4 ms·

Drones are nice when you have a permissive environment where the locals don't have a decent air defense system. But otherwise, the current models we have are re

by greedo 12y ago

Drones are nice when you have a permissive environment where the locals don't have a decent air defense system. But otherwise, the current models we have are relatively easy to shoot down. They lack speed, maneuverability, and their operators lack the situational awareness that a pilot would bring to the table. There are better drones being developed, but they will be expensive and will depend extensively on sat links for communicating between the drone and base station. This will be problematic against a peer foe who can jam radio transmissions.

Tuna-Fish 12y ago
That's why the US is developing tracked laser communication systems. They are effectively impossible to jam.
- greedo 12y ago
  Laser is line of sight, limiting your range. And nature has a great way of jamming lasers, called clouds. If you were able to get a decently powered laser in a satellite, it wouldn't be able to control too many aircraft unless it looked like a porcupine. And then it would have to deal with anti-satellite defenses that both China and Russia have spent significant sums on.
  - greedo 12y ago
    Not sure why this was downvoted.
  - Already__Taken 12y ago
    Unless you happen to have an autonomous reusable spacecraft with significant cross range ability and enough fuel to continuously change orbits.
  - Tuna-Fish 12y ago
    > Laser is line of sight, limiting your range. Yes, with current equipment it limits your range to somewhere beyond the orbit of the moon. Yes, we can now keep a laser and a receiver tracked on each other from 300000km away. > And nature has a great way of jamming lasers, called clouds. There are wavelengths that are not hampered much by clouds. > If you were able to get a decently powered laser in a satellite We can. > it wouldn't be able to control too many aircraft unless it looked like a porcupine. ... but this is a problem, you'd basically be limited in total bandwidth by count of satellites. Meaning you either need to launch a lot of them, or reduce bandwidth per drone.
    - greedo 12y ago
      Being able to ping the moon with a laser doesn't help with terrestrial systems. Just as radar has a horizon limit, so do laser systems. So if you put this on a controller version of an AWACS, you have to deal with attenuation from clouds/weather, and I think keeping a lock on a maneuvering UCAS might be a challenge.
      - Tuna-Fish 12y ago
        I'm not talking about pinging the moon, I'm talking about maintaining a link with a maneuvering spacecraft in moon orbit.
        greedo 12y ago
        So this spacecraft you're linking to makes radical 8g maneuvers, changes direction at a 30s/ roll rate, and can change altitude at will?
Symmetry 12y ago
I wouldn't trust an autonomous drone in many environments, but air warfare is pretty friendly to AI. And while humans are limited to 9 Gs of acceleration drone aircraft that can turn much more rapidly can and have been built. In the future I expect we'll see gaggles of drone fighters overseen but not piloted from a AWACs far back but still within visual range.
- DougWebb 12y ago
  Those drones are still flown by human pilots, remotely. I wonder what the maneuverability limit is with remote piloting. At some point the drone would be able to turn so fast that the human couldn't process the rapidly changing visuals. Maybe the drone pilots will need to be given a simulated "third person view" like a video game in order to keep up.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    It's an UX problem. The pilots might need to be given more indirect, goal-oriented interface. Instead of first-person view and direct flight control, they would mark waypoints on situation map and select maneuvering policies, akin to some RTS games.
    - ajuc 12y ago
      I think modern wars will be fought by tousands of pro-gamers using something like 3d rts ui. For example if we have 50 drones doing some task it's stupid to hire 50 people to manage them like pilots. Much better to hire 5 people and give them better ui (construct 360 degree view from all the drones feeds localy and send only the aggregated information.
- vacri 12y ago
  With current technology, humans can fly in worse weather than drones.
  - touristtam 12y ago
    And still human errors seems to be directly involved in the worse crashes (see the AF 2009 flight to Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_factors_and_computer_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_fa...)

by greedo 12y ago

Tuna-Fish 12y ago

That's why the US is developing tracked laser communication systems. They are effectively impossible to jam.

greedo 12y ago
Laser is line of sight, limiting your range. And nature has a great way of jamming lasers, called clouds. If you were able to get a decently powered laser in a satellite, it wouldn't be able to control too many aircraft unless it looked like a porcupine. And then it would have to deal with anti-satellite defenses that both China and Russia have spent significant sums on.
- greedo 12y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted.
- Already__Taken 12y ago
  Unless you happen to have an autonomous reusable spacecraft with significant cross range ability and enough fuel to continuously change orbits.
- Tuna-Fish 12y ago
  > Laser is line of sight, limiting your range. Yes, with current equipment it limits your range to somewhere beyond the orbit of the moon. Yes, we can now keep a laser and a receiver tracked on each other from 300000km away. > And nature has a great way of jamming lasers, called clouds. There are wavelengths that are not hampered much by clouds. > If you were able to get a decently powered laser in a satellite We can. > it wouldn't be able to control too many aircraft unless it looked like a porcupine. ... but this is a problem, you'd basically be limited in total bandwidth by count of satellites. Meaning you either need to launch a lot of them, or reduce bandwidth per drone.
  - greedo 12y ago
    Being able to ping the moon with a laser doesn't help with terrestrial systems. Just as radar has a horizon limit, so do laser systems. So if you put this on a controller version of an AWACS, you have to deal with attenuation from clouds/weather, and I think keeping a lock on a maneuvering UCAS might be a challenge.
    - Tuna-Fish 12y ago
      I'm not talking about pinging the moon, I'm talking about maintaining a link with a maneuvering spacecraft in moon orbit.
      - greedo 12y ago
        So this spacecraft you're linking to makes radical 8g maneuvers, changes direction at a 30s/ roll rate, and can change altitude at will?

Symmetry 12y ago

I wouldn't trust an autonomous drone in many environments, but air warfare is pretty friendly to AI. And while humans are limited to 9 Gs of acceleration drone aircraft that can turn much more rapidly can and have been built. In the future I expect we'll see gaggles of drone fighters overseen but not piloted from a AWACs far back but still within visual range.

DougWebb 12y ago
Those drones are still flown by human pilots, remotely. I wonder what the maneuverability limit is with remote piloting. At some point the drone would be able to turn so fast that the human couldn't process the rapidly changing visuals. Maybe the drone pilots will need to be given a simulated "third person view" like a video game in order to keep up.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  It's an UX problem. The pilots might need to be given more indirect, goal-oriented interface. Instead of first-person view and direct flight control, they would mark waypoints on situation map and select maneuvering policies, akin to some RTS games.
  - ajuc 12y ago
    I think modern wars will be fought by tousands of pro-gamers using something like 3d rts ui. For example if we have 50 drones doing some task it's stupid to hire 50 people to manage them like pilots. Much better to hire 5 people and give them better ui (construct 360 degree view from all the drones feeds localy and send only the aggregated information.
vacri 12y ago
With current technology, humans can fly in worse weather than drones.
- touristtam 12y ago
  And still human errors seems to be directly involved in the worse crashes (see the AF 2009 flight to Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_factors_and_computer_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_fa...)