The New York Times has a story today about the overwhelming amount of data that is coming from unmanned aerial vehicles in both Afghanistan and Iraq. To date, the Predator drones just have one forward-looking sensor that collects forward-facing video, but this will change soon as the newer Reaper drones record video in 10 directions with sensors that collect 30 directions planned for 2011.
The military has an established workflow for real-time analysis of all feeds that then gets flagged and passed on to the appropriate parties, but little has been done to amass and analyze video of specific locations to understand insurgent trends over time. The military is adding 2,500 analysts to help handle the growing volume, but certainly technologies will be put in place to automate and integrate the various data streams.
We can expect a great deal of innovation in the analysis of video imagery that will continue to improve our situational awareness. The innovation in the military space will enhance and improve the application of this technology in other less time sensitive, but just as critical application areas such as combating biodiversity loss and responding to environmental and natural disaster threats.
