Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
I don't think it would be too difficult to build a simple UAV c.2000, but while it's one thing to construct a functional flying platform, it's entirely another to effectively militarize it. To give it recce/surveillance/spotting capability, you'd need to include live video feeds, imaging devices, and/or recording devices, etc.). Those sorts of electronics would be harder to find in the later years of the Twilight War than small engines and RC equipment, I would imagine. Without a proper bird's-eye view, it would be very difficult to turn an ad hoc drone into a weapons platform. You'd need LOS to target it effectively, and if you can see the target, it can probably see you too.
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As an IT professional, I'd like to circle back around to this:
As Rae said, getting the motors, servos, etc. for a small drone wouldn't be as hard as getting the other electronics in 2000. The RC hobby has been around a long time. But getting a usable video signal off an RC platform in this era, without very specialized and proprietary equipment would be difficult.
The commercial drones you see in use now are all built upon a platform of open protocols, codecs, and software that have evolved since the late 90's.
802.11 WiFi standard was released in 1997 and clarified in 99, but widespread adoption of 802.11 networks only occurred after the release of 802.11b in mid-99 to 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11_(legacy_mode)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11b-1999
So without an open signal standard and products that use that standard, you would need to roll your own video transmission system. I'm a Ham and I can tell you it's possible, but it's not a compact system, again, especially in the mid-90's timeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_television
Now we are starting to need two skill sets: RC modeling and HAM radio Amateur TV expertise to kludge something that might be useful.
Most of your digital optics in the 90's were using CCDs and not CMOS and were still relatively bulky.
https://global.canon/en/c-museum/history/story08.html
Compact Storage/MMC cards came on to the scene in 95/97, so IMHO, that's your best option for video for a home-made drone at this point - drone goes up with video running the whole time, circles the target area, returns, then you pop the card, run it into a laptop (5.3 to 9 lbs back then), and watch the 12.1-inch SVGA TFT color LCD in 800x600 to see the drone video. Delayed video intel at best. But much easier than getting a video signal off the drone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiMediaCard
Military drones in this period, like the RQ-2A are using C-Band Line-Of-Sight microwave datalinks to transmit their data.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collectio...m_A20000794000
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-04-155.pdf
https://fas.org/irp/program/collect/pioneer.htm
LOS Microwave means there's a microwave ground station, pointing a microwave dish at the UAV for the entire flight (or it's running over a UHF backup link with degraded video signal quality).
https://fas.org/irp/program/collect/avover1.jpg
So in summary, I think military UAV platforms are the only viable system for real-time intel in the 2000 timeline. Home-made UAVs will be hampered by the inability to transmit video in real time, and so could be useful for strategic (that cantonment is planting corn this year), but not tactical intelligence (here come 2 Gun Trucks!).