Propulsion
Israel Aerospace Industries is still looking for a fuel cell power system to replace the batteries currently used on its small unmanned aircraft systems. "We have a development plan for fuel cells in cooperation with Horizon, a leading developer," said Tommy Silberring, general manager of IAI's
Propulsion
Lockheed Martin's Intelligent Robotics Laboratories has spent the last five years developing an unmanned craft to replicate the motion of maple tree seeds, whirring softly to the ground like silent one-winged helicopters. The device, called the Samarai, is scheduled to make its public debut next week at the
Research
Sony's Face to Avatar system, premiering at the SIGGRAPH interactive technology conference this week in Vancouver, combines UAS and telepresence technology to create the first real-world drone avatar. Unlike the stationary video conferencing enabled by smart-phones or webcams, the Face to Avatar blimp moves, a change to video
Propulsion
AeroVironment Inc filed a patent application for "A hydrogen fueled power-plant including an internal combustion engine that drives a motor-generator, and has a two-stage turbocharger, for an aircraft.” “A control system controls the operation of the motor-generator to maintain the engine at a speed selected based on controlling the
Research
Economic Development for Central Oregon and Oregon State University announced that they have signed an agreement to develop technologies related to unmanned aerial systems that will benefit OSU’s academic and research programmes, particularly natural resource management. Simultaneously, the agreement would help EDCO incubate new UAS start-ups and bring additional
Research
Curt Schacker is the CCO of RTI, and in a recent interview with Defence IQ's Richard de Silva about what he means when he refers to ‘interoperable open architecture’ and how it differs from past open architecture efforts. They also discuss how the global defence industry should be
Research
Numerica Corp. was awarded a two-year, $600,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase II contract to develop collision prediction capabilities for unmanned aircraft systems operating in the National Airspace System. Incorporating unmanned aircraft into national airspace is beneficial to missions in the areas of scientific research, national security, emergency response
Military
Boeing announced that its Directed Energy Systems (DES) division has signed a teaming agreement with BAE Systems to develop the Mk 38 Mod 2 Tactical Laser System for defence of U.S. Navy ships. The Navy awarded the BAE Systems team an initial contract in March to build a demonstrator
Research
Unmanned aircraft systems are becoming more and more complex in order to fulfill a number of potentially conflicting performance and robustness requirements. However, the use traditional development methods that continue to rely on legacy designs and domain specific tools that perform subsystem-level optimization make it difficult, if not impossible to
Research
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) will host a Proposers' Day Conference for the Great Horned Owl (GHO) Programme on August 15, 2011, in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation in support of the programme. The Conference will be held from 12:00 PM to 4:
Research
We came across these Reuters photos taken inside the Micro Air Vehicles Unit of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The Micro Air Vehicles Unit is developing small military drones, with the goal of making them so small that they resemble small
Research
The US Air Force frequently carries out research into the psychological aspects of being a pilot. The results of a survey conducted between September 2009 and April 2011 into what it takes to become a good UAS pilot were presented as a report in May 2011, and have recently been