March 15, 2004

Moore's Law and Military Technology

Posted by Arnold

Five years ago, Ray Kurzweil predicted that we would see military aircraft the size of birds by the year 2009. Based on this article by Phil Carter, it would seem that Moore's Law seems to be moving faster.

AeroVironment's MicroAir Vehicle looks like a flying laptop with a propeller and is about the same size but carries a digital camera and can fly for nearly two hours. A slightly larger model is the Organic Air Vehicle, which uses a strong fan to keep itself aloft and can hover in place. In DARPA's vision of the future battlefield, unmanned aircraft like these will swarm the skies, providing ubiquitous surveillance for commanders.