Re:UK reveals footage of 'top secret' drone [video]
by eliteraspberrie on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @03:51PM
(#7186715)
The challenge for UAV going forward is to operate autonomously. Stealth is useless if its communications with a satellite are obvious, and almost all drones are useless if GPS is jammed. I haven't found any information indicating that the Taranis solves these problems.
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Re:UK reveals footage of 'top secret' drone [video]
by Scene_Cast2 on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @04:49PM
(#7187060)
There are two communication lanes here - let's call them uplink (UAV to satellite) and downlink (satellite to UAV). For the uplink, the UAV can use a highly-directional antenna that is virtually undetectable and unjammable to anyone on the ground.
Solving this for the downlink is harder. Blanketing a large area (100km * 100km) or using highly-directional signal could work. Dead-reckoning with "mission plans" would also help.
I wouldn't really expect BBC to get into technical details, especially given that security-through-obscurity would work for at least the first mission.