A recent study on how birds can fly so quickly and accurately through dense forests has opened a new avenue for developments in robotics and auto-pilots. Continue reading
Category Archives: Research
Back Inside the Quadrotor Thunderdome with Kinect
This video was taken inside the Quadrotor Thunderdome in Zurich, aka the Flying Machine Arena at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, part of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute for Technology, Zurich).
DARPA Gives General Atomics Aeronautical Systems $40M to Develop Laser Weapon
The Defense Department has awarded General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GASS) in Poway $39.8 million for continuing development of the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), a high-energy weapon that will eventually be incorporated into tactical aircraft and unmanned aircraft.
US Research Team Microaviary Flight Lab
Microdrone at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
University of North Dakota Launches $11.4M Collaborative Research Project”
An $11.4 million collaborative research project led by the University of North Dakota on unmanned aircraft called the Limited Deployment of Cooperative Aircraft Project could assist North Dakota in becoming a future national test site for unmanned aircraft, UND officials said.
Georgia Tech Researchers Examine Foreign COTS UAS
Georgia Tech Research Institute officials were gathered on May 12-13 for another examination of a foreign-made unmanned aircraft system built with off-the-shelf commercial parts.
DARPA Challenge Offers Public $100,000 for Small Unmanned Aircraft
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Atlantic (SSC Atlantic) call on innovators of every kind – scientists, engineers, citizen scientists and dreamers to collaborate on the UAVForge Challenge and win $100,000.
NOAA’s Arctic Mission Complete
UAS from Norway (left), the United States (centre), and Russia (right) with the flight teams in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway. Photo Credit: Kjell-Sture Johansen/Norut
An international research team, including scientists from NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle, completed a series of unmanned flights over the Arctic on April 30.