Zephyr: A High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Air Vehicle ...

experience the atmospheric conditions, but onboard a UAV this would be possible.A further, very important use of UAVs for scientific research is in monitoringhurricanes, in which it would be too dangerous to send a human. The NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use UAVs to monitor and gatherdata about a hurricane [13]. They use a UAV created by Aerosonde Pty Ltd, whichcan fly into a hurricane and send near real time data to the National Hurricane Centerin Florida. It can measure atmospheric pressure and data like any other ‘hurricanehunter’ is able to, but it provides measurements much closer to the sea water thanpreviously captured.5.1.3 WarfareA UAV can be used in warfare to carry and fire missiles at a target, with a greatdegree of autonomy. It would be too dangerous for soldiers to fly on planes and shoottargets in case they got shot down and killed/captured. UAVs used for this reason areknown as unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV), and are currently being developedto operate autonomously without human control.The Predator is a UCAV that is currently used by the United States Air Force,amongst other nations, to help in combat. It is armed with two missiles that have arange of 8km and weigh around 50kg [14]. Armed Predators were first used in late2001 for targeted assassinations in Afghanistan, from bases in Pakistan andUzbekistan. Since then Predators have been used widely in warfare, including attacksin Pakistan from Predators based in Afghanistan [15]. On November 3 rd 2002, a56