Drone technology that has the potential to disrupt and augment our quality of life is swiftly evolving. Drones are rapidly growing in popularity and are used in various applications, such as agriculture, emergency response, border control, asset inspection, intelligent transportation, and many more areas. This is primarily due to the rapid advances in mobile embedded computing that allow for various sensors and controllers to be integrated into drone platforms, enabling them to sense and understand both their internal state and the external environment. In this article, we showcase relevant drone technologies, explore research opportunities, and demonstrate through three use cases how research can drive these disruptive systems forward within our social, economic, and scientific activities.