The U.S. Defense Department has added thousands of automated aircraft added to its fleet over the past decade to support operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan as concerns of drone accuracy persist
PREDATOR: The U.S. military hare more than 6,000 of drones, such as the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.'s Predator seen here. Remotely pilot aircraft (RPAs) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as they are also called, are a controversial technology whose development flourished after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Image: COURTESY OF U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO/LT COL LESLIE PRATT, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The September 11, 2001 attacks initiated a flurry of advances in military technology over the past decade that has helped the U.S. and its allies redefine modern warfare. None of these advancements have had a greater impact on America's missions in the Middle East than the maturation of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or, more generically, drones. The U.S. Army's drone armada alone has expanded from 54 drones in October 2001, when U.S. combat operations began in Afghanistan, to more than 4,000 drones performing surveillance, reconnaissance and attack missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan (pdf). There are more than 6,000 of them throughout the U.S. military as a whole, and continued developments promise to make these controversial aircraft—blamed for the deaths of militants as well as citizens—far more intelligent and nimble.
Read More: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=post-911-military-tech-drones
No comments:
Post a Comment