Control Stations
MTSU will research how military robots can work with unmanned aircraft through a “historic partnership” with the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, University President Sidney McPhee announced on Monday. McPhee signed a Joint Robotic System contract with U.S. Army Lt. Col. Nick Kioutas at the university’
VTOL
Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is planning to endow UAS with arms and hands to allow them to work on such tasks as repairing infrastructure and disaster recovery while hovering near the ground. Funded by a three-year $ 649,999 National Science Foundation grant as part of a programme aimed
Training
Northrop Grumman is marketing the use of a new UAS, the Sandstorm, to train operators for the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. Developed by Las Vegas firm Unmanned System Inc, the Sandstorm is considerably smaller and less expensive than the more complex Predator and Reaper. Northrop
Testing
An airborne sense-and-avoid (ABSAA) system enabling the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk to fly in civil airspace will transition to full-scale development at the end of September after completion of a final round of research test flights. The multi-sensor system has been in development at
Northrop Grumman has flown two RQ-4 Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) Global Hawks in formation under its KQ-X programme to develop the concept of air-to-air refuelling for high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAS. One of the aircraft in the exercise was equipped with a belly-mounted
Commercial
C-ASTRAL Ltd, the Slovenian UAS manufacturer has flown an 80 minute mapping mission at 4150 m ASL in support of the mining operations in one of the world’s highest mines, the Los Pelambres complex in the Chillean Andes. A precise DTM of the current mining area was created
The FAA is working to create two permanent areas of Arctic airspace for research and commercial flights by unmanned aircraft, as directed by Congress in February in the agency’s reauthorization bill. “We have to create a type of airspace that does not fit any existing mould,” says Jim Williams,
Rockwell Collins has launched the first operational Real Time Kinematic (RTK) Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) technology solution for secure GPS receivers.Until now, military operations that required centimeter-level GPS navigation accuracy were based on commercial RTK GPS receivers. However, with the Rockwell Collins RTK SAASM technology solution,
Electronic Sub-Systems
ITT Exelis unveiled its airborne sense-and-avoid (ABSAA) radar under development for the U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aircraft system. It is also being promoted for other UAS as a solution to flying in unrestricted airspace, branded as the SkySense 2020H
Testing
The U.S. Army's Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) flew for the first time from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., on August 7. The LEMV, a first-of-its-kind airship, took to the sky at 6:49 p.m. Eastern time and flew for
Testing
Cassidian is in discussions with the German Ministry of Defence concerning additional flight demonstrations under a programme to develop technology for future unmanned, surveillance and strike aircraft. EADS conducted the latest campaign of flights with its Barracuda unmanned aircraft demonstrator in Goose Bay, Canada, in July. The tests focused on
Insitu Inc. announced that it is conducting field evaluation of two new turrets for its ScanEagle.One gives customers better stabilization and situational awareness at high zoom. The other gives customers a new dual imager capability in a small tactical UAS with electro-optic and mid-wave infrared imagers in