UAVs Modern and Future

6 Categories

Target and decoy

Reconnaissance

Combat

Logistics

Research and development

Civil and Commercial UAV

Remote sensing

Electromagnetic sensors pick up visual light, infrared and

gamma radiation.
Biological sensors can detect airborne micro organisms
and other biological factors.
Mars rover is fitted with this sort of equipment.

Scientific research

Enters areas way too dangerous for manned aircraft.

Great at flying in hurricanes and retrieving data that
manned flight couldnt reach.
Plans to use UAVs to scout Antarctica from the air.

Armed Attacks

Late 2001 was the first armed drone kill on Afghanistan

based Al-Qaeda.
In 2002 suspected Al-Qaeda in Yemen were killed by a
drone marking the first use of armed drones outside a
theater of war.
In 2012 more drone pilots were trained than fighter pilots.

Global Hawk

High altitude platform for surveillance and reconnaissance.

Can scan 40,000 square miles a day.

With every type of sensor that is combined with ground

relay programs it can see anything.
KQ-X is the variant currently being tested to allow
unmanned aerial refueling.

Endurance

UAVs can stay in the air much longer than

humans can.
QinetiQ Zephyr Solar Electric Drone has the
record of 336 hours 22 minutes.
Boeing Condor is behind it at 58 hours.

Pros of UAVs

Airborne much longer with less demand on the crew.

Cheaper to build and maintain.

Can fly into enemy fire, and dangerous conditions outside

of war with no loss of life.
Can perform missions autonomously when communication
is lost.
Able to pull G's in turns humans can not handle.
Lower weight and higher payload.

Uses

Many uses ranging from surveillance, transport, mineral

sensing, wild fire spotting and armed attacks.
Very large commercial industry for modern day UAVs.
Local police are becoming interested in UAVs as Border
Patrol and Homeland Security use them more and more
often.

Cons of UAVs

Bad weather is a much bigger factor.

Unable to send information between airborne UAVs.

Technology developed too quickly along with the incentive

to send them into combat as soon as possible, inadequate
systems were built to handle the UAVs.
Each UAV needs different sensors and comunication
equipment on top of that each branch needs different
equipment for the same UAVs.

Cheaper equipment tends to be of a lesser quality.

Less trust from the public in flying robots.

Can not make new decisions and asses situations like a

human.

Future of UAVs

Future military will almost exclusively use UAVs.

Bombers as well as fighters will be obsolete ushering in an
age of massive UAVs.
Being able to reach much higher altitudes for much longer
manned spy planes have become obsolete.
With solar power technology improving high altitude UAVs
will be in the sky for months.

Northrop Grumman X-47B

Carrier Based UAV entering service in 2019.

50 test flights were planned through 2011-2013, but the
aircraft performed so well sea trails began after 16 flights.
December 18, 2012 the X-47 performed a carrier take off
and landing with no damage to itself or the deck, and
merged with the carriers communications with no
problems.

X-47B

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Summary

UAVs are the future of war and airborne scientific

research.

Flights will last in the weeks not just in hours.

Cheaper and better performance than fighter jets.

Future UAVs will be stealthy, massive and land

autonomously.