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Madden NFL for Military's Drone Video Analysts

For months, the U.S. military has been rushing to get more drones over Afghanistan. But as more Predators and Reapers prowl the skies, intelligence analysts are drowning in data. Air Force unmanned aircraft shot nearly three times as much video over Afghanistan and Iraq last year as they did in 2007. Exactly how much footage […]

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For months, the U.S. military has been rushing to get more drones over Afghanistan. But as more Predators and Reapers prowl the skies, intelligence analysts are drowning in data. Air Force unmanned aircraft shot nearly three times as much video over Afghanistan and Iraq last year as they did in 2007. Exactly how much footage is that? If one analyst had to watch it all, it would take about 24 years, if watched continuously, Christopher Drew writes in today's New York Times.

The amount of drone footage is poised to grow exponentially. In the next year, the Air Force will outfit 10 Reaper drones with "Gorgon Stare" sensors. It's a package of high-powered cameras that can film an area, two-and-a-half miles around, from 12 different angles. Eventually, the military hopes to equip drones with
92-camera arrays.

Drew notes that the military is now experimenting with new techniques to make sense of drone video, like the telestrator. That tool, famously used by NFL color commentator John Madden for sketching out instant replays, could help warn troops of a threat or point to a potential target.

Lucius Stone, an executive at Harris Broadcast Communications, tells Drew that the raw data feeds are like football game without a scoreboard. “You don’t know what the score is," he says. "You don’t know what the down is. It’s just raw video. And that’s how the guys in the military have been using it."

In related news, Pakistan has renewed calls for America to call off the drone strikes over its territory. According to Reuters, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani expressed worries over the continuing drone attacks during a recent visit by a delegation of U.S. senators. Independent intelligence analysts are also questioning just how effective the unmanned attacks are. "I don't think the [Pakistani Taliban] has necessarily been weakened at all," said IntelCenter's Ben Venzke. "In fact we're seeing more large-scale bombings and attacks in Pakistan than we've ever seen and with a very large casualty count."

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

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