Almost 1 In 3 US Warplanes Is a Drone 328
parallel_prankster writes "A recent Congressional Research Service report, titled U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, looks at the more-prominent role being played by drones. In 2005, drones made up just 5 percent of the military's aircraft. Today one in three American military aircraft is a drone. The upsides of drones are that they are cheaper and safer — the military spent 92% of the aircraft procurement money on manned aircraft. The downside — they're bandwidth hogs: a single Global Hawk drone requires 500 megabytes per second worth of bandwidth, the report finds, which is 500 percent of the total bandwidth of the entire U.S. military used during the 1991 Gulf War."
Re:Is this a legitimate comparison? (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say it's only a legitimate comparison if drones and manned aircraft were used in comparable roles. Can a single drone take the place of a single manned plane for a given mission? In some cases yes, in other cases you may need 3 drones to take the place of a single fighter jet - especially in combat conditions.
Sort of like with Legos... how many Lego tires would you need to replace a single Goodyear on a car? Adjust for that and you get a more useful comparison.
Re:Nerds for t3h win! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, one needs to be a commissioned officer, Captain last time I checked to be flying a drone (for the Air Force at least).
Re:It needs what??? (Score:2, Informative)
Plus, you're forgetting that the military always get the cool toys first. 500MB/s to the user will come to us regular Joe's eventually.
Re:It needs what??? (Score:5, Informative)
It's utter bullshit offcourse. Some journalist probably mistook frequency-used for data-transmitted or something along those lines.
Flight-data (speed, position, velocity, status) is a tiny trickle of data, the only data that are significant is when transmitting live-video, which not all drones do 100% of the time. And even when they do, it's not 500MB/s. Full-HD-video from a blueray-player is on the order of 35 megabit/second, thus 500 MB/s would be the equivalent of streaming around 100 HD-cameras in blueray-quality-video.
That's not what's happening. The number is bullshit.
Re:It needs what??? (Score:5, Informative)
From THIS [irconnect.com] article:
To demonstrate the concept, Northrop Grumman's test team developed and installed on Global Hawk a new 1.4 terabyte (1500 gigabyte) computer server capable of storing all of the imagery and sensor data recorded during a complete Global Hawk mission.
With a 42 hour mission time that computes to just under 10MB/s or approximately 80Mb/s bandwidth. That sounds more reasonable.
Re:Why spread propaganda? (Score:4, Informative)
Saying that, I didn't notice anyone saying that this wasn't the case either[dramatic ellipsis]
Re:It needs what??? (Score:2, Informative)
Most of it is indeed downstream. If you figure one standard definition camera on board, and you want to minimize compression artifacts but use one of the required NATO-approved codecs, you're looking at 12kb to 60kb per frame. When you consider that you need to record full frame rate, again, let us assume 30fps per NTSC (or ATSC's 480p) then you're looking at (1s)(30f)(12kb)=360kbps to (1s)(30f)(60kb)(1800kbps). Now, consider that this is the US military, and they demand the highest quality with minimal collateral damages, and each drone has not one camera but many cameras, and they do not store the data on board for security reasons, you can begin to appreciate just how easy it becomes to hit that 500mbps mark. They have cameras for the targeting system, for forward view, and redundant cameras uses for additional perspectives, and the video isn't used just for hunting and killing, but to supervise the pilots to ensure that they are performing their mission and not carrying out their own agenda based on prejudice (such as a Muslim-hating redneck targeting Muslims for fun, or a traitor not targeting actual criminals/terrorists/hostiles) you might better understand why so much bandwidth is needed. It is possible to compress the video more highly, but there are codecs which must be used for multiple logistics and legal reasons, and even more efficient codecs won't get down the bandwidth all that much, really, because these applications require a lot more key frames than your typical CCTV situation. Also, because of latency, as much of the data as possible has to be maintained in the analog realm (IP video lags very badly and this application requires response to be as realtime as possible - remember, actual pilots fly most of these things) or a raw/PCM digital stream, with A/D conversion or digital encoding used for transmission for security and bandwidth concerns, and for the recording (recorded remotely - again, security concerns).
Now, knowing all of that - it's a good thing that AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast aren't their provider, because they'd overrun their bandwidth cap in under a day with just one drone. ;)
Re:It needs what??? (Score:5, Informative)
On page 17 of the actual report (page 22 of the PDF file), it says "a single Global Hawk...'requires 500Mbps bandwidth...'" So yes, somewhere between there and the Wired story, someone miscapitalized the B. That statistic is cited within the report as being from the Department of the Navy.
Re:It needs what??? (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks to those posting corrections.
Re:Is this a legitimate comparison? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's a ton of bandwidth (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is this a legitimate comparison? (Score:4, Informative)
You are wrong when claiming it has not been used off a carrier. The reliability of drone carrier launches and captures has proven better then a piloted aircraft. Unfortunately, you will need to apply for a higher security clearance to obtain the evidence but there is some video evidence on the Internet if you look in the right places.
Every advanced aircraft in the US arsenal is in a developmental state of varying degrees. The F-15 has been in development since 1970. People think they really know the actually status of US military technology development but they really don't. Secrecy has been compromised in some areas either by accident or even deliberately but there are also some systems that are actually secret.
You cannot compare drone operators to an actual pilot. Drone operators experience no G-forces and there is great difference between sitting in a cockpit for an extended amount of time compared to a sitting in a cushioned lounge basically playing a video game. Even a jet flying in a straight line subjects a human pilot to constant G-forces. Drone operators also work in shifts. A manned jet can't change pilots in the middle of the flight operation. Drone operations are also conducted with multiple personnel present at all times to monitor the on-going operation. The B-2 has a pilot, copilot, and flight engineer and the copilot can give the pilot some down time. Most F-15 variants and all F-22's are single pilot platforms. Although there are certain types of manned jets like an A-6 that do have 2 personnel aboard the primary responsibility for flying the plane is relegated to a single pilot. The other co-pilot is usually operates the radar, communication, navigation, and weapon systems. And the co-pilot is exposed to the same G-force fatigue as the pilot.