Fed up with geese fouling the grass and water at its Petrie Island beaches, the City of Ottawa government is calling in UAS strikes. It’s proving amazingly effective, said Orléans Coun. Bob Monette. The place used to be haunted by as many as 140 geese, which can eat several pounds of grass in a day and poop out nearly as much in waste. Continue reading
Category Archives: Applications & Testing & Experience
Unmanned K-Max Gets Cleverer
Lockheed Martin and Kaman have demonstrated new capabilities for the K-Max unmanned cargo helicopter under the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate’s Autonomous Technologies for Unmanned Air Systems (ATUAS) programme. Continue reading
Indian Student Builds UAS Bomber for £400
A 21-year-old computer science student in India has come up with a design for an unmanned bomber aircraft made of scrap metal and costing £400. The unmanned aircraft cost Subhanjan Saha about £610 (60,000 Indian rupees) and he is hoping the Indian army will buy his design. Continue reading
Northrop Grumman X-47B UCAS – Aviation History Video
Northrop Grumman just posted this 4 minute-plus video trumpeting its recent achievements with the X-47B UCAS – successful takeoff and land from the deck of a moving aircraft carrier. It links the take-off and touch-and-go sequences in May with July footage of arrested landings in July. Continue reading
Ice Protection Specialists Focus on Unmanned Aircraft
CAV Ice Protection’s engineering staff, recently relocated to New Century Airport, are increasing focus on the company’s expertise in developing ice protection for unmanned flight. Continue reading
US Missile Defense Agency Tests UAS For Boost-Phase Targeting
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to continue testing the use of Reaper unmanned aircraft for ballistic missile target discrimination in the near term because taking that mission to space is still too costly. Continue reading
Lockheed Martin’s Transformer TX in Phase 3 of Development Process
With Transformer (TX), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is giving ‘off-road’ an entirely new meaning. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works® is leading a team with Piasecki Aircraft to develop the next generation of compact, high-speed vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned payload delivery systems under the Transformer programme. Continue reading
Sikorsky Develops Matrix Software for Autonomous Helicopters
Sikorsky’s research department has announced that it is developing software and hardware called Matrix intended to “improve significantly the capability, reliability, and safety” of autonomous VTOL aircraft. Continue reading