UAVs

Just when you were getting used to the idea of unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling the skies over your city, they're beginning to enter buildings.

This flying robot designed by a U.S.-German team recently won a contest in which the goal was to autonomously navigate inside a simulated nuclear power plant and find and image a control panel without the aid of a GPS.

The Pelican, based on hardware designed by German start-up Ascending Technologies with programming by a team at MIT, accomplished the mission on its fourth attempt, but with only a few minutes to spare. It … Read more

Boeing this week is touting a pair of deals focused on unmanned aerial vehicles, both of them rotorcraft.

On Monday, the aerospace behemoth said that it's getting $500,000 from the U.S. Marines Corps that will go toward a project meant to demonstrate the cargo-hauling capabilities of Boeing's A160T Hummingbird. The Marines are looking into the possibility of dispatching unmanned aircraft as cargo carriers in place of trucks driven by flesh-and-blood troops.

By February, Boeing will have to demonstrate that, in six hours or less per day for three consecutive days, the 35-foot-long A160T can tote a … Read more

Adherence to the Three Laws of Robotics as put forth by Isaac Asimov has been, until now, entrusted to whoever held the joystick. That may change.

A robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed an "ethical governor," which could be used to program military robots to act ethically when deciding when, and whom, to shoot or bomb.

Ron Arkin has demonstrated the system using attack UAVs and actual battlefield scenarios and maps from recent U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan. (videos)

In one scenario, a drone spots Taliban soldiers, but holds its fire because they'… Read more

A new kamikaze drone out of Israel is designed to hang about overhead until it spots a target, then crash into it with "pinpoint accuracy" destroying the target, and itself, with 50 pounds of on-board explosives.

While classified as a Loitering Munition, the HAROP comes equipped with many of the usual UAV capabilities: high-performance FLIR and color CCD camera with 360-degree hemispherical coverage, allowing it to transmit video back to its operators just like a surveillance drone.

Like its predecessor the Harpy, the HAROP will be used to take out high-value targets such as air defense radars that … Read more

An unmanned aerial vehicle that's intended to use a combination of solar power and stored electricity is being developed by Ascent Solar Technologies and Bye Aerospace, both companies announced Tuesday.

Ascent Solar will be supplying flexible thin-film photovoltaic modules designed for Bye's drone, the Silent Sentinel.

Bye will be using a Williams International FJ33 turbofan engine that will draw power from stored electrical power in a lithium-ion battery and the photovoltaic panels on the plane.

The result will be a quiet, low-emission hybrid UAV with added endurance, according to Bye.

The Silent Sentinel is intended for military surveillance … Read more

"If we were to sum this up in a bumper sticker, it would say something like: 'America, the U.S. military gave you the Hummer. Now we're taking it back."

Dennis McGinn, a retired vice admiral in the Navy and former commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, spoke those words Monday during a teleconference.

McGinn is on the military advisory board of the not-for-profit Center for Naval Analyses. The group issued a report (PDF) on Monday, stating the U.S. military must, as a matter of national security, work to reduce its dependence not just on … Read more

Every so often in the history of war, a new weapon comes along that fundamentally rewrites the rules of battle. This is a story about a revolution in unmanned aviation that is doing just that.

Most people know them as drones; the Air Force calls them unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. And right now, there are dozens of them in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, hunting down insurgents, every minute of every day.

They've become one of the most important planes in the United States Air Force--and yet the pilot is nowhere near the aircraft or the battlefield. … Read more

In what it says is a "first of its kind" initiative, the U.S. Navy plans to launch sometime this spring an unmanned aerial vehicle for a 24-hour endurance flight carrying a 5-pound payload and powered entirely by a hydrogen-powered fuel cell.

Called the Ion Tiger, the UAV can travel farther and carry heavier loads than earlier battery-powered designs, according to the Office of Naval Research. It also boasts "stealthy characteristics" such as reduced noise, low heat signature, and zero emissions (PDF).

"This will really be a demonstration for a fuel cell system in … Read more

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Monday put forth the Pentagon's 2010 budget proposal, essentially a complete overhaul to the way the military spends money.

It would change the way lucrative government contracts are handed out, or in more official terms, the process of "procurement, acquisition, and contracting."

The budget includes a myriad of cuts, but there are also some interesting additions that show the military's increased interest in robotics and communications, particularly in unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs).

Proposed additions include buying 30 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for 2010 (513 over the next five years); increasing … Read more