Posted by Nick Cummings on August 28, 2013 at 8:26am
Hi,
here is a serious question that could help the people of Syria now, and perhaps people in all future conflicts too:
If, next week, you were to give the UN Chemical Weapons inspectors in Damascus an off-the-shelf, completely autonomous UAV, that could carry a few kilo's of sensors and FPV, up to 10 miles range (if possible), capable of being usable in a war-zone by someone with next to no training (at least initially).
What would you recommend ?
It has to be easily transportable, capable of being carried on commercial flights, and must be 'cheap', i.e. thousands, rather than millions, - these things WILL be targeted.
I have been asked for suggestions by the guy who wrote this RUSI article, and as I am only an amateur, I would like to know who, or what I should refer him to.
Using UAV's could potentially deny future combatants the use of weapons of mass destruction even within the next few days, in a conflict that could be about to involve the superpowers, and so this is an opportunity that requires the very best of what this technology has to offer,
thanks for that, your device sounds very interesting !
'Simpler and lighter' is important initially, as every extra gram of payload will reduce the range and available flight time of any UAV system we propose.
But imagine the significance of being able to use a UAV and one of your devices to obtain some initial hard evidence of a suspected Chemical attack, within hours of it happening, rather than days, as was the case in Damascus recently.
The reason given for that delay was the 'inability to guarantee the safety' of the Inspectors, so to be able to just fly a UAV into the target area removes the need for any guarantees of safety, and turns the whole situation on its head
It would be a real game-changer.
Even if the UAV were only able to able to loiter over the target for a limited time before its battery ran out, gathering data and images, it would be worth the loss of that equipment because the information it could obtain would be timely and priceless.
Please DM me your details, and I will be glad to include them in the information I am passing on.
Replies
Hi Jim,
thanks for that, your device sounds very interesting !
'Simpler and lighter' is important initially, as every extra gram of payload will reduce the range and available flight time of any UAV system we propose.
But imagine the significance of being able to use a UAV and one of your devices to obtain some initial hard evidence of a suspected Chemical attack, within hours of it happening, rather than days, as was the case in Damascus recently.
The reason given for that delay was the 'inability to guarantee the safety' of the Inspectors, so to be able to just fly a UAV into the target area removes the need for any guarantees of safety, and turns the whole situation on its head
It would be a real game-changer.
Even if the UAV were only able to able to loiter over the target for a limited time before its battery ran out, gathering data and images, it would be worth the loss of that equipment because the information it could obtain would be timely and priceless.
Please DM me your details, and I will be glad to include them in the information I am passing on.
Kind regards,
Nick Cummings
To start with, you are going to have to define the mission parameters a little better. Biggest question is, does it have to be VTOL or not?
Do you want to fly 10 miles and *then* loiter for a period of time and look? Or is it 10 miles out and back? If you want to loiter, how long?
Few kilo's of sensors? What do you want to be able to do exactly? Air sampling or high quality image capture?