PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Unmanned drones likely to take over Nimrod spy duties
Old 1st Jan 2013, 15:11
  #121 (permalink)  
steamchicken
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Surrey, UK
Posts: 898
Received 11 Likes on 7 Posts
Step one: We need to get rid of these complex, bespoke technology development programs and go COTS.

Step two: Systems not platforms! It's the electronics that really matter. We could stick them on a drone and that would be great, because drones!

Step three: The kit don't fit.

Step four: Redesign the electronics.

Step five: The drone isn't capable enough.

Step six: Well, let's use several drones in a [adopts Californian tone] networked swarm.

Step seven: Bandwidth.

Step eight: *Autonomous* drones!

Step nine: The mission profile really doesn't fit with the Reaper airframe.

Step ten: Why not...deploy another tiny UAV from the drone?

Step eleven: And redesign the radios to work securely in the civilian spectrum

Step twelve: Well, at least we'll save on crew.

Step thirteen: Uh, no, you need a crew of five per drone per shift...

Step fourteen: Automated ISTAR!!

So that's a swarming, autonomous, horizontally networked, marinised fleet of UAVs deploying sub-UAVs and using over-the-horizon cognitive radio, with an automatic underwater target classification system, and it's got to use the MQ-9 air vehicle and associated infrastructure. Thank god we didn't start one of those terrible technology development projects!
steamchicken is offline