Last week, the US Forest Service officials said they’ve dropped plans to use unmanned aircraft systems to survey forest fires because of clashes with Federal Aviation Administration rules. While some national forest firefighters in Alaska touted the remote-control planes’ ability to map forest fires in thick smoke, their legality proved a limitation. Continue reading
Rolls-Royce Turbofan Powers Triton Flight
A single Rolls-Royce AE 3007 engine powers the MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, unmanned aircraft built by a Northrop Grumman-lead team. Continue reading
UAS Swarm Could Give Early Warning of Flash Floods
Christian Claudel at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology outside Jeddah is working on a UAS system that could give cities between 30 minutes and 2 hours of warning, as well as predicting the flood’s path. Continue reading
US NAVAIR Develops Airspace Integration Simulation Programme
Marines from Cherry Point, N.C., visit NAS Patuxent River, Md., to train with the Ground Based Sense and Avoid System, a new computer system designed to safely integrate unmanned aircraft in civilian airspace. Continue reading
MQ-8C Fire Scout Model on Display at Northrop
San Diego, California News Station – KFMB Channel 8 – cbs8.com
San Diego news channel reported on the developments of the locally-built MQ-8C Fire Scout. Continue reading
World Wildlife Fund Issues RFP for UAS to Combat Poaching
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has published a Request for Information and Proposal (RFI/RFP) from the Wildlife Crime Technology Project for an aerial system. (Last submission by June 21st) Continue reading
Dreamhammer Launches COTS Multi-System Control Software
DreamHammer has announced the pre-general release launch of its Ballista control software. Ballista is an intelligent control platform that for the first time integrates unrelated unmanned aircraft and robots from different manufacturers into one system. Continue reading
Triton Completes First Flight
The Navy’s newest unmanned Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft platform, the MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), completed its first flight from Palmdale, California on May 22, marking the start of tests which will validate the Northrop Grumman-built system for future fleet operations. Continue reading