dulldirtydangerous

Improvised Drone Device via Finnish Ingenuity

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 00:28:00 +0000

Finnish Chainsaw Innovation with Hexacopter

It's not necessary to funnel through US Department of Defense layers of bureaucracy (think technology readiness levels) to create a potentially challenging weapon -- as shown by this straightforward innovation posted to YouTube in March 2016.

Now imagine deploying hundreds of these against a target.

US Navy To Fight Swarm Attacks with LOCUST UAV

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 00:18:00 +0000

Via DefenseTech.com

Snip from a January 2016 DefenseNews story: "The U.S. Navy's LOw-Cost Unmanned aerial vehicle Swarming Technology (LOCUST) is a prototype tube-launched UAV. The LOCUST program will make possible the launch of multiple swarming UAVs to autonomously overwhelm and adversary. (U.S. Navy photo via YouTube)."

USN research teams have run simulations and determined that certain types of attacks would leave Navy vessels vulnerable from small drones flown in good weather from multiple directions simultaneously. LOCUST is designed to address that.

'via Blog this'

USN Counter-UAV Weapon Deployed

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:00:00 +0000

The Navy’s USS Ponce is now patrolling the Persian Gulf with an anti-UAV weapon with the official title of “Laser Weapons System.”

The Quartz report quotes NavalTechnology.com in describing the Laser Weapons System: “The system comprises a single laser weapon control console manned by a surface warfare weapons officer on board the USS Ponce, who can operate all functions of the laser and, if commanded, fire the weapon.”

Developed by Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, the Laser Weapons System can also be used against small boat attackers, and ONR is developing a similar weapon for use by the Marines for ground vehicles.

Source: @MatthewPhillips Quartz

Arizona "Solar Man" with Drone

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:24:00 +0000

Ariz @ArizonaFPV filming solar man with a drone! pic.twitter.com/ycEhtzLVtl (Twitter) #unmanned

Raytheon's SilentEyes: Slave microUAV Concept Still Reverberates

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:18:00 +0000

In an August 2004 story, Space Daily reported a successful test of the Raytheon SilentEyes microUAV. In the test conducted at Edwards AFB, SilentEyes prototypes were "ejected from an MQ-9 Predator." The goal of the SilentEyes project was to enable a high-altitude UAV such as the Predator, to extend its reach by using a lower-cost UAV. The slave UAV could be used to provide high resolution images or other sensor data from lower altitudes. It flew autonomously, but relayed its data stream through the MQ-9 to MQ-9 ground control stations.

SilentEyes was cancelled, but the project was one of several that has contemplated the use of multiple, networked small and lower-cost UAVs to coordinate data gathering for intelligence, mapping and other applications. Slave microUAVs could be launched individual or as a swarm from air or ground platforms. A goal of these projects has been to leverage R&D in networked robotics.

Raytheon SilentEyes via Space Daily (2004)

Not so dull: Amazon's PrimeAIR UAVs [60 Minutes Video]

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 01:30:00 +0000

On Sixty Minutes (aired December 1, 2013), Jeff Bezos introduced Charlie Rose to Amazon PrimeAIR. Amazon's concept -- several years off, in part due to FAA regulation -- is to utilize low cost UAVs to deliver parcels. Morever, the idea is to move toward same-day delivery.

Why? Amazon's long term of profit is based on customer retention. Amazon wants to deliver faster, yes, but also move into new markets where delivery speed is important. As illustrated with Amazon's grocery delivery business, only recently expanded into Los Angeles, Amazon studies a problem until it thoroughly understands how to execute without losing money.

Why, again? As Bezos explained to Rose, "Companies have short lifespans. Amazon will be disrupted sooner or later. . . . I would love for it to be after I am dead."

Conclusion What Amazon can't host or stream, it may employ intelligent machines and the Internet of Things (IoT) to achieve market dominance. As with AWS, Amazon will exert a cascading effect on the rest of global commerce. UAV's, hopefully not dirty or dangerous in this case, will have an increasingly important role in future transportation systems. It will take Big Data capacity, a few firms are better positioned to use it than Amazon.

Still Image from the 60 Minutes Visit to Amazon's UAV Lab

Landing Sites Chosen In Midair by Autonomous Copters [video]

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 13:25:00 +0000

Many remotely piloted vehicles in use today demonstrate relatively little intelligence of its own. For a conventional fixed-wing aircraft including most UAVs, remote piloting is comparatively straightforward in some respects. Its flight path may have a known point of origin and a predetermined landing strip. Any ambiguities that are encountered mid-air are handled by remote pilots who use their own reasoning abilities to direct the machine away from danger.

For instance, the confusion that might arise when landing a machine like a helicopter in the middle of an unknown street (a la "Blackhawk Down") or on the top of a hospital building are minimized because a fixed-wing aircraft can't do that.

A research team would like to change that scenario by creating smarter robocopters. In work sponsored by the Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, a collaboration is underway between Carnegie Mellon University roboticists and aeronautics specialists at Piasecki Aircraft and Boeing.

The investigators explain some of the challenges they faced in determining -- in real time -- which landing sites would be suitable.

To put this stream into a form the planning software can use, the system constantly updates two low-level interpretations. One is a high-resolution, two-dimensional mesh that encodes the shape of the terrain for landing; the other is a medium-resolution, three-dimensional representation of all the things the robot wants to avoid hitting during its descent. Off-the-shelf surveying software can create such maps, but it may take hours back in the lab to process the data. Our software creates and updates these maps essentially as fast as the data arrive.

Inference: Artificial intelligence will continue to co-evolve with autonomous flying machines.

Some of the technology is being pursued by Near Earth Autonomy, founded by one of the co-authors.

This story via IEEE Spectrum.

Start-Stop DoD Ground Vehicle Programs Hurting Progress

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 22:19:00 +0000

Mark II Talon via Wikipedia Commons and US Navy

The U.S. Army is the world's most obvious customer for unmanned ground vehicles, but, as the New York Times reports, the Department of Defense may soon lag behind consumer offerings from Nissan, GM and Google . As the Times wrote,

The armed forces have lagged on deploying their own versions of unmanned road vehicles, despite goals to create new machines that could be used in place of 'boots on the ground.'

Not so long ago, the Army Future Combat Systems program was to have transformed the Army into an agile force that featured integrated network the network of ground sensors, UAVs, unmanned ground vehicles as well as conventional manned ground vehicles. FCS was killed in 2009 in favor of a smaller, more focused effort.

Longtime civilian analysts within the Department and its contractor ecosystem will not be surprised by this conclusion. More than ten years ago, a 2002 National Research Council report put it this way:

"The urgent need to transform the Army—from one characterized by heavy armor and firepower into a lighter, more responsive Objective Force that is at once both lethal and survivable—has made development of practical unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) systems a necessity for the future. Concepts for the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS), which are now being evaluated, include unmanned systems, both ground and air, and thus will be required for fielding with other elements of the FCS as early as 2010. The Army plans to use UGVs for such things as weapons platforms, logistics carriers, and surrogates for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA), both to increase combat effectiveness and to reduce the number of soldiers placed in harm’s way. Congress, too, has recognized the potential of unmanned systems and has mandated that at least one of every three future Army systems be unmanned."

Needless to say, that goal is nowhere close to being achieved. More than a decade later, the results have been slow to play out on the battlefield's ground war -- in the case of Afghanistan, a battlefield ripe for unmanned innovation with U.S. casualties due to IED's.

Despite progress with systems like the iRobot Warrior, Talon and Packbot, the Times story anticipates diffusion from civilian to military applications. Even at reduced Research and Development funding levels, U.S. taxpayers have a right to expect the reverse.

For a glimpse at the current DoD thinking and planning, read the 2012 Robotic Systems Joint Project Office Unmanned Ground Systems Roadmap.

New Dictionary Entry: "Drone Shoot" (as in "Turkey Shoot")

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 00:17:00 +0000

Drones Displayed at Navy facility in Maryland (2005) Credit: Navy.mil

In a signoff entry in today's PRI Marketplace, the show cited a report in the Denver Post about the town of Deer Trail selling permits to shoot down drones. The town clerk has already collected more than $19,000 in permits, even though the ordinance has not yet been passed.

Whether the expression "Drone Shoot" applies is debatable, but many low cost drones being promoted for civilian use fly relatively low and at relatively slow speeds.

The proposed town regulation would allow residents to shoot down drones that stray within 1,000 feet above private property -- and pay a $100 bounty. DullDirtyDangerous is unaware of military facilities in the vicinity of Deer Trail that would sponsor such UAV flights. But citizens in the vicinity of Patuxtent River, near which a Northrop Grumman BAMS-D UAV crashed carrying nearly 6 tons of fuel in June 2012, may wish to consult local regulations.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been directed by Congress to integrate UAS devices into civilian aviation by September 2015.

ESPN, NYC Drone Crashes no Sporting Matter [video]

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 23:37:00 +0000

You'd think the spectacle of a couple dozen bulls chasing after humans -- a "bull run" -- would be the visual highlight of this Virginia event. Instead, the first ever Dinwiddie County Great Bull Run of August 2013 featured the crash of an ESPN camera drone into spectator stands.

According to an event organizer quoted in The Verge, the battery for the device failed. It remains unclear why Rob Dickens said that this failure will be common. "It was a freak thing," he was quoted as saying.

The craft was small, and the damage slight, but this sort of incident is unlikely to be ignored by the FAA and others setting up regulations for domestic civilian use of UAVs.

In an unrelated story reported on WNYC radio on 5 September, a man was killed by a remote controlled device. It was not immediately known whether he was the operator, but he was found in a location where RPVs are permitted.

This story and video provided via The Verge.

Sighting: Unhated Drones for Rescue Operations [video]

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:49:00 +0000

This story via TechCrunch

After a natural disaster struck, causing flooding, landslides and devastation in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, pilgrims and residents were isolated. Assessment crews were unable to inspect affected regions, and helicopters were in short supply even when they could be effectively deployed.

Social Drones is an Indian startup They have designed (or at least own) what they're calling "bi-, quad- and octocopters." Company engineers told a TechCrunch reporter that their UAVs had been deployed for surveillance and delivery of light medical supplies in the affected areas. Other technology providers were also involved. According to comments posted to TechCrunch, NETRA quadcopters were also used to search for survivors and to assist in rescue operations.

The need is not only for Himalayan disasters. In 2012's Hurricane Sandy, many roads and coastal areas of New York and New Jersey were inaccessible due to fallen trees and flooding. UAVs could have been deployed to assist with damage assessment and to aid in prioritizing rescue and repair operations. So far as DullDirtyDangerous is aware, none were used for this purpose, even though some UAV manufacturers are based as close as Maryland (e.g, UAV Solutions).

In 2007, a DARPA workshop spearheaded by then Program Manager Dr. Kendra Moore was convened to address the issue of stimulating new technologies to assist in relief operations.

The recent and increasing prominence of Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations pose new challenges for the U.S. military. . . These operations involve a large, diverse mix of military organizations, nonmilitary government organizations, regional and international government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, private volunteer organizations, individual volunteers and the local population. . .

Since the time of that workshop, DARPA has turned to a more straightforward use of UAVs to support a variety of DoD missions, such as with the humanoid ATLAS.

Analysis

Use of UAVs and other intelligent devices for SSTR and HADR operations may already be occurring more often than the public understands. In order to gain public acceptance for wider UAV deployments in a domestic U.S. climate beset by privacy and legitimacy concerns, wider discussion of beneficial applications is key.

Read more on the Uttarakhand disaster in this video.

"Blimp" = Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS)? [video]

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 20:38:00 +0000

Raytheon's "Blimp," or JLENS, will someday be deployed over Washington D.C. As shown in the Company's video, the early warning surveillance system can perform a number of tasks -- all while remaining aloft for up to 30 days. It recently completed a series of tests at a Utah facility. Raytheon believes the platform is capable of providing minutes of warning vs. the seconds that conventional airborne systems typically offer.

What is the threat? According to its proponents, the JLENS could help detect or deter anti-ship sea-skimming cruise missiles, ground targets UAVs and swarming boats (think USS Cole bombing) by providing continuous detection and fire control data. For example, Raytheon claims in the promo that conventional radar can only detect anti-ship cruise missiles could be detected only seconds from their intended target. Instead, under some circumstances, JLENS could alert defenders at time of launch.

Although JLENS was envisioned for use in the Persian Gulf, some believe that protection of U.S., seaways and waterways, has not received adequate attention by Homeland Security.

Knowlengr: Knowledge Engineering Analysis

The JLENS airship (actually two aerostats) could represent a ready-made Big Data application. Its sensors could provide long term monitoring, making possible what Raytheon calls "patterns of life over time." That could bring terabytes of information. Which of course, bring to mind the long-discussed fusion challenges to be overcome for maritime situation awareness.

This story via George Leopard at Defense Systems.

Missouri-based USAF Predator MQ-1 Personnel Shadowing PKK in Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 22:06:00 +0000

Frame from PKK Predator Crash Video

The "Show Me" state is showing Turkey's military PKK movements in northern Iraq.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, Washington Post investigators obtained details of a September 2012 crash of a Predator in Northern Iraq. The wreckage was found by members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The resulting Post story included information on Operation Nomad Shadow which had orchestrated a surveillance mission that ended in the loss of the MQ-1 Predator UAV. A video claiming to have been shot by the PKK was posted on YouTube (and referenced in the Post story) and seems to show a still-smoldering wreckage. A frame from that video with a serialized part number is shown here.

Operation Nomad Shadow, the Post infers from various sources, is a joint U.S. - Turkey collaboration that is conducted over northern Iraq with the approval of the Iraqi government. The program was launched in order to deter PKK - Turkish clashes in northern Iraq that some believed risked further destabilizing the situation in Iraq. Originally the Predators currently in use were based in Iraq.

The Predator cameras and sensors are disabled over Turkish territory, at Turkey's request.

Reporter Craig Whitlock writes that

Transcripts of interviews with the drone’s ground crew mention that they were deployed to Incirlik [Air Base] with the 414th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. Another document identified the lost aircraft as NOMAD 01. . . The operation is staffed by about three dozen personnel from the U.S. Air Force’s 414th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron and private contractor Battlespace Flight Services.

World War II history buffs will be interested to note that the 414th was originally a B-17 heavy bomb squadron that flew missions in northern Africa and southern Europe during WW II. It was deactivated in 1945 and only reactivated in 2011, likely as part of Operation Nomad Shadow planning. Pilot duties for the Predator are executed from Whiteman AFB in Missouri.

The individual UAV lost is part of an overall $20M Predator MQ-1B system consisting of four UAVs, sensors, a ground control station, satellite link and local Turkey-based operations staff. The MQ-1 has a nose camera for flight control, a high-resolution TV camera, an infrared camera as well as other sensor systems.

The Missouri-based 509th Bomb Wing crew includes the pilot, a sensor operator and a "mission intelligence coordinator."

Each Predator system is valued at about $20 million.

Carrier Landing A Significant UAV Achievement -- With Footnote

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 02:32:00 +0000

Northrop Grumman X-47B (credit Wikipedia Commons)

In October of 2012, two Global Hawk UAV's demonstrated an air refueling operation. Impressive, but what's been happening with Navy unmanned programs?

The Navy has hit two significant milestones in its transition to oceangoing UAV operations.

In November of 2012, the Navy's X-47B was catapulted off a runway at NAS Patuxent River in simulated carrier conditions. Then in July 2013, a Northrop Grumman X-47B landed on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush for the first time. Two such carrier landings were achieved -- a remarkable accomplishment, even if fully anticipated. Play video below.

A third landing attempt was not attempted. Instead, the machine was diverted to Wallops Flight Facility in nearby Virginia.

According to National Defense Magazine, the project team saw this "soft failure" as a net plus. The system was able to detect its own navigational system problem and notified operators appropriately. Navy Unmanned Combat Air Systems Carrier (UCAS) Program Manager Captain Jaime Engdahl told NDM,

You have to design it with unprecedented levels of reliability and system safety.

The landings were remarkable also for the relatively brief history of the X-47B, which flew its maiden flight in February 2011.

A post on the software resilience of the X-47B demonstrated in this exercise will appear at softwareqc.com.

The 110 FirstLook: iRobot's $20K Throwable Robot

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 03:55:00 +0000

iRobot 110 First Look - From YouTube Promo

Might sound like a lot for such a small unit, but iRobot, according to IGDA, has already sold 500 of its "throwable" robot.. Impressively only weighing 5 pounds, the October 2012 promotional video shows a soldier tossing the device through a window a good distance above him. Look out, Juliette.

UAV for Cropdusting? Old Hat.

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:41:00 +0000

A long-heralded potential use for UAV's is being investigated at UC Davis. As reported in a Gizmag story summarized by Slashdot, U.S. researchers at Davis are considering use of a UAV for cropdusting. Sound far-out? Japan has been doing this for two decades to spray around 40% of its rice crop.

Photo of Yamaha RMax via Gizmag

Army UAS Operators: It's About Information, not Airborne Weaponry

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 02:06:00 +0000

As part of its Blogger Roundtable program, DoD offered journalists access to three Army UAS operators to discuss their work. Two were UAS Shadow operators, while another worked on Raven. The operators discussed their training and how they got into the Army's UAS programs.

Possible R&D Area One of the operators mentioned additional challenges faced by UAS controllers when coordinating air with ground robotics operations. SUAS (small UAS) and ground robotics are an emerging area where stateside tests are still ongoing. According to this operator, line of sight is currently only 300 ft with the ground robots; a larger range, say to 1000 ft, would be helpful to operators and ground personnel.

The main application discussed for these UAS systems was reconnaissance.

Baseline training for the Shadow is approximately 7 months, though only "a couple of weeks" is reportedly needed for basic usage. On the other hand, one of the trainers on hand said that the XBox generation is extremely adept at learning how to operate Raven, Puma or Wasp. Trainees find that it's "the best video game in the world," said a trainer. The trainer went on to say that it's not so much the damage inflicted by this or other classes of UAS, but rather the value of information they provide, especially in support of ground operations. The Shadow requires two operators and a mission liaison (camera + pilot + mission liaison), whereas the portable Raven requires only a laptop-equipped soldier. Some of items on soldier wishlists include longer battery life, shortages of UAS inventory and operators. Best uses? To discover IEDs and IED-placement activities, route clearance, support for special operations, added situational awareness for the brigade commander for operations in progress. One operator noted that the Ravens can fly in at building-top level and begin surveillance, which can serve as a deterrent to some adversary operations.

Each brigade has only one Shadow system. The Army's complete UAS inventory, in order of size, includes Gray Eagle, Hunter, Shadow, Puma, Raven, Wasp.

Information more than bullets In response to a reporter's question about possible moral issues with UAS warfare-at-a-distance, the operators reminded the press that typically the UAS is used for information gathering. Many are not weaponized; in the course of their careers, some operators will never touch a weaponized UAS.

On the other hand, as one operator said, the presence of UAS in the battlefield has meant that tactics are constantly evolving. For some soldiers on the ground, these operators believe, the sound of a noisy Shadow overhead is a comfortable presence.

Great Britain, India Going Micro and Nano (Respectively)

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 03:48:00 +0000

Its future in the U.S. UAS arsenal may be unclear, considering the large investments being made in devices with single unit costs in the millions, but smaller unmanned flying machines are being given serious consideration in India and Great Britain. According to posts by sUAS News, India is looking at purchasing a UAS weighing less than 2 kilograms, and Great Britain is considering, even in its austere budget era, "swarm"-style devices weighing even less at 200 grams. The swarm application is being considered for deployment in Afghanistan.

Commercial applications cannot be far behind.

$30M Contract Mod To Advance Global Hawk Won by Northrop Grumman #UAV

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:09:00 +0000

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Integrated Systems Sector (San Diego) was awarded a $30,346,614 contract modification to continue work they have been performing on Global Hawk. According to the Department of Defense, Northrop's ISS Group "will provide flight test and software maintenance for the Global Hawk program." The contract is administered by Wright-Patterson AFB. Source: DoD ASD (Public Affairs)

Unmanned Systems Inc. Awarded Predator/Reaper Contract #UAV

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:02:00 +0000

30 June 2010 The U.S. government announced a contract award to Unmanned Systems, Inc. of Las Vegas. The contract value was $7,613,065. Work is to "provide pilot and sensor operator services for acceptance and flight test of the Predator/Reaper program." Less than half of the funds were obligated at this time. The contract is administered by 703 AESG/SYK, at Wright-Patterson AFB. Source: DoD ASD (Public Affairs).

PBS Frontline "Digital Nation" Lingers Long on Drone Pilots

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:23:00 +0000

The Frontline documentary "Digital Nation: Life on the Digital Frontier" lingered long on the subject of drone pilots. In a series of balanced interviews, the story weaves sensibly between video games, virtual reality training, and way that growing up in a cyber-influenced environment is changing way the world looks to young people and to military planners. Teaching risk to drone pilots who are not themselves directly taking risk by taking fire is one such challenge. As drone operators must collaborate more fully with ground personnel -- including NGO's as in the case of Haiti in January 2010 -- the equation is changed significantly.

Soldiers Drowning in Video Data Could Receive Life Vest or Smoking Gun

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:13:00 +0000

A New York Times story by Christopher Drew brought to a wider public audience the challenges of an ever-increasing volume of video and other sensor data from unmanned aerial and other surveillance systems. The issue has been covered in depth in defense-oriented media outlets, but the Times' decision to run this article now may be related to reports of increased use of drone strikes by the Obama Administration. The Times own Scott Shane reported in early December 2009 that more UAS strikes had been carried out by the Obama Administration than in the Bush Admininstration's conduct of the Afghan war.

Life Vests Some improved technologies are already available and are being moved to the battlefield. Not only operators at Creech AFB or Langley but soldiers in the field may benefit from improved ISR.

Those who choose to dig a little deeper will learn that the issue is more complex than the Times article suggests. Some added complexities include:

Exploding domestic uses of video data, especially in high-surveillance societies such as Great Britain, are part of the bigger picture, not only military uses.
Challenges of standardization continue to stymie attempts to leverage commercial video image processing systems .
As students of business intelligence would attest, making sense of data from any single source is problemmatic, and correlating video data with episodic or static non-video data gathered at different times and locations is especially difficult.
There's more to information fusion than "connecting dots." Data can be unreliable, field reports can be incorrect. There are numerous psychological factors such those affecting eyewitness testimony.

Smoking Gun There is as yet limited sousveillance (inverse surveillance) to validate the appropriateness of decisions made as a result of video data, but such digital records, whether collected by the military itself or third parties, should be expected. As the notorious Rodney King trial demonstrated, a video record of an event become important, despite, or precisely because of its ambiguity. In retrospect it may not be so clear whether all the targets of lethal force ("warheads on foreheads") were legitimate wartime objectives.

On Technorati: The Real Story about Predator Video Feed Encryption

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:54:00 +0000

My story posted on Technorati goes into detail not covered well elsewhere about the supposed "hacking" of video feeds from U.S. UAS systems in Iraq and Afghanistan.

UAS Landing Failures Highlight Human-Machine Control Issue

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:28:00 +0000

Sorting out the causes for UAS glitches is becoming a top priority. According to a report by Defense Systems' Sean Gallagher, the mishaps have been uncomfortably recent and closely spaced. One involved the crash of an Army RQ-7B Shadow into the Mosul office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. A few weeks before that, a Predator crashed in central Iraq, and on September 13, the Air Force had to shoot down one of its Reapers.

The interesting part of the DS story pertains to the different ways that the Army and the Air Force handle the landings of the Predator UAS. Both fly a variant of the same basic design, but the Army prefers a software-automated landing as opposed to remotely piloted landings. More on this another time at the Glitch Reporter.

UAS Videos from FlightGlobal

noreply@blogger.com (knowlengr) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:31:00 +0000

FlightGlobal has provided links to several UAS videos available on YouTube. Not all of these projects are currently active.

VIDEO: Israel Aerospace Industries Heron completes trials in El Salvador

VIDEO: Indela Strela UAV first flight 18 May 2009

VIDEO: Boeing X-45A weapons drop video from 2004

VIDEO: Bell TR918 Eagle Eye tiltrotor UAV flight test