The Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) of the Republic of Korea has selected the Heron Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for its corps-level UAS upgrade project.
Smaller Lidars Allow UAVs to Conduct Underwater Scans
A team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has designed a new approach that could lead to bathymetric lidars that are much smaller and more efficient than the current full-size systems. The new technology, developed under the Active Electro-Optical Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AEO-ISR) project, would let modest-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carry bathymetric lidars, lowering costs substantially.
de Havilland DH-112 Venom Short Display
New Zealand’s only operating de Havilland Venom is shown here at Tauranga Airport, Tauranga, New Zealand. Continue reading
New York City Council Considers Drone Ban
The New York city council is eyeing a potential ban of private drones and the addition of fines, in two separate bills. The first bill is “more of an outright ban” of drones, proposed by Council member Dan Garodnick, and the other will create fines and areas where drones are prohibited, proposed by Council member Paul Vallone. The two bills may be combined, but that decision will be determined by further council committee review.
Drone-Hunting Blimp Over Washington
On Friday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, will launch a giant drone-hunting blimp over Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds just east of Washington D.C. The system includes a 242-foot balloon (technically called an aerostat because it’s connected to the ground) that can stay up for a month at a time and a radar to detect — among other potential threats— drones.
Northrop Grumman Gets $657M Global Hawk Contract for South Korea
Northrop Grumman Corp has won a $657.4 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to provide South Korea with four RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft, the company and the Defense Department announced on Tuesday.
Parrot Invests $2M in Sensing Solutions for Precision Agriculture
MicaSense, a sensor and information company has raised $2M in Series A funding from Parrot. MicaSense delivers a fully integrated hardware solution for agricultural remote sensing from any unmanned aerial platform, tightly coupled with cloud-based analytics to provide crop health information to growers. The funding will enable MicaSense to expand its engineering and manufacturing capabilities to support a growing network of customers worldwide.
US Navy’s Robo-Shark
The American military does a lot of work in the field of bio-mimicry, stealing designs from nature for use in new technology. After all, if you’re going to design a robot, where better to draw inspiration than from billions of years of evolution? The latest result of these efforts is the GhostSwimmer: The Navy’s underwater drone designed to look and swim like a real fish, and a liability to spook the bejeezus out of any beach goer who’s familiar with Jaws.