Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Essentially, a drone is a flying robot. The aircraft may be remotely controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly or can fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems working in conjunction with GPS

More recently, the unmanned aircraft have come into consideration for a number of commercial applications. In late 2013, 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.