Research
Queensland University of Technology Ph.D. student Wesam Al Sabban has designed an unmanned aircraft that would be powered by the sun and wind. “While all airplanes mimic the shape of birds, the Green Falcon II will literally use the wind to power its movement, just as a bird would,
Research
Research presented to this month's Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation in Melbourne by Richard Moore of The Vision Centre and the University of Queensland shows that small UAS can use insect-like visual navigation for navigation. Navigation using a compass to tell direction is not precise enough,
Research
NASA scientists have successfully completed flight tests in preparation for deployment of a multi-year airborne science campaign to study the humidity and chemical composition of air entering the tropical tropopause layer of the atmosphere. NASA's Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment (ATTREX) will conduct the science campaign over the
Research
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has kicked off an initiative to develop advanced applications capable of coordinating various intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) programmes. According to DARPA programme manger Mark Rich, current sensor systems, like those being developed for DARPA's Adaptable Sensor System (ADAPT) programme, are
Commercial
The Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at the FRAC Cultural Centre in Orléans, France has commissioned a 3 month exhibition entitled "Flight Assembled Architecture". It runs from 01.12.2011-26.02.2012 and claims to be the first architectural installation to be built dynamically by flying
Payloads
Researchers at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered that although graphene makes very good chemical sensors, there was an unexpected “twist”— the sensors are better when the graphene is “worse”—more imperfections improved performance. “This is quite the opposite of what you
Research
The US Air Force has asked industry to develop a new heat and motion sensor capable of detecting enemy gunfire from 25,000 feet over the battlefield — and then swiftly directing a bomb or missile onto the shooter. Installed on the Air Force’s existing fleet of Reapers, the gunfire-
Research
In conjunction with the Edwards Air Force Base, a collaborative team from Fresno State’s engineering department has been working on an aerial laser-targeting UAV project, for the past three years. Computer engineering professor Dr. Gregory Kreihn said mechanical, electrical and computer engineering students are building a UAV platform
Research
QinetiQ’s Zephyr team has been honoured by the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) for their world record breaking work on a High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft by winning both the awards for Emerging Technologies and Product Design at the prestigious IET Innovation Awards event held in
Research
King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, said Arabia is to enter unmanned aircraft systems technology with the signing of an agreement with Japan’s Tokai University, Tokyo and the British Cranfield University.The agreement is to design and build UAS powered by solar energy. The signing ceremony took place at the
Research
According to a comprehensive global report on the UAS market by Global Industry Analysts, the global spending on Unmanned Aircraft and Systems is projected to reach US$ 5.34 billion by the year 2017. Growth will be primarily driven by factors such as increase in defense budgets, proliferation of numerous
Research
AeroVironment’s Hummingbird - a surveillance prototype for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - made the front cover of The Invention issue of TIME, which appears on November 28 and which features 50 new inventions. New York photographer Jamie Chung spent two and a half weeks shooting the Hummingbird—among a