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Warriors can fight by using drones to
attack targets, not from the seat of the F16 but from a darkened ground
control station, by using a remote-controlled Predator, a UAV (unmanned
aerial vehicle) which can spy on and attack positions and personnel
without risk to its controller, shooting deadly Hellfire missiles at
enemy fighters in support of fellow soldiers. Intelligence analysts can
see images on real time and can identify personnel on the ground.
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The drones are dramatically tilting the war benefits in favour its
owners. It is said that the F-35 that took decades to develop at a cost
of more than half-a-billion dollars each will be the last manned fighter
aircraft. The US may soon opt to sell off F-35 to the other countries
before it is going to loose its credibility in comparison to drones.
Drones and robots are going to rule the world in near future.
Robotic aircraft have taken to the skies, finding increasing use in
military applications, law enforcement, environmental monitoring, and
also becoming popular among hobbyists who want to build their own
drones.
These unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have varied degrees of
autonomy, though typically they depend on GPS and also on supervision
from a human operator, who can send commands to the aircraft and receive
images from its on-board cameras.
Now researchers at McGill University's Mobile Robotics Lab, in Montreal,
Canada, are making these smart aircraft a bit smarter. They've developed
a UAV control system that uses aerial images to identify visual cues on
the landscape and steer the aircraft autonomously.
Aerial vehicles guided by advanced vision capabilities could help track
wildfires, oil spills, and even animal herds. The aircraft would carry
out monitoring and mapping missions requiring no human supervision or
GPS coordinates. |
