Tag Archives: Army

UAV252 An Autonomous Flock of Drones

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A flock of drones that act autonomously, the Airbus Zephyr maiden flight, Teal Group predicts strong growth for the civil drone market, DJI improves their geofence unlocking process, another incident with an airliner, and suicide drones that take out hostile UAVs.

An autonomous flock of drones from Eötvös University in Budapest.

An autonomous flock of drones from Eötvös University in Budapest. Credit: Zsolt Bézsenyi.

UAV News

How a Flock of Drones Developed Collective Intelligence

These autonomous drones flock without any pre-programming or control station. Instead, they communicate amongst themselves and self-organize, split around obstacles, rejoin, and avoid colliding with each other. The flocking model is described in Science Robotics Vol. 3, Issue 20. The research is from the Robotic Lab in the Department of Biological Physics at Eötvös University in Budapest. See: Optimized flocking of autonomous drones in confined environments.

Airbus unveils pioneering solar-powered drone

At the Farnborough airshow, Airbus unveiled its Zephyr solar-powered drone. Airbus said the High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) Zephyr S maiden flight occurred in Arizona on July 11, 2018. The Zephyr S has an 82-foot wingspan and weighs less than 55 pounds. It can fly at 21,000 meters or almost 70,000 feet. Seven models are planned to be produced in 2018 and seven more in 2019. The future Zephyr T would have a 108-foot wingspan.

Civil drone production will soar over the next decade

The Teal Group 2018 World Civil Unmanned Aerial Systems Market Profile & Forecast is out, featuring 10-Year Market Forecasts, expert analysis, a look at venture capital, implementation of regulations worldwide, and company strategies. The forecast projects non-military UAS production growing from $4.4 billion worldwide in 2018 to $13.1 billion in 2027. You can download the Table of Contents & Executive Overview [PDF].

DJI will unlock geofencing for enterprise drone users

DJI is improving the process that allows drone pilots with authorization to obtain geofence unlock codes. The company’s global authorization team is now staffed around the clock and requests can be made online at the DJI “Custom Unlocking” webpage. A DJI account is required to login.

Dumb and Dumber: A Drone Flies Dangerously Close to an A380 During Take Off

A drone waited off the end of the runway as an Emirates Airbus A380 prepared to take off from the airport at Mauritius Island. The drone appeared to be about 300 feet from the tip of the left wing as the jet passed by.

Army Buys Small Suicide Drones To Break Up Hostile Swarms And Potentially More

At the Farnborough Airshow, Raytheon announced it has shipped more than 32 Block 1B variants of the Coyote drone to the U.S. Army. The Coyote weighs under ten pounds and includes a small warhead with a fire control radar. After launch, the six-foot-wide main wing, the rear stabilizers, and the twin tail pop open. Raytheon’s Vice President for Advanced Missile Systems said, “We modified these vehicles to have small warheads to take down a quadcopter, for example, or other types of Class I or Class II UAVs.”

Mentioned

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Procurement Guide was recently published by the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project. The guide contains considerations, specifications, and criteria that can be used to evaluate UAV manufacturers. A webinar on the guide with the UAVs for Payload Delivery Working Group is scheduled for August 1, 2018, at 10 AM Eastern Standard Time.

UAV206 DJI and Data Security

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DJI drones come under attack for data transmissions, the U.S. Army responds, military installations get approval to take down drones, a Navy fighter is forced to take evasive action, automated approval to fly in airport airspace, and thrust-assisted perching.

DJI Phantom 4 Advanced

Phantom 4 Advanced, courtesy DJI.

UAV News

Drone Data Security

sUAS News describes the data they say is collected during the flight of a DJI drone, logged into your DJI Go app, and transmitted back to DJI Servers.

US Army calls for units to discontinue use of DJI equipment

The U.S. Department of the Army issued a “Memorandum for Record” directing military installations to “Cease all use, uninstall all DJI applications, remove all batteries/storage media from devices, and secure equipment for follow on direction.” This is in reaction to U.S. Army Research Lab and U.S. Navy studies that concluded there are operational risks associated with DJI equipment.

A government study found DJI drone, banned by US Army, kept data safe

In October 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tested a DJI DJI S-1000 using a packet sniffer to monitor transmissions between the drone and the computer. NOAA’s report states that “The majority of transactions to the DJI servers were to login to DJI servers hosted at both Amazon Web Services and Linode to check for software updates. These transactions are quite common for software of this type, and nothing unusual was detected during the experiment.” Further, “There was no evidence whatsoever of any attempt by any software to transfer any data from the aircraft.”

However, one of the authors of the NOAA study observed a different result when he tested personal Phantom 3. The Phantom was sending encrypted data back to DJI servers.

New policy: Military bases can shoot down trespassing drones

In July, a classified policy was sent to the services from the Pentagon. More recently unclassified guidance was sent concerning how to communicate the new policy to local communities. Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said military installations “retain the right of self-defense when it comes to UAVs or drones operating over [them.] The new guidance does afford of the ability to take action to stop these threats and that includes disabling, destroying and tracking.”

Iranian drone forces US jet to take evasive action

A Navy F/A-18 had to make an evasive maneuver while trying to land on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. An Iranian QOM-1 drone came within 100 feet below the F/A-18 and 200 feet to the side.

50 Airports Across the U.S. to Adopt Automated Airspace Authorizations for Drones

The FAA Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) page says, “The FAA is currently in acquisition for the first step of a UTM system, the Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC), which supports air traffic control authorization requirements for UAS operations conducted under the Special Rule for Model Aircraft (part 101e) and the Small UAS Rule (part 107). The current airport notification and airspace authorization processes are manual for the small UAS. LAANC will provide part 101 & 107 UAS operators a streamlined solution to enable real time automated notification and authorization.”

Now fifty airports will start using LAANC in Autumn 2017. UAS operators will be able to apply for automated authorizations to fly in controlled airspace around those airports.

UAV Video of the Week

Innovative Vertical-Landing Drone Can Stick to Walls Like a Fly

Researchers at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada have developed the fixed-wing Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD) that is capable of repeated perching and take-off cycles.

The S-MAD: A Drone Landing on Walls Like a Bird

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