Drones take flight for civilian missions.
Never mind the sweetly named baby craft created in Israel ,one of world leading
manufacturers of UAV the drone just does not have a cuddly image. For most of us the droneplace ison the battlefield or in amaximum –security spymission Butthat may be about to change , with Europe on thecusp ofunvieling its own ,indigenously-developed ,cut –price ,unmanned “stratellite “
craft ,which is expressly meant fordroningly –dull but deadly important civilians missions.
Thepeace drones are seen to symbolise man ultimate triumph in “slipping the surly bonds of earth “ by sending a robotic missionary out instead .It is a snipat 15 million euros a craft ,compared to the estimated US $ 100million it costs fortheir aptly –named souped-up ,deadly Predator military equivalents. For years ,UAV have silently patrolled the skies ,noiselessly sendingback streams of strategically –important data ,video, and images .But, that was in the context of distant wars ,deadly battles or dangerous troublespot.
Aircraft areforced to come down ,the fuel is gone ,the pilot istired . And then there is the satellite , but it isnotalways over the country or area onewants it to be and cloudcover isa major obstacle for operational remote sensing fromsatellites.
The “
peace drone” is small light ,eco-friendly ,unerringly accurate and cheap torun for,say . adeveloping country sans a space programme but keen on environmental monitoring.
“ If there is a flood “ says Everaerts in a timely reference toMumbai s
unprecedented deluge , “ Theauthorities want to know the extent today and the stratellite can hover over a country or an area permanently .”
This is why Europe conceived of the “Stratellite one of the first drones. To be aimed at civilian use., Pegasus is taking wing, the craft were born out of union between Vito, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research and Alcatel, with input fromseveral other Belgian ,Dutch ,German,French and Italian partners.
The project ,first discussed backing 2000,was meant tospearhead Europe development of solar powered UAV that can stay air-borne forlong periods.The endresults was the “ peace drone “ whose realname is Mercator , after the famous 26 th century Flemish cartographer .Mercators which are called high-altitude long-endurance (Hale) craft . are meant to be crucial information –gatherers for disaster management ,cropmanagement ,coastalmanagement and mapping .More flexible and cheaper than low-orbit satellite ,they are said to push backthe boundaries of unmanned flight becausethey will harvest solarenergy efficiently enough to fly continuously for nine months at a time ,come 2007 ,when they are expected to be in operational use.
Paul Davey ,the Mercator project manager at QinetiQ , the former British defence research lab which is building the UAV ,believes the craft is unique in having a “light weight solar array coupled to lithium –based rechargeable batteries”. This givesthe ability to complete a day-night cycle that would use the solar power during the day ,which is battery –charging time ,while running on that daily “juice” to fly at night .
But, what if the peace drones were pressed into war , especially if they are so cheap and can fly for such longper periods without needing to be topped up ?
It is true they will be very hard toshoot down . With a wing span less than 20 m they will be virtually invisible from the ground . We are not aiming at military use, but perhaps QinetiQ may not bebuilding them just forcivilian purpose.
But at least for now ,the Mercator ,appears to be riding a project that has,like the proverbial Pegasus, taken wing.
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