Eyes in the sky

The House of Commons Defence Committee has been looking into the role Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are playing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after discussions with the Armed Forces, Ministry of Defence (MoD) and industry - has published its report yesterday on their progress and prospects.

UAVs are a key part of the military’s eyes and ears in theatre, and military chiefs are usually keen to send them on dull, dirty and dangerous missions instead of putting a man or woman in harm’s way. They’re being used for watching over coalition troops, for monitoring hotspots and to look for threats, and their use is ballooning – from a total of 25 during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan to over 5000 now.

The amount of information being captured, from pictures to sensor readings to video, has also ballooned as their numbers have grown and collection technology has improved. It’s no easy task to process, analyse and sort it all – most people have piles of photos laying unviewed on a hard drive or in a cupboard, but in Helmand one picture can contain information which saves lives. Our troops can’t afford to have that one left at the back of a digital sock drawer, so the Committee recommends the MoD balance its efforts between buying more drones and making sure it can analyse all the information they collect.

The report also gazes into its crystal ball to look at the future of UAVs, which may lay outside the military as well as inside it. Industry (including many world-leading British companies) is developing innovation after innovation, from urban-based “micro” UAVs to lingering armed versions which can wait for days at a time before hitting a target. There are scores of exciting new models coming down the pipe, but they will all depend on boring old wires to move the data around, and well trained people to decide what’s a rock and what’s a disguised mine. 

MoD and the technology industry are working together to make sure the boring old wires are as cutting edge as the menacing drones they support, and that the real brains in the system are as ready as they can be. Intellect’s work helps Government use the knowledge in industry to get ahead of the game, and supports the massive efforts being made to modernise our military’s kit – as the Committee has discovered, our Armed Forces will look a lot different in the future.

By Joel Grundy, Defence and Security Programme Manager.