Monthly Archives: January 2011

MLB to Supply 5 UAS for US Fire Control

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Building and Fire Research Laboratory Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Program, in Gaithersburg, MD, has just awarded a contract worth $927,500 to the MLB Company of Mountain View, California for five Unmanned Aerial Systems to collect data characterizing the location of a fire perimeter spreading through wild lands, fuels and atmospheric conditions.  Continue reading →

FAA Grants COAs to El Dorado, Kansas

The El Dorado Times in Kansas reports that the FAA has granted two Certificates of Authorization (COA) to the City of El Dorado  to fly Unmanned Aircraft at El Dorado Municipal Captain Jack Thomas Memorial Airport for the next 12 months. The COAs are renewable and are granted by the FAA to public entities desiring Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations and allows the entity to use defined airspace for specified times and include special provisions unique to each operation.

The City of El Dorado applied for the COAs earlier this year after signing an agreement with Flint Hills Solutions (FHS),  a local UAS solutions provider. The agreement includes the delegation to FHS by El Dorado to be the COA technical application administrator as well as the UAS designated operator for the City at El Dorado Airport.

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X-47 Programme Boosted by Pentagon Cuts

Northrop Grumman X-47

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ plan to trim around $100 billion from Pentagon accounts over the next five years — the details of which he announced today — is being billed as a budget cut. Actually, Gates’ latest budget exercise represents a net boost for some projects.

The Navy will now get extra funding for the X-47, the first unmanned aircraft designed as a carrier-based strike jet. Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration drone has been performing taxi tests for several weeks at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Two X-47Bs have been built by Northrop’s Aerospace Systems sector under a 2007 development contract. The stealthy aircraft, which resembles a miniature B-2 bomber — also built by Northrop — is intended to test the concept of operating a small, unmanned, combat jet from aircraft carriers.

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Miami Police Buys Honeywell T-Hawk

The Miami-Dade County Police Department has finalised a deal to buy a T-Hawk from Honeywell and officially applied for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last month to begin flying it around the county. The 20-pound UAS has cameras mounted on the sides, can fly for 40 minutes at a time, reach 10,500 feet, and cruise at up to 46 mph.

Honeywell's T Hawk

Police in Houston have tested UAVs, and a Sheriff’s office in Colorado has a drone to look for stranded hikers, but no one has yet deployed a UAS in a large metropolitan area. The Army and the Air Force have more than 7,000 UAS overseas, and 44 other countries use the devices, but this is new territory for civilian law enforcement agencies.  Already a number of parties have voiced concerns about the privacy issues raised by having overhead surveillance of this nature.

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Orbit Wins $3M Sea Borne Contract

ORBIT Communication Systems, Ltd., has won a contract valued at $3.1 Million for the supply of multiple ship borne Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) tracking and communications systems to an undisclosed customer.

The advanced tracking and communications systems are designed to be operated on platforms at sea. Compensating for the constant motion of the marine platforms, the stabilised systems deliver precise tracking of the UAS and will be utilised for communications, command, control and intelligence provided by the UAS in maritime environments.

The systems are part of ORBIT’s family of tracking antenna solutions, which enable reliable and high speed telemetry, data and video communication links with platforms in motion – for a broad range of applications, from flight tests to satellite imaging. The company provides comprehensive, fully customised tracking solutions, tailored to meet exact customer requirements. This is the second major contract ORBIT has been awarded recently for its tracking and telemetry systems following the $6.25 Million contract announced in October 2010.

“Our vast experience in developing tough, all-weather-proven communication systems allows us to offer our customers reliable systems that enable continuous UAS communication, even at sea,” says Avi Cohen, President and CEO of ORBIT CS. “We are proud to have been awarded this contract and foresee additional agreements in the near future.”

India Commissions New UAV Squadron

NEW DELHI: India is now deploying naval spy drones on the Gujarat coast to detect terror and conventional threats emanating from sea from across the border in real-time.  The naval UAV ( unmanned aerial vehicle) squadron, named INAS 343, with a mix of Israeli Searcher and Heron drones, will be formally commissioned at the coastal city of Porbandar on January 17.

This new UAV station comes at a time when India is trying to plug holes in its coastal security architecture, which were exposed by the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai, with an array of measures ranging from coastal radar networks to an extensive maritime intelligence grid.

The Indian Navy recently inducted two more advanced Herons, which are strategic MALE (medium-altitude, long endurance) UAVs and carry a payload of 250kg for around 50 hours of continuous flight, to its already existing fleet of eight Searcher-IIs and four Herons.

The first naval UAV squadron (INAS 342) has been operational at Kochi for the last few years. After Kochi and Porbandar, new naval UAV squadrons are earmarked for Uchipuli in Tamil Nadu and Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As part of Navy’s three-tier aerial surveillance grid for the Indian Ocean Region, the drones are already being used for innermost layer reconnaissance up to 200 nautical miles.