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Future Drones Smarter, More Lethal, Stealthy

“The ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) side will get a lot smarter. With the next generation, you will see UAVs that are faster, more maneuverable and maybe stealthy. You will see them accompanying fighters with extra weapons, EW (electronic warfare), countermeasures and even lasers on board,” Air Force Chief Scientist Greg Zacharias told Scout Warrior in

U.S. Patent Awarded to Design and 3D Print Rocket Fuel

Rocket Crafters, Inc. (RCI) announced today a U.S. patent was granted to co-founder, President & CTO Ronald Jones for a method for designing and fabricating flawless, high-performance, safer handling fuel grains for hybrid rocket engines using additive manufacturing technology (also known as 3D printing).

Turkey to Develop Surveillance Balloons for Border Protection

ANKARA, Turkey — Military electronics specialist Aselsan, Turkey’s largest defense company, is developing two different types of surveillance and reconnaissance balloons — also called mini-zeppelins — to mainly be used along the country’s southeastern borders with Iraq and Syria. The balloons are expected to function like Lockheed Martin’s Persistent Threat Detection System, a tethered aerostat-based

Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management

The traffic-management system supports UAS civilian applications that operate at lower altitudes. NASA has developed a traffic management system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) to maintain safe and efficient UAS operations. This novel technology enables the growth in civilian applications of UAS operations at lower altitudes by developing a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system. There

”Mad scientists” Discuss Emerging Tech as Army Releases Strategy on Robots

Swarms of robots scouring enemy terrain ahead of ground troops outfitted in high-tech exoskeleton suits are among the many ideas proposed in the Army”s new strategy on robotic and autonomous systems. In the not too distant future, Army leaders believe, war will be far more complex, calling upon Soldiers to engage enemies in multiple domains

Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle May Take on Missions Beyond Minesweeping

Now in water testing: an unmanned surface boat designed to launch from the littoral combat ship to assist with the location and destruction of undersea mines. But according to the boat’s creators at Textron Systems, the technology may have a much broader range of uses in the future. The system in question is the common

Army Demos Combat Vehicle/Laser Weapon Integration at UAS Hard-Kill Challenge

Members of the USASMDC/ARSTRAT Technical Center”s Air and Missile Defense Directorate participated in the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, or JIDO, UAS Hard-Kill Challenge at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, from Feb. 27 to March 3. During the challenge, the Mobile Expeditionary High Energy Laser 2.0, or MEHEL 2.0, demonstrated its counter-unmanned aircraft system, or

Next-Generation Fires Systems Improve Mission Command, Boost Lethality

Soldiers view live-stream full-motion video from unmanned aerial vehicles via a smartphone. They access 3D digital maps to send precision target coordinates. Soldiers are relying on these advanced technologies to improve lethality and maintain battlefield dominance. These are among the improvements that will be embedded in future fire-support capabilities. The Army has started testing four

M777A2 Extend Range Howitzer Program Looking to Demonstrate 70KM Range

Picatinny Arsenal engineers have fired the newly modified M777A2 howitzer at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, completing the next step towards expanding the system”s current firing range. Engineers put together an integration test bed for the M777A2 Extended Range (M777ER) howitzer program, incorporating a 55 caliber cannon tube on the M777A2 towed howitzer. The modification added

Researchers Navigating Ways to Avoid Aircraft Icing

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) think they are on the path to giving aircraft a way to avoid potentially hazardous icing conditions from a safe distance. Clouds composed of supercooled liquid can cause aircraft to ice over quickly because the liquid water droplets are below the freezing point and will freeze after

Shadow RQ-7 Drone Goes AWOL, Ends up Crashing into Tree 623 Miles Away

The US Army is investigating how one of its drones took an unplanned 623-mile excursion and ended up stuck in a tree two states away. The Shadow RQ-7 drone was launched by soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division during a training mission in Arizona at 17:16 local time. It was

This Drone is Both Stiff and Squishy to Survive Crashes

Drones are designed to fly, but crashes are a fact of life, whether because of external forces or pilot error. Some commercial drones employ techniques like propeller guards to at least protect the drone, or humans nearby, but they’re not exactly effective all the time. More industrially-inclined drones even have “cages” that protect them but