New drone sensors not working as hoped

[unhappycamper]

New drone sensors not working as hoped
By Ellen Nakashima
Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Air Force field testers concluded in a draft report that a new wide-area surveillance system for use with remotely piloted aircraft is "not operationally effective" and should not be fielded, but Air Force officials said Monday they expect the system will still be deployed by late winter in Afghanistan.

A Dec. 30 report by the Air Force's 53rd Wing Group at Eglin Air Force Base said that the new system, dubbed Gorgon Stare, had "significant limitations," including an inability to track people on the ground in real time, and a delay in sending real-time images to the ground.

Still, senior Air Force officials on Monday asserted that they have addressed field testers' concerns as outlined in a final report, which they declined to release.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is still "in favor of fielding this capability as soon as practicable, with the expectation that any technical issues would and could be adjusted and modified once it was in the field,'' said Capt. John Kirby, his spokesman.

The Gorgon Stare surveillance system consists of nine cameras attached to a pod that is designed to be carried on an unmanned aerial vehicle. It is supposed to provide images of a "city size" area.



unhappycamper comment: Oh goody! More expensive crap that doesn't work. :(

[lunatica]

1. It strikes me that this is ofuscation on the part of military dissinformation

They're allaying our response of the obvious violation of privacy by claiming there's nothing to look at here, move along now. that eye in the sky? Not to worry, it's blind, we just deploy it because, well, uh, never mind.

[bemildred]

2. Proposed drone spy system fails testing, according to draft report

A proposed Air Force surveillance system for unmanned drones has so many flaws that it is "not operationally effective," according to a draft Pentagon test assessment made public Monday.

The findings are a blow to the Pentagon's plans to rush the system, known as the Gorgon Stare, to Afghanistan this winter to improve the military's ability to track insurgents. It is also a setback for the system's maker, Sierra Nevada Corp., a Nevada-based company with California operations.

The device, which transmits live video from nine cameras on the drone's belly, is intended to allow soldiers and analysts to keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within a three-mile area. It has been in development for the last two years.

Over the last year, Air Force officials have touted the system as an "all-seeing eye" and a revolutionary advance over drones' current surveillance system, which provides a single video feed of a much smaller area.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gorgon-stare-20110125,0,5038344.story