Технические науки. Робототехника

A.Zh. Kassymkhan master student, N.A. Medetov dr. fm sciences.

Kostanai State University named after A.Baitursynov, Kazakhstan

APPLICATION OF DRONES IN DAILY LIFE - STEP INTO THE FUTURE OR HIDDEN THREAT

With rapid advances in technology, drones – also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – are having an increasing impact on our lives, from the food we eat to the films we watch at the cinema. Professor Jim Scanlan gives an insight into their potential and their safety.

Drones already have a huge impact on our lives. For example, they are involved in producing our food: large, professional farms now routinely use drones to detect areas of weeds and poor yield that they need to target for herbicides and fertilisers. This saves farmers a lot of money and prevents them releasing unnecessary chemicals into the environment. Other uses include atmospheric research – to monitor pollution, the weather and climate, and in scientific studies that involve monitoring hazardous areas like volcanoes. They are also having an impact on popular culture; all the film companies use them now and the aerial shots you see in the latest films and TV programmes are captured by drones.

In spite of being relatively new technology, drones of varying types and sizes are readily available for consumer purchase. Where there was once one to two predator drones, now there are delivery drones, hobby drones, news drones, Hollywood drones and sightseeing drones.

Drone Electronics and Operating System

Some experimentation in taking a drone apart revealed that most ready-to-ship drones come with the same electronics as a smartphone or tablet. Nearly all drone code is the same as that found in Android except for open-source coding efforts built on Linux platforms, which can be found at Dronecode

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Onboard cameras are capable of storing video — anywhere from five minutes to two hours of video on a USB stick. Some advanced operating systems allow for real-time upload of video to external storage networks.

Even the cheapest drones have fully operational Wi-Fi, radio frequency and Bluetooth antennas or a combination of all three.

Nefarious Drone Uses Within Industrial Areas

Industrial plants should have well-documented plans for avoiding or, at the very least, responding to the following scenarios:

Drones flying directly over nuclear cooling towers, where they can simply be shut off or drop while carrying an explosive payload; drones targeting or running reconnaissance on sensitive areas such as power junctions where touching two lines is enough to cause a blackout; drone submarines that can propel themselves into hydroelectric turbines or detonate an explosive next to an aging dam. New software allows drone operators to incorporate infrared and night vision, which could easily be employed to watch and document security patrols around corporate locations, military installations, national laboratories and federal buildings.

Risk Scenarios and Nefarious Uses Against Civilians

The potential to use this cutting-edge technology against civilian populations is staggering. This short section will not do justice to the myriad of ways criminals will repurpose this technology. Here are a few examples that come to mind:

Drones can be shut down midflight, injuring bystanders and causing property damage, or flown into situations like traffic jams, buildings or people.

Drones can be flown into sports venues packed with spectators. This seems like a fairly innocuous scenario until you consider how fast the propeller blades on these drones spin. Removing the plastic guards essentially turns them into flying, radio-controlled razor blades. Drones can be flown into commercial jets or jet engines while in flight. Interestingly enough, this scenario has played out several times in the past few months at several airports.

Terrorist organizations could easily design and build a drone capable of carrying several pounds of explosives into public areas and government buildings. Terrorist organizations and extremists could handle, with a high degree of anonymity, explosive or incendiary payloads, radioactive materials, chemical agents or biological agents.

Any individual with a teaspoon of technical know-how could use drones to stalk, harass or eavesdrop on another individual.

There Is a Positive Side

Drones can be employed for a wide range of beneficial uses. Some examples include monitoring gas leaks along pipelines where it may be too dangerous for a crew, furthering rescue efforts after earthquakes or natural disasters, determining how bad a meltdown at a reactor is, monitoring livestock, mapping terrain, completing storm damage assessments, monitoring the migration habits of endangered species in remote regions and catching poachers on private property.

Even scarier is the total lack of any type of standards, governance or open-source security project related to third-party controls and code bases. These standards and security measures will become necessary in the very near future.

References:

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2. Belinskaya Yu. S., Chetverikov V. N. Management four screw helicopter // Science and Education. 2012. № 5. P. 157–171.

3. Belokon S. A. et al. Control of the parameters of flight quadrocopters when moving along a predetermined path // Autometry. 2012. № 5. P. 32–41.

4. Budai B. T., Krasovskii N. A. On the issue of improving the accuracy of measurement of coordinates // Scientific and technical sheets of St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University. Computer science. Telecommunications. Management. 2008. Vol. 6. № 69. P. 85–91.