Swarm of Tiny UAVs With Stationary Base Relay

This is a kind of surveillance idea. There would be a large number of small, relatively inexpensive UAVs. Each UAV would incorporate a camera capable of taking only still photos. Each UAV would transmit the photos over a relatively short distance. Along with each photo would be a data package including as much information as could be economically gather about its own position including height from the ground, compass heading of the front end of the UAV, angle of tilt from horizontal, etc. GPS would definitely not be included (too expensive).

The stationary base relay (SBR) would be a relatively larger, higher-powered unit compared to the UAVs. Initially, the stationary base relay and the smaller UAVs would be delivered to the base location by a mother UAV that would drop them off and leave. The SBR would be dropped at the base of a plant. The SBR's antenna would be dropped into the foliage of the plant for camouflage.

The SBR would pick up the short-range transmissions of the UAV and relay them to the main base station, or military base. a computer at the main base station would correlate the various photos from the UAVs to create a larger (incomplete) picture of the area. The SBR would locate the source of each photo via triangulation to help with this overall image-building process. signals broadcasted from the SBR would teach the UAV where it was and train it not to stray out of range of the SBR receiver.

UAVs, and possibly the SBR, could be powered by solar energy. The SBR might have the capability of rolling to a new location, bringing the UAVs along, of course. The SBR could also receive a blackout signal from the main base station, which would of course be relayed to all UAVs---for purposes of temporary concealment in the event of possible enemy detection. Perhaps the mother UAV could also repair the SBR in the event of a malfunction.

[MEMS 2008] Micro Air Flow Sensor Mounted on Dragonfly Wing

Tech-on! tech news straight from Asia

"A research group at Graduate School of Information Science and Technology of Tokyo University developed a micro air flow sensor unit that can be attached on a wing of insects such as dragonfly to analyze the motions of the wing...

"The micro air flow sensor unit developed by the group is about 3mm-square with a thickness of about 1mm. Because two sensors are mounted on the 3mm-square chip, each sensor measures about 1.5 x 3mm...

"The sensor has a structure in which a cantilever piezoresistor, measuring about 0.5mm in length and less than 1μm in thickness, is formed on an SOI substrate with an electrode. The piezoresistor is a Si-based semiconductor."

Hmmm. How about cameras and transmitters on butterflies? Maybe a little airborne relay station to pass on the broadcasts---and also fire off some pherenome "bombs"in the right direction to keep the butterflies on track. Not promising, really.

But perhaps parts of insects could be incorporated into little UAVs.

Hmmmm. Complicated. Keeping part of an insect alive. More likely, its the whole insect, but the brain is brought under control by an implant. Gruesome and sci-fi, but workable.

"When the cantilever is bent by the wind, the resultant strain varies the electric resistance to indicate the degree of bending, hence the wind force. The cantilever only weighs 0.1μg."