DRONE CRASH IN MARYLAND, USA
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I hope everybody who views this thread understands that yes, the thingy's up there are useful. But until the rush to integrate is tempered by a stringent design/build/test requirement equal to, but preferably more stringent than that for manned aircraft, I fear we will see headlines that will for a long, long time, possibly forever ban the use of unmanned air vehicles except in restricted airspace/combat zones.
Many issues will remain even if this one is solved. If the thingy does get away and hits/destroy's, god forbid kills folks, who is responsable, the builder, software designer/intergrator, operator?
In the ground side (and the air if the sense and avoid goes forward)the big problem with unmanned/manned interface is that you can program unmanned to work together, sort of. But what is extremely difficult is that you cannot program responses to us humans. Why because we react unpredictably. Again who is going to pay if something happens?
Long roads to travel methinks.
Many issues will remain even if this one is solved. If the thingy does get away and hits/destroy's, god forbid kills folks, who is responsable, the builder, software designer/intergrator, operator?
In the ground side (and the air if the sense and avoid goes forward)the big problem with unmanned/manned interface is that you can program unmanned to work together, sort of. But what is extremely difficult is that you cannot program responses to us humans. Why because we react unpredictably. Again who is going to pay if something happens?
Long roads to travel methinks.
What a load of bolleaux over the past few posts about software (and that clown in the linked article from Adacorp who obviously knows nothing!).
There are lots of RPAS/UAV programs with T&E work either ongoing or complete that is comparable to manned aircraft - as an example, why do you think Watchkeeper is taking it's time?
Global Hawk, Watchkeeper, MQ-9, X-47 and even Taranis - ie. all the recent aircraft have been designed, built and tested with the most exacting standards in mind. You are right to criticise "sense and avoid", but it's not technology and testing that's letting it down, it's that the regulators (like the CAA, EASA, FAA, etc...) can't decide exactly what "sense and avoid" should be able to do - better than a man or the same as?
When it comes to rogue aircraft coming down on schools, hospitals and nurseries, the RPAS is no different to any heavier than air type. If it's a catastrophic fail (ie. wing falls off) it's exactly the same, if the engine quits then the RPAS pilot can "dead stick" and force land it exactly the same and if you lose link then it reverts to the emergency mission which is series of waypoints just like that programmed into the FMS of an airliner. For the RPAS the final part of the emergency mission is usually a hold over an unpopulated area so that when it runs out of juice it carries on flying the hold pattern until it pancakes in. Remember the 2005 Helios 737 airliner where the crew suffered hypoxia? Same deal - the 737 flew on it's pre-programmed FMS until it crashed. Or there's the 1999 Learjet that crashed in similar circumstances?
In fact, in the last 2 examples it could be argued that RPAS are safer as it's difficult to get hypoxia in a control cabin on the ground - unless, of course, the cabin door has an air tight seal!!!
LJ
There are lots of RPAS/UAV programs with T&E work either ongoing or complete that is comparable to manned aircraft - as an example, why do you think Watchkeeper is taking it's time?
Global Hawk, Watchkeeper, MQ-9, X-47 and even Taranis - ie. all the recent aircraft have been designed, built and tested with the most exacting standards in mind. You are right to criticise "sense and avoid", but it's not technology and testing that's letting it down, it's that the regulators (like the CAA, EASA, FAA, etc...) can't decide exactly what "sense and avoid" should be able to do - better than a man or the same as?
When it comes to rogue aircraft coming down on schools, hospitals and nurseries, the RPAS is no different to any heavier than air type. If it's a catastrophic fail (ie. wing falls off) it's exactly the same, if the engine quits then the RPAS pilot can "dead stick" and force land it exactly the same and if you lose link then it reverts to the emergency mission which is series of waypoints just like that programmed into the FMS of an airliner. For the RPAS the final part of the emergency mission is usually a hold over an unpopulated area so that when it runs out of juice it carries on flying the hold pattern until it pancakes in. Remember the 2005 Helios 737 airliner where the crew suffered hypoxia? Same deal - the 737 flew on it's pre-programmed FMS until it crashed. Or there's the 1999 Learjet that crashed in similar circumstances?
In fact, in the last 2 examples it could be argued that RPAS are safer as it's difficult to get hypoxia in a control cabin on the ground - unless, of course, the cabin door has an air tight seal!!!
LJ
Last edited by Lima Juliet; 15th Jun 2012 at 06:20.
Indeed, LJ.
There is a potential paradox with RPS, particularly as there is increased automation and a move towards 'supervised autonomy'. Because the aircraft must operate safely and within rules and procedures 100% of the time, on-board systems will typically default to the safe option. Here's a quote from an in-hourse journal:
There is a potential paradox with RPS, particularly as there is increased automation and a move towards 'supervised autonomy'. Because the aircraft must operate safely and within rules and procedures 100% of the time, on-board systems will typically default to the safe option. Here's a quote from an in-hourse journal:
Accordingly, and until artificial intelligence is a proven technology, autonomy will be used to assist potentially lethal missions, rather than to execute them. As Moshkina and Arkin showed, the public expect a higher standard of behaviour from robots than the humans who would otherwise do that job. Whereas humans are fallible, and will make errors of judgement that could result in legally disproportionate collateral damage, autonomous combat systems will not have that ‘error of judgement’ leeway. Even though unmanned aircraft will do the dull, dirty and dangerous and deep jobs without fault[1], the requirement to discriminate against exacting and binary standards of yes/no, rather than ‘maybe’ could result in autonomous unmanned aircraft completing fewer ‘lethal’ missions than their human counterparts as an ‘artificial conscience’, decision software and learned AI behaviour will default towards safe or low-risk options, such as withholding the release of weapons when a human operator may prosecute an attack albeit with some un-quantifiable reservations. This, of course, is on the assumption that there is a clear computational definition of a ‘civilian’ that is compliant with Additional Protocol I.[2]
[1] For a discussion of these factors, see the UK MOD's JDN 2/11 pp 3-43-6.
[2]Art 50(1) of Additional Protocol I, 1977 of the 4th Geneva Convention essentially defines a civilian in the negative sense, ie ‘as any person not a combatant’. Malcolm Shaw International Law 5th Edn CUP 2003 p 1061.
[1] For a discussion of these factors, see the UK MOD's JDN 2/11 pp 3-43-6.
[2]Art 50(1) of Additional Protocol I, 1977 of the 4th Geneva Convention essentially defines a civilian in the negative sense, ie ‘as any person not a combatant’. Malcolm Shaw International Law 5th Edn CUP 2003 p 1061.
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This is not a joke:
On its 'Peace Enforcement' mission in Chad the Irish Army used small UAV's to recce villages for possible rebel activity. They were programmed to RTB should the signal be lost. This happened on one particular occasion and the aircraft promptly did what it says on the tin and headed for home...... towards Ireland!!!!.
Some child in northern Chad has a fantastic R/C model
BW
On its 'Peace Enforcement' mission in Chad the Irish Army used small UAV's to recce villages for possible rebel activity. They were programmed to RTB should the signal be lost. This happened on one particular occasion and the aircraft promptly did what it says on the tin and headed for home...... towards Ireland!!!!.
Some child in northern Chad has a fantastic R/C model
BW
Last edited by Bubblewindow; 15th Jun 2012 at 07:31.
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Unmanned v manned
Unmanned is coming.
The UK Defence R&D Board has mandated that £13 million pounds of research money be spent on UAS technologies, each year, for 5 years. This resource is funding research into autonomy, airspace integration, system survivability and many other areas.
An additional £10 million pounds of UK Defence research money is being spent, each year, for 5 years, specifically on UCAV technologies.
The US has spent, and is continuing to spend, significantly more than that.
This is not being done out of some sort of naive love of technology but because unmanned solutions provide capabilities that manned can't. The operational evidence to that effect is manifest. As a matter of open record, H450 has >60,000hrs in Th, REAPER has more and that doesn't satisfy the operational demand. God knows the figures for DHIII and T Hawk.
Debate on the merits or otherwise of unmanned is healthy. This is a paradigm shifting suite of technologies and associated approach to warfare - the operational community needs to mature and adjust its thinking.
However, most of the debate on this thread is poorly informed - on both sides. Unless you have involvement in UAS either as an operator, scientist, engineer or informed policy maker, I would counsel sticking to asking questions.
Sun.
The UK Defence R&D Board has mandated that £13 million pounds of research money be spent on UAS technologies, each year, for 5 years. This resource is funding research into autonomy, airspace integration, system survivability and many other areas.
An additional £10 million pounds of UK Defence research money is being spent, each year, for 5 years, specifically on UCAV technologies.
The US has spent, and is continuing to spend, significantly more than that.
This is not being done out of some sort of naive love of technology but because unmanned solutions provide capabilities that manned can't. The operational evidence to that effect is manifest. As a matter of open record, H450 has >60,000hrs in Th, REAPER has more and that doesn't satisfy the operational demand. God knows the figures for DHIII and T Hawk.
Debate on the merits or otherwise of unmanned is healthy. This is a paradigm shifting suite of technologies and associated approach to warfare - the operational community needs to mature and adjust its thinking.
However, most of the debate on this thread is poorly informed - on both sides. Unless you have involvement in UAS either as an operator, scientist, engineer or informed policy maker, I would counsel sticking to asking questions.
Sun.
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We do Sun and a lot of the time it involves "How did that happen?" or "Why the hell did it do that?".
Yes we over here have spent billions and yes they still wander off every now and again.
Yes we over here have spent billions and yes they still wander off every now and again.
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They don't come more technologically advanced than the X 47, but it had to be trucked across country, why? and the below are not my words:
- OK, now we know for sure what that “UFO” being trucked through Kansas was all about. It’s an X-47B unmanned strike aircraft, being hauled from Edwards AFB, CA to Pax River, MD for flight and aerial refueling tests. The FAA wouldn’t let it fly, hence the U-Haul approach. Careful with those probes!
There are quite a few X-birds that cannot fly in civil airspace - manned or unmanned! Ever wonder why the Tonopah Test Range (TTR), Edwards and Groom Lake airspaces are so very big?!!! "X" means "eXperimental"...
Last edited by Lima Juliet; 16th Jun 2012 at 14:26.
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Unforunately this crew never got to suffer in the GCS, it was destroyed:
"Jamming of GPS signals by North Korea may have contributed to the fatal crash of a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter UAV near Incheon, South Korea, on May 10. The small helicopter crashed into its ground control van, killing a Schiebel engineer and injuring the two remote pilots, both Koreans. The jamming started on April 28 and disrupted passenger flights into Seoul’s two airports, Kimpo and Incheon. South Korean government officials told local media that the jamming originated from the border town of Kaesong.
Schiebel said that an incorrect response by the operators after the Camcopter lost its GPS signal led to the crash, some minutes later. The UAV is equipped with multiple inertial measurement units (IMUs) for backup, the company noted. The recorders on board the UAV and in the ground station were burned during the crash, and could not provide any explanatory data.
The crashed UAV had been operating in South Korea since October 2008, apparently on demonstrations for government agencies. Schiebel has not identified most of its customers for the S-100. Schiebel lifted a five-day precautionary grounding of the S-100 fleet on May 15.
In an early April briefing attended by AIN, Raytheon UK claimed to be the world leader in GPS anti-jam technology. The company noted that North Korea has been jamming from land vehicles, and that unprotected platforms can be affected at ranges up to 10 miles.
Raytheon UK said it has supplied more than 7,000 jam-resistant antennas to the U.S. and some 20 other countries for aircraft, helicopters, weapons and land vehicles. These include digital versions of the technology that protects platforms over a larger area than the company’s earlier, analog system.
Under a Pentagon contract, Raytheon UK has also developed a smaller version suitable for UAVs and light helicopters.
June 1, 2012, 2:05 PM"
And sorry Leon, the restricted airspace size, which is made up of many individual areas combined is to keep prying eyes away from many things and provide enough airspace to enable force on force ingress/egress routes to maneveur areas. Testing is only a small part.
If you want to see Reaper training you can stand by the fence at Creech any day of the week and watch them from in front/or on the sides of the Indian Casino. Just don't get too close to the Humvee with the manned 50's at the end of the single lane front gate entrance.
"Jamming of GPS signals by North Korea may have contributed to the fatal crash of a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter UAV near Incheon, South Korea, on May 10. The small helicopter crashed into its ground control van, killing a Schiebel engineer and injuring the two remote pilots, both Koreans. The jamming started on April 28 and disrupted passenger flights into Seoul’s two airports, Kimpo and Incheon. South Korean government officials told local media that the jamming originated from the border town of Kaesong.
Schiebel said that an incorrect response by the operators after the Camcopter lost its GPS signal led to the crash, some minutes later. The UAV is equipped with multiple inertial measurement units (IMUs) for backup, the company noted. The recorders on board the UAV and in the ground station were burned during the crash, and could not provide any explanatory data.
The crashed UAV had been operating in South Korea since October 2008, apparently on demonstrations for government agencies. Schiebel has not identified most of its customers for the S-100. Schiebel lifted a five-day precautionary grounding of the S-100 fleet on May 15.
In an early April briefing attended by AIN, Raytheon UK claimed to be the world leader in GPS anti-jam technology. The company noted that North Korea has been jamming from land vehicles, and that unprotected platforms can be affected at ranges up to 10 miles.
Raytheon UK said it has supplied more than 7,000 jam-resistant antennas to the U.S. and some 20 other countries for aircraft, helicopters, weapons and land vehicles. These include digital versions of the technology that protects platforms over a larger area than the company’s earlier, analog system.
Under a Pentagon contract, Raytheon UK has also developed a smaller version suitable for UAVs and light helicopters.
June 1, 2012, 2:05 PM"
And sorry Leon, the restricted airspace size, which is made up of many individual areas combined is to keep prying eyes away from many things and provide enough airspace to enable force on force ingress/egress routes to maneveur areas. Testing is only a small part.
If you want to see Reaper training you can stand by the fence at Creech any day of the week and watch them from in front/or on the sides of the Indian Casino. Just don't get too close to the Humvee with the manned 50's at the end of the single lane front gate entrance.
