uavs

Boeing: We zapped a UAV with a laser

Updated 2:40 p.m. with details on how the laser damaged the UAV and on the Laser Avenger's targeting system.

Boeing is seeing a glimmer of progress in its work toward fielding laser weapons.

The defense industry giant on Monday said tests of its Laser Avenger system in December marked "the first time a combat vehicle has used a laser to shoot down a UAV," or unmanned aerial vehicle. In the testing, the Humvee-mounted Laser Avenger located and tracked three small UAVs in flight over the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and knocked one of the drone aircraft out of the sky.

Boeing didn't go into much detail about the shoot-down. In response to a query by CNET News, it did say this much about the strike by the the kilowatt-class laser: "A hole was burned in a critical flight control element of the UAV, rendering the aircraft unflyable."

While decades of Hollywood imagery may conjure up a vision of a target disintegrating in a sparkle of light, the actual workings of the laser beam are probably more prosaic. For instance, the beam from Boeing's much, much larger Airborne Laser, which is intended to disable long-range missiles in flight, uses heat to create a weak spot on the skin of the missile, causing it to rupture in flight. Boeing hopes to conduct the first aerial shoot-down test with the much-delayed 747-based Airborne Laser later this year.

In tests in 2007, the Laser Avenger "neutralized" improvised explosive devices (IEDs) like those that have been a deadly threat in Iraq, along with other unexploded munitions. … Read more

Pinpointing landmines from the air

Landmine "contamination" continues to plague developing countries, where more are laid every year than are cleared, according to a UN estimate. Now, a company promises a new technique to locate and map landmines from the air-three times faster and at half the price of conventional detection methods.

A Canadian company, Mine Clearing Corp (MCC) has acquired licensing to the latest in radiometry technology; technology so sensitive it can pick out the tiny electromagnetic reflections emitted by buried objects from as high as 200 feet in the air. MCC plans to incorporate this technology into a landmine detection and … Read more

'60 Minutes' video: Drone warfare in Iraq

One technology more than any other has stood out as a success story for the U.S. military in Iraq: unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

The best-known of the UAVs, the MQ-1 Predator, has evolved from its early use as simply a reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft to become a highly valued weapon in its own right. Armed with Hellfire missiles, it can both track enemy combatants and fire on them. A more recent version of the Predator, called the MQ-9 Reaper, was specifically put into service as a "hunter-killer" drone.

The Pentagon has been so impressed with the … Read more

Iowa State research to give UAV jockeys a virtual view of battle space

A team from Iowa State University is using virtual reality technology to develop "immersive" ground control stations that will give operators of military unmanned aircraft (UAV) an overall view of their planes and the battle space they are flying over.

The university's Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) team is working under a $4.2 million contract as part of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's effort to develop the "next generation control interface" for military UAVs. If successful, the real-time virtual view of the battle space will allow a single operator to control … Read more

Unmanned stealth jet could transform naval aviation

Construction of the X-47B unmanned, tailless, stealth jet is ahead of schedule, with the first flight scheduled for November 2009, reports defense contractor Northrop Grumman.(pdf)

The X-47B is expected to be the first tailless UAV jet to operate off an aircraft carrier, which includes catapult launches and arrested landings; to do that it will also need to be capable of maneuvering precisely and autonomous around the flight deck. But none of that is expected to happen until sea trials in 2011.

The plane, developed under the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program, has the "potential to … Read more

A stealth flying camera

Well this is paranoia-inducing.

Yes, that is a photo of a camera attached to a miniature helicopter. It's called the DraganFlyer X6. It's a remotely operated device designed to carry wireless video or still cameras.

Measuring about 3 feet in diameter with the rotor, the X6 has three motors to spin its carbon fiber blades and is capable of carrying a maximum weight of 1.1 pounds. This means your typical point-and-shoot camera, budget dSLR or camcorder should be able to fit properly on the bird. It comes with an anti-vibration camera mount which minimizes shaky videos or … Read more

Quiet Canadian UAV looks to cash-in on DHS grants

Here's a three armed, six-rotor, unmanned helicopter nimble enough to fly indoors but tough enough to withstand winds of up to 18mph outdoors and, best of all, it doesn't sound like a log-chipper on crack.

The differential thrust from the Draganflyer X6's six rotors, arranged as three counter-rotating co-axial pairs mounted on the tip of each arm, is what makes for its zippy maneuver performance, according to Draganfly Innovations Inc. ( Videos) It's also what accounts for the stealthy sound output. While hovering, the X6 produces less than less than 60dB at 9 feet, according to the … Read more

Thinking green with the 'Humvee of the air'

Another entrant in the race to produce a ducted-fan-propelled, vertical-take-off-and-landing UAV, the planned "humvee of the air" will morph to different missions and reach targets three times faster than helicopters, according to the manufacturer.

The official name of the vehicle is VTOL-Swift Tactical Aerial Resource, or V-STAR. With a cruising speed of 288 knots, a 650-mile range and a 400-pound payload, the V-STAR promises to be a "breakthrough solution for frontline military logistics," according to Broomfield, Colo.-based Frontline Aerospace. The aircraft would use a Rolls-Royce gas turbine with counter-rotating blades and "diamond-box-wing" design … Read more

AeroVironment flies ahead with 'nano' air vehicle

Unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming a big deal for the armed forces, even when they're really small.

AeroVironment said Tuesday that it has gotten the go-ahead, in the form of a Phase II contract, to design and build a teeny-tiny prototype for the Nano Air Vehicle program at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. How teeny? The defense R&D agency stipulates that a NAV must be smaller than 7.5 centimeters (2.9 inches) and, at no more than 10 grams (one-third of an ounce), "ultralightweight."

A key eventual mission for NAVs would be … Read more