an independent online news service for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems world
Presented at the Singapore Air Show 2 weeks ago, the USTAR-Y from ST Aerospace is a portable hexa-rotor UAS, specially designed for urban and open terrain applications. The VTOL concept provides adaptability and manoeuvrability, and also has a tool-less assembly which allows for a quick system set-up, thus reducing turnaround time. Continue reading
Swedish measurement and design group Hexagon has acquired the German UAS manufacturer Aibotix. The acquisition was made in order to complement the Life of Mine solution put out by Leica Geosystems. The jewel in the Aibotix crown is the Aibot X6, a six-blade rotor system or ‘hexacopter’, representing a new generation of vertical take-off and landing UAS that will be used to implement aerial mine mapping through the Life of Mine software. Continue reading
Three years ago, New Zealand farmer Neil Gardyne was watching a documentary about the war in Afghanistan and became inspired about new practical farming methods to farm his upland sheep, beef and arable farm in the Otama Valley, near Gore. “I was watching the documentary with my son Mark, and we were looking at how UAS were being operated for military purposes. It got us thinking how we could use such technology on our farm,” he says.
Netflix has issued a late response to the Amazon spoof about delivery by UAS. Continue reading
The British Army’s Watchkeeper is due to begin flying over British skies this week. The aircraft, which has been tested in West Wales since 2010 and is nearing the end of its trials, is expected to take a “significant role” in future military campaigns. Continue reading
BAE Systems‘ Taranis unmanned combat air system demonstrator is designed to defeat new counter-stealth radars, and may use thrust vectoring as a primary means of flight control and an innovative high-precision, passive navigation and guidance system, an AW&ST analysis indicates. Continue reading
Cambridge innovators have worked with government in the UK to develop a new way to detect and track small, slow moving Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) using innovative radar technology. Plextek Consulting has collaborated with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) UAS R&D Programme on the solution. Continue reading
Lockheed Martin received a contract from the U.S. Army Robotics Technology Consortium to conduct a fully autonomous reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition experiment using both its Squad Mission Support System (SMSS) unmanned ground vehicle and K-MAX unmanned aircraft.