A drone of your own

摘要

When a Royal Marine was shot in Afghanistan in January last year during a vicious battle in an old desert fort, his colleagues could not find him in the confusion. As they pulled back to regroup, concern grew that Taliban insurgents had captured him. Within minutes, the marines had launched a Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk mini-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to find out what was happening behind enemy lines. Pictures downloaded in real time from the Desert Hawk into a briefcase-sized control unit showed the body in the centre of the fort. Unsure whether their colleague was dead or wounded, the marines organised a daring rescue mission in which four men strapped themselves on to the outside of two Apache attack helicopters. Unfortunately, by the time they reached their stricken friend, he was dead, but the rescuers were able to retrieve his body. The incident illustrates the potential advantages of mini-UAVs - or micro air vehicles (MAVs) - that can be carried in a soldier's backpack and used to deliver images to frontline troops. As well as their operational appeal, MAVs cost a fraction of their larger cousins such as the Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk - tens of thousands rather than millions of pounds for a single system. General Atomics' airliner-sized Reaper UAV can cost more than ￡5m, excluding the tens of millions of pounds for the supporting communications infrastructure.