I've had this idea rattling around in my head since the first time I saw Gumball Rally, and really coalesced when I read about the record time attempt for driving from NYC to LA, but technology has finally caught up with my vision so it seems almost bakeable now.

Start with a good sized UAV that can travel at least 100mph with a range longer than your car and then add quality radar, laser, police band radio detectors with directional antennas and a IR camera. Link the GPS in your car thru your phone to announce your position and heading to the UAV thru a GSM datalink. The UAV then flies and looks ahead for radar, radio signals and scans the sides of the road ahead for IR signatures of parked or idling vehicles. When found, the UAV will call you to announce in a synthesized voice their location WAY before they even know you are coming.

For remote areas, you may want to add a unlicensed radio datalink such as 415MHz in US or 405MHz in Europe or WiFi. Or put a cell re-transmitter in the UAV so it can serve double duty.
-- MisterQED, Sep 18 2009

Previous idea that I didn't find till after posting Semi-Autonomous_20R..._20Range_20Extender
[MisterQED, Sep 18 2009]

nice [+] great for a personal traffic report, too.
-- FlyingToaster, Sep 18 2009


Darn this idea is already here. See link. But it lacks the cool name and some of the finer points of this idea such as the IR cameras.

Vote if this deserves deletion.
-- MisterQED, Sep 18 2009


I think that [21] should spend some time researching shrews and explain their usefullness as guards, even though I did vote for his idea.

And I vote for you to keep this one. I do think you should offer it as a subscriber service, since all of us owning one of these things would flood the airlanes.
-- normzone, Sep 18 2009


(marked-for-tagline)

" I didn't need to specify those things, yet they are included with my product "
-- normzone, Sep 18 2009



random, halfbakery