UAV Items of Interest

There's a banana museum near LA, too.

Controlling multiple UAVs and a USV from a single control system (a USV is an Unmanned Surface Vehicle, a robot watercraft):

The demonstration followed a script for a special operations team rescue scenario in a littoral environment. The scenario involved the detection and engagement of enemy forces and relocation from a primary to a secondary extraction point resulting from dynamically exercising command and control of dissimilar vehicles and payload imagery.

The scenario included cross-cueing and collaborative interaction between a strategic simulated unmanned air vehicle, two Manta tactical UAVs flying over Sierra Vista, AZ, and an unmanned surface vehicle operating in the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, VA. All unmanned vehicles and their payloads were simultaneously and continuously controlled by a single MVCS in the demonstration control center located in Falls Church, VA.

Combined Attack Demo Planned By US Army:

One concept under study: a so-called ‘avenge and kill’ routine - one where a lost UAV sends data on its position as well as the position of its incoming fire and feeds it to the network. A few seconds later, opposing fire - from an aircraft, artillery or an accompanying UAV/UGV - destroys the target.

UAV Detect See and Avoid (DSA) Radar:

Self-contained ability to detect and avoid other aircraft in flight has been demonstrated with the Amphitech DSA radar technology. Based on Amphitech’s OWS radar for helicopters, the DSA radar employs a unique scanning strategy assuring detection of all non-cooperative (no transponder on board, such as General Aviation, glider and others) targets that may pose a threat to the UAV flight safety.

Amphitech, in cooperation with ERAST and NASA, demonstrated the ability of Amphitech’s radar technology to detect, track and report a variety of aircraft in flight at ranges up to 8 NM providing adequate time to take the appropriate evasive maneuver. See report .

Joystick vs. Jihad, The temptation of remote-controlled killing:

Maybe we can operate these machines without losing our aversion to killing. But humans have never experienced such a convergence of targeted assassination with video gaming, and the experiment in desensitization is just beginning. Everyone's building or buying drones: France, Germany, Greece, India, the Philippines, Russia, even Switzerland. The Quadrennial Defense Review worries especially about China, which is developing lots of them for deployment and "global export." In the age of jihad, our nightmare is people who don't fear dying and don't mind killing. In the age of the joystick, the nightmare is that we'll become them.

In Las Vegas a pilot pulls the trigger. In Iraq a Predator fires its missile:

Sgt Mac Mackenzie, 41, an Army sensor operator who has served in Northern Ireland and Iraq, said: "It is not always appreciated that this is what we have to do. You are just staring at the screen. Then suddenly it can go live, you're involved in an engagement, a target appears and everything is turned on its head."

Minutes later, a 12-hour shift may end and the men find themselves stepping into the desert, a one-second transition from Iraq to Nevada.

The British crews acknowledge that there is an air of unreality about their work, "staring at a screen for hours, watching what is happening then walking out into the heat" before driving home to their families in the suburbs of Vegas. Time off is generally spent among the bizarre architecture of the city centre, where fake pyramids, castles and the "Eiffel Tower" vie in multi-coloured capitalist anarchy for the attention of armies of gamblers.

Iranian drone plane buzzes U.S. aircraft carrier in Persian Gulf (the U.S. Navy denies it):

A pilotless Iranian reconnaissance plane circled for 25 minutes over a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf before returning safely to its base, a senior Iranian official said Tuesday.

"Our pilotless reconnaissance plane flew over the USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf unnoticed to the Americans for 25 minutes," the official said, according to Iran's Fars agency.

He did not say when the flight took place, but added that U.S. radars picked up the unmanned aerial vehicle after 25 minutes, and that four USAF fighters and two helicopters were scrambled to intercept it. However, the Iranian plane had already crossed the border back into Iran and landed at its base.

Posted by jjwiseman at June 01, 2006 11:55 PM