Designed by Prox Dynamics of Norway, the Black Hornet is four inches long, one inch tall, and weighs 16 grams. There’s a tiny camera mounted on board that can send pictures and videos back to a handheld receiver up to a kilometre away, allowing soldiers to gain information about an area without having to directly risk the lives and safety of soldiers that would otherwise be tasked with that mission.

It helps that the Black Hornet is incredibly tiny and flies nearly silently, navigating its way around buildings to see if there is any danger. It can only fly at a maximum of 10 meters per second and the battery pack only lasts about 25 minutes, but that should be enough for some basic recon. It can act as an R/C helicopter or it can act as an autonomous drone based on GPS.

Yes, it’s expensive, but that’s military-spec tech for you. It’s ruggedized to handle the harsh conditions of the battlefield, including extreme heat and wind. The UK Military of Defense has placed an order for 160 units, totalling 20 million GBP. That works out to about $31.3 million or about $195,000 each.

[Source]

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Former US Navy lieutenant Christopher Dorner was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for lying about a fellow officer accused of misconduct and he is now seeking revenge by “killing officers and their families,” according to his Facebook page. He has already shot and killed the daughter of a former LAPD captain, as well as her fiance. He was also involved in a shootout with police shortly thereafter, wounding one of the officers at the site.

Dorner is now thought to be hiding out in the San Bernardino mountains near Los Angeles as the plans to “utilize every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordinance and survival training” he’s been given as he prepares to “bring warfare” to the LAPD. As a result, a task force of 125 officers are continuing their search for Dorner in the mountains, but they realize that searching on the ground is “like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

The drone or drones being used don’t appear to be carrying any lethal weaponry. Instead, they have thermal imaging cameras that the task force hopes will be able to locate Dorner in the snow-capped mountains. Dorner is now the first human target for a remote-controlled UAV on US soil, at least officially. Does this create for a slippery slope for future, potentially dangerous situations? Dorner says that he is prepared to use a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile to “knock out” any helicopters to pursue him, so in the interest of protecting the officers in this chase, perhaps the drone is the safest option?

[Source]

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The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) uses a Skywalker X-8 FPV Flying Wing for its frame and it has been equipped with a Qauntum RTR Bomb System. The release mechanism doesn’t drop bombs, though, as the mailing tube-style canister is used to hold your precious Mexican-inspired wrap of a meal. After entering the destination, the restaurant can send the Burrito Bomber on its way and it will navigate on its own with an ArduPilot control system. This uses waypoints to ensure the drone is heading the right way, but they can use manual controls via the on-board video camera too.

When the Burrito Bomber arrives at its destinations, it drops the burrito with a parachute. And that’s it. You get your lunch, the UAV returns back to home base, and you don’t have to deal with the pizza delivery guy that’s late because of gridiron traffic.

[Source]

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UAV’s are one of those areas of technology that really opens a lot of doors for creativity, and for designers and manufacturers, there’s no better inspiration than the natural world around us. A team from Georgia Tech has been hard at work on mimicking the natural flying capabilities of a dragonfly, and with their new palm-sized TechJet Dragonfly, their work may have paid off.

The UAV uses a combination of quadrocopter, helicopter and fixed wing aircraft technology to help the device fly and hover just like a real life dragonfly would. It wasn’t cheap though, and along with their four years of hard work and research, it also cost the Georgia Tech team and the U.S Air Force a combined funding of $1 million.

The result is a UAV that has managed to mimic a Dragonfly in more than one aspect, and with a length of 6 inches, and a weight of just 25g, the 250 mAh lithium polymer powered TechJet Dragonfly is also very similar to its natural counterpart in shape and size, as well as its flying capabilities.

The TechJet development team hope to reach out to all sorts of consumers such as aerial photographers, gamers, military personal and many other occupations and it’s twenty on-board sensors help to support these needs. The TechJet also comes in four varying models and is currently on a crowd-funding page on Indiegogo. The TechJet team hopes to secure enough funding to now manufacture the devices so that their $1 million funded research can go straight to consumers instead of beind-the-scene military and security occupants.

The four models offer different uses and come with different computing and flying capabilities, with the first being $250, and the most expensive being planned for a $1,499 retail price, there’s a huge range of consumer functionality.

These prices may seem a little high for an average consumer, however with just a pledge of $99, funders can get their hands on the $250 model, and a pledge of $399 will grant funders the $1,499 model.

[Source]

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[ Source ]

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They literally turn the tide of battles and with the valuable intelligence and images they provide to command centres, have saved many soldiers, be it in the Middle East, Afghanistan or Eastern Europe.

Reconnaissance saves lives and in modern day war, going into an engagement without the intelligence from UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) drones, which are armed with sophisticated electronics for imagery and sensing, is like walking in blindfolded.

UAV drones and its impact would have taken on another dimension if the feasibility study done by Sandia National Laboratories and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation hadn’t been ended. Their project summary, which was obtained and published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), indicates that scientists are checking out the possibility of nuclear-powered drones which will increase the operating time of drones by months.   Sandia however has since made the following statement: “Sandia is often asked to look at a wide range of solutions to the toughest technical challenges. The research on this topic was highly theoretical and very conceptual. The work only resulted in a preliminary feasibility study and no hardware was ever built or tested. The project has ended.”

Being a touchy area, the word “nuclear” was not mentioned in the project summary published by FAS.  But there are clear indications in the research summary that the researchers are working on power sources other than derived from petroleum products and that the primary source under investigation is nuclear.

The FAS points out at words used in the report such as “safeguards,” “decommissioning and disposal,” suggesting that the technology being considered is nuclear. Besides, Dr Steven B Dron, the lead investigator for the project at Sandia, is a nuclear propulsion expert, says FAS. Sandia hasn’t flatly denied FAS’s assumptions either.

The question was that in the quest for more surveillance time, is the army willing to take the nuclear risk, as there are possibilities of it becoming a “dirty bomb” if it happens to crash or be shot down over a rural area.

Then there is the possibility of the technology falling into the wrong hands. There have been instances when opposing forces have gotten their hands on drones and imagine if that drone happens to be one powered by nuclear technology. The consequences of such a technology falling into the hands of a rogue state could be disastrous.

The project would also likely to face opposition, both philosophical and political. So the likelihood of a nuclear-powered eye flying, rather permanently, over our heads will not happen in the near future.

Till thenThis project has ended, however others could surface, until then, the drones have to make pit-stops before going back to their peeping-tom duties.

The post Nuclear-Powered UAV Drones Not Happening Anytime Soon appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

I really like R/C helicopters from a hobbyist’s perspective, but you can see how useful they’d be for more practical purposes too. Drones are used all the time in a military context and now one sheriff’s office in Texas is getting its own drone copter, complete with the ability to get weaponized.

The Shadowhawk helicopter has been acquired by the Sheriff’s office in Montgomery County in Texas. They say that it is being used as a safety asset, equipped with a remote video camera, infrared heat-seeking, and onboard GPS. It can be used to monitor situations where a human presence might not be the best idea.

The 50-pound UAV is built by Vanguard Defense Industries and while it is capable of carrying weapons, the Sheriff says that they have no plans to equip it with pellet guns, bean bags, or frickin’ laser beams tasers. Instead, the application is more toward tracking down criminals or assisting SWAT teams. What do you think of the concerns in relation to Big Brother-esque ramifications?

Check out the local news coverage for a video.

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Israeli defense electronics manufacturer Elbit has recently tested a new Forward Ground Control Station strategy by using the Skylark I LE unmanned aerial system.  What does that mean exactly mean?  The Israeli Defense Department gets one of the coolest remote control aircraft we have ever seen.  The drone will come in to use when it becomes dispatched  from the  rear, allowing forward military units to takeover operations once it reaches them and scope out foreign territory for potential hostiles.  The Skylark weighs less – about 15 kg than other UAVs – and will enhance their troops operational flexibility by cutting back on their baggage.

One standalone soldier can carry the drone.  The package consists of the unmanned aerial Skylark I LE, a computer controller, hand held display, operations stick and something called the Skylark Rambo transducer.

Skylark will be used for close-range reconnaissance missions for soldiers who are inspecting a battle field without enemy detections. The system is very silent, has good flight autonomy and can observe the battle during day or night, thus providing soldiers with vital information.

NATO has used this in previous battles such as Iraq and Afghanistan, unfortunately it’s not available to the public so we’ll just have to stick to an iPhone controlled AR drone for now.

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Boeing Phantom Eye hydrogen-powered unmanned bomber plane

Capable of flying at 65,000 feet for four days straight with its 150 foot wingspan and 450 pound payload, the Phantom Eye will surely keep any neighboring infidels in check. Powering the aircraft are dual 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engines that provide 150 horsepower each, although not stealthy, the cruising speed of approximately 150 knots is enough to conduct surveillance or just drop a few bombs on the “enemy.”

Expect Boeing’s Phantom Eye to visit NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California for typical ground and taxi tests in preparation for its lift off in early 2011.

[Via Boeing]

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