Spies in the sky

Warfare
Spies in the sky
Mar 25th 2009
From Economist.com

Blimps equipped with remote-sensing electronics are cheaper than drones

Aerostar International

SPYING is supposed to be a sophisticated operation. But that can make it expensive. Gathering military intelligence using unmanned aircraft can be prohibitively so. Predator and Global Hawk, two types of American drone frequently flown in Afghanistan and Iraq, cost, respectively, about $5,000 and $26,500 an hour to operate. The aircraft themselves each come in at between $4.5m and $35m, and the remote-sensing equipment they carry can more than double the price. Which is why less elegant but far cheaper balloons are now being used instead.

Such blimps can keep surveillance and ordnance-guiding equipment aloft for a few hundred dollars an hour. They cost hundreds of thousands, not millions, of dollars. And they can stay aloft for more than a week, whereas most drones fly for no more than 30 hours at a time. They are also easy to deploy. No airfield is needed. A blimp can be stored in the back of a jeep, driven to a suitable location, launched in a couple hours and winched down even faster.

Unlike other aircraft, blimps do not need to form a precise aerodynamic shape. This means they can lift improbable objects into the sky, such as a dozen metres of dangling radar equipment. At altitudes of just a few hundred metres, a blimp carrying 20kg of remote-sensing electronics (including radar and infrared thermal-imaging cameras) can seek out, track and provide images of combatants dozens of kilometres away—day or night. It can also help commanders to aim the lasers that guide their missiles.

Blimps often operate beyond the range of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Even if they are hit, though, they do not explode because the helium that keeps them lighter-than-air is not inflammable. (Engineers abandoned the use of hydrogen in 1937 after the Hindenburg, a German airship, was consumed by flames in less than a minute.) Moreover, they usually stay aloft even when punctured: the pressure of the helium inside a blimp is about the same as that of the air outside it, so the gas does not rush out. Indeed, towards the end of 2004, when a blimp broke its tether north of Baghdad and started to drift towards Iran, the American air force had some difficulty in shooting it down.


At least 20 countries use blimps—both global military powers, such as America, Britain and France, and smaller regional ones, including Ireland, Pakistan, Poland and the United Arab Emirates. Many are employed in Iraq. In November 2008 Aerostar International of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, began filling a $1.8m order for 36 blimps to be deployed by American forces in Iraq. But Afghanistan may prove a bigger market. That is because it is difficult to pick satellite signals up directly in the valleys of that mountainous country.

This message will self-destruct, part 2

I have been writing some time ago on this very subject, but it is very intriguing, thus I dare to follow on. A new way of keeping private correspondence private

AP (the Economist) WHEN Barack Obama became American president, one of his first tussles with White House lawyers was over whether he could keep his beloved BlackBerry. (Yes, he did.) The reason why the lawyers were wary was that e-mail cannot be destroyed. People do not know where the information they are sending is being stored and when, if ever, it is deleted. Such unknowns make it possible for seemingly long-gone data to turn up in a court under the order of a subpoena, or worse, in the hands of a hacker. On August 13th, though, a team of computer scientists led by Roxana Geambasu of the University of Washington, Seattle will unveil to the 18th USENIX Security Symposium in Montreal an e-communications system that destroys messages soon after they have been sent.

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tm/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14162535

Mercedes introduces its new safety idea the Braking Bag

At the International Show in Stuttgart, Mercedes presented its ESF2009 model featuring vast improvements in car safety. One of the novel ways to do that is so called Braking Bag. Once a car decelerates just before crash the Bag located between front wheels is released and raises front end and by the same time increases its friction with road surface increasing car deceleration by up to 20m/s2. Action increases tension on safety belts reducing potential for injuries. The systems works already from min. speed of 50km/h it is not known when Mercedes is going to introduce this technology into series models.

Embedded Systems at Defense Shows in London and in Kielce

Executives from Acromag EMEA, lead by its Managing Director, Dr. Stefan Baginski have visited two defense conferences this month. The biggest was taking place in London last week, and it is the biggest in the industry. The DSEi 2009is the premier defense show, with over 1300 companies exhibiting on +32,000 m² with expected 26,000 visitors. The news were several and interesting to Embedded Systems: VOIP Radio Transceiver, Combined Navigation and C2, Fast Marine Target Drone and several UAV`s in various applications. For more please click here>>
Another show, smaller but with many major players (like US companies) present and flying afterwards directly to London was in Poland. The host country was for a number of years and the leading buyer of US made equipment, and even now made it to the biggest 5 countries upgrading its technology and capabilities from Washington.
The show featured some 400 exhibitors and Defender Prizes were given to PIT, for IFF solutions, WB Electronics for its mobile PC solution for polish tanks T-72 and TP-91 by Bumar (another Polish contractor known on markets from Brazil to Indonesia) . This solution was spotted promptly by US based Harris, who bought license and world-wide distribution rights for it. For more click here>>
The DSEi was presenting united upbeat posture, expecting more visitors than last year. There was a however a talk among industry insiders about “Cocooning” another word for mothballing the company to survive till better times.

Company Sunlux a leading embedded system vendor has introduced its newest Protocol Converters. Protocon is a protocol translator or converter that enables communication between devices supporting dissimilar communication protocols. A typical situation is when a Modbus TCP based SCADA System must communicate with a device supporting Modbus RTU.
This product marketed by IMU Group Swiss a company specializing in business development in EMEA and in North America, with offices in Germany, France, Italy, Canada and the US. For information please contact Mrs. Jenny Ann below:

This newsletter is included in the S. Baginski Embedded Europe b log, and can be twitted accordingly. Dr. Baginski can be reached at s.baginski@bluewin.ch

Jenny Ann
Marketing Manager
IMU Group Swiss
+41 62 758 3222
+41 62 758 3223 fax
www.imugroup.eu
jenny.ann@bluewin.ch


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http://www.sunlux-india.com/ProtocolConverters.htm