Volansi has announced that Dr. Will Roper has joined the board, with expertise in R&D and emerging tech. Roper was the assistant secretary of the US Air Force and will focus on Volansi’s strategy, operations, and growth in the defense market.
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The US Military is currently testing an Israeli-built drone interception system, initially developed for use in the gaming world. The new system is already being flown along the Gaza border, and US soldiers are being trained to use it.
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DARPA‘s Gremlin program has just completed its second round of testing in late July, cementing them in the future of military combat. The second round of testing focused on risk-reducing flights in preparation for tests later on in the year.
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Greece will be receiving Turkish mine detection drones to be used in search and rescue missions along with detecting mines up to a depth of 50 meters (~164 miles). This marks the first time Greece has bought drones from the private sector in Turkey.
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It’s not quite Star Wars, but laser weapons are real. The US Navy just demonstrated that capability when it downed a drone in tests of a new ship-mounted laser in the Pacific Ocean. Expand
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Just a pound or two of plastic and metal can bring air traffic to a standstill. Such was the case at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma when a small drone wandered into the base’s flight path on Wednesday. Expand
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Military drones collect a lot of data from their cameras and other sensors. Right now, they stream back whatever they can, leaving humans and computers back at the base to sort through. Now the US Air Force wants to equip the drones with the brains to analyze the data in real-time. Expand
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The lines between consumer, enterprise, and now military drones continue to blur. This week, French drone maker Parrot announced that it’s in the final stage of competition to provide short range reconnaissance drones to the US Army. Getting to that stage required a lot of assurances for a government wary of foreign drone makers. Expand
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Talk about an explosive idea. The US Army Research Lab (ARL) has married drones with grenade launchers. The result is a surveillance system that can operate at up to 2000 feet altitude and 1.25 miles away. Expand
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Indonesia is planning to start mass-producing its Black Eagle long-range surveillance and attack drones for military use by 2022. The news comes two years earlier than originally planned by President Joko Widodo. PT Dirgantara Indonesia, a state-owned company will be tasked with manufacturing the drones.
Morocco’s military is said to have received three Heron surveillance drones last week after the French military decommissioned from their surveillance duties over the middle east. The drones were said to have cost around $48 million each when the French purchased them.
At the end of last year, DARPA’s Gremlin program completed the first test flight of its X-61A fixed-wing aerial vehicle, in the skies above Utah. The test was to demonstrate the feasibility of recovering ‘low-cost’ UAVs safely, reliably, and affordably.
Ukrainian company Meridian Corporation has developed a drone to fly alongside Ukrainian soldiers to provide situational awareness, surveillance, and reconnaissance while in the field. The drone took six months to develop and test.
Even though China is trying to make headways into military drone market and touting lower prices to convince potential buyers, Australia just announced that it will buy American drones, namely the Reaper. The 12 to 16 unmanned warships are to be stationed in Papua New Guinea in response to regional security threats, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It is not the first time that we see a drone that has been inspired by nature when it comes to its design. Earlier this year, the French company Parrot introduced the Anafi drone that was inspired by insects. The Skeeter drone, a military surveillance UAS, was based on a dragonfly. Dragonflies are the most successful predators as they catch 95% of the prey that they target.
Manned aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon are fast and agile which make them the perfect candidate for aerial combat. Drones share this same athletic mobility and come in different variations from quadcopters to fixed-wing designs. With this potential, drones could one day fill the skies, taking down manned aircraft and fighting against each other.
The Army is looking to solve one of the biggest problems regarding drones: flight time. Drones of all shapes and sizes have different flight times; some can fly for minutes while others can fly for weeks. According to the New Scientist [paywall], The United States Army is looking to power their drones via lasers to keep them flying indefinitely.
Military drones are becoming more prevalent in the evolving age of warfare and they come in all shapes and sizes. UAV’s, like the FLIR Black Hornet, look like a toy helicopter while the Reaper MQ-9 can pass as full-sized, manned aircraft. Matrix UAV, a Ukrainian firm, has created the perfect drone of death called “Demon” that carries weaponized payloads capable of taking on various strike missions.
In the near future, one marine could have the ability to send out multiple drones from a single tablet. These aircraft would have the ability to swarm the enemy, jamming their communications and eradicating designated targets. The end goal is to have up to 15 drones in the air, each flying for hours at a time without needing to land.
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Harshwardhan Zala, a 15-year-old boy from the city of Ahmedabad in India, has a passion for saving lives across the globe. Zala has built drones that detect landmines and already has a handful of patents at his young age. The South Korean army has shown interest in his company, Areobotics7 Tech Solutions, and the technology he has invented.
With drones increasingly being adopted by military forces, efforts are being taken to stop them before soldiers on the ground can even see them. Putting a stop to drones is nothing new, we have seen guns capable of taking down UAV’s but the problem is their size, they are big and bulky. A new system called “Pitbull” is a wearable drone jammer that proves to be effective and lightweight.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently added three new U.S. Defense Department facilities to the list of no-drone zones and extended the restricted boundary of a third facility. The additions are the result of a request to enhance unmanned aircraft flight restrictions over military bases in the US.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that an American drone strike killed a top recruiter for Al Qaeda last weekend in south Libya. More attacks on extremists may follow warned a senior military official.