The euphoria experienced by the military about the capabilities of satellite reconnaissance has long since ended: the photos are too grainy, and besides, it is difficult to distinguish weapons of mass destruction from orbit, which sometimes leads to annoying strategic miscalculations like (further - for a word of mouth) Saddam "theirs" Hussein, Yes.
The dream of today's multi-star strategists is aerial reconnaissance. And it would be optimal to fly into suspicious structures … For the sake of such an opportunity, the American Defense Department is investing a lot of money in the Air Force Research Laboratory. “Our target is a pigeon-sized drone,” says Dr. Leslie Perkins, who leads the Air Force Laboratory's Micro Aircraft business.
A working prototype made by Theiss Aviation in Ohio and shown this summer at an air show in Florida looks like a bird not only in size (although it is not a pigeon yet, but a fattened crow): a beak, imitation plumage, tail (there is a propeller hidden in it!). The prototype spy pigeon has a fixed wing and a power reserve of half an hour.
Nevertheless, Dr. Perkins and her team are determined by 2015 to design a model that will correspond to the size of the ugliest and most widespread bird, will be able to fly autonomously for a week (!) With minimal operator intervention, will repeat bird movements - flap wings and sit on wires. The latter is not only for camouflage, but also for recharging!
And also a spy ornithopter of the 2015 model will be able to determine the presence of weapons of mass destruction of all types nearby - nuclear, chemical and bacteriological.
Let potential contractors laugh at the mention of the desired battery life (Dr. Perkins herself admits this) - the designers of micro-devices have big plans. In particular, a reconnaissance drone imitating an insect (by 2030).
If our sarcasm is wasted, the costs ($ 1.5 million for just one site for micro AVIARI microdrones) will not be in vain and Dr. Perkins and his colleagues will still manage to create their own ornithopter, we can expect an unprecedented increase in paranoia in countries that are not friendly with the United States. For example, cyber spy pigeons can provoke a total extermination of real pigeons in the manner of the Maoist genocide of sparrows.
An entertaining video on almost the same topic:
