Global Hawk

The Global Hawk by Logan K.

Throughout history, impressive robots have been made, but one of the most impressive one that has ever been made is the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk. The Global Hawk is the bigger, faster, and more advanced version to the Predator Drone that has an air time of more than 30 hours. The aircraft is also used for taking aerial pictures for reconnaissance. But all of this sounds more like an airplane, not like a robot. But actually the Global Hawk is a robot because it has all of the necessary key components to be classified as a robot, body, brain, program, behavior, actuators, and sensors. For the Global Hawks body is the fuselage, like an airplanes. The Hawk’s brain is like most other robots, a computer on board the aircraft that tells the plane how to execute its mission. Before the aircraft can take of, it has to be programmed for what it is doing for its mission. For example if it is going to go fly near the DMZ to take pictures of North Korea, then it has to be programmed on its flight plan, when top take the pictures, speed, altitude, etc. for a successful mission. The Global Hawks behavior is influenced from its programming, like following its flight plan. There are many actuators on the aircraft, but some of the main ones are its engine, camera, and its control surfaces. One of the most basic sensors on the plane is very important is the gyroscope to ensure a safe flight, but there are many more as well. The Global Hawk is unlike no other aircraft because of its capabilities as well because it is a flying robot.

A global Hawk on a mission.