Drone Uses

Two opinions:

US-Mexico border to be policed by artificial intelligence | World | News ...

Drones, So Useful in War, May Be Too Costly for Border Duty - The ..

If you mean military drones, they are very expensive to fly and maintain.

Smaller drones may have some use, but in-air time is limited, as is the range.

Cameras and aerostats are already used.

Thirty years above the ground: Sierra Vista Aerostat could be ge ...

Finally:

Drones, smart sensors, and AI may soon guard the U.S. border

They seem to work well for rescuing swimmers in jeopardy...

http://www.13abc.com/content/news/Drone-rescue-off-Australian-beach-heralded-as-world-first-470276973.html

...also have made a huge difference in aerial photography....

...use in agriculture is growing....

Cool idea with farming. Spectral analysis combined with drones and machine learning could have a significant effect on yields.

Just in the news, swimmers in Australia rescued by drone which dropped floatation device.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42731112

Drones are now in the same situation that Lasers were in the 1960's, a solution looking for new problems to solve.

That very well should be the first thing we think about with this new technology - how to save lives. No problem greater than that!

I haven't seen anything about using drones to assist with providing potable water to rural 3rd world villages; I'm referring to defining the most likely spots for shallow well drilling or IDing nearest sources of purifiable water. Why ?

Probably not cost effective, or effective without further development.

These things are NOT cheap.

Probably because 3rd world villages can't afford a drone.

maybe if the drone had a pull string to take off and fly with, short flights only though.

So far, I've only used mine to inspect my roof to see if the gutters need cleaning. That was after I got over the initial excitement of actually owning one.

Ahhh the future....

Nobody's debating that drones have valid uses, above checking the scuppers for leaves.

I watched fireworks all across town on New Years Eve with mine. (A violation of the no-fly after dark rules, I know)

As far as patrolling the 2K miles of southern border, they have many limitations that make them impractical.

The USA spends $4 billion/year now on the southern border. How much is enough?

tethered balloons, same job, less cost. Old cranky guys with rifles, maybe cheaper. Just sayin'.

Tethered Aerostat Radar System - Wikipedia

yes, about like that, but we would want to put you in a gondola hanging from one, and give you a snipper rifle, even a scope.

$13 billion for the wall, should help to finally reduce the overall expenditure, by concentrating monitoring efforts to the areas where there might not be a wall installed, or geography prevents it, but numskulls still try and get through there.

A beeg wall, and several beeg doors for our Mexican friends to come through, and to check out the not good friends (cartel members, etc), and turn them around right there would be very useful in the long run. We could make them look like drive-in movie theaters, and show movies on both sides of the wall, making them tourist attractions.

ummm...some people can't drive in 2 dimensions let alone introducing a third.

I'm sure it will only be automated and heavily controlled flight paths/corridors

Too bad we can't trust the general public enough to allow these. Perhaps some years after we are all riding in driverless automobiles this beauty might be the way to go. I would have to put air to air missiles on mine. Just saying...

In addition to Drones, has anyone considered using Forest tower lookout stations ?

Used towers are available all across the U.S. for as little as $ 24,000 usd.

With a good pair of binoculars or a spotting type of scope and an infared to be used at night, towers could be installed every 10 miles or so.

With a 2000 mile border, that would work out to roughly 4800000. Or 200 towers. At this price you could put one every 5 miles.

Figure if each drone had a frequency range of 2.5 miles and 2 drones per tower, that should easily provide full coverage for a 2000 mile length.

If the towers are maintained, they should easily last over 50 years.

I bet you could get thousands of people more than willing to sign up to " man " the towers for free.

Which is considerably a lot less then the 40 billion Lyn quoted.

It's time to invest in drone-producing companies, perhaps.

The northern border is going to need considerably more of them.

That's the Canadians problem. Refugee Americans fleeing to Canada from America.

The Canadians are much more humane than we are.

US border patrol routinely sabotages water left for migrants, report ...

Lyn, could you point out on a map of North America exactly where the deserts are located on the border between the United States and Canada.

It would be interesting to know where the humanitarian groups are leaving the water bottles.

Not sure what your purpose is with this question.

I never implied that there were deserts along the Canadian border, just that Canadians are more hospitable than the US Border Patrol. If you assumed otherwise, you are incorrect.

The location of the water stations in the Sonoran Desert is not common knowledge.

Lyn, I'm trying to understand your point. It sounds like your saying that that the Canadian border patrol is more humane than the American border patrol, is this correct ?

I read the " report " you provided a link to.

The way I understand cr4 is people ask questions and after op's do some work, members here answer their questions, is this correct ?

So, where are the water bottles located on the Canadian side of the border at ? For the migrants to find ?

Who are the humanitarian groups that are leaving those water bottles ?

I'm sure that American migrants crossing the border into Canada would like to know where these water stations are .

Can you help provide me with an answer.

We'll that wasn't quite the answer I was expecting from a professional.

If you know where the water stations are and the name of the humanitarian group is please provide this information.

If you don't, then you could say something like, " I'm sorry, but at this point I am not able to provide you with the information you are seeking " .

As a " professional " you could make a suggestion like : why don't you check the past history log or post a new question.

Your question was leading to no good, you have no intentions of doing anything constructive with any information I furnish, not that I would anyway, not knowing what your personal agenda is, but guessing how you may feel about border crossers. (Not the Canadian border, but the USA southern border.)

You SHOULD realize that the location of any water stations put in the desert are NOT publicized for fear that racist "patriots" would only destroy them.

You want the information, you look for it yourself. It is readily available in the same sources that I can use.While you're searching, you might also look into the difference in the way the US and Canada handle illegal immigrants coming across their respective borders.

I have no affiliation with any organization concerned with the southern border.

1. What is a " racist patriot " ?

I checked Google for :

A. Racist patriot

B. Non racist patriot

According to Google, a racist patriot is someone who doesn't like the New England Patriots football team.

And a non racist patriot is someone who doesn't like anyone who doesn't like racist patriots.

Is that what you mean ?

_______________________________________________________________________________

2. I always do constructive things with the information that you furnish.

Am I to understand that you will no longer furnish information unless a person can provide, " proof " that they will use the information constructively ?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

I feel the same way about northern border crossers as I do about southern border crossers.

A border is a border is a border.

Is there anything that makes the northern border different than the southern border ?

( Other than one is the border of Mexico and the other is the border of Canada )

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Apparently the CBSA ( Canada Border Safety Agency ) conducts business in almost exactly the same way as the U.S border patrol & the ICE ( Immigration and Customs Enforcement ) agency does.

And the laws governing illegal immigration into Canada mirror those same laws governing illegal immigration into the United States.

The only difference is the way in which both countries handle Legal immigration.

I'm happy to see that you can perform your own searches. Form those you can draw your own conclusions.

Keep up the good work.

Since I am interested in firefighting, drones can, and are starting to, be used to get an elevated view of what is happening. If quick deployment could be achieved, they could help with the 360 degree size-up to check happenings on the back side of the building at the very beginning of the alarm.

It takes no more than 5 minutes to unpack my drone and get it in the air sending back real time video.

It could be unfolded and powered up on the way to the fire, and ready to launch as soon as the engine stopped.

Drones equipped with infrared would be able to cut down on the number of people dying in the desert by directing border patrol to their location quickly. Then we drop them bottles of water with micro RF tags in the water and viola!

Delivering urgent emergency medicines/supplies etc, to accident victims in traffic jams

but .....what are the 'toys' used for - snooping on privacy - intruding into airways - delivering drugs - contraband - to prisons - to anyone/anywhere?

I don't know - but I hear stories.

The very best use of Military drones is for precision strikes. But I'm pretty sure we are not talking about that.

The quad-coptor is probably the most popular but I have watched interest in drones fade away dissapointingly fast. It's as if they are way ahead of the times. That is, we haven't really explored the possibilities yet.

The most exciting use of drones has to be the Drone Racing League (DRL) which has rather restrictive rules on design and capability. Watching a DRL race is more stimulating than NASCAR in many cases. NASCAR and other gas guzzeling cars race in mostly 2 dimensions only. Drones race in 3 dimensions. Now that takes some skill. Kind of the skill level of a fighter pilot or helicoptor pilot.

Team sports with drones could be totally awesome if invented correctly. I'm talking about Red verses Blue (or any colors) where the drones are equiped with a laser pointer as it's primary "weapon" and receivers on every drone are tunable to the team color wavelength so there is no such thing as "friendly fire".

It is a bit like combining the racing league concept with lasar tag. Simulated war could be huge with enough players. The techno toys have only scratched the surface of what is possible.

There are already aerial combat competitions for RC model plane enthusiasts, but I think they shoot tiny paint balls at the other plane (maybe I am wrong on this).

The competitions are very fierce.

I can easily see the same thing with quads as the platform. I think eliminating the possibility of friendly fire is not a great idea. It should be up to the pilots to have the skills needed to prevent it, and others not to fly into the line of fire of others on their team while they are engaged on an "enemy plane, or quad".

I like the paint ball concept better, or even non-lethal (to us) projectiles of rubber that can damage an RC model enough to shoot them down.

wow,... the paint ball can actually take down a RC plane...

one would think with the weight limitations, and the cost of an RC, that they'd use laser/receiver set-up like the army uses in war games to designate a hit.

Where the laser would send out a pulse of light to similar a A-10 GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun.

Lasers go in a straight line, whereas projectiles do not. For example, the droop on a 30mm German cannon in WWII was about a foot in 250 meters. The 12 mm machine guns on German fighters did not droop as much, so the pilot would first engage with the smaller caliber weapon, then push the other trigger close in, maybe even pulling up his nose slightly as he did.

The British 20mm Hispano were easily the best aerial weapon in WWII, having sufficient mass to seriously damage whatever was struck, and enough energy behind them to bring them to bear faithfully on target, given the British (and American) pilot's ability to use them. The American 0.50 caliber was also a formidable weapon system when ganged in groups of 6 (P-51 and other), or 8 (P-47). They could literally saw a wing off, rather than the fracturing type strike a 30 mm would make.

Most American planes in WWII did not have 20mm cannon, only the P-39 Aerocobra, and the P-38 lightning as I recall, and these were the nose mounted guns.

P-38's in fighter mode got a heck of a lot of kills against Japanese planes in the Pacific operation theater. Dick Bong flew P-38 most of his career in WWII, and got the most kills. Dick was killed during test piloting of an early American jet fighter right near the end of the war.

Lasers go in a straight line, whereas projectiles do not.

maybe your projectiles do,... but mine has lasers....

OK, Mr. Starfighter.

Build a moat.

There's a good idea. Then "they" could charge people to fish in it.

In fishing from the shore, a drone could carry a hook/sinker and bait out from the shore to deeper water. I'm sure someone has already done that. A drone could be fitted with a sniper rifle to fly over a hostage scenario or a school shootout situation. These are possibilities of putting drones to good use. I think law enforcement will embrace drone technology; the military already has. Rural areas are most likely areas where drones can be of great advantage due to accessibility. I think there is a great future for drones. If I could find the best company that makes drones, that would be a great investment on the Dow Jones board.

The best company that makes drones probably isn't traded on the Dow Jones.

The best company that makes drones may well be made in China.

A drone with a snipper rifle (or sniper rifle) would be an ineffective platform if there are victims present to be rescued, protected, etc. It is simply not stable enough IMHO, for aligning a "perfect kill shot on the perpetrator". In a hostage situation, you either want a clean kill shot or no shot at all, there can be no in-between condition.

Snipers are not allowing to "take the shot" (typically) when there is a high likelihood of injuring the victim. They want a "clean" target line up, and a very, very steady rest.