A 10X change in aviation technology.

According to the Washington Post:

Military planners worldwide see drones as relatively cheap weapons and highly effective reconnaissance tools. Hand-launched ones used by ground troops can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. Near the top of the line, the Predator B, or MQ9-Reaper, manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, costs about $10.5 million. By comparison, a single F-22 fighter jet costs about $150 million.

tags: technology, 10x, detection, drones, source

Ultimate cloud computing

Wired writes about a new supercomputing intelligence device in the skies above Afghanistan:

It’ll be floating 20,000 feet above the warzone, aboard a giant spy blimp that watches and listens to everything for miles around.

The idea behind the Blue Devil is to have up to a dozen different sensors, all flying on the same airship and talking to each other constantly. The supercomputer will crunch the data, and automatically slew the sensors in the right direction: pointing a camera at, say, the guy yapping about an upcoming ambush.

The goal is to get that coordinated information down to ground troops in less than 15 seconds.

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Besides military and law enforcement applications, can we use this technology for improving wireless data communications for mobile devices, e.g. during large public events? Probably, yes. Unlike drones, a blimp in the sky would work better as a local network hub than a communications satellite, just hang a bunch of antennas and solar panels on it. Even better, make the whole thing out of a solar power-generating fabric.

tags: cloud, computers, communications, military, privacy, video, mobile, dynamic, system, control, drones, energy

Invention of the Day: Industrial-scale warfare.

What made the American Civil War so unprecedented was that it was the first great war of the industrial era. This allowed not only greatly increased production of the materiel of war but a revolution in command and control as well. Railroads and steamboats made possible the rapid movement of large number of troops, and the telegraph enabled the entire war to be directed from Washington to Richmond in real time. When President Lincoln, on April 15, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers after Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, the call reached the most distant parts of the Union states almost immediately.

A Thread Across the Ocean, by John Steele Gordon. p.163. (c)2002.

Communications are even more important today, when weapons are required to be a lot smarter than the cannons of the Civil War. Remote control drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, operated by soldiers on the ground thousands miles away from the field of action, guided by NSA intelligence collected through eavesdropping on internet and phone messages throughout the world, can deliver precision ground strikes only if they have the right information at the right time. Otherwise, they turn into expensive dumb pieces of hardware, indistinguishable in their impact from their 150-year old Civil War cousins.

tags: scale, communications, warcraft, drones, infrastructure, detection, system, telegraph, information, control

p.s. this post, besides being a note on technology evolution, is also an exercise in writing cumulative sentences.

Throwing stones in glass houses.

Using a new laser technology, a ship can now shoot down a drone:

Built by Raytheon Missile Systems of Tuscon, Arizona, the 32-kilowatt infrared laser is shown illuminating and heating the wingtip and then the underside of what looks like a radar-seeking drone – until its remote pilot loses control and the aircraft catches fire and plummets into the ocean.

Imagine you are a remote pilot and you've just detected that your drone is being illuminated by a laser gun. What do you do? With little hesitation, you press a button that launches a missile that uses the laser to guide it straight to the enemy. Kaboom!!! The ship goes up in flames! Game over.

tags: detection, control, drones, military

Catch me if you can.

In a couple of generations human pilots will go extinct.

The US Federal Aviation Administration this month kicked off what could be the first step in a journey towards the full automation of the airliners we all travel on.

The FAA commissioned the Boeing subsidiary Insitu, based in Bingen, Washington, and the New Jersey Air National Guard to begin investigating ways for civil aircraft to share their airspace with remotely piloted uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Once UAVs can avoid passenger jets, remotely piloted cargo planes are likely to take to the skies, pushed by some compelling economics. "The cargo airlines want very much to lose their pilots. The money that would be saved in salary and benefits, including retirement and healthcare costs, is pretty staggering,"

Wright Flier II. 1904.

update: Ryanair to sell standing-room only tickets for under $10.

tags: tool, control, transportation, commerce.

Remarkable how the US still pays millions of dollars for a military technology that can be defeated with a $500 laptop and $25.95 worth of software.

WSJ. WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

The Air Force has staked its future on unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones account for 36% of the planes in the service's proposed 2010 budget.

Today, the Air Force is buying hundreds of Reaper drones, a newer model, whose video feeds could be intercepted in much the same way as with the Predators, according to people familiar with the matter. A Reaper costs between $10 million and $12 million each and is faster and better armed than the Predator.

I would think that in the nearest future video feeds from police drones will be easily intercepted by hightech criminals.

From a 5-element analysis perspective, this is a very good illustration of how critical Payload packaging is for the overall system integrity and performance. The ability to handle the format of the video feed in question is deeply embedded into all relevant subsystems. Changing the format would require a technology overhaul that would cost the military billions of dollars.

tags: five element analysis, payload, control point, control, information, drones, transportation, 10X, constraint

future platforms for sensor deployment?

Continuing developments in the world of small airplanes:

A mere 30 centimeters long, the MAVion combines fixed wings with two counter rotating propellers, allowing it to operate with high aerodynamic efficiency--even in adverse conditions, according to the professor.

"The ultimate goal of the MAVion concept is to demonstrate a twofold capability using the same vehicle: fast forward flight and hover flight," Moschetta explained. "The two counter-rotating tandem propellers provide a simple means to enhance yaw control, which is particularly important in vertical flight."

and radio-controlled insects:

remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radio-equipped miniature neural stimulating system. The pronotum mounted system consisted of neural stimulators, muscular stimulators, a radio transceiver-equipped microcontroller and a microbattery. Flight initiation, cessation and elevation control were accomplished through neural stimulus of the brain which elicited, suppressed or modulated wing oscillation. Turns were triggered through the direct muscular stimulus of either of the basalar muscles.

tags: control, transportation, flight, brain, invention, , 10x, drones

On Sept 10, 2007 I wrote, "My prediction is that they [drones] will replace helicopters as high resolution air vehicles: from traffic monitoring to neighborhood policing to forest fire detection to geological research."

Today, this prediction is getting closer to reality:

Your local police may soon be packing flying surveillance bots. At the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit, Aeryon Labs President Dave Kroetsch gave a compelling pitch on his company, which makes a two-pound robot helicopter that has enough on-board intelligence and stability control to allow it to be flown by people who just point to locations on a Google Map-based interface.

Just in time for chapter 5 rewrite on the 10X Diagram.

Will drones kill helicopters?

September 10, 2007 8:20 AM PDT
http://www.news.com/2300-11397_3-6207078-1.html
On September 7, NASA launched the Ikhana unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Dryden Air Force Base to take a series of smoke-free images from the Lick wildfire near Gilroy, Calif. After sending images of the Lick fire, the drone was flown over Oregon and Washington to observe 10 other fires before returning after a 20-hour mission.

Ikhana, the Choctaw Nation word for "intelligent," is a Predator B unmanned aircraft system which has been refit with scientific instruments. It is being flown out of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

Drones have been extensively tested in various military applications. Now they are finding their way into multiple civilian usage scenarios. My prediction is that they will replace helicopters as high resolution air vehicles: from traffic monitoring to neighborhood policing to forest fired detection to geological research.