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Hayashi,Daiki                                                                                                            STS THX     CAS (UPLB)                                                                                                      2012-98083

Drones: Warfare to Welfare

                 Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones (Figure 1), have been used for military purposes such as reconnaissance, surveillance, and combat. In the US, armed UAVs are run by the US Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Under the Bush Administration, armed UAVs were sent to Pakistan and other countries to kill terrorist leaders. According to the Bureau of Investigation Journal, the number of strikes and people killed by CIA-mandated drones increased significantly. It has been documented that there were around 400 strikes and more than 2400 people were killed during Obama’s presidential term (Serle, 2014).  

Figure 1.UAV equipped with cameras 

                 However, UAVs have been recently used not only for armed purposes but for social welfare. When Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines, where roads, bridges, and houses were destroyed, people could hardly go to the typhoon-inflicted areas. It was the time civil UAVs equipped with cameras (Figure 1), were used to assess local roads and to determine the possible routes to the devastated and isolated areas. These were also used in locating corpses (Dearing, 2013).

                 The announcement of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, that their company will start its delivery service with the use of UAVs by 2015 has caught the attention of many (BBC News, 2013). Delivery is also one of the functions of UAVs for social welfare. One billion people around the world today are not accessible by land transport vehicles due to distance and underdevelopment. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, 85 percent of roads are not passable during the wet season and it is very costly and time-consuming to build new roads.

                 According to Andreas Raotopoulos, the founder of Matternet, building a network of UAVs in places with poor road infrastructure will cost around 3,000 US dollars. For a two kilogram package, the cost of transport will only be 24 cents within a 10-km range (Lee, 2013). The use of UAVs enables us to send food, supplies, and medicine to people in isolated areas efficiently resources-wise.

                 Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, is in negotiations with Titan Aerospace to purchase a UAV manufacture with an intension to enable all the people to access to internet. According to TechCrunch report, the Solora 60 (Figure2), one of the solar-powered drones by Titan Aerospace can stay aloft for years maintaining an altitude of 65,000 feet without refuelling (Perez, 2014). World Bank’s survey in 2012 revealed that only around 35 percent of people in the world have no access to the internet and majority are in Africa. If UAVs could bring internet access to people in isolated communities, more and more people will be informed and be educated through the use of internet.

Figure 2: Solora 60

         Jeep was developed and used for armed purpose before, but now it is being a main transportation in the Philippines. Technologies develop not for killing people but for helping people’s lives. This is the time for UAVs to be recognized in providing solutions for our welfare.

References:

Serle, Jack. 2014. Drone WarfareMore than 2,400 dead as Obama’s drone campaign marks five years.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved from http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com on March 7, 2014.

Dearing, Paige. 2013. Civil drone helps NetHopeHaiyan relief efforts in the Philippines. Nethope.

                 Retrieved from http://nethope.org on March 7, 2014.

BBC. 2013. Amazon testing drones for deliveries. BBC News Technology. Retrieved from

                 http://www.bbc.com/news on March 7, 2014.

Lee, Timothy. 2013. Low-income countries might get drone deliveries before the U.S. Here’s why.The

                 Washington post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com on March 7, 2014.

Perez, Sarah. 2014. Facebook Looking Into Buying Drone Maker Titan Aerospace. Retrieved from

                 http://techcrunch.com on March 7, 2014.

The World Bank. 2012. Internet users (per 100 people). Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org on

                 March 7, 2014.