Propulsion
A fuel cell powered UAS made its first flight on July 30 at Faku airfield of Liaoning province. It is the first time that mainland China flight-tests a fuel cell powered UAS. The flight lasted 10 minutes. The UAS, made of composite material and automatically piloted, was designed and
Business
In August, the Minsk Aircraft Repair Plant presented an unmanned aircraft system known as “Philin” together with unmanned aircraft “Sterkh-BM”. The presentation was made following completion of the first stage of production flight test that included automatic take-off, en-route flight and landing. According to CEO Evgeni Vajtsekhovich,
The FAA has issued a notice to advise the public of the twenty-second meeting of RTCA Special Committee 203, Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The meeting will be held September 11-13, 2012, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m at the NASA Ames Conference Center, 500 Severyns Road, NASA Ames
Testing
A non-profit organisation called ReAllocate is developing an art project — called Blue Sky — for Burning Man that will scan people and 3-D-print a model of them before delivering it by UAS using GPS tracking.Visitors to ReAllocate‘s dome — made out of shipping containers — at the notoriously
Business
The ISR Group of Tennessee has signed an exclusive agreement to market and maintain worldwide the Nova unmanned aircraft system of Altavian Inc. Nova is an electric-powered UAS that can be launched by hand. It weighs about 11 pounds, cruises at 35 miles per hour and can provide three-
Business
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. is being awarded $26,767,748 firm-fixed-price (86 percent) cost plus incentive fee (14 percent) contract for the Predator Primary Data Link configuration upgrades on MD-1A/B ground control station retrofit kits. The location of the performance will be General Atomics Aeronautical
Military
In this video, Syrian rebels show off three small, unmanned surveillance aircraft that they say they downed. Walking a viewer through what looks like a machinist shop displaying their banner, the Syrians display two robotic planes built around a missile-shaped fuselage, appearing to be around six feet in length,
Commercial
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has adopted guidelines for the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in law enforcement applications. The guidelines provide law enforcement agencies an outline of how to use UAS safely and responsibly, and with respect to individuals’ privacy. The IACP guidelines cover community
Testing
[youtube kYs215TgI7c nolink] For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters — robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. MIT’s Robust Robotics Group has set itself a tough challenge: developing autonomous-control algorithms for the indoor flight of GPS-
UTC Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp., has introduced its next generation Sensors Unlimited shortwave infrared (SWIR) digital video camera. This high-resolution, indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) mil-rugged digital video camera features 30Hz full-frame rate and adds snapshot mode capability to the Sensors Unlimited high-definition
Business
Aurora Flight Sciences' 3D wing, designed by Aurora and built with additive manufacturing technology developed by Stratasys Inc., was showcased at last week's announcement of the new National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) by senior officials of the Obama administration. The announcement of the new manufacturing technology
Business
AAI Corp. was awarded a $46,524,041 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for the modification of an existing contract to procure tactical command data link retrofit kits for the Shadow Unmanned Aircraft System. Work will be performed in Hunt Valley, Md., with an estimated completion date of May