• Advanced UAVs help war on terrorism -- and companies' bottom line

    Ever-more sophisticated UAVs giving U.S. better eyes, ears, and even noses; new sensors enable flying drones to listen in on cell phone conversations and pinpoint the location of the caller on the ground; some can even “smell” the air and sniff out chemical plumes emanating from a potential underground nuclear laboratory; these advances mean a growing and potentially huge business for the defense industry: the drone electronics industry now generates about $3 billion in revenue, but this is expected to double to $6 billion in the next eight years

  • Breakthrough: Flapless UAV gets airborne

    The conventional control surfaces of a UAV include many moving parts, require frequent, costly repairs, and account for a significant percentage of an aircraft’s noise output; British researchers developed a UAV with no moveable control surfaces — no flaps, ailerons, elevators, or spoilers; just a wing, an engine, and some holes

  • Mini UAVs for infrastructure facilities protection

    Those in charge of critical infrastructure protection are showing increasing interest in using mini UAVs as a tool that will positively identify and “incriminate” threats before deadly force is used to stop them; the requirement is for a mini UAV that can be launched seconds after a threat is initially detected and that has the capability to loiter over the area where the threat was first detected by one of the ground sensors

  • U.S. Army's new surveillance blimp will fly "mid-next summer"

    Northrop Grumman successfully completed another test of the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) — a blimp longer than a football field and taller than a seven-story building, which will remain airborne for more than three weeks at a time, carrying multiple surveillance payloads

  • Simlat in a UAV simulator contract with an Asian air force

    Israeli maker of UAV simulation and training solutions wins an award from an unnamed Asian country to deliver the company’s UAV training system to that country’s air force; the company will deliver its Simlat INTER (Integrated Trainer) solution, which includes high’fidelity simulation of the relevant UAV platform and its sensors, as well as the mission environment, including synthetic terrain and target modeling

  • USAF develops UAVs that fly themselves

    A U.S. Air Force project will allow UAVs to fly themselves — in multiple-aircraft formations — without colliding; the USAF is working to develop systems that unmanned aircraft can use to sense the presence of other aircraft and take action to prevent collisions that are safe enough so that UAVs can perform any Air Force mission

  • Giant blimps to ferry hospitals, buildings to disaster zones

    Giant airship will be able to lift up to 150 tons — more than seven times the weight that helicopters are able to carry; the airship, which will be able to move aid — or even portable hospitals and entire buildings — to remote areas or disaster zones, harnesses aerostatic lift, meaning it is able to fly using lighter-than-air (LTA) gases that keep it buoyant rather than aerodynamic lift

  • Special forces interest in Panther tiltrotor UAV family

    Special forces officers from several potential clients were in Israel this week to see a demonstration of new UAV which combines the capabilities of an aircraft and a helicopter; the Panther uses an automatic flight control system to manage the transition between its hovering take-off phase to forward flight and back before landing

  • Around-the-world blimp race scheduled for 2011

    A Texan businessman is organizing a year-long around-the-world race for airships — he says he is on track to start the inaugural event next year; the race is intended to be run as seventeen back-to-back legs that would see the competing ships set off from the zero meridian in London before progressing around the world in an easterly direction

  • New UAV to loiter the sky for five years without landing

    Boeing has been given $89 million to build Vulture — a large solar-powered UAV intended to cruise the stratosphere for five years without landing; the idea is to achieve a platform which combines the good qualities of both satellites and aircraft with none of the downsides of either

  • New report: UAVs for Border Security -- market & technologies outlook 2010-15

    The use of UAVs in border security missions around the world is expanding rapidly from very little activity today; this expansion will create new markets and new business opportunities, particularly for integrated capabilities guided by an operating concept and turn-key packages that include equipment, training, operations, and maintenance

  • U.S.: Mexico's drug war posing growing threat to U.S. national security

    The Obama administration sees the drug-related violence sweeping Mexico as a growing threat to U.S. national security and has launched a broad review of steps the military and intelligence community could take to help combat what U.S. officials describe as a “narcoinsurgency”; one problem with increased intelligence collaboration: U.S. agencies have been wary of sharing some intelligence because of concerns that some of their Mexican counterparts may be on the payroll of the cartels

  • Crash of UAV copter with foliage-penetrating radar sheds light on secret program

    Two emerging security challenges to the United States — the growing violence of the drug war south of the border, and growing concerns about climate change-driven conflicts in Africa and Asia — have led DARPA to fund the development of technology that will allow U.S. special forces to see through the dense canopy of a jungle; the recent crash, during trials, in the jungle of Belize of a Boeing A160T equipped with foliage-penetrating radar sheds some light on this programs; spokesman of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) said more than 90 percent of the objectives of the Belize trials had been met when the crash terminated the effort

  • U.S. military conflicted over domestic use of drones

    The 2 August incident, in which a U.S. Navy UAV lost communication with its operators and wondered dangerously close to restricted air space over Washington, D.C., revives debate over domestic use of UAVs; head of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD believes drones are “where the future is going,” but says the military needs drones that can be trusted not to wander off

  • Fake chips from China threaten U.S. military systems

    To withstand the rigors of battle, the Defense Department requires the chips it uses to have special features, such as the ability to operate at below freezing temperatures in high-flying planes; because it pays extra for such chips, experts say, the Defense Department has become a prime target for counterfeiters, most of them Chinese companies; from November 2007 through May 2010, U.S. Customs officials said they seized 5.6 million bogus chips — yet many more are finding their way into the United States and even the military