Unmanned Warfare

Weapons specialists at the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) at China Lake, CA. have recently tested the capability of guided missile to defeat an unmanned aerial vehicle in flight. Two Spike 'forward-firing miniature missiles' were used to defeat two Outlaw UAVs, employing both proximity and contact activation (in separate tests)

An Israeli-French  joint venture to be established by early 2011 will focus on tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). A principal agreement on the move was signed today as a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the French defense company Sagem Defense Securite and Israel's Elbit Systems. The...

Turkey steps up reconnaissance operations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles monitoring suspected Kurdish resistance in Southeastern Turkey and Northeast Iraq Israel Aircraft Industries has recently delivered Turkey the first two Heron UAVs, part of a package worth $183 million signed between Turkey and Israel in 2005. The...

High Altitude Long Endurance UAV - Northrop Grumman / USA Once mission parameters are programmed into Global Hawk, the UAV can autonomously taxi, take off, fly, remain on station capturing imagery, return and land. Ground-based operators monitor UAV health and status, and can change navigation...

The I-View family of small and mini-UAVs will be deployed with brigade, battalion level and special operations forces. This family has three members – K250, designed for brigades, K125 designed for battalions and K50, optimized for Special Forces. All I-View models are designed for...

To achieve airworthiness that meets NATO STANAG 4671 GA-ASI redesigned the MQ-9 platform from scratch, to enable the new ‘SkyGuardian’ to meet fully the UK Military Type Certificate for the time when Protector RG MK1 enters service by the mid-2020s. The RAF just announced its plan to assign the RPAS to 31 Squadron, that will phase out the Tornado GR4 by next year.

IAI has unveiled a new version of its Heron Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone, designated Heron Heron MK II. Carrying a 470 kg payload weight the maximum takeoff weight has increased to 1,350 kg., while mission endurance remained at 45 hours.

Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) won a $635 million US Navy contract to build a Carrier-based (CV) Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration vehicle (UCAS-D). The program will mature critical carrier suitability technologies for future low observable unmanned combat platforms. Once proving these capabilities, the Navy...

Hovermast 100, a tethered, hovering multi-rotor platform developed by Israel's tethered platform pioneer Sky Sapience is making its international debut displaying its unique surveillance platform at the Eurosatory defense expo in Paris this week

DARPA awarded Northrop Grumman US$93 million for under the 3rd phase of the Tern program. The company will develop and demonstrate an innovative unmanned tail-sitting, flying-wing aircraft

ECA has added an Unmanned Rotorcraft to the Belgian-Dutch MCM Program. The drone will join other unmanned systems organized in a 'Toolbox', that represents the ECA Group integrated MCM capability of the Belgian-Dutch navies. The Toolbox consists of the integrated operation of remotely controlled and autonomous aerial, surface, and underwater systems.

The flight represents a first operational test of a "Reachback" concept for the Harfang, proving that the UAS piloting functions could be transferred from the cockpit in Niger, where the UAV took off from, to the cockpit in Cognac almost 5,000 km away, for the activation and control of the drone's sensors

Smaller robotic systems showcased by DGA included three Mini-robots called MiniROC (Mini Robot de Choc), a family of modular, semi-autonomous platforms designed for operations in urban environments. Another system, called TAROT, is being used to experiment with autonomous navigation and behavioral aspects of the interaction...