Early and Current UAS Design

Early unmanned aircraft systems designs (UAS) were mostly made of plywood and propeller revolution counters without hardly any systems they have today. They were at all times radio controlled by an operator and some versions had guidance systems built to perform low level duties but not all early unmanned aircraft systems were built so (The Future of the Sky, (n.d).

The current contemporary designed unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) have many systems and missions to accomplish. There are different UAV types such as target and decoy that provide ground and aerial gunnery; camera reconnaissance which provides images of what is present in a certain area; research and development and terrain censoring.

The thing these early designs and current designs hold is they both can operate without a human in the cockpit. They are also the product of federal and military necessity. Some differences they hold are the advancements of technology over the years. After almost a century of playing with the idea of having something in the sky without a human inside to gain surveillance and/or to drop bombs, the aircraft systems inside UAV’s has progressed immensely.

UAS designs have increased our knowledge by providing data of oceans, wild lands, wildfires, properties, resources as well as military combat. If we take a look at the Predator, one will see it is composed of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna, an inertial navigation system, a satellite communications antenna, a video cassette recorder, a APX-100 identification friend or foe transponder, a nose camera assembly and much more (How the Predator UAV Works (n.d).

Some of the new technologies that may influence these unmanned aircraft are the simple use of cell phones. Cell phones may be the next best way to control one’s unmanned aircraft system. One way to do this and to pass it on to someone else easily is to have an account set up for that aircraft, then let the person you are passing it over to have the password to the group account and once it passes into his or her airspace, he or she can take control. It would kind of be like a chat room, passing information and control within those group of people. Exciting and scary at the same time.

 

References

The UAV - The Future Of The Sky. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.theuav.com/

Valdes, R. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/