by Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series @ the College of Engineering (COE)
While drones have been widely used since the 1960’s during the Vietnam War, they really revolutionized warfare during the recent Middle East conflicts. We saw drones take on roles in both surveillance and strike. In addition, we saw everything from back packable small RC like models, the predator family of strike systems, and ship based vertical systems such as Fire Scout, to the large high flying long endurance Global Hawk. Not only has our military found practical and cost effective use of these autonomous aircrafts, but commercial entities such as Google and Amazon are looking at how they can help their businesses as well. Add to that a whole host of civil applications such as police forces, security systems (including pipeline surveillance), Homeland Security and Border Patrol. Last but not least, is the neighbor next door who just bought a quad copter and is flying it over your backyard swimming pool.