Abstract
Last January, the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union produced an estimate that, by the year 2035, the drones' sector will create up to 100,000 new jobs and, in addition, will have an economic impact of more than ten billion euros per year. This chapter takes its cue precisely from the central importance of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, and tries to sum up their future. Indeed, despite the enormous success of drones over the decades, many are the criticisms related to unmanned aircraft on board. The first section aims at outlining an historical framework, while the second section analyses the impressive role played by drones within the counterterrorism policy of the US presidency, with particular regard to Barack Obama's mandate. The third section applies a SWOT type analysis to UAVs, taking into account both their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, the fourth section investigates the human factor problem within UAVs, which was inspired by Dr. Giovanni Miranda's PhD thesis.
Top1. Definition And Historical Analysis Of Uavs
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the acronym UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, indicates aircraft without crew on board and the term “drone” is the most widely used synonym. Specifically, these aircraft use aerodynamic forces to help lift the vehicle, can fly autonomously or be piloted at a distance, can be expendable or recoverable and, in addition, can carry a lethal or non-lethal load, as The Free Dictionary states. Other expressions, such as robot planes, Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs) and Remotely Piloted Aircrafts (RPAs) are also used to identify such aircraft (Cavoukian, 2012, p. 3).
Therefore, drones have the peculiarity and the advantage of not carrying a human operator inside them (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017, p. 99), and, according to the Office of the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America (2005), this characteristic makes this technology suitable to carry out those actions defined as dull, dirty and dangerous. In fact, the drones are respectively able to carry out flights lasting thirty hours or more without any failure or fatigue, as happens instead for the pilot; they can also cross contaminated places (such as, for example, clouds after the detonation of a bomb) managing to collect radioactive samples; finally, although the reconnaissance actions have always been dangerous, being normally conducted in hostile territories, the drones do not put the pilot's life at risk, as they do not actually possess one (OSD, 2005, p. 2).
The classifications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles carried out by academics, scholars and international organizations are numerous, and they differ according to the parameters used (e.g., application and composition).
As far as the application of remotely piloted aircraft is concerned, it can be said that it has undergone considerable variations over the decades. If the Austrians, during the First Italian War of Independence in 1849, used the first “prototypes” of drones solely to discourage the Venetian resistance (Mckenna, 2016, p. 355), the multiple functions of today's Reaper drone - or MQ-9 - extend far beyond (Read, 2020), showing the incessant progress of technology over the centuries.
Key Terms in this Chapter
SWOT (Analysis): The acronym indicates the Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities . and Treats of an activity or a strategy. Specifically, with respect to drones, the chapter’s intent is to explain and balance all these elements objectively.
UAV: This acronym indicates an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and it is a synonym of drone . The main peculiarity of this vehicle consists of not carrying a person aboard which, as it has been outlined during the years, can be classified as an advantage as well as a disadvantage. On one hand, drones do not put the life of the operator in danger during dangerous missions; on the other hand, however, multiple criticisms have been underlined both on a legal level and on a more psychological one (and both aspects have been discussed within the chapter).
Predator (Drone): MQ-1 Predator is a long-endurance, medium-altitude unmanned aircraft system for surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Presented within a demonstration within the United States Air Force, after the 9/11 attacks Predator was equipped with Hellfire missiles and used during the missions in Afghanistan.