August 25, 2013
Drone Warfare: Integration At Its Best
The benefits of drones for military use are numerous:
- Stealth: Drones can be relatively small (some are now even the size of bugs) and they can survey from vehicles that are aerial, terrestrial, underwater, or I would imagine, even subterranean. In a sense, even a spy satellite is a type of drone, isn't it?
- Persistent: They can hover unmanned over enemy territory for not only hours, but also days at a time, and switching in replacement drones can create a virtually continuous stream of surveillance for months or years, depending on the need.
- Powerful: The sensors on a drone can include high-definition cameras, eavesdropping devices, radar, infrared, "and a pixel array so dense, that the device can zoom in clearly on objects only inches wide from well over 15,000 feet above." Further, with features like Gorgon Stare, multiple cameras linked together can view entire cities in one feel swoop.
- Long-range: Drones can function doing reconnaissance or surveillance far away and deep into enemy territory. With drones, no one is too distant or remote as to be untouchable.
- Lethality: Drones can carry missiles such as The Hellfire, a "100-pound antitank missile" and other weapons that can act expediently on information without the need to call in additional support.
- Precise: Drones can hit targets with amazing precision--"It targets indiscriminate killers with exquisite discrimination."
- Safety: Drones carry out their work unmanned with (or without) controllers stationed at safe distances away--sometimes thousands of miles back at the homeland.
- Expendable: Drones themselves are throwaway. As with a bee, a drone is more or less useless when disconnected from the hive. Similarly, a military "drone is useless as an eyeball disconnected from the brain," since drones function only as an extension of back-end satellite links, data processors, intelligence analysts, and its controller."
Overall, the great value of drones is their integration of technologies: vehicles, global telecommunications, optics, sensors, supercomputers, weapon systems, and more.
To me, between the questions of fairness, legality, and privacy--drones are being given a bum rap.
- Fairness: Just because one side has a technology that the other doesn't, should not mean it's wrong to use it. This is what competition and evolution is all about. I remember learning in school, when children would complain to the teacher that something was unfair, and the teacher would reply, "life is unfair!" This doesn't mean we should use a shotgun approach, but rather use what we got, appropriately.
- Legality: Is it legal to kill targets rather than apprehending them, trying them, and otherwise punishing them? This is where sincere deliberations come in on whether someone is a "lawful target" (e.g. enemy combatant), "imminent threat" (e.g. self-defense), whether other alternatives are viable (e.g. collateral damage assessments), and will killing them do more hard than good to foreign relations, influence, and even possibly breeding new hate and terror, rather than quelling it.
- Privacy: The issue of privacy comes less into play with military matters and more with respect to domestic use for law enforcement and other civilian uses (from agriculture to urban planning). The key is protect citizens from being unduly monitored, tracked, and scrutinized--where freedom itself is under big-brother attack and we all become mere drones ourselves in a national hive of complacency and brainless obedience.
Rather than scaling back drones use, I liked Mary Ellen O'Connell vision of new drones "capable of delivering a warning--'Come out with your hands up!' and then landing to make an arrest using handcuffs."
This is the promise of technology to learn from mistakes of the past and always bring possibilities of making things better in the future. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Don McCullough)
January 20, 2013
Under The Beautiful Sea
Under The Beautiful Sea
December 2, 2012
Flying Gizmo At Brookstone
The drone is flying among the crowds and actually goes right over my head a couple of times--I literally had to duck (as I think the salesperson was having some fun with me recording)!
The device is called the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 and sells for $299.
The drone is being controlled via wi-fi by a iPhone and also works with iPads and Droid devices.
The controlled flying as well as the stunts seemed easy to do.
It has a front facing camera (and I think the salesperson said it has a rear-facing one too).
You can capture the flight imagery and post the recorded video and still photos online.
The quadricopter has stabilization controls and hull protection to keep the device safe and in the air.
If you appreciate this technology and likes to have some fun, you may want to take this for a little spin around the yard, park, and beach.
Also, watch out at the mall--this flying gizmo may be coming right at you. ;-)
(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)
Flying Gizmo At Brookstone
November 20, 2012
The Guardian Of Israel
Much is being celebrated about Israel's new Iron Dome missile defense system with approximately 90% success rate for shooting down incoming missiles threatening populated areas and critical infrastructure.
However, Foreign Policy Magazine (20 November 2012) is touting another amazing advance by Israel, this time in robotic weapons systems.
It is called The Guardian Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), and it is made by G-NIUS.
It's a fully armored vehicle with 660 pounds of electronic sensors and weapons.
The Guardian can autonomously "run patrol of predetermined routes" or it can be controlled via remote or mobile command center.
- It can run at 50 miles per hour, has powerful off-road capability, and an robust obstacle detection and avoidance system.
- Guardian can carry 1.2 tons of ammunition and supplies.
- The robotic vehicle is outfitted with all-weather video and thermal cameras, microphones, loudspeakers, and electronic countermeasures.
- It alerts to suspicious activity, identifies sources of fire, and by human operator can open fire with "auto-taret acquisition".
This versatile weaponized robot can be used for force protection or to guard strategic assets, it can be used for perimeter, border or convey security, and for combat or logistical support missions.
It is easy to see how UGVs like this, especially in concert with UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) can take on the enemy and help keep the troops out of harm's way.
For the future of UGVs and UAVs, think of a swarm, with masses of robots managing the battlefield both with and without human operators, and the vision of Star Wars on the ground and in space is just generations of robots away.
The Guardian Of Israel
June 1, 2012
We're In It Together
This is a cool vision by Tom Clancy of the "future soldier" from the Ghost Recon game series.
The mixture of advanced weaponry, high-tech reconnaissance and surveillance, drones and robotics, future combat uniforms, and cloaking technology is just super.
If you have time and interest, there is another longer video here with footage that is particularly good starting at about the 3:40 marker.
Like Star Trek paving the way for real-life advances in technology and space exploration, Clancy's future soldier will be another example of life imitating art.
When we marry the vision and creativity of our entertainment industry, with the technical skills of our scientists and engineers, and the risk-taking of our entrepreneurs, we can do truly awesome things.
"No one can do everything, but everyone can do something"--we're in it together!
We're In It Together
October 22, 2011
Keeping All Our Balls In The Air
Keeping All Our Balls In The Air
September 10, 2011
Kamikaze UAVs
Kamikaze UAVs
July 30, 2011
Sensors, Sensors Everywhere
Sensors will soon be everywhere--waiting, watching, and working to capture information about you and the environment we inhabit.
Sensors, Sensors Everywhere
July 27, 2008
Situational Awareness and Enterprise Architecture
EA is a tool for situational awareness and planning to drive modernization, transformation, and improved results. Enterprise architecture helps us as organizations to be more aware of our business and technology resources, desired outcomes, and ways to link resources/investments to results.
As far as mankind can remember, we have always looked to plan ahead to manage change and complexity. In the times of the pharaohs, people looked to the stars for a sign of what was to come. In past centuries, others have looked into the crystal ball to foretell events and plan accordingly. To many, these rudimentary methods were all they had to gain a semblance control over their lives and a world that probably felt very out of control much of the time.
Now the military has a crystal ball all of its own to deploy to the battleground to provide better situational awareness to our troops, and this is particularly helpful for identifying the enemy in close urban combat, as that which we find ourselves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, now-a-days.
National Defense Magazine, March 2008, reports that ODF Optronics, a technology company in Tel Aviv, Israel has developed an eye-ball surveillance system “which consists of a hardened sphere that houses a sophisticated camera system and comes with a wireless display unit. Durable eye ball can be thrown over walls, into streets, tunnels, houses, or any other place of interest. Once the sphere hits the ground it establishes a 360-degree video image of the surrounding area and feeds it to operators holding the small display unit. It also features audio and day/night sensors.”
Other models like the omni-directional system, “is a sensor platform that is housed inside a hardened pole that can be mounted on top of a vehicle. It provides a 360-degree field of view for the crew inside…A five camera system is housed inside the cylindrical structure that transmits video images to a rugged laptop sitting inside the vehicle.”
ODF is now working with the DoD technical support working group and DARPA developing new sensors, because they “understood that military forces need to see the world around them.” But the truth is with all need to see the world around us with ever more comprehensive views, better resolution and clarity of image, and enhanced processing to understand what we are seeing. Only with this type of situational awareness are we better able to plan and respond to the world around us.
Like the ODF eye-ball for high-tech military surveillance and reconnaissance, our organizations need the ability to capture and analyze information and develop what Danny Nadri, a retired Israeli Air Force captain calls “quick actionable information.” And enterprise architecture is one important tool to provide us this situational awareness and planning capability.
Situational Awareness and Enterprise Architecture