Avionics Magazine is hosting a Webinar entitled: UAS Civil Airspace Integration: Progress and Challenges on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011, from Noon to 1 p.m. ET. Continue reading
New President for Unmanned Systems, VT Group
The VT Group has announced that Daniel Bertram has joined the organization as president of the Unmanned Systems line of business and member of the Senior Leadership Team. In this role, he will have responsibility for the vertical and horizontal expansion of the group’s US services offering worldwide. Continue reading
Hybrid Energy Storage System for UAS
A paper proposing a hybrid energy storage system to solve the energy issues of long endurance UAS, presented at the IECON 2010 – the 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, has just been published at the IEEE Digital Library. It is available online to members and subscribers.
MLB to Supply 5 UAS for US Fire Control
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Building and Fire Research Laboratory Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Program, in Gaithersburg, MD, has just awarded a contract worth $927,500 to the MLB Company of Mountain View, California for five Unmanned Aerial Systems to collect data characterizing the location of a fire perimeter spreading through wild lands, fuels and atmospheric conditions. Continue reading
FAA Grants COAs to El Dorado, Kansas
The El Dorado Times in Kansas reports that the FAA has granted two Certificates of Authorization (COA) to the City of El Dorado to fly Unmanned Aircraft at El Dorado Municipal Captain Jack Thomas Memorial Airport for the next 12 months. The COAs are renewable and are granted by the FAA to public entities desiring Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations and allows the entity to use defined airspace for specified times and include special provisions unique to each operation.
The City of El Dorado applied for the COAs earlier this year after signing an agreement with Flint Hills Solutions (FHS), a local UAS solutions provider. The agreement includes the delegation to FHS by El Dorado to be the COA technical application administrator as well as the UAS designated operator for the City at El Dorado Airport.
X-47 Programme Boosted by Pentagon Cuts
Northrop Grumman X-47
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ plan to trim around $100 billion from Pentagon accounts over the next five years — the details of which he announced today — is being billed as a budget cut. Actually, Gates’ latest budget exercise represents a net boost for some projects.
The Navy will now get extra funding for the X-47, the first unmanned aircraft designed as a carrier-based strike jet. Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration drone has been performing taxi tests for several weeks at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Two X-47Bs have been built by Northrop’s Aerospace Systems sector under a 2007 development contract. The stealthy aircraft, which resembles a miniature B-2 bomber — also built by Northrop — is intended to test the concept of operating a small, unmanned, combat jet from aircraft carriers.
Miami Police Buys Honeywell T-Hawk
The Miami-Dade County Police Department has finalised a deal to buy a T-Hawk from Honeywell and officially applied for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last month to begin flying it around the county. The 20-pound UAS has cameras mounted on the sides, can fly for 40 minutes at a time, reach 10,500 feet, and cruise at up to 46 mph.
Honeywell's T Hawk
Police in Houston have tested UAVs, and a Sheriff’s office in Colorado has a drone to look for stranded hikers, but no one has yet deployed a UAS in a large metropolitan area. The Army and the Air Force have more than 7,000 UAS overseas, and 44 other countries use the devices, but this is new territory for civilian law enforcement agencies. Already a number of parties have voiced concerns about the privacy issues raised by having overhead surveillance of this nature.
Orbit Wins $3M Sea Borne Contract
ORBIT Communication Systems, Ltd., has won a contract valued at $3.1 Million for the supply of multiple ship borne Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) tracking and communications systems to an undisclosed customer.
The advanced tracking and communications systems are designed to be operated on platforms at sea. Compensating for the constant motion of the marine platforms, the stabilised systems deliver precise tracking of the UAS and will be utilised for communications, command, control and intelligence provided by the UAS in maritime environments.
The systems are part of ORBIT’s family of tracking antenna solutions, which enable reliable and high speed telemetry, data and video communication links with platforms in motion – for a broad range of applications, from flight tests to satellite imaging. The company provides comprehensive, fully customised tracking solutions, tailored to meet exact customer requirements. This is the second major contract ORBIT has been awarded recently for its tracking and telemetry systems following the $6.25 Million contract announced in October 2010.
“Our vast experience in developing tough, all-weather-proven communication systems allows us to offer our customers reliable systems that enable continuous UAS communication, even at sea,” says Avi Cohen, President and CEO of ORBIT CS. “We are proud to have been awarded this contract and foresee additional agreements in the near future.”