Commercial
After quietly testing Predators over the Bahamas for more than 18 months, the Department of Homeland Security plans to expand the unmanned surveillance flights into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico to fight drug smuggling, according to U.S. officials. The move would dramatically increase American UAS flights in
Business
With the help of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Department of Defense is making major strides in its ongoing initiative to quickly and efficiently share the vast volume of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data available to users with access to the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). The DCGS Multi-
Israeli unmanned aircraft system manufacturers BlueBird and UAS Technologies are jointly completing the development of a design with a maximum take-off weight of 24kg (53lb) and an endurance of 24 hours. The aircraft is based on UAS Technologies' UAS 20 (above), which is 1.6m (5.3ft) long
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a mosquito's key defence when struck by a plummeting drop is its tiny mass. Researchers say the findings could one day help to improve the durability of ‘micro-airborne vehicles’, insect-sized flying robots
Russia’s military hardware manufacturers have already started developing their own unmanned aircraft. Although this is a secret task, experts say that these aircraft could be similar to the American Predators.Most likely, two Russian companies will carry out this task, says UAS expert Denis Fedutinov. “At present, two Russian
Lighter Than Air
The stripping down of Moffett Field Hangar One is nearly complete. The 79-year-old hangar’s walls and roof contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and lead paint. In 2003 NASA determined that the hangar was leaking PCBs into storm drains and a nearby storm-water basin. While NASA now
Data Links & Communications
The security and reliability of unmanned aircraft is of considerable concern, especially when are increasingly employed in public airspace. Robert Dewar, President and CEO of AdaCore, a provider of commercial software solutions for the Ada programming language discusses the role of software in safety-, security-, and reliability-critical applications, including
Testing
The US military has dozens of different types of UAS and each one has its own unique controller. And each of those various controllers flies a single robot. There’s no system that controls multiple UAS at once. One Pentagon office thinks that’s an archaic way of doing business.
Business
Simlat has announced a recently awarded contract to provide a highly advanced UAS training system to Saint Louis University’s Center for Aviation Safety Research (CASR). Simlat’s full-crew trainer, the C-STAR, includes high-fidelity flight simulation for pilot training, as well as realistic and diverse mission simulation
A commercial satellite has spotted a mysterious unmanned aircraft parked at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The orbital snapshot was reportedly taken on Dec. 4, but became public only last week in a blog post by George Kaplan, a self-described “open source” intelligence analyst who
Military
Dassault Aviation and BAE Systems are waiting for the British and French governments to decide whether to sign a 40 million euro technology development contract for their long-awaited Medium-Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) UAS, according to Eric Trappier, Dassault’s Head of International Affairs. “We have submitted comprehensive and
Testing
A Jetstream aircraft known as ‘The Flying Test Bed’, which can fly as if it were a UAS , is undergoing a series of flight trials in preparation for the first maiden flight of a surrogate UAS in UK shared airspace later this year. The aircraft will fly using Instrument Flight