In an article entitled "The Rise of the Robo-Fighters", Britain's Daily Mail newspaper discusses us:
"The website DIY Drones is a thriving community of do-it-yourself drone builders and operators, building drones that look eerily similar to - or are copies of - the weapons employed currently by the West. For a terrorist, or a lone psychopath, the idea of a vehicle that could launch, find targets and attack autonomously must seem like the ultimate risk-free weapon - a suicide bomb without a suicide bomber."
What's troubling about this is the notion that "drones = weapons". But until the regulators open up national airspace to more civilian/commercial use that shows more peaceful use cases, I suppose this is going to be something we're going to continue to have to fight/educate against.
[Thanks to Gary Mortimer for the find. Photo taken from the article]
Comments
Is chris and the rest of the team ready for the hits they will probably receive and the posts that might appear due to people thinking we are "lone physcopaths"......
The only chance we have is to point out all the civilian uses actually done or in planning.
This is mainly research at the moment. But many interesting, of course (NASA is one good example).
If you try to fight against the press, you´ve already lost....
Work with them! As most people, they like work already done. Send prepared articles to magazines, take part in interviews and so on. My experience is quite good when working this way.
The only way to fix this is by educating the public to the many uses of drone technology in the science and research sectors, such as NASA's use of their new drone: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8620742.stm
This drone has enabled NASA to make their longest research flights to date, now that they are no longer limited to the maximum flight time of a human pilot.
Also uses for drones that I can think of in the civilian sector are applications like Search & Rescue, weather observations, remote territory research applications (e.g. flying deep in to the wilderness to observe herd movements).
There are SO many uses for drones beyond simple warfare, but like any new technology it tends to see military applications first because the military can afford the high initial costs. Once economies of scale hit and the research is declassified many new applications will spring forth.
Think about this in the context of GPS technology. For years it was only available to the military, then in limited civilian use until President Clinton removed the artificial accuracy reduction randomness. Now GPS is everywhere (including our Autopilots!) and highly accurate.
I think that drone technology will follow this same trend - as research becomes declassified and more people spend time thinking about it, many innovative and productive applications of drone technology will emerge.
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