Drones as I understand them
Reading through the pages of the TIME magazine, I spotted an
article on drones. Not just army drones but even on the commercial drones
telling us the use of drones in the daily lives of the people. A few links to
interesting videos about drones are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riSE9GrYNEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgGCH36fzM
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) aka drones are dated back
during the 1916, where the first unmanned vehicle, “Aerial Target” was made for
target practice. In 1944, the American Navy tried to adapt B-24 Liberators[1]
under human control as Project Anvil, but it turned out to be a failure and it
claimed the life of Joseph Kennedy[2],
brother of President Kennedy. The remotely controlled B-24 needed soldiers for
take off and take them to around 2000m altitude and activate the detonator. The
pilots would then parachute down and the aircraft would continue on to Germany
while being remotely controlled.
During the 1990’s the Americans used Predator drones as
reconnaissance flights during the war against Iraq also known as OPERATION
DESERT STORM. But the Drone Age didn’t truly dawn until 2001, when the Predator
was weaponized.
Ten years ago the US Military had only 50 drones, and now it
has over 7,500 drones, with engineers working on it patrolling through areas
for 20 hours a day. There have been many drone attacks in Afghanistan in this
year and increasing under the presidency of Barack Obama.
Many important terrorist leader have been killed in Drone
attacks in Pakistan, the numbers exceeding 2500 terrorists killed by drones but
around 200 civilians were killed.
Watching videos on YouTube, on drones, I got to know about
how the different controllers and functions on a Predator drone worked. There
are videos about different attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ethics of Drone Attacks[3]
A normal way of life, the suspect has gone through various
levels of judicial judgment to be finally punished, whereas a target locked on
by a drone is just a click away from execution, which gets the problem of human
control and decision making in the limelight. The second problem is the killing
of civilians by drones or use of drones by terrorist groups. There have been
any debates[4] on
this.[5]
The Good side
Mostly we know about the use of drones in wars, but the new
technologies have helped people in business and security.
Real estate agents are using drones these days to show the
plots and bungalows from over the top views and other features. Policemen are
using Falcon UAV Drones to track out fugitives and lead search operations in
the countryside. Some of the best commercial uses are the use of drones by
farmers for tracking bears in their fields and even thieves.
Drones are even used for transport. Medical supplies and
food are transferred to places out of reach. These days we had heard about
hurricanes in the US, drones are not only now used for medical services but
also as hurricane trackers.
The thing with drones is that they can go anywhere, they
were sent to help in the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, and they
were also sent for transfer of resources to the Tsunami struck place over
there.
Drones as we had known were just for attacks at Afghanistan,
but as technology is improving it is helping us in our day-to-day life be it
security, transport, business or pleasure.
To learn more about drones, watch this-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHJLwYWX30
Rohan Mehta
May 2013
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Jr.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Jr.#Operation_Aphrodite
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_combat_air_vehicle#Laws_and_ethics_of_war
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4coWgmPCvL0
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_h5k24e_8
