Real-Time and 3D Vision for

Autonomous Small and Micro Air Vehicles

Via  newscientist

Via research.microsoft

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.

Video:link.brightcove

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PICTURES: Northrop’s UAV demonstrator#1

Via flightglobal

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.

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The FanWing experimental aircraft opens up a new area of aerodynamics

Via fanwing

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.

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ScanEagle/2

Via gizmag.com

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.

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ScanEagle/1

Via insitu.com

The ScanEagle™ Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) for military and homeland security applications comes from the teaming of Insitu and The Boeing Company. ScanEagle is an economical, long endurance unmanned aircraft (UA) and can be an enabler of network centric warfare. ScanEagle is the only UA in its class with with an inertially stabilized camera turret, designed to track an object of interest for extended periods of time, even when the object is moving and the aircraft nose is seldom pointed at the object. The turret can house either an electro-optical daylight or infrared camera.

camerachange22

enginechange21

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Via darpa.mil

The VULTURE Air Vehicle Program will research and develop technologies and systems which will enable the Military to deliver and maintain a 1000 lb, 5 kW airborne payload for an uninterrupted period exceeding 5 years with a 99+% on station probability. The architectures selected and the specific approaches taken by the Offerors will determine the range of technical areas that are developed, including, but not limited to, environmental energy collection, high specific energy storage, extremely efficient propulsion systems, precision robotic refueling, autonomous materiel transfer, extremely efficient vehicle structural design, and mitigation of environmentally-induced loads.

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1.What is Future Combat System?

Via fcs.army.mil

Future Combat Systems (FCS) is the United States Army’s principal modernization program. FCS includes 14+1+1 systems consisting of unattended ground sensors (UGS), the Non-Line of Sight - Launch System (NLOS-LS), two classes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) organic to platoon, and Brigade Combat Team (BCT) echelons; two classes of unmanned ground vehicles, the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV), and Multifunctional Utility/Logistics and Equipment Vehicle (MULE) variants; and the eight manned ground vehicles (14 individual systems), plus the network (14+1), plus the Soldier (14+1+1).

Via wikipedia

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