The most intelligent decision made by the Sri Lanka Defense Forces on its war against terrorism, is close to wire and waves rather than metal and gun powder. Heavy artillery, Multi barrel rockets, supersonic jets, helicopter gunships and battle tanks were on limelight while an un-seen and unmatched workhouse providing intelligence and targets were hidden inside cables and waves in air.
Information technology seems to be a wolf in lamb skin, as the technology which uses to make your spreadsheet, corporate presentation, daily emails or documents is the best friend or worst enemy the way it is being used in the battle ground.
Three forces of Sri Lanka (SLA, SLN, SLAF) have recently upgraded its war machine with up-to-date technology, enable gathering, processing and disseminating tactical information digitally. Information Technology advancement has proven its capability with success stories within many battles fought around the world, including one of our own.
A simple hand held GPS to eyes in sky (digital satellite maps and real-time ground monitoring) has given the tactical advantage for pre-battle planning and preparations. Unmanned Arial Vehicles are being used to gather real-time ground information on video, which then be used to set and acquire accurate targets with the use of Global Positioning System, which proved lethal for the enemy. The short video clip you see on news, blowing up a target, is actually taken by a flying droid (UAV) with its onboard video camera. The videos are spectacular to view, when you are in the UAV side of the war, but not so entertaining for the enemy.
Those who visited “Dayata Kurula” exhibition had the chance of experiencing this cute toy for war, with the rare opportunity of visiting inside the control cabin with a basic introduction to the system.
For those who missed the opportunity, here is a second chance.
Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV), as its name suggests is a flying object without a human pilot, which comes in lot of shapes and sizes. Most common UAVs in use today are either modeled as a fixed wing plane or rotor wing helicopter. Unusual shapes and technologies are used in research labs for achieving efficiency and endurance, so it should not be a surprised for you if a flying sourcer (UFO) type UAV fly over your garden in few years time.
But for now, SLAF is having only Fixed Wing type UAVs deployed in actual battlegrounds, essentially meaning they are model airplanes. Supplier of these UAVs is Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), while the model is “Searcher MK II”. IAI produces a range of UAVs and the one used by SLAF is not the latest, but a descent unit capable of what is being shown on your TV News almost daily basis.
Searcher MK II is a fixed wing, single engine airplane, which has the propeller in the back. Take-off can be done with a small ground run, or catapulted to air with a purpose built launching platform. A hand held remote control is used for the initial take-off, cursing for a safer height, where the control is then passed over to the dedicated mobile control room (cabin). With the displays, joystick and control buttons, rest of the navigation is purely a video game, with a little twist, where one single wrong move is enough to ditch million dollars in few seconds.
This type of UAV is capable of flying autonomous with a pre-set flying path, using the GPS positioning, while a ground controller can takeover flying of the unit at anytime. SLDF prefers to fly this manually, most of the time, since it has greater control over the geographic area of interest. Over 200KM flying range with 16 hours of continuous flying is possible, but the manual flight control is safer within 50Km radius. Once the ground control signal is lost (communication failure), the UAV is intelligent enough to return home autonomously, while the hand-held remote controller can take the unit down safely.
Payload for the UAV varies, having Video Camera is the most common and known to the general public. However, Thermal Imaging (FLIR), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a host of other sensors can be mounted upto a 100Kg of total payload weight.
Product specification for Searcher MK II states that;
Performance
• Endurance 20 hr.
• Range 300 km
• Altitude 23,000 ft
Technical Data
Weights
• Max. take-off weight 436 kg
• Max. payload weight 120 kg
Dimensions
• Overall length 5.85 m
• Wingspan 8.55 m
Good luck with your new blog, and thank you for the excellent article.
ReplyDeleteAnother Mahen?
ReplyDeleteමට හැමදාම තියෙන ප්රස්නෙ මේකයි. ඇයි අපි මේ එක එකාට ඩොලර් මිලියන ගනන් දිදී UAV සල්ලි වලට ගන්නෙ. අපේ ඉන්ජිනේරුවන්ටත් මේව කරන්න බැරි වැඩ නොවෙයි. ආණ්ඩුවෙන් සහයොගය ලැබෙනවනං මේ රට ඉන්න අපි උනත් එනවනෙ උදව්වට..
ReplyDelete@Buddhika;
ReplyDeleteI am afraid the answer is not so simple, but can be attributed to the lack of vision of our political leaders whom takes the policy decisions driving the country.
However, It was a close call, when to decide purchasing Vs developing our own, at this recent war against terrorism, and a battle proven unit needed to be purchased for the obvious reasons.
We know our guys have all the talent needed to make these devices down here, and many interested patriotic individuals living around the world has already express their willingness to help build the country. It is taking shape, and surely we need people like you.
Often wondered whether it is possible for someone else who has access to the same frequency to gain access to the UAV.
ReplyDeleteThe Navy also needs USVs, to track underwater and low-in-the water objects such as soon to be unemployed suicidepillais trying to experience one last bang.
ReplyDelete@TropicalStorm
ReplyDeleteGood question. The UAVs in general, being used today around the globe, primarily uses GHz (giga hertz) range, so can be operate without limiting to line-of-sight. A frequency scanner can easily find the signal, but all of it control signals are digitally encoded. Almost all Military hardware uses some sort of encoding before emitting any kind of wave out. Even if the exact frequency is captured, it will be very hard to decode and generate the same set of control signals which a particular UAV understands.
The encoding can be changed at will, even at mid-air flying. The UAV and its ground control is intelligent enough to sense disturbance or foul signals, and re-sync both units for a different encoding. By all means, it is very difficult for a hacker to crack the code and get the control of the flight.
However, a disturbance signal can be introduced on the same frequency (noise), which will hinder UAV's ability to communicate with ground control. In such a case, UAV steps into autonomous-homing mode, and return to base.
If the UAV is on an autonomous mode, with way point navigation pre-programmed (meaning a flight path is already fed to the UAV), UAV is capable of completing its mission even without any communication from the ground control. In this mode, full 20Hr endurance can be utilized, meaning the UAV can be airborne almost a day autonomously.
Most advanced UAVs are using satellites to communicate, so virtually the UAV can be at any location of the world, and the ground control also can be anywhere on the planet.
There are few kinds of Unmanned Vehicles (UVs) being used for underwater needs. USV (unmanned submersible vehicle), UUV (unmanned underwater/undersea vehicle, UTSV (unmanned tethered submersible vehicle) etc. Add to the confusion there are more. Unmanned Surface Vehicle (also USV), Unmanned Semi-Submersible vehicles (USSV, Hard tethered and bottom crawlers etc.
ReplyDeleteI might publish a separate article on unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) as time permits.