Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) emerged in recent years as a promising technology with potential applications to different fields of JRC’s remit, ranging from maritime surveillance to monitoring of agricultural resources. Since 2010 the JRC-IPSC carried out several UAS maritime surveillance campaigns aimed assessing the potential of UAS for maritime surveillance, in particular the detection of small boats often involved in unlawful maritime activities, such as illegal immigration, drugs trafficking, smuggling and piracy. The IES is also planning to use UAS for monitoring of agricultural resources and management policies. The article briefly describes the JRC past, present and future UAS activities.JRC.G.4-Maritime affair