Term 'drone' falling out of favor, not the sky

Please don't call them drones. The preferred term is Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS) -- and they do more than stalk terrorists, a panel of specialists told a Newsmaker audience on Aug. 10.

The experts said that robots on the ground, in the air and in the water have been used not only in military situations but also in helping with environmental and humanitarian disasters, such as the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami and nuclear dangers, the Haitian earthquake and the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

In the incident in Japan, ground robots from the U.S. firm QinetiQ were used to monitor the situation and move heavy debris, according to Charlie Dean, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and a QinetiQ official.

The firm's small Dragon Runner was used for tight spaces, the Talon monitored radiation levels, and Bobcat loaders, outfitted with hardware that converted them into remote-controlled vehicles, helped transport heavy materials and clear debris.

Northrup Grumman's Global Hawk is used by the Air Force for surveillance and by NASA for the "high-flying eye in the sky" it provides for studying hurricanes over extended periods of time, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Ricky Thomas, manger of the Global Hawk program.

Global Hawks, Thomas said, have also helped relief workers by providing surveillance over Haiti after the country's devastating earthquake and over Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant following its post-tsunami explosion.

Other speakers were retired Marine Gen. David "Duncan" Heinz, vice president of the iRobot Maritime Division, and John Priddy, director of the National Air Security Operations Center in Grand Forks, N.D.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI), which arranged for the speakers, said that the General Atomic Aeronautical Systems' Predator drone has been used not only for strike missions in Pakistan but also for flights to protect U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.

The group says U.S. Customs and Border Protection has a growing fleet of Predator aircraft that have been used for humanitarian missions, including monitoring the flooding Red River in North Dakota and Minnesota and wildfires in the southwestern United States.