Most drones can stay aloft for as much as 17 hours at a time and being fully functional with their cameras and various sensors. There is a large variety of drones: smaller ones you can launch by hand, medium sized ones armed to kill, and large spy drones.
Here are some examples of medium sized drones:
Here are some examples of medium sized drones:
Drones carry a many sensors in their bulbous noses: colour and black-and-white TV cameras, image intensifiers, radar, infra-red imaging for low-light conditions and lasers for targeting. Laser-guided missiles can also be on it because they are better then the hellfire missiles, although the hellfire II miscalls.
These multi-million dollar Predator and Reaper systems comprise of four aircraft, a ground control station and a satellite link. In the ground control station, pilots see maps, live feed, their location, and other important information on several monitors. The tasks ground control gives the drone travel through the satellite link and into the sattlite. The satellite then sends the information to the drone. This process takes a full two seconds, so the pilots in the ground control needs to get used to the delay in time.
In the Future:
*Drones will be smaller
*Newer models won't have to be run as often
*Software improvments
| *They will be more cost effecient
*Higher-developed weapons will be created for combat
*Better user interfaces for pilots
| *There will be automatic control improvements.
*Faster and cheaper production of UAV's
*Eaiser to control
|
Predator Drones
Predator drones are the most known drone. They are used for many purposes such as destroying terrorists and surveilling areas for crime. They are also known as Tier 2s. They were made by several different teams of workers and were a corporate project. They have no inventor because of this. Their official name is the Predator MQ-1. They are featured in a few video games such as Call of Duty. They have a 360 degree rotating camera.
Global Hawk
The Global Hawk is a developmental high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) reconnaissance vehicle. Also known as Tier II+, Global Hawk has been designed as a “highly capable, moder- ately survivable” system capable of reconnaissance, surveillance, and providing targeting information. The Global Hawk will carry a 2,000-pound payload, has a maximum altitude of 65,000 feet, a range of 5,556 kilometers, and endurance at that radius of 22 hours (22hrs there and 22hrs back).