Aerial Surveillance

Last post I talked about the bio metrics surveillance which is a pretty awesome surveillance method. In this posts, i would like to tell you about one the best method of surveillance which is aerial surveillance. So what exactly is aerial surveillance?

Aerial surveillance is the gathering of surveillance, usually visual imagery or video, from an airborne vehicle such as an unmanned aerial vehicle, helicopter, or spy plane. It have been used widely among the military , government agencies in roles such as intelligence gathering, battlefield surveillance, airspace surveillance, observation (e.g. artillery spotting), border patrol and fishery protection. In uncommon cases, individuals also use aerial surveillance. Typically, surveillance aircraft is not armed with deadly weapon, or no weapon at all. There are surveillance aircraft that is stealthy, some of them are just a modified civilian aircraft, balloon typed aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

I will categorize 3 of the most common roles  of aerial surveillance.

1) Maritime patrol

Acted as a patrol aircraft, maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Usually, they use a long duration    aircraft like the  fixed-wing aircraft which is very suitable for patrol roles to find submarines, ships and search and rescue mission.

  

    #equipment : *Radar to detect surface shipping movements, submarine,snorkel and periscope

                          *Magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) to detect the iron in a submarine's hull.

                          *Sonobuoys (self-contained sonar transmitter/receivers dropped into the water                                       to transmit data back to the aircraft for analysis.

                          *ELINT sensors to monitor communications and radar emissions

                          *Infrared cameras  for detecting exhaust streams and other sources of heat and are

                            useful in monitoring shipping movements and fishing activity.

                       

                    

2) Law enforcement

Government and international agencies use aerial surveillance for the purpose of border patrol, "transit monitoring", and general surveillance of the country's population. Nowadays most of the aircraft use for this role is the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or simply called drones.

   

    #equipment : * IMSI-Catcher

 
3) Battlefield and airspace surveillance

The most common roles that have always been  associated with aerial surveillance in movies is the battlefield and airspace surveillance. Usually there are 2 major function for this role which is Airborne early warning and control which is used to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long ranges and perform command and control of the battlespace and Airborne ground surveillance (AGS) used for detecting and tracking ground targets, such as vehicles and slow moving helicopters and their role is detecting and tracking aircraft in flight.

  

     #equipment : Advanced radar that can track 20 targets simultaneously, detecting aircraft up to

                          150 km (90 mi) away, and surface warships up to 200 km (120 mi) distant.

                         

Personally, i think that surveillance through aircraft is absolutely crucial as well as convenience as it can really give an intelligence advantage especially in modern warfare where it caould save hundreds of soldiers' lives.

A military surveillance aircraft

A fixed-wing aircraft equipped with surveillance cameras