A Guide for Selecting Small Unmanned Aerial Systems for Research-Centric Applications

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) have been utilized in a wide variety of research-centric applications, especially within the last several years. However, the majority of these applications have utilized specialized equipment developed by experts in UAS technology. As the impact of using UASs for research applications become more widely known, the demand for their use will grow. Currently, the field of commercially available systems is growing larger every day, but many end-user researchers do not know how to utilize these systems for their needs. In this paper, an evaluation of many commercially available systems and typical payload systems is presented to help end-user researchers understand how to select the system that best suits their needs.