The 'situational awareness' problem with UAVs is something I've been wrestling with for a while and will do for some time to come.
The project I'm involved in is not as big as a Reaper or Predator but forms the baseline platform for larger vehicles, in terms of systems architecture, as well as being aimed at multiple user scenarios.
Having had some experience of piloting in both the civil and mil domain (all ATC gliding courses available as well as ACPNTS, flying scholarship through GAPAN, staff cadet with 8AEF when they had Bulldogs (I loved aerobatting 'dogs!) and Uni Gliding Club) the concept and advantages of effective situational awareness is familiar to me. I'm clearly not the seasoned pilot many on here are, thanks to eyesight issues, but am happy to learn from everything and everyone.
It seems that the concept of situational awareness is somewhat lacking in unmanned systems. Producing a system that can provide an overview of its local world to help the UAV central computer to make informed decisions would seem to useful.
If people are willing, I'd be very interested in a discussion on Situational Awareness.
How does this post link in to the thread? I wonder how many losses of drones of all sizes are down to poor onboard systems and thus lacking or non-existent decision making processes when humans are not available?
UD