Imagine If the Military Deployed a Million Nano Drones

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? What if every move you make is recorded?"Ohhh!"You didn’t see any security cameras, and that’s the point. What if the military deployed a million nano drones? Insect-sized surveillance robots capable of watching your every move.

 Drones are remotely piloted aircraft. They belong to the broad category of unmanned aircraft systems, or UASs. Depending on the mission they’re built for, they can be as big as airplanes or as tiny as insects. Enter the Black Hornets. Each Black Hornet drone weighs about33 grams (1 oz) and is about 17 cm (6½ in) long. That’s 5 cm (2 in) longer than a dragonfly. A Black Hornet can fly up to 21 km/h (13 mph) and has a 2 km (1.25 mi) range during its 25 minute flight time. And for these tiny spies, their missions are all about surveillance and reconnaissance. So what would it be like if the military unleashed a million of these? Well, if they see military action, they could be used for safer reconnaissance missions. You could send in the drones without having to put humans at risk. It would also give the military the upper hand when it comes to situational awareness.

Using the tiny spy drones, military personnel will be able to see around obstacles, or peek inside windows, before getting near a target area. They would be able to get all relevant information before confronting a situation, and in doing so, they could save a lot of lives that could potentially be lost due to lacking data. But what about using nano drones in noncombat situations? Well, you’d be looking at huge upgrade in surveillance.

This could be helpful in stopping crime in large event areas. Let’s say the drones are able to identify everyone who is at an event. If things go south and something bad happens, they would be able to identify potential suspects. The goal would be to prevent horrible situations like mass shootings from happening. Could these little guys be our silent guardians? Well, you could also use a swarm of nano drones to help find missing people. If someone is lost, or even worse, kidnapped, the areas that they were in could be searched much more quickly and effectively. Instead of having mobs of people scouring the area, several drones could be given a chunk of territory to search. If they launched a 1 million nano drone search party, it would cover a lot of ground.

Imagine a locust swarm, but it's live cameras instead of insects. And that’s the thing. While a million undetectable surveillance cameras could be useful, do we even want them around? What if the line between security and stalking got a little blurry? Would you want a camera the size of a dragonfly to be streaming a live feed of your daily activities to military operatives? It’s very possible that some groups would form to resist military surveillance. People might start to try and take them down, fighting a George Orwell-inspired surveillance state. "Ohhh!""GET OUTTA HERE!""No Grandpa!""No, chill!"So, could we really be looking at a world with a million nano drones watching our every move? Well, yes and no.

While it might be plausible that the military would have one million nano drones, it’s a lot less likely that they’d release them all at the same time. A swarm of drones kind of defeats the whole point of being stealthy. As for drone technology, it’s only going to get better and better. Think about how much cell-phones have improved in recent years."Now everyone can enjoy the freedom of a personal cellular phone."(Ringing)"You can make a call anywhere."Contrary to the fears of people who believe the military would use drones to surveil the public, the current use for these drones would be reconnaissance missions overseas. But only time will tell how these tiny spies get used.

That amount of information is a little too much for me, but what about you? What if you had access to more than just the feeds of the nano drones? What if you held the Holy Grail of information in your hands? What if you, in all your wisdom, controlled the internet? Well, that’s a story for another IMAGINATION.