2007 Trends in UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)

2007 Trends in UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
By Lance Winslow

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs have proved themselves worth their weight in gold in the military. Today Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can be flown tele-robotically and controlled from a distance by a pilot on the ground. Some UAVs can fly completely autonomously once launched. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles make a perfect surveillance tools in the modern net centric battle space. With many high-tech electronic sensors they can pick up the enemy via infrared on a pitch-black night.

There have been instances where UAVs have fired upon enemy targets using hellfire missiles and destroy the target. There have been situations where the ground control link was lost on a tele-robotically flown UAV and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle returned its self to the airport and landed safely. The technology advances in unmanned robotic vehicles has come a long way in the last decade and this trend will continue.

What will the future of UAVs bring? Well, we are witnessing the miniaturization of UAVs as the sensors and electronics get smaller and more robust. Currently the United States military is using Micro Air Vehicles or MAVs that are the size of a small bird. Current technology trends predict that the top universities in the United States will perfect insect size MAVs. Meanwhile The Air Force Research Laboratory has put out a roadmap calling for unmanned fighter aircraft and attack aircraft in the near future. We can also expect cargo aircraft UAVs.

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence it appears that the fighter pilot's days are numbered and soon human pilots will no longer rule the skies. You can also expect transfer technologies to be handed down into many commercial applications. I hope you will enjoy this book and discussion of all these topics and more, as we look at the future of UAVs for both the military and private sector.

I appreciate your minds bandwidth on this topic, as UAVs are not only here to stay, but will be a big part of future aviation history. And you need to be thinking here. Perhaps this article is of interest to propel thought in 2007?

Lance Winslow - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; www.WorldThinkTank.net/

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