The prospect of delivery UAS brings with it a few notable issues. Beyond visions of colliding rotor blades and unsolicited package drops lies another problem: the huge amount of computational power needed to take into account real world uncertainties, such as strong winds, limited battery life and navigational errors, in order to provide a reliable delivery service. This has been the focus of new study from MIT, with a team of researchers devising a new algorithm said to massively reduce the level of computation required, enabling the drone to monitor its “health” in real time. Continue reading
Category Archives: Research
Researchers Study Electronic Control of Moths
North Carolina State University researchers have developed methods for electronically manipulating the flight muscles of moths and for monitoring the electrical signals moths use to control those muscles. The work opens the door to the development of remotely-controlled moths, or “biobots,” for use in emergency response.
MIT Lincoln Lab’s Airborne Sense and Avoid (ABSAA) Radar Panel Wins R&D Award
MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Airborne Sense and Avoid (ABSAA) Radar Panel is a stepped-notch antenna array that marks a substantial advance in the fabrication of wide-bandwidth radar systems for use aboard unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Continue reading
Autonomous UAS Landing on a Moving Platform at McGill University
The professor heading up the project, Inna Sharf, is a mechanical engineer at McGill University’s Aerospace Mechatronics Laboratory. Sharf’s team has been tasked with a new project to create autonomous landing UAS software. Continue reading
BAE Develops Smart Skin Technology to Detect Damage on Aircraft
Work is underway at BAE Systems to give aircraft human-like ‘skin’, enabling the detection of injury or damage and the ability to ‘feel’ the world around them. Engineers at BAE’s Advanced Technology Centre are investigating a ‘smart skin’ concept which could be embedded with tens of thousands of micro-sensors. When applied to an aircraft, this will enable it to sense wind speed, temperature, physical strain and movement, far more accurately than current sensor technology allows.
Multiple UAS Perform Autonomous Formation Flight
In one of the first autonomous demonstrations, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has successfully commanded three fully autonomous, collaborating UAVs. The machines flew in close formation at the same altitude, separated by approximately 50 meters as they executed figure-eight patterns.
UAS Antenna Expands Wi-Fi Range for Disaster-Struck Areas
Researchers from the University of North Texas (UNT) have demonstrated an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of supplying Wi-Fi to disaster-struck areas with a range of up to 5 km (3.1 miles). The team says these figures represent a marked improvement on existing solutions and could lead to new forms of wireless communication. Continue reading
Study Projects UAS Spending to Double by Fiscal 2024
Spending on unmanned aerial vehicles is expected to “nearly double over the next decade,” according to the executive summary of a new study by the Teal Group. The study, which asserts that “enemy air defense is basically non-existent except in the crudest sense, small arms fire,” projects “it is quite possible that [UAVs] will become ubiquitous over the next decade as a standard means of reconnaissance for infantry squads.”