Source: Scientific AmericanJohn Villasenor
Last week President Obama signed
a sweeping aviation bill that, among other things, will open the skies
to “unmanned aircraft systems,” more commonly known as drones. Much of
the discussion regarding the coming era of domestic drones
has been focused on the many important questions regarding their use at
low altitudes. To what extent will it be legal, for example, for drones to hover 300 feet above residential neighborhoods
snapping pictures into backyards and windows? What level of
human-in-the-loop control is needed to ensure safety in a crowded
airspace? And how can we stop terrorists from piloting drones at treetop level towards a target?
But there is another portion of the airspace—the stratosphere—that
while mostly empty today, will in the coming years will become
increasingly populated by gossamer-like, solar-powered drones turning
silent, lazy circles in the sky. These drones will stay aloft for years
at a time, running on energy collected during the day using solar panels
mounted on paper-thin wings. As their slowly turning propellers push
them along at bicycle speeds, arrays of high-resolution cameras on their
undersides will record the daily comings and goings of the population
of entire cities.
...What, exactly, will these drones be able to see? A lot, as it turns out.
They will record the route and speed of every vehicle on the streets.
They will observe the movements of individual pedestrians. At night,
they will capture the precise moments when the lights in living rooms
and bedrooms are turned on and off. The data they acquire, which can be
correlated with information from mobile devices and smart meters, will
become an important component of the growing digital record of nearly
everything we do.
