The US Air Force and other military units are turning towards broadcast techniques to deal with the heavy volume of data provided by air force drones deployed over Afghanistan.

US military analysts anticipate that the volume of video intelligence will increase as the air force plans to deploy additional remote-controlled spy drones, some with multiple cameras to shoot in many directions.

Analysts at the Langley Air Force Base watch every second of the live footage as it is streamed by the spy drones, and accordingly send warnings to troops in the field about insurgents and roadside bombs.

Military officials are now working to analyse the data to search for patterns of insurgent activity over time.

The air force and military units are now working to learn the techniques used to highlight plays in a football game and display a mix of data in an effort to make analysis faster and easier.

The air force is also studying telestrator, which is used to scrawl football plays, with the intention of warning troops about threatening vehicles or circle a compound that a drone should attack.