UAS VISION
an independent online news service for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems world
Students in Oklahoma State University’s unmanned aircraft systems degree programme have designed two practical unmanned aircraft systems as part of their UAS Design and Analysis course. The first is an aircraft designed to intercept and measure important meteorological parameters in severe thunderstorms. Continue reading
A video just released by the Aerospace Robotics and Control Laboratory at the University of Illinois shows a group of ten small, highly manoeuvrable commercially available quadrotors made to act as a squadron, using autonomous control/guidance algorithms inspired from the lab’s work in distributed, cooperative control and a Vicon motion capture system.
The goal of The Air Force Collaboratory‘s second project, Mind of a Quadrotor, was to build a system that allows a quadrotor to navigate its surroundings with minimal human intervention. Continue reading
Sikorsky Innovations, the technology development organization of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., has announced it has won a contract for Phase 1 of the Vertical Take-Off and Landing Experimental Aircraft (VTOL X-Plane) programme by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Continue reading
Researchers are using a smartphone as the brains behind a small, inexpensive UAS – the phone enables it to find its way around enclosed indoor spaces without using GPS or a remote guide. Although it’s still at an early stage, the so-called SmartCopter could eventually make it safer and cheaper to scout out disaster scenes before human responders plunge in. Continue reading
Textron Systems and Bell Helicopter, a subsidiary of Textron Inc., have opened the Textron Systems Integration and Collaboration Lab, as well as the Bell Helicopter/AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems Manned/Unmanned Operations (MUMO) Capability Development Lab. Continue reading
Light-as-a-feather, fiber-reinforced carbon composites give Roberto Albertani an edge in designing unusual aircraft: micro air vehicles that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Such fliers could respond to disasters inside buildings or collect data under tree canopies. To design them, the OSU mechanical engineer studies how they interact with the air. Continue reading
Researchers at Vancouver’s Simon Frasier University have developed a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) that accept group voice commands or can be controlled silently through hand gestures. In addition, individualUAS recognize which of them their controller is speaking to via on-board face recognition cameras. Continue reading