an independent online news service for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems world
Song Hong, an experienced UAS operator in Beijing, is anxiously waiting for his license. Song and 45 others, having passed theoretical exams and flight tests, are ready to become China’s first batch of certificated flyers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Continue reading
Aurora Flight Sciences is close to securing up to three customers in Europe, plus one in the U.S., for its Centaur optionally piloted aircraft (OPA), which is based on the Diamond DA42 twin-engine tourer, the company told AIN. The American company has been marketing the Centaur in the U.S. as a versatile, low-cost airborne sensing platform for two years but only recently expanded the effort to Europe.
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, California, has been awarded a $240,653,315 primarily firm-fixed-price modification (PZ0001) for FA8620-13-C-3018 for three Block 30M RQ-4B Global Hawk air vehicles, each containing an Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite and an Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP), plus two additional ASIP sensors as retrofit kits.
Researchers at KU Leuven, in Belgium, have been working on some of the technical problems to be solved for delivery by UAS to become practical, including landing pads, cargo compartments, and range extension.Take-offs and landings are probably going to be the trickiest part of this whole delivery drone business, and a landing pad is likely a necessity. Continue reading
The U.S. Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk, a wide area surveillance unmanned aircraft system, has just completed its 100th operational mission in Southwest Asia and recently moved into the Pacific region.
Russian company Vega is designing a new UAS of up to 200 kg for the Defence Ministry and is planning to get it built by 2016, the company’s official announced.
An announcement last week that researchers will soon fly a lightweight, self-guided drone over a farm near Batavia revealed that a federally backed project to test unmanned aircraft could reach farther into western New York than originally expected.
A team of young Rwandans have developed a UAS which they say can be used for different purposes and applications including; agriculture, energy, mining and media sectors.