Pakistan becoming a leader in military armed drone technology

[mAd_ScIeNtIsT]

Re: Pakistan becoming a leader in military armed drone technology

@Amal

The armed drones cannot operate without a corresponding satellite system and a state-of-the-art control room on earth. I would be highly surprised if they can do anything beyond surveillance. Not that I am discounting potential and capaibilities of our engineers, it’s just that this sort of a system is way too expensive, especially in its research phase.

Drones can operate both with and without a satellite system. The primary purpose of the Satellite link is navigation - but drones can use INS (inertial navigation) as well, the same same commercial aircraft did prior to GPS satellites being open for non-military use.

The GPS satellite system would have to be shut down to prevent a non-US system from accessing it, but this would also terminate US capabilities. Not only that, but as well as GPS, the Russian equivalent is open for use as well.

So if GPS was shut down to prevent, say, a Pakistani drone from using it for navigation, the drone could switch to the Russian satellite network instead. If the Russians shut down as well, then INS could still be used.

The second situation in which satellites would be used by drones is for control signals. This would only be needed, though, if the drone was operating on the other side of the planet from its control station (as the US and UK do - their drones in Afghanistan are controlled from Arizona in the USA). . Land-based radio signals would work fine in most situations.