Military commanders use tactics and strategy in combat to inflict as much damage on the enemy while trying to risk as few personnel and resources as possible. This principle was at the heart of the development of the RQ-1 and MQ-1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
These high-tech aircraft, controlled by a crew miles away from the dangers of combat, are capable of reconnaissance, combat and support roles in the hairiest of battles. In a worst-case scenario, if a Predator is lost in battle, military personal can simply “crack another one out of the box” and have it up in the air shortly — and that’s without the trauma of casualties or prisoners normally associated with an aircraft going down.
In this article, we will look at the Predator UAV’s flight system, sensors, weapons and crew, and how the military is using Predators to keep personnel safer both in the air and on land.
Flying low to the ground is a pilot’s nightmare: buildings, trees, and power cables all threaten to put an early end to the flight. But now the first large robotic aircraft able to fly at low levels and weave around such obstacles has been developed by US engineers.Giving uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) this ability could aid military operations in urban areas, or help search-and-rescue efforts after disasters.Most UAVs do not have the capacity to sense and avoid obstacles at all – a significant barrier to their being allowed to fly in civilian airspace.But now engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, have modified a commercial civilian UAV helicopter made by Yamaha to be able to see obstacles it encounters.The helicopter’s “eye” is a custom-built 3D laser scanner, which sweeps an oval path ahead of the 3.5-metre long craft. The scanner can detect objects as hard to see as power lines from 150 metres away.
Northrop was awarded the six-year, $636 million UCAS-D contract in August 2007 after its X-47B was selected over Boeing’s X-45N. The first of two demonstrators is scheduled to fly in November 2009, and the first carrier landing is planned for 2011.
The demonstrator has bays for sensors and weapons, each of the latter sized to carry a 900kg (2,000lb) Joint Direct Attack Munition or six 150kg Small Diameter Bombs. That would give an operational N-UCAS, with its 12-14h unrefuelled endurance, the capability to attack 12 different targets on a single mission, says Beard.
Designs to establish a means of integral lift and thrust using a horizontal-axis wing rotor are recorded back as far as the late 19th century. Some of the experiments started to take off but did not sustain flight. The FanWing new blown-wing solution offers both basic proof of concept and a steady trajectory of improved and controlled flight performance.
The aircraft has a cross-flow fan along the span of each wing. The fan pulls the air in at the front and then expels it over the wing’s trailing edge. In transferring the work of the engine to the rotor, which spans the whole wing, the FanWing accelerates a large volume of air and achieves unusually high lift-efficiency.
The FanWing showed proof of concept in the form of actual flights before theoretical validation, academic research or explanation. The FanWing is an invention by trial and error and though certainly employing a methodology with good precedent in the history of innovation it is in no way within the normal paradigm of academic and conventional aircraft development. There is nevertheless a steady accumulation of tests and supporting documentation.
The ScanEagle UAV has proven a revelation in Iraq and Afghanistan, offering another key informational input on the battlefield to help soldiers under fire make better decisions. The bad news for enemies of the United States is that the miniature UAV can now carry Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) which can pick out man made objects not readily visible to IR or EO cameras.
