected to the mobile device
with DJI Go application in it. Then, the drone must be calibrated according
to the compass, simply by rotating the drone 360 degree. After that, if the
camera function will be used during the fly, the gimbal motor must do the
arming first. It can be done easily by pressing calibrate gimbals motor
button on the controller screen.
Next, the controller will detect the GPS signal. If it is strong enough
there will be notification on the controller that the drone is safe to flight.
Then, the drone will fly by moving the left joystick forward. At first it will fly
about 2 meters above the ground to adjust its balance and save the drone
location, but if the left joystick keep pushed forward the drone will fly even
further. Right after the drone stays on the sky, the drone can be controlled
freely by moving the joysticks. Left joystick controls the altitude and yaw,
Right joysticks controls the pitch and roll. Next, a picture can be captured by
pressing the shutter button on the right-front side of the controller. Last, the
drone only flies for about 20 minutes so if the battery runs out it will go back
to the take off location which have been saved before it flies automatically.
The drone also can be landed manually by directing it using the controller to
the desired location.