How Many Sensors are in a Drone, And What do they Do?

In today's fast growing drone market, sensor technologies are often the unheralded secret sauce inside. In this article, we discuss some of the types of sensor technologies that power today's drones. Figure 1: Various sensor technologies are used in a variety of ways in modern drones. Accelerometers are used to determine position and orientation of the drone in flight. Like your Nintendo Wii controller or your iPhone screen position, these small silicon-based sensors play a key role in maintaining flight control. MEMS accelerometers sense movement in several ways.