IMINT- The Drone For Your Imagery Intelligence
IMINT as the military calls it, or Imagery Intelligence and the civilian world calls it aerial photography. Another arrow in your quiver for your overall intelligence gathering capabilities. Drones can be used to give the individual or group real time aerial imagery intelligence. The general public has access to pretty advanced drones these days. The drones available today have clear onboard cameras for both photos and video. A drone should be viewed as a camera with wings instead of an remote controlled aircraft with a camera. The drones can be flown up to hundreds of feet above ground level and essentially parked at a location in the air while holding its position without operating the controller because of its onboard GPS. The operator can watch a location or it can be flown along a route. The video on the controller gives you a live shot of the activity on the ground. A photograph and video can be stored on a flash drive inserted into the drone to be analyzed at a future time. The drone can travel parallel to your target and take photos at an oblique angle which can supplement satellite images.
The images obtained from the drone flight can be compared to satellite photos online such as Google Earth or even to supplement them. The drone can be used to fill gaps from these satellite images because of outdated files or tree cover blocking some or all of information on the ground.
The weak points of a drone is that they can be heard which sounds similar to a chainsaw or weed eater. If flown at a low altitude, they can be shot down or collide with an object. They can give away the operator’s position when launched or landed. To mitigate this, its suggested that the flight be at a high altitude and to stay on a direct course. Changing the direction of travel, raising and lowering the altitude will have a tendency to make more noise thereby drawing attention to its flight. Make a smooth flight across your location of interest and it should not be noticed. Also consider launching it from outside of the group’s location and landing it in another spot.
A recent Scout Course taught by NC Scout mentioned using a drone during the class. I am sure it was a valuable piece of kit to put eyes in the air up above their target and without putting anyone in enemy sights.
If you haven’t yet made the purchase, a DJI Mavic Mini is a popular choice that has top notch reviews and packs up into the palm of your hand. I have this drone and extremely happy with its capabilities and price. I suggest purchasing their Fly More Combo package. By having a drone in your arsenal, you can see more of your Area of Operation and not subject anyone to hostile fire. That alone makes it well worth it.
Here are a few links to watch in considering the addition of a valuable intelligence gathering device:
Eyes On The Target
Holy Serf
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Am interested in thermal imagery obtained via programmed coordinates flown by a drone. An aerial patrol instead of boots on ground, able to check out much more ground than one person on foot in a relatively short period (the endurance of the drone being the limiting factor) Further, that such surveillance (primarily at night) must be be surreptitious. No alert to ground below or clue as to launch/landing location. In the article, sound “like a chainsaw or weed eater” is mentioned.. And yet, the DJI Mavic Mini is a suggested option – and it is electric. Do electrics make so much noise? Are there quiet drones?
All the drones sound like a weed eater, or a fart can on a Honda Civic coming down the road.
It’s quite loud, and obvious. But that could scare some folks away. It’s not always a bad thing to be loud.
Smaller craft can sound like a swarm of bees or a humming bird. Or an electric weed eater. Good school. Thanks.
Didn’t watch the whole vid yet but if you do hear this overhead, don’t look up. Calmly disperse or discover a mode to dispatch as soon as you can. Altitude can be a problem for ground dwellers. It’s the props. Yes.
When you get it up to 200 feet, you can barely hear it. If you plan your surveillance during the time of day when it’s often noisy, no one will hear a thing. When you fly it at 100’ or less, it will be noticed.
It is the props that make the noise. Some companies make props they claim are quieter, but I have not checked those out. My older Phantom 3 has been mistaken for a swarm of bees before. As we have Africanized here, that causes quite a stir.
I noted the “swarm of bees” reference in video, caught that altitude might mitigate awareness. OK, so it is what it is. 400 ft would be appropriate here because of trees and topography. The price of both thermal camera and the airframe to carry it are a bit daunting from what I’ve “googled so far. As is the models shown are coming from China. Will keep an eye on American manufacture, hope the price comes down. Thank you everyone for this article and the additional input.
DJI is a Chicom company. Plenty of articles about that. I wouldn’t trust them at all.
They also used closed source, proprietary software/hardware. There are a couple of open source drone control software systems out there, but getting the drone hardware itself seems to be the sticking point – the only feasible options seem to be a DIY setup. The good news is that DIY fixed wings seem to be the most accessible and come with a much bigger operating range and loiter time. Worth looking into I think.
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We’ve been using drones on the border for a while now. When the drone is 200 feet or more you usually won’t hear it unless you are not moving and it is directly, or close to directly overhead. Ours sound similar to a swarm of bees. The problem with flying it at 200 feet or higher is people can tend to blend into the landscape if they are wearing appropriate clothing and they are not moving. Also if the drone is moving it can be hard to spot one or two people even if they are moving, but you can always stop the drone periodically and watch an area for any movement, then continue on to the next location. Our drone’s controller has an HDMI out on it, so we can connect it to a larger monitor. You can fly it with the large monitor and when you have a second pair of eyes on the screen that isn’t concerned with flying it they can help look for any targets.
This is an awesome contribution. Thanks for the input and for what you guys do!
The noise you’re only likely to mitigate with altitude as DR A A indicated. From the lit I’ve read, prop RPM is huge and it’s likely a function of the prop tips going supersonic. Some really obnoxious a/c (and more than a few helos) have this design issue (yeah, the old Mitsubishi MU-2 commuter twin I’m talkin’ at you).. It’s usually a factor of some other design compromise that was made. Probably not fixable by slowing speed either, as there’s a baseline speed you have to maintain to hover. Take what is, and adjust employment & tactics accordingly.
I don’t think the grandkids get big enough allowance but I just dropped one of these into a “wishlist” online. Could be a potential force multiplier; boonies, or for a neighborhood protection team.
:)
I have a DJI Mavic Air, and I do enjoy it. It’s very loud unless flown at 300+ feet. One issue I have with DJI is that it is a Chinese company and their software has a ton of controls. It will not allow you to fly in certain areas and will automatically land the drone. I’m looking into American made drones like Skydio. Very comparable performance to DJI, but developed and made in the USA.
The Mavic Mini was the drone used at the last Scout class. It was an enabler but not the all seeing eye of Mordor. It was small and lightweight and fit well in a patrol pack. At the altitude we were at it gave about 20 minutes of run time on a full charge. At 200 feet elevation it was very hard to hear and even harder to see in the day light. The image quality beaming back to the cell phone was OK, definitely good enough to get the layout of a camp but it was hard to spot camouflaged individuals in concealment. While sound is something to be concerned with I don’t think it’s a bad thing if the drone is heard. If you spot a group of enemies and they hear your drone, they’ve essentially been compromised and you now know where they are, a pretty decent trade off in my eyes.
Badlands Rifleman, that’s the exact thought I had. I’m not expecting real-time feed of SR-71/SAT stuff. Where are they, where are they heading, how many? If prop noise makes them change their behavior, great. If it doesn’t but enhances positioning to kill communists better, also great.
I use a phantom3 pro, bought off Ebay used (never buy tech new) and painted gull grey. Essentially disappears at 200 feet. Almost impossible to hear at 300, unless you are tipped off and listening for it. For those of you that use the social medias…..you can live stream the downlink to others.
There is another program that can replace DJI software. In android I use “litchi”. It has many awesome features and essentially allows a phantom3 to operate as a phantom3. It also allows for semi-autonomous flights, where it follows a pre determined path and can even take pics automatically.
Kinda hard to argue with a 4k camera in the sky.
RC transmitters on 2.4ghz with a signal amplifier putting out 2 watts with a multielement yagi giving good gain will knock a drone out of the sky. The parts for this can be had for about 40 dollars or less.
The same setup for 5.8ghz will knock out the video feed.
Stay frosty. ( It’ll mess up yer wifi too)