Drone terminology
What are drones now called?
Officially UAS or UAV; passenger versions are eVTOL air taxis under urban air mobility. The word drone is informal. Regulators call them unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV); the FAA and ICAO adopted UAS as the standard in 2005, and small consumer drones are sUAS. Some bodies use RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft system). Passenger-carrying drones are a separate category: eVTOL air taxis, grouped under urban or advanced air mobility.
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Drone is the everyday word, not the official one. It is still perfectly correct in conversation, but regulators and the industry use more precise terms depending on the machine.
The two you will meet most are UAV and UAS. A UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle, is the aircraft itself. A UAS, unmanned aircraft system, is the whole system: the aircraft plus its ground controller and the communication link between them. The FAA and ICAO adopted UAS as the standard term back in 2005, which is why US rules talk about UAS rather than drones, and small consumer drones under 55 pounds are formally sUAS, small unmanned aircraft systems. UAV survives mostly in military and technical use. Aviation regulators also use RPAS, remotely piloted aircraft system, to stress that a human pilot is flying it remotely rather than the aircraft flying itself.
The newest branch of the vocabulary is for the drones big enough to carry people. Those are not called drones at all in the industry; they are eVTOL aircraft, electric vertical takeoff and landing, and the service is the air taxi, grouped under urban air mobility or advanced air mobility. So the honest answer: in casual speech, still drones; officially UAS, UAV, or RPAS; and for the passenger machines, eVTOL air taxis. The terminology here is attributed to the source below.
The official terms
Drone is the informal word; the official terms are more precise. Each is attributed below.
- Aviation regulators also use RPAS, remotely piloted aircraft system.
RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft system) is the term ICAO and some governments, such as Canada, use for a drone flown by a remote pilot, as opposed to one flying autonomously. In everyday speech, drone still covers all of them, while technical and legal documents prefer UAS, UAV, or RPAS.
- Officially, a drone is an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
A UAV is the aircraft itself; a UAS is the whole system, the aircraft plus its ground controller and communication link. The FAA and ICAO adopted UAS as the standard term in 2005, and small drones under 55 pounds are sUAS (small unmanned aircraft systems). UAV is used more in military and technical contexts.
How we know this
This answer draws on the standard reference for unmanned-aircraft terminology, which records the FAA and ICAO usage. Here is the source.
These terms are attributed to the reference below. DEPLOY uses drone in plain speech and the precise terms where they matter.
Common questions
What is the official name for a drone?
What is the difference between a UAV and a UAS?
What are passenger drones called?
Is it correct to call them drones?
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