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Blimps Monitor Crowds At Sporting Events
Death Metal tips news about how defense contractor Raytheon is adapting military-style surveillance packages for use aboard blimps at public events like the Indy 500. "Until recently, Raytheon's eye-in-the-sky technology was used in Afghanistan and Iraq to guard American military bases, working as airborne guards against any oncoming desert threat. Using infrared sensors and a map overlay not unlike Google Earth, the technology scans a large area, setting important landmarks (say, the perimeter of a military base), and constantly relays video clips back to a command center. If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera — all from a mighty-high 500 feet." Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is shopping it around to police departments and other organizations that might want to keep an eye on large gatherings of people.
Blimps and airships have featured in many works of dystopian fiction. Especially alternative time-line "soviets won" type works.
So I think he could be wrong about that one.
Probably a bad idea. This is known in the military as the "Great Squad Leader in the Sky" syndrome (a phrase coined by David Hackworth, one of the greats of small-unit combat), and has been since Vietnam. Leadership from a helicopter overlooking a combat zone sounded like a great idea; at last, the commander could see everything. In practice, it works very badly.
Piping vast amounts of imagery back to a command center is popular with commanders and politicians, but not with grunts. It's useful for finding enemy activity, but not much help once the enemy has been engaged.
It turns out that the technology the people on the ground really like is small robots. Sending in a robot first in urban warfare is very popular with the troops. Nobody likes going into a possible ambush or booby trap several times a day. Eventually the odds catch up with you.
If there are terrorist attacks in a stadium, I think video footage BEFORE the gun or bomb noise would typically be of greater interest than the footage after.
It'll take about 0.5 seconds for sound to travel the 500 feet up to the airships.
Thus all that fancy expensive tech might end up giving you just lower res pics before the camera zoomed and focused in and got videos of everybody except the culprits.
How expensive is that system going to be?
If it's in the millions and I was seriously going to be monitoring stuff, I'd rather spend the money on more hires cameras that are always running, than some fancy "pointing" system with fewer cameras.
There are several open UAV platforms out there now, including planes, helicopters, and quadrocopters. Any sizable and stable remote controlled aircraft is a candidate, but the quadrocopters are probably your best bet for video surveillance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Surveillance isn't ubiquitous in the UK.
Not unless you're one of those folks who think UK=England, and England=London. Of which there are quite a few.
(Actually I've never quite understood why people mix up the UK and England as being synonymous, any ideas?)
Mind you I accept there is too much surveillance over here.
The only bad guys they catch will be the ones up in the nosebleed section sitting alone with their girlfriends...
I believe the scenario is Alfred Hitchcock's:
The crowd at a tennis match is following the action.
Back and forth, back and forth, their heads and bodies constantly on the move, bobbing, twisting, in unison with the play.
All but one....
The killer is in the crowd, but he is not truly part of the crowd, and that is a subtle and important distinction.
It can be a useful - practical - distinction.
Something you can see, something you can act on.
People shoot at the Goodyear blimp all the time. They usually don't find out about it until later, after the blimp lands. A bullet hole doesn't make a large enough hole for the helium to leak out quickly enough to be noticeable in the span of a flight that's only four or six hours or so.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."