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BR , this could be the one you are talking about. Accept this as your birth day gift
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UAVs and UCAVs
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BR , this could be the one you are talking about. Accept this as your birth day gift
LETHALFORCE
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India readies large-scale UAV procurement programme - Jane's Defence News
India readies large-scale UAV procurement programme
India is planning to significantly upgrade its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability over the next decade in order to enhance situational awareness along its land and maritime borders.
Official sources said the army was planning to procure a large number of manportable mini- and nano-UAVs with short-range intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and laser-designation capabilities, as well as the ability to detect nuclear, biological and chemical weapons inside enemy territory.
The army also intends to acquire weaponised UAVs similar to the General Atomics RQ-1 Predator, which can be armed with Hellfire missiles. These will be deployed largely along the disputed borders with Pakistan and China.
At present, India operates around 70 Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)-built Searcher Mk 1 and Mk 2 and Heron UAVs, as well as 30 Harpy ground attack drones designed to detect and destroy enemy radars.
"A larger number of UAVs would constitute an integral ingredient of the burgeoning network-centric warfare capability that all three Indian services are seeking to execute the full spectrum of war," a three-star Indian Air Force officer told Jane's.
Image: India operates around 70 UAVs, including the Harpy, but is now planning to significantly augment its UAV fleet (IAI)
India readies large-scale UAV procurement programme
India is planning to significantly upgrade its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability over the next decade in order to enhance situational awareness along its land and maritime borders.
Official sources said the army was planning to procure a large number of manportable mini- and nano-UAVs with short-range intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and laser-designation capabilities, as well as the ability to detect nuclear, biological and chemical weapons inside enemy territory.
The army also intends to acquire weaponised UAVs similar to the General Atomics RQ-1 Predator, which can be armed with Hellfire missiles. These will be deployed largely along the disputed borders with Pakistan and China.
At present, India operates around 70 Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)-built Searcher Mk 1 and Mk 2 and Heron UAVs, as well as 30 Harpy ground attack drones designed to detect and destroy enemy radars.
"A larger number of UAVs would constitute an integral ingredient of the burgeoning network-centric warfare capability that all three Indian services are seeking to execute the full spectrum of war," a three-star Indian Air Force officer told Jane's.
Image: India operates around 70 UAVs, including the Harpy, but is now planning to significantly augment its UAV fleet (IAI)
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fullstory
Nishant's 'different' landing creates flutter
Bangalore, Jan 29 (PTI) Unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant today created a flutter when it landed at a location other than its designated landing place at the testing range of Defence Research and Development Organisation near Kolar in Karnataka.
The landing was mistaken for an accident by locals who saw the machine coming down, DRDO sources said.
DRDO personnel switched off the engine and enabled it to land softly with the help of on-board parachute, in a area filled with sand. It was landed at a different place "deliberately", a DRDO official said.
Nishant's 'different' landing creates flutter
Bangalore, Jan 29 (PTI) Unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant today created a flutter when it landed at a location other than its designated landing place at the testing range of Defence Research and Development Organisation near Kolar in Karnataka.
The landing was mistaken for an accident by locals who saw the machine coming down, DRDO sources said.
DRDO personnel switched off the engine and enabled it to land softly with the help of on-board parachute, in a area filled with sand. It was landed at a different place "deliberately", a DRDO official said.
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http://www.ptinews.com/news/498532_Unmanned-air-vehicle-Nishant-makes-successful-flight
Unmanned air vehicle Nishant makes successful flight
Bangalore, Feb 3 (PTI) Three days after on board malfunction lead to gentle landing of unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant, the Aeronautical Development Establishment has successfully flown the UAV, the DRDO has said.
"All systems worked normally in its 30th flight and the mission was totally successful," the Defence Research and Development Organisation said in a statement here.
The 30th flight was conducted at ADE, a DRDO lab headquartered here, on February one between 11.25 am and 3 pm.
The aircraft took off from the launcher located at Kolar airfield and it was recovered after three hours, 35 minutes at the designated point, the DRDO said.
Nishant-15 was the same aircraft flown on January 29 from the same location.
Unmanned air vehicle Nishant makes successful flight
Bangalore, Feb 3 (PTI) Three days after on board malfunction lead to gentle landing of unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant, the Aeronautical Development Establishment has successfully flown the UAV, the DRDO has said.
"All systems worked normally in its 30th flight and the mission was totally successful," the Defence Research and Development Organisation said in a statement here.
The 30th flight was conducted at ADE, a DRDO lab headquartered here, on February one between 11.25 am and 3 pm.
The aircraft took off from the launcher located at Kolar airfield and it was recovered after three hours, 35 minutes at the designated point, the DRDO said.
Nishant-15 was the same aircraft flown on January 29 from the same location.
DRDO completes successful test flight of UAV Nishant
BANGALORE (PTI): Three days after on board malfunction lead to gentle landing of unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant, the Aeronautical Development Establishment has successfully flown the UAV, the DRDO has said.
"All systems worked normally in its 30th flight and the mission was totally successful," the Defence Research and Development Organisation said in a statement here.
The 30th flight was conducted at ADE, a DRDO lab headquartered here, on February 1st between 11.25 am and 3 pm.
The aircraft took off from the launcher located at Kolar airfield and it was recovered after three hours, 35 minutes at the designated point, the DRDO said.
Nishant-15 was the same aircraft flown on January 29 from the same location. It flew through the designated way point till 3 pm as per plan and was returning towards recovery area near launcher when an on board malfunction occurred while overflying a path five km from Bangarpet. It had led to the recovery parachute coming out and the vehicle landed gently on the ground as per design.
Further, to absorb the shock of recovery, the landing bag in the vehicle got deployed and the vehicle was recovered fully intact except for a very minor damage, the DRDO said, denying that the Nishant had crash-landed on January 29.
http://www.brahmand.com/news/DRDO-completes-successful-test-flight-of-UAV-Nishant/3078/1/10.html
BANGALORE (PTI): Three days after on board malfunction lead to gentle landing of unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant, the Aeronautical Development Establishment has successfully flown the UAV, the DRDO has said.
"All systems worked normally in its 30th flight and the mission was totally successful," the Defence Research and Development Organisation said in a statement here.
The 30th flight was conducted at ADE, a DRDO lab headquartered here, on February 1st between 11.25 am and 3 pm.
The aircraft took off from the launcher located at Kolar airfield and it was recovered after three hours, 35 minutes at the designated point, the DRDO said.
Nishant-15 was the same aircraft flown on January 29 from the same location. It flew through the designated way point till 3 pm as per plan and was returning towards recovery area near launcher when an on board malfunction occurred while overflying a path five km from Bangarpet. It had led to the recovery parachute coming out and the vehicle landed gently on the ground as per design.
Further, to absorb the shock of recovery, the landing bag in the vehicle got deployed and the vehicle was recovered fully intact except for a very minor damage, the DRDO said, denying that the Nishant had crash-landed on January 29.
http://www.brahmand.com/news/DRDO-completes-successful-test-flight-of-UAV-Nishant/3078/1/10.html
LETHALFORCE
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http://knol.google.com/k/vijainder-k-thakur/indian-ucav/yo54fmdhy2mq/60#
Indian UCAV
Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bangalore is developing an Indian UCAV
Besides ISR, the drone will be capable of attacking targets like the US Predator.
"We will soon embark on designing and developing an unmanned combat aerial vehicle, which will not only do surveillance, but will also help detect the target and destroy the identified object," V.K. Saraswat, scientific advisor to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, told reporters on November 24, after inaugurating the fifth national conference on 'NextGen IT for Indian Defence'.
Saraswat recently took over as director general of the DRDO, said on the margins of a conference.
"The controls of a combat drone will be rested with multiple command control centres. The centres can be geographically at different locations. Even if one centre becomes defunct, the drone can be controlled and guided by other centers.
"The UCAV will work in a multi-layer manner for which ADE is developing the required technology, including sensors," Sarsawat added.
Indian UCAV
Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bangalore is developing an Indian UCAV
Besides ISR, the drone will be capable of attacking targets like the US Predator.
"We will soon embark on designing and developing an unmanned combat aerial vehicle, which will not only do surveillance, but will also help detect the target and destroy the identified object," V.K. Saraswat, scientific advisor to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, told reporters on November 24, after inaugurating the fifth national conference on 'NextGen IT for Indian Defence'.
Saraswat recently took over as director general of the DRDO, said on the margins of a conference.
"The controls of a combat drone will be rested with multiple command control centres. The centres can be geographically at different locations. Even if one centre becomes defunct, the drone can be controlled and guided by other centers.
"The UCAV will work in a multi-layer manner for which ADE is developing the required technology, including sensors," Sarsawat added.
LETHALFORCE
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http://www.flightglobal.com/article...d-unveils-hybrid-cruise-missileuav-plans.html
Lockheed unveils hybrid cruise missile/UAV plans
Lockheed Martin has unveiled plans to demonstrate a “persistent surveillance” hybrid cruise missile/unmanned air vehicle next year. Named Top Cover, the air-launched, forward-swept-wing design will have an endurance of over 24h at altitudes around 5,000ft (1,500m) and is intended to operate as a cruise missile, lethal UAV or disposable surveillance UAV.
Speaking exclusively to Flight International, Lockheed officials have also revealed concepts for a new penetrating guided bomb using the warhead from the company’s AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM); a UAV development of the Longshot strap-on wing-kit to provide battle damage assessment; and updated information on its proposed 2,270kg (5,000lb) “extreme range” (XR) version of JASSM.
The Top Cover persistent surveillance UAV is being developed as Lockheed’s bid for the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s Area Dominance Programme advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD). Sensor options include ground moving-target indication radar, infrared and electro-optical cameras, acoustic sensors and signals intelligence arrays. Various warhead options are also being considered, including directed energy systems. Combined warhead and sensor payloads could be carried by the same vehicle, or mixed operations conducted using swarms of warhead- and sensor-equipped systems to locate, identify and engage targets.
The vehicle will weigh 200kg, including a maximum 20kg payload, with its wings folding forward against the fuselage in carriage mode before deploying on release from a host aircraft. It will be powered by a single turbofan engine. Its planned unit cost of around $200,000 will allow it to be treated as expendable, says Jim Pappafotis, director of advanced programmes at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control.
Lockheed has self-funded development of the Top Cover system since late 2003 using its experience in the USAF’s Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement ACTD in co-operation with Northrop Grumman. This saw the companies build and fly the air-launched, On-target Weapon Long-range air vehicle, which underwent flight tests in late 2002 and early 2003, but was shelved.
Low-speed windtunnel testing of a Top Cover model was conducted in January to verify its forward-swept-wing design in fully extended configuration. Studies of designs with more sweep were also made, but the selected arrangement provided a more efficient balance between endurance and air vehicle stability, says Pappafotis. Development of an aerodynamics database was completed last March and work to develop a new-generation autopilot will be completed by September, ahead of next year’s flight demonstration.
Lockheed says its pursuit of the Top Cover system and other hybrid concepts seeks to re-apply technology developed through a more than $1 billion government investment in the JASSM programme. The work also reflects the increasingly blurred divide between the roles of missiles and UAVs in the implementation of network-centric operations, says Randy Bigum, vice-president strike weapons.
Plans for a new 450kg penetrating guided bomb would re-use JASSM’s existing warhead, with the glide weapon also fitted with the Longshot wing-kit to provide it with a stand-off range of around 100km (54nm). The proposed UAV version of the Longshot range-extension kit would be stabilised by the addition of a tail and programmed to fly an orbiting profile, with its low-cost camera and datalink providing post-strike intelligence data.
Development of the more than 1,850km-range XR cruise missile is continuing apace, with Lockheed revealing it began windtunnel testing last February with a 5% scale model of the JASSM derivative. With an overall length of 6.3m (20.8ft), compared with the JASSM-ER’s 4.2m, the XR features a fixed canard foreplane and folding main wing. The canard is required to ensure the single turbofan-powered missile maintains a stable flight profile and to compensate for the weight of the Lockheed-designed 540kg warhead. Bigum says the design “preserves the low observable characteristics that we have brought in from the JASSM, even with the canards”.
Detailed concept work began in early 2004 with the aim of providing an alternative means of engaging and destroying hardened and deeply buried targets, with the company-funded development now being pitched as a potential new-start USAF ACTD for fiscal year 2007. About 80% of the JASSM design’s electronics would be reapplied in the basic XR missile, although Pappafotis says the project provides an opportunity to explore alternative warheads, datalinks, non-co-operative target identification technology and precision guidance systems with reduced reliance on GPS. The missile would not use a terminal seeker under current concepts, instead receiving target updates from USAF Northrop E-8 JSTARS aircraft via datalink or satellite.
The weapon’s rocket-boosted penetrator warhead will have a velocity of about 2,300ft/s (700m/s), says Pappafotis, who adds that the charge will be “going in [at] better than Mach 2”. If fielded, the XR cruise missile would be carried by the USAF’s Northrop B-2 and Boeing B-52 bombers, which, respectively, could carry up to eight and four weapons internally and two and eight weapons externally. Boeing’s F-15 fighter is another possible candidate host platform, says Pappafotis, with the type viewed as a potential trials aircraft if the proposed ACTD gains approval.
Lockheed unveils hybrid cruise missile/UAV plans
Lockheed Martin has unveiled plans to demonstrate a “persistent surveillance” hybrid cruise missile/unmanned air vehicle next year. Named Top Cover, the air-launched, forward-swept-wing design will have an endurance of over 24h at altitudes around 5,000ft (1,500m) and is intended to operate as a cruise missile, lethal UAV or disposable surveillance UAV.
Speaking exclusively to Flight International, Lockheed officials have also revealed concepts for a new penetrating guided bomb using the warhead from the company’s AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM); a UAV development of the Longshot strap-on wing-kit to provide battle damage assessment; and updated information on its proposed 2,270kg (5,000lb) “extreme range” (XR) version of JASSM.
The Top Cover persistent surveillance UAV is being developed as Lockheed’s bid for the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s Area Dominance Programme advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD). Sensor options include ground moving-target indication radar, infrared and electro-optical cameras, acoustic sensors and signals intelligence arrays. Various warhead options are also being considered, including directed energy systems. Combined warhead and sensor payloads could be carried by the same vehicle, or mixed operations conducted using swarms of warhead- and sensor-equipped systems to locate, identify and engage targets.
The vehicle will weigh 200kg, including a maximum 20kg payload, with its wings folding forward against the fuselage in carriage mode before deploying on release from a host aircraft. It will be powered by a single turbofan engine. Its planned unit cost of around $200,000 will allow it to be treated as expendable, says Jim Pappafotis, director of advanced programmes at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control.
Lockheed has self-funded development of the Top Cover system since late 2003 using its experience in the USAF’s Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement ACTD in co-operation with Northrop Grumman. This saw the companies build and fly the air-launched, On-target Weapon Long-range air vehicle, which underwent flight tests in late 2002 and early 2003, but was shelved.
Low-speed windtunnel testing of a Top Cover model was conducted in January to verify its forward-swept-wing design in fully extended configuration. Studies of designs with more sweep were also made, but the selected arrangement provided a more efficient balance between endurance and air vehicle stability, says Pappafotis. Development of an aerodynamics database was completed last March and work to develop a new-generation autopilot will be completed by September, ahead of next year’s flight demonstration.
Lockheed says its pursuit of the Top Cover system and other hybrid concepts seeks to re-apply technology developed through a more than $1 billion government investment in the JASSM programme. The work also reflects the increasingly blurred divide between the roles of missiles and UAVs in the implementation of network-centric operations, says Randy Bigum, vice-president strike weapons.
Plans for a new 450kg penetrating guided bomb would re-use JASSM’s existing warhead, with the glide weapon also fitted with the Longshot wing-kit to provide it with a stand-off range of around 100km (54nm). The proposed UAV version of the Longshot range-extension kit would be stabilised by the addition of a tail and programmed to fly an orbiting profile, with its low-cost camera and datalink providing post-strike intelligence data.
Development of the more than 1,850km-range XR cruise missile is continuing apace, with Lockheed revealing it began windtunnel testing last February with a 5% scale model of the JASSM derivative. With an overall length of 6.3m (20.8ft), compared with the JASSM-ER’s 4.2m, the XR features a fixed canard foreplane and folding main wing. The canard is required to ensure the single turbofan-powered missile maintains a stable flight profile and to compensate for the weight of the Lockheed-designed 540kg warhead. Bigum says the design “preserves the low observable characteristics that we have brought in from the JASSM, even with the canards”.
Detailed concept work began in early 2004 with the aim of providing an alternative means of engaging and destroying hardened and deeply buried targets, with the company-funded development now being pitched as a potential new-start USAF ACTD for fiscal year 2007. About 80% of the JASSM design’s electronics would be reapplied in the basic XR missile, although Pappafotis says the project provides an opportunity to explore alternative warheads, datalinks, non-co-operative target identification technology and precision guidance systems with reduced reliance on GPS. The missile would not use a terminal seeker under current concepts, instead receiving target updates from USAF Northrop E-8 JSTARS aircraft via datalink or satellite.
The weapon’s rocket-boosted penetrator warhead will have a velocity of about 2,300ft/s (700m/s), says Pappafotis, who adds that the charge will be “going in [at] better than Mach 2”. If fielded, the XR cruise missile would be carried by the USAF’s Northrop B-2 and Boeing B-52 bombers, which, respectively, could carry up to eight and four weapons internally and two and eight weapons externally. Boeing’s F-15 fighter is another possible candidate host platform, says Pappafotis, with the type viewed as a potential trials aircraft if the proposed ACTD gains approval.
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The drone of 3 Idiots could now serve Army and NSG; DRDO in talksclapclap
The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that grabbed eyeballs in the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots could soon be used by the Indian Army and a host of security forces, including the National Security Guard (NSG), for reconnaissance in anti-terror and counter-insurgency situations.
The machine that the student of engineering designed in the film — and which tragically found him hanging in his room on its maiden flight — is the same as the one built by IdeaForge, a company founded by three IIT, Bombay alumni. The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has tied up with IdeaForge to refine the UAV — now named Netra — and is learnt to be preparing to pitch it to the Army.
Netra has already been demonstrated before the NSG, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Delhi Police, Maharashtra Police and the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force, and has drawn special attention from forces currently engaged in anti-Naxal operations. The product will be on display at the forthcoming Defence Expo in New Delhi.
Weighing 1.5 kg, and having a payload capacity of 300 g, Netra — originally called Zeppelin and subsequently Carbon — can perform Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) operations. It can fly in a radius of 1.5 km at altitudes of over 100 m, for 30 minutes per battery charge. Each unit costs between Rs 18 lakh and 20 lakh, but the price is expected to drop once it is manufactured in larger numbers.
The UAV is fitted with a high resolution 2.5X zoom camera, which can be panned and tilted. It beams real-time live aerial images, and can record the footage. An in-built fail-safe mechanism ensures the UAV returns to its home position in case of loss of communication or low battery.
While Netra’s design continues to be developed and refined by IdeaForge, DRDO has been collaborating to make the backpack case that is used by the operator to initiate the flight plan and serves as the base station.
“Most of the paramilitary forces who have been shown this product have sought night-operability of this machine so that it can be used for surveillance during night time. Also, one of the forces wants the machine to be operable indoors. We are planning to make some customizations including putting a thermal camera on Netra,” said Amardeep Singh of IdeaForge.
The UAV’s Zeppelin prototype was the joint winner at MAV 08, an international competition of micro aerial vehicles. “It was then that we decided to further work on the design. We showcased a prototype in December 2008, following which the DRDO got into the picture,” Singh said.
The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that grabbed eyeballs in the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots could soon be used by the Indian Army and a host of security forces, including the National Security Guard (NSG), for reconnaissance in anti-terror and counter-insurgency situations.
The machine that the student of engineering designed in the film — and which tragically found him hanging in his room on its maiden flight — is the same as the one built by IdeaForge, a company founded by three IIT, Bombay alumni. The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has tied up with IdeaForge to refine the UAV — now named Netra — and is learnt to be preparing to pitch it to the Army.
Netra has already been demonstrated before the NSG, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Delhi Police, Maharashtra Police and the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force, and has drawn special attention from forces currently engaged in anti-Naxal operations. The product will be on display at the forthcoming Defence Expo in New Delhi.
Weighing 1.5 kg, and having a payload capacity of 300 g, Netra — originally called Zeppelin and subsequently Carbon — can perform Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) operations. It can fly in a radius of 1.5 km at altitudes of over 100 m, for 30 minutes per battery charge. Each unit costs between Rs 18 lakh and 20 lakh, but the price is expected to drop once it is manufactured in larger numbers.
The UAV is fitted with a high resolution 2.5X zoom camera, which can be panned and tilted. It beams real-time live aerial images, and can record the footage. An in-built fail-safe mechanism ensures the UAV returns to its home position in case of loss of communication or low battery.
While Netra’s design continues to be developed and refined by IdeaForge, DRDO has been collaborating to make the backpack case that is used by the operator to initiate the flight plan and serves as the base station.
“Most of the paramilitary forces who have been shown this product have sought night-operability of this machine so that it can be used for surveillance during night time. Also, one of the forces wants the machine to be operable indoors. We are planning to make some customizations including putting a thermal camera on Netra,” said Amardeep Singh of IdeaForge.
The UAV’s Zeppelin prototype was the joint winner at MAV 08, an international competition of micro aerial vehicles. “It was then that we decided to further work on the design. We showcased a prototype in December 2008, following which the DRDO got into the picture,” Singh said.
LETHALFORCE
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http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/512/
US Army increases UAS targeting capability with enhanced Hellfire missiles
The experimental Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS.
US Army concludes successful tests with Hellfire II UAS missiles on MQ-1C ER/MP UAS
09:47 GMT, February 19, 2010 defpro.com | As unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) continue their push into many fields of modern aviation, in particular in reconnaissance, strike and close air support missions, the US Army is carrying out tests to further improve the target envelope of existing weapon systems.
As the US Army recently reported, its newest and most advanced UAS, the MQ-1C Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS based upon the US Air Force Predator, completed a series of tests with the Hellfire II UAS missile. The latter is specially designed for use on unmanned aircraft and, according to the Army, provides a 360-degree targeting ability.
The firing tests were preceded by integration testing between MQ-1C contractor General Atomics' Software Integration Laboratory, the El Mirage Flight Test Facility, and Edwards Air Force Base.
Firing Tests at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station
The tests, carried out at the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California, were intended to demonstrate the missile’s ability to engage a wider target envelope then possible with earlier missile variants. On the occasion of the successful tests, which began in November 2009, Tim Owings, Deputy Project Manager, Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems, stated that nine perfect or near-perfect missile firings had been achieved.
As the first firings of missiles from the MQ-1C Warrior, the tests began with dry runs against a target with an inert test missile on the inboard rail of the right wing. Upon receiving positive results for the data transmission between the missile, the aircraft and the China Lake Range Control Center, a successful “cold” pass was carried out using a live-powered missile and primarily assuring that the missile locks onto the target.
The more advanced stage in the testing, involving a “hot” firing of the missile, proved that the missile performs as expected. The firing test provided a successful impact after the approach was controlled by and coordinated between the mission payload operator and air vehicle operator, or AVO, at precise waypoints during the flight.
Greater Flexibility in Combat
Capable of being fired in any direction and correcting course to search and strike its target, the Hellfire II UAS missile is expected to provide UAS with a greater flexibility in ground attack missions.
“The Hellfire UAS missile can take advantage of a 360 degree look-around angle. The ball on the UAV can swivel 360 degrees - and with this missile you can engage targets that are below you, behind you and well off-axis from what a typical Hellfire can do,” said Owings. “There were nine successful shots. The big point is that the laser designation system, the weapons system and the UAV all performed as designed and as expected. It was a really clean test.”
As the Army reported, “The test firing helped pave the way for the ERMP's successful completion of a Milestone C review, marking approval for the UAS Project Office to enter into Low Rate Initial Production.”
The Milestone C, confirming production readiness and program acquisition maturity, will allow the Army to purchase two complete systems, each including 12 aircraft as well as eight additional aircraft for training and replacement of war-losses. According to Owing, the first set of aircraft (four weaponised MQ-1C) is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in July 2010.
Powered by a Thielert Centurion heavy fuel engine (HFE), the Warrior is capable of flying for more than 30 hours and can operate with or without satellite communication data links. In addition to four Hellfire missiles, the deployed aircraft will carry an advanced targeting system for immediate situational awareness and target detection.
Pushing forward the importance of UAS attack capabilities
The tests have been a real first in a variety of aspects, as this was not only the first missile firing from the MQ-1C. The Hellfire II UAS is also the first missile specifically designed for use on an unmanned aircraft, pushing one step further into the age of unmanned warfare. An ongoing poll at defpro.com on the future of UAVs shows that only 50% of those voting think that UAS’ might replace unmanned aircraft in the field of ground attack and CAS (see http://poll.fm/18yg3) (To put this into perspective: Voters show a 99% approval for the future dominion of UAS in the field of reconnaissance and intelligence. – Ed.).
While the long-standing question, whether unmanned aviation may one day replace manned aviation remains unanswered for the moment, operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the growing industrial focus, indicate a clear trend towards a significant increase of unmanned systems in modern warfare. The enhanced capability which the Hellfire II UAS may provide to unmanned aircraft might further accelerate this trend.
US Army increases UAS targeting capability with enhanced Hellfire missiles
The experimental Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS.
US Army concludes successful tests with Hellfire II UAS missiles on MQ-1C ER/MP UAS
09:47 GMT, February 19, 2010 defpro.com | As unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) continue their push into many fields of modern aviation, in particular in reconnaissance, strike and close air support missions, the US Army is carrying out tests to further improve the target envelope of existing weapon systems.
As the US Army recently reported, its newest and most advanced UAS, the MQ-1C Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS based upon the US Air Force Predator, completed a series of tests with the Hellfire II UAS missile. The latter is specially designed for use on unmanned aircraft and, according to the Army, provides a 360-degree targeting ability.
The firing tests were preceded by integration testing between MQ-1C contractor General Atomics' Software Integration Laboratory, the El Mirage Flight Test Facility, and Edwards Air Force Base.
Firing Tests at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station
The tests, carried out at the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California, were intended to demonstrate the missile’s ability to engage a wider target envelope then possible with earlier missile variants. On the occasion of the successful tests, which began in November 2009, Tim Owings, Deputy Project Manager, Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems, stated that nine perfect or near-perfect missile firings had been achieved.
As the first firings of missiles from the MQ-1C Warrior, the tests began with dry runs against a target with an inert test missile on the inboard rail of the right wing. Upon receiving positive results for the data transmission between the missile, the aircraft and the China Lake Range Control Center, a successful “cold” pass was carried out using a live-powered missile and primarily assuring that the missile locks onto the target.
The more advanced stage in the testing, involving a “hot” firing of the missile, proved that the missile performs as expected. The firing test provided a successful impact after the approach was controlled by and coordinated between the mission payload operator and air vehicle operator, or AVO, at precise waypoints during the flight.
Greater Flexibility in Combat
Capable of being fired in any direction and correcting course to search and strike its target, the Hellfire II UAS missile is expected to provide UAS with a greater flexibility in ground attack missions.
“The Hellfire UAS missile can take advantage of a 360 degree look-around angle. The ball on the UAV can swivel 360 degrees - and with this missile you can engage targets that are below you, behind you and well off-axis from what a typical Hellfire can do,” said Owings. “There were nine successful shots. The big point is that the laser designation system, the weapons system and the UAV all performed as designed and as expected. It was a really clean test.”
As the Army reported, “The test firing helped pave the way for the ERMP's successful completion of a Milestone C review, marking approval for the UAS Project Office to enter into Low Rate Initial Production.”
The Milestone C, confirming production readiness and program acquisition maturity, will allow the Army to purchase two complete systems, each including 12 aircraft as well as eight additional aircraft for training and replacement of war-losses. According to Owing, the first set of aircraft (four weaponised MQ-1C) is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in July 2010.
Powered by a Thielert Centurion heavy fuel engine (HFE), the Warrior is capable of flying for more than 30 hours and can operate with or without satellite communication data links. In addition to four Hellfire missiles, the deployed aircraft will carry an advanced targeting system for immediate situational awareness and target detection.
Pushing forward the importance of UAS attack capabilities
The tests have been a real first in a variety of aspects, as this was not only the first missile firing from the MQ-1C. The Hellfire II UAS is also the first missile specifically designed for use on an unmanned aircraft, pushing one step further into the age of unmanned warfare. An ongoing poll at defpro.com on the future of UAVs shows that only 50% of those voting think that UAS’ might replace unmanned aircraft in the field of ground attack and CAS (see http://poll.fm/18yg3) (To put this into perspective: Voters show a 99% approval for the future dominion of UAS in the field of reconnaissance and intelligence. – Ed.).
While the long-standing question, whether unmanned aviation may one day replace manned aviation remains unanswered for the moment, operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the growing industrial focus, indicate a clear trend towards a significant increase of unmanned systems in modern warfare. The enhanced capability which the Hellfire II UAS may provide to unmanned aircraft might further accelerate this trend.
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LETHALFORCE
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http://www.defencetalk.com/israel-commissions-one-ton-uav-bomber-24356/
Israel Commissions One Ton UAV Bomber
Jerusalem: A new drone that can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and reach as far as Iran was added Sunday to the Israeli air force's arsenal, the military said.
Described by the army as a "technological breakthrough" the Eitan -- which means strong in Hebrew -- is a Heron-TP type drone with a wingspan of 26 metres (85 feet), similar to that of the Boeing 737.
It is 24 metres (79 feet) long, weighs 4.5 tonnes and can remain in the air for more than 24 hours, enabling it to fly as far as Iran, Israel's arch-foe.
The drone was built by Israel Aerospace Industries in cooperation with the air force and is equipped with radar, cameras and high-tech electronic equipment including mapping devices.
The drone can reach an altitude of 13,000 metres (43,000 feet) and carry payloads of about one tonne.
"This aircraft constitutes a very important turning point in the development of unmanned aircraft," Air Force chief General Ido Nehustan was quoted as saying.
Israel Commissions One Ton UAV Bomber
Jerusalem: A new drone that can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and reach as far as Iran was added Sunday to the Israeli air force's arsenal, the military said.
Described by the army as a "technological breakthrough" the Eitan -- which means strong in Hebrew -- is a Heron-TP type drone with a wingspan of 26 metres (85 feet), similar to that of the Boeing 737.
It is 24 metres (79 feet) long, weighs 4.5 tonnes and can remain in the air for more than 24 hours, enabling it to fly as far as Iran, Israel's arch-foe.
The drone was built by Israel Aerospace Industries in cooperation with the air force and is equipped with radar, cameras and high-tech electronic equipment including mapping devices.
The drone can reach an altitude of 13,000 metres (43,000 feet) and carry payloads of about one tonne.
"This aircraft constitutes a very important turning point in the development of unmanned aircraft," Air Force chief General Ido Nehustan was quoted as saying.
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http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/24215907/Post2611-unmanned-vehicles.html
New Delhi: Not very long ago, in the Afghan theatre of war, the US Army’s method of clearing caves of bombs was so low-tech that it was practically no-tech: A young soldier with a stick, a gun and a flashlight. “Oh, and he’d have a rope tied around his waist,” Joseph Dyer, a division president of iRobot Inc., says wryly. “So that, you know, if anything went wrong, they could haul him back out.”
In 2004, though, the soldier began to be taken out of the equation. That year, 162 robots were deployed to find and dispose of explosive devices, iRobot’s PackBot among them. It was the start of an unmanned battle thrust that reached its technological apogee in the targeted strikes of armed Predator drones. Last August, a drone strike killed Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader in Pakistan; the drone’s images were so clear, according to one report, that they captured Mehsud’s intravenous drip, from a height of two miles (3.2km), as he rested on his terrace.
The publicity accorded to the US drones—as well as the realization, in hindsight, of how valuable robots could have been during the terrorist attacks of 26/11—ignited interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) at the 2010 Defexpo last week. At the previous Defexpo in 2008, one participant recalls, there were only two or three exhibitors talking about any unmanned vehicles at all. This year, however, scaled-down replicas of UAVs stood on pedestals in nearly every hall, and UGVs conducted demos for surprisingly well-informed visitors.
The philosophy of war, experts agree, is shifting rapidly. Robots, used until recently just to neutralize bombs, are now incorporated into infantry. Last year, in his book Wired for War, a defence scholar Peter Singer outlined a future in which “our wars are…handed over to machines”. Even with present-day technology, casualty rates can be brought down significantly. “We hear a statistic like: 52% of the US Army’s deaths are in the first contact with the enemy,” Dyer says. “And we think: What a great job for robots!”
In front of Dyer’s stall, two of his robots do their thing. The PackBot, which looks like an overhead projector on steroids, has an arm that extends out many feet, ending in a grip that can handle and dismantle bombs. The Negotiator, a flat creature with a glass dome full of circuitry, is a reconnaissance robot that can crawl on its treads into suspicious rooms and send back images. “It would have been ideal for 26/11, in the hotels,” says Guptha Sreekantha, iRobot’s managing director in India.
The National Security Guard is currently testing a PackBot model out, Dyer says. He is one of several exhibitors at the Defexpo to claim that the Indian defence forces have expressed keen interest in unmanned vehicles, a trend that M.M. Pallam Raju, the Union minister of state for defence, confirms. “Our services and intelligence agencies have suddenly realized the value of (UAVs and UGVs),” Raju said on the sidelines of Defexpo.
Analysts such as Bharat Verma, a retired captain and the editor of the Indian Defence Review, cite the same internal and external uses of UAVs that Raju does. “That kind of intelligence is crucial,” Verma says. “We can look inside enemy territory and even see a guy drinking a glass of milk in his house.”
None of the unmanned vehicles being pitched to India is armed, mostly because such sales are restricted by the governments of these foreign manufacturers. Instead, the UAVs at Defexpo were purely surveillance machines.
Sepp Dabringer, Schiebel’s area manager for India, sits next to what he calls his “camcopter”—a white helicopter, not quite as long as a Tata Nano, capable of flying for eight hours within a 50km-radius and returning to land on any flat surface. “We’ve sold 130 of these to 15 countries in the last four years,” Dabringer says. “The German and French navies have bought it, and Boeing sources it from us, paints its name on it, and sells it to the US forces.” Recently, the Indian Navy tested Schiebel’s camcopter, and Dabringer is sounding out the Border Security Force, for whom he insists it is ideal.
More tireless than rotor-winged aircraft such as the camcopter are fixed-wing UAVs, of which the Predator drone is an example. The Defence Research and Development Organisation is, at present, developing its own fixed-wing UAV, the Rustom. The first flight of the Rustom prototype, last November, did not go well; it crashed, after a “misjudgement of altitude”, in an airfield near Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Elsewhere in the world, UAV development has progressed “in leaps and bounds”, says Woolf Gross, a corporate director at Northrop Grumman Corp. Prices have dropped —into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for UAVs like the camcopter—and the capacity of technology has improved. With Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout, a rotor-wing UAV, “we could increase the payload from 250 pounds (112.5kg) to 600 pounds just by adding a fourth rotor blade”, he says.
Gross calls the growth of the UAV market over the last five years “exponential”, and like other firms, he admits that Northrop Grumman’s marketing efforts in India accelerated after 26/11. The option to take personnel out of danger is, he says, attractive, but it is only a secondary driving force. The primary appeal of UAVs is their sheer efficacy.
The ease of waging such war has invited some criticism. In his book, Singer worries that such devices can give the impression that war is “costless”.
Dyer of iRobot, however, doesn’t think an army’s human presence can ever be entirely replaced on the battlefield. “In economic terms, this is just a classic technology-for-labour trade,” he says. There are still plenty of tasks robots cannot perform in the near future, “but they can definitely put distances between our soldiers and harm’s way”.
New Delhi: Not very long ago, in the Afghan theatre of war, the US Army’s method of clearing caves of bombs was so low-tech that it was practically no-tech: A young soldier with a stick, a gun and a flashlight. “Oh, and he’d have a rope tied around his waist,” Joseph Dyer, a division president of iRobot Inc., says wryly. “So that, you know, if anything went wrong, they could haul him back out.”
In 2004, though, the soldier began to be taken out of the equation. That year, 162 robots were deployed to find and dispose of explosive devices, iRobot’s PackBot among them. It was the start of an unmanned battle thrust that reached its technological apogee in the targeted strikes of armed Predator drones. Last August, a drone strike killed Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader in Pakistan; the drone’s images were so clear, according to one report, that they captured Mehsud’s intravenous drip, from a height of two miles (3.2km), as he rested on his terrace.
The publicity accorded to the US drones—as well as the realization, in hindsight, of how valuable robots could have been during the terrorist attacks of 26/11—ignited interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) at the 2010 Defexpo last week. At the previous Defexpo in 2008, one participant recalls, there were only two or three exhibitors talking about any unmanned vehicles at all. This year, however, scaled-down replicas of UAVs stood on pedestals in nearly every hall, and UGVs conducted demos for surprisingly well-informed visitors.
The philosophy of war, experts agree, is shifting rapidly. Robots, used until recently just to neutralize bombs, are now incorporated into infantry. Last year, in his book Wired for War, a defence scholar Peter Singer outlined a future in which “our wars are…handed over to machines”. Even with present-day technology, casualty rates can be brought down significantly. “We hear a statistic like: 52% of the US Army’s deaths are in the first contact with the enemy,” Dyer says. “And we think: What a great job for robots!”
In front of Dyer’s stall, two of his robots do their thing. The PackBot, which looks like an overhead projector on steroids, has an arm that extends out many feet, ending in a grip that can handle and dismantle bombs. The Negotiator, a flat creature with a glass dome full of circuitry, is a reconnaissance robot that can crawl on its treads into suspicious rooms and send back images. “It would have been ideal for 26/11, in the hotels,” says Guptha Sreekantha, iRobot’s managing director in India.
The National Security Guard is currently testing a PackBot model out, Dyer says. He is one of several exhibitors at the Defexpo to claim that the Indian defence forces have expressed keen interest in unmanned vehicles, a trend that M.M. Pallam Raju, the Union minister of state for defence, confirms. “Our services and intelligence agencies have suddenly realized the value of (UAVs and UGVs),” Raju said on the sidelines of Defexpo.
Analysts such as Bharat Verma, a retired captain and the editor of the Indian Defence Review, cite the same internal and external uses of UAVs that Raju does. “That kind of intelligence is crucial,” Verma says. “We can look inside enemy territory and even see a guy drinking a glass of milk in his house.”
None of the unmanned vehicles being pitched to India is armed, mostly because such sales are restricted by the governments of these foreign manufacturers. Instead, the UAVs at Defexpo were purely surveillance machines.
Sepp Dabringer, Schiebel’s area manager for India, sits next to what he calls his “camcopter”—a white helicopter, not quite as long as a Tata Nano, capable of flying for eight hours within a 50km-radius and returning to land on any flat surface. “We’ve sold 130 of these to 15 countries in the last four years,” Dabringer says. “The German and French navies have bought it, and Boeing sources it from us, paints its name on it, and sells it to the US forces.” Recently, the Indian Navy tested Schiebel’s camcopter, and Dabringer is sounding out the Border Security Force, for whom he insists it is ideal.
More tireless than rotor-winged aircraft such as the camcopter are fixed-wing UAVs, of which the Predator drone is an example. The Defence Research and Development Organisation is, at present, developing its own fixed-wing UAV, the Rustom. The first flight of the Rustom prototype, last November, did not go well; it crashed, after a “misjudgement of altitude”, in an airfield near Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Elsewhere in the world, UAV development has progressed “in leaps and bounds”, says Woolf Gross, a corporate director at Northrop Grumman Corp. Prices have dropped —into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for UAVs like the camcopter—and the capacity of technology has improved. With Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout, a rotor-wing UAV, “we could increase the payload from 250 pounds (112.5kg) to 600 pounds just by adding a fourth rotor blade”, he says.
Gross calls the growth of the UAV market over the last five years “exponential”, and like other firms, he admits that Northrop Grumman’s marketing efforts in India accelerated after 26/11. The option to take personnel out of danger is, he says, attractive, but it is only a secondary driving force. The primary appeal of UAVs is their sheer efficacy.
The ease of waging such war has invited some criticism. In his book, Singer worries that such devices can give the impression that war is “costless”.
Dyer of iRobot, however, doesn’t think an army’s human presence can ever be entirely replaced on the battlefield. “In economic terms, this is just a classic technology-for-labour trade,” he says. There are still plenty of tasks robots cannot perform in the near future, “but they can definitely put distances between our soldiers and harm’s way”.
LETHALFORCE
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http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Bat_UAS_Completes_First_Flight_999.html
Bat UAS Completes First Flight
Northrop Grumman has announced that it has flown the first in a new series of Bat unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in January. Configured with a 12-foot wingspan, the Bat-12 incorporates a highly-reliable Hirth engine as well as a low acoustic signature five-blade propeller.
The new configuration increases the mission portfolio of Northrop Grumman's scalable Bat UAS product line. Northrop Grumman has been engaged in the development of unmanned systems for more than sixty years, delivering more than 100,000 unmanned solutions to military customers across the world.
Since acquiring the Bat product line from Swift Engineering in April 2009, Northrop Grumman has implemented an aggressive demonstration schedule for the Bat family of aircraft to expand flight operations and military utility for numerous tactical missions.
During recent testing, the 12-foot and 10-foot wingspan Bat were each successfully launched from an AAI Shadow UAS launcher and autonomously operated from a single ground control station before recovery via net.
As a communications relay using Northrop Grumman's Software Defined Tactical Radio, Bat has also demonstrated its capacity to provide beyond line-of-sight tactical communications relay for ground forces in denied environments, a critical role in irregular warfare.
Recently, the Bat UAS has been integrated and tested with new payloads and systems including a T2 Delta dual payload micro-gimbal from Goodrich Corporation's Cloud Cap Technology Inc., Sentient Vision Systems' Kestral real-time moving target indicator, and short wave infrared camera from Goodrich. In February, payload integration and testing was expanded to include ImSAR's Nano-SAR-B fused with Cloud Cap's T2 gimbal in a cursor-on-target acquisition mode.
Ideally suited to an irregular warfare environment, Batoffers real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay, and future capabilities in a modular system that is affordable, organic, persistent, runway independent, and fully autonomous.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Bat is a wholly owned trademark of Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Bat UAS Completes First Flight
Northrop Grumman has announced that it has flown the first in a new series of Bat unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in January. Configured with a 12-foot wingspan, the Bat-12 incorporates a highly-reliable Hirth engine as well as a low acoustic signature five-blade propeller.
The new configuration increases the mission portfolio of Northrop Grumman's scalable Bat UAS product line. Northrop Grumman has been engaged in the development of unmanned systems for more than sixty years, delivering more than 100,000 unmanned solutions to military customers across the world.
Since acquiring the Bat product line from Swift Engineering in April 2009, Northrop Grumman has implemented an aggressive demonstration schedule for the Bat family of aircraft to expand flight operations and military utility for numerous tactical missions.
During recent testing, the 12-foot and 10-foot wingspan Bat were each successfully launched from an AAI Shadow UAS launcher and autonomously operated from a single ground control station before recovery via net.
As a communications relay using Northrop Grumman's Software Defined Tactical Radio, Bat has also demonstrated its capacity to provide beyond line-of-sight tactical communications relay for ground forces in denied environments, a critical role in irregular warfare.
Recently, the Bat UAS has been integrated and tested with new payloads and systems including a T2 Delta dual payload micro-gimbal from Goodrich Corporation's Cloud Cap Technology Inc., Sentient Vision Systems' Kestral real-time moving target indicator, and short wave infrared camera from Goodrich. In February, payload integration and testing was expanded to include ImSAR's Nano-SAR-B fused with Cloud Cap's T2 gimbal in a cursor-on-target acquisition mode.
Ideally suited to an irregular warfare environment, Batoffers real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay, and future capabilities in a modular system that is affordable, organic, persistent, runway independent, and fully autonomous.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Bat is a wholly owned trademark of Northrop Grumman Corporation.
LETHALFORCE
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http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Israel_Commissions_One_Ton_UAV_Bomber_999.html
Israel Commissions One Ton UAV Bomber
A new drone that can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and reach as far as Iran was added Sunday to the Israeli air force's
arsenal, the military said.
Described by the army as a "technological breakthrough" the Eitan -- which means strong in Hebrew -- is a Heron-TP type drone with a wingspan of 26 metres (85 feet), similar to that of the Boeing 737.
It is 24 metres (79 feet) long, weighs 4.5 tonnes and can remain in the air for more than 24 hours, enabling it to fly as far as Iran, Israel's arch-foe.
The drone was built by Israel Aerospace Industries in cooperation with the air force and is equipped with radar, cameras and high-tech electronic equipment including mapping devices.
The drone can reach an altitude of 13,000 metres (43,000 feet) and carry payloads of about one tonne.
"This aircraft constitutes a very important turning point in the development of unmanned aircraft," Air Force chief General Ido Nehustan was quoted as saying.
Israel Commissions One Ton UAV Bomber
A new drone that can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and reach as far as Iran was added Sunday to the Israeli air force's
arsenal, the military said.
Described by the army as a "technological breakthrough" the Eitan -- which means strong in Hebrew -- is a Heron-TP type drone with a wingspan of 26 metres (85 feet), similar to that of the Boeing 737.
It is 24 metres (79 feet) long, weighs 4.5 tonnes and can remain in the air for more than 24 hours, enabling it to fly as far as Iran, Israel's arch-foe.
The drone was built by Israel Aerospace Industries in cooperation with the air force and is equipped with radar, cameras and high-tech electronic equipment including mapping devices.
The drone can reach an altitude of 13,000 metres (43,000 feet) and carry payloads of about one tonne.
"This aircraft constitutes a very important turning point in the development of unmanned aircraft," Air Force chief General Ido Nehustan was quoted as saying.
LETHALFORCE
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- Feb 16, 2009
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/234114/page/1
Defending Against Drones
How our new favorite weapon in the war on terror could soon be turned against us.
The unmanned spy plane that Lebanon's Hizbullah sent buzzing over Israeli towns in 2005 was loud and weaponless, and carried only a rudimentary camera. But the surprise flight by a regional terror group still worried U.S. analysts, who saw it as a sign that the unmanned vehicles were falling into the wrong hands.
Today that concern appears to have been well founded. At least 40 other countries—from Belarus and Georgia to India, Pakistan, and Russia—have begun to build, buy, and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, showcasing their efforts at international weapons expos ranging from the premier Paris Air Show to smaller events in Singapore and Bahrain. In the last six months alone, Iran has begun production on a pair of weapons-ready surveillance drones, while China has debuted the Pterodactyl and Sour Dragon, rivals to America's Predator and Global Hawk. All told, two thirds of worldwide investment in unmanned planes in 2010 will be spent by countries other than the United States.
You wouldn't know it to hear U.S. officials talk. Jim Tuttle, the Department of Homeland Security official responsible for safeguarding America against nonnuclear weapons, downplays the idea that drones could be used against us. "What terrorist is going to have a Predator?" he scoffed at a conference last winter. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reported, the U.S. ignored a dangerous flaw in its UAV technology that allowed Iraqi insurgents to tap into the planes' video feeds using $30 software purchased over the Internet.
Such arrogance is setting us up for a fall. Just as we once failed to imagine terrorists using our own commercial aircraft against us, we are now underestimating the threat posed by this new wave of technology. We must prepare for a world in which foreign robotics rivals our own, and terrorists can deliver deadly explosives not just by suicide bomber but also by unmanned machine.
The ease and affordability of such technology, much of which is already available for purchase commercially, means that drones will inevitably pass into the wrong hands, allowing small groups and even individuals to wield power once limited to the world's great militaries. There is, after all, no such thing as a permanent, first-mover advantage—not in technology, and certainly not in war. The British may have invented the tank during World War I, but the Germans wielded it better in the blitzkrieg more than two decades later.
For now, however, America remains at the forefront of the robotics revolution—superiority that has come at considerable effort and expense. We've channeled billions into UAVs, initiating what has been called the largest shift in military tactics, strategy, and doctrine since the invention of gunpowder. This year the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, and train more UAV pilots than traditional bomber and fighter pilots combined. As Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, put it in January, "We can't get enough drones."
But neither can our adversaries—who don't need their own network of satellites and supercomputers to deploy an unmanned plane. Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson built a version of the military's hand-tossed Raven surveillance drone for $1,000, while an Arizona-based anti-immigrant group instituted its own pilotless surveillance system to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border for just $25,000. Hitler's war machine may have lacked the ability to strike the American mainland during World War II. But half a century later, a 77-year-old blind man from Canada designed an unmanned system that in 2003 hopped the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland.
Today, the lag time between the development of military technology and its widespread dissemination is measured in months, not years. Industrial farmers around the world already use aerial drones to dust their crops with pesticides. And a recent U.S. Air Force study concluded that similar systems are "an ideal platform" for dirty bombs containing radioactive, chemical, or biological weapons—the type of WMDs that terrorists are most likely to obtain. Such technologies have the potential to strengthen the hand not only of Al Qaeda 2.0, but also of homegrown terror cells and disaffected loners like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. As one robotics expert told me, for less than $50,000 "a few amateurs could shut down Manhattan."
The United States has not truly had to think about its air defenses—at home or abroad—since the Cold War. But it's time it did, because our current crop of weapons isn't well suited to dealing with these new systems. Smaller UAVs' cool, battery-powered engines make them difficult to hit with conventional heat-seeking missiles; Patriot missiles can take out UAVs, but at $3 million apiece such protection comes at a very steep price. Even seemingly unsophisticated drones can have a tactical advantage: Hizbullah's primitive planes flew so slowly that Israeli F-16s stalled out trying to decelerate enough to shoot them down.
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To succeed in this revolution, we need something many competitor countries already have: a national robotics strategy. That means graduate scholarships, lab funding, and a Silicon Valley–style corridor for corporate development. Otherwise we are destined to depend on the expertise of others. Already a growing number of American defense and technology firms rely on hardware from China and software from India, a clear security concern.
Equally important, we need a military and homeland-security strategy that considers not only how we use these unmanned systems but how others will use them against us. That means widening the threat scenarios our agencies plan and train for. It also means new legal regimes to determine who should have access to such dangerous technologies—lest our greatest new weapon come back to bite us
Defending Against Drones
How our new favorite weapon in the war on terror could soon be turned against us.
The unmanned spy plane that Lebanon's Hizbullah sent buzzing over Israeli towns in 2005 was loud and weaponless, and carried only a rudimentary camera. But the surprise flight by a regional terror group still worried U.S. analysts, who saw it as a sign that the unmanned vehicles were falling into the wrong hands.
Today that concern appears to have been well founded. At least 40 other countries—from Belarus and Georgia to India, Pakistan, and Russia—have begun to build, buy, and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, showcasing their efforts at international weapons expos ranging from the premier Paris Air Show to smaller events in Singapore and Bahrain. In the last six months alone, Iran has begun production on a pair of weapons-ready surveillance drones, while China has debuted the Pterodactyl and Sour Dragon, rivals to America's Predator and Global Hawk. All told, two thirds of worldwide investment in unmanned planes in 2010 will be spent by countries other than the United States.
You wouldn't know it to hear U.S. officials talk. Jim Tuttle, the Department of Homeland Security official responsible for safeguarding America against nonnuclear weapons, downplays the idea that drones could be used against us. "What terrorist is going to have a Predator?" he scoffed at a conference last winter. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reported, the U.S. ignored a dangerous flaw in its UAV technology that allowed Iraqi insurgents to tap into the planes' video feeds using $30 software purchased over the Internet.
Such arrogance is setting us up for a fall. Just as we once failed to imagine terrorists using our own commercial aircraft against us, we are now underestimating the threat posed by this new wave of technology. We must prepare for a world in which foreign robotics rivals our own, and terrorists can deliver deadly explosives not just by suicide bomber but also by unmanned machine.
The ease and affordability of such technology, much of which is already available for purchase commercially, means that drones will inevitably pass into the wrong hands, allowing small groups and even individuals to wield power once limited to the world's great militaries. There is, after all, no such thing as a permanent, first-mover advantage—not in technology, and certainly not in war. The British may have invented the tank during World War I, but the Germans wielded it better in the blitzkrieg more than two decades later.
For now, however, America remains at the forefront of the robotics revolution—superiority that has come at considerable effort and expense. We've channeled billions into UAVs, initiating what has been called the largest shift in military tactics, strategy, and doctrine since the invention of gunpowder. This year the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, and train more UAV pilots than traditional bomber and fighter pilots combined. As Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, put it in January, "We can't get enough drones."
But neither can our adversaries—who don't need their own network of satellites and supercomputers to deploy an unmanned plane. Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson built a version of the military's hand-tossed Raven surveillance drone for $1,000, while an Arizona-based anti-immigrant group instituted its own pilotless surveillance system to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border for just $25,000. Hitler's war machine may have lacked the ability to strike the American mainland during World War II. But half a century later, a 77-year-old blind man from Canada designed an unmanned system that in 2003 hopped the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland.
Today, the lag time between the development of military technology and its widespread dissemination is measured in months, not years. Industrial farmers around the world already use aerial drones to dust their crops with pesticides. And a recent U.S. Air Force study concluded that similar systems are "an ideal platform" for dirty bombs containing radioactive, chemical, or biological weapons—the type of WMDs that terrorists are most likely to obtain. Such technologies have the potential to strengthen the hand not only of Al Qaeda 2.0, but also of homegrown terror cells and disaffected loners like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. As one robotics expert told me, for less than $50,000 "a few amateurs could shut down Manhattan."
The United States has not truly had to think about its air defenses—at home or abroad—since the Cold War. But it's time it did, because our current crop of weapons isn't well suited to dealing with these new systems. Smaller UAVs' cool, battery-powered engines make them difficult to hit with conventional heat-seeking missiles; Patriot missiles can take out UAVs, but at $3 million apiece such protection comes at a very steep price. Even seemingly unsophisticated drones can have a tactical advantage: Hizbullah's primitive planes flew so slowly that Israeli F-16s stalled out trying to decelerate enough to shoot them down.
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To succeed in this revolution, we need something many competitor countries already have: a national robotics strategy. That means graduate scholarships, lab funding, and a Silicon Valley–style corridor for corporate development. Otherwise we are destined to depend on the expertise of others. Already a growing number of American defense and technology firms rely on hardware from China and software from India, a clear security concern.
Equally important, we need a military and homeland-security strategy that considers not only how we use these unmanned systems but how others will use them against us. That means widening the threat scenarios our agencies plan and train for. It also means new legal regimes to determine who should have access to such dangerous technologies—lest our greatest new weapon come back to bite us
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Current: RQ-11B Raven (AeroVironment)
Sgt. 1st Class Michael Guillory
Habitat: As the most prevalent UAV on the planet, with more than 7,000 units in service, you’d be hard pressed to find any Army combat brigade in Afghanistan or Iraq that doesn’t have one. Behavior: Three feet long and 4.2 pounds, the Raven is typically fitted with an electronically stabilized color video camera or an infrared video camera for night missions, which pan, tilt and zoom digitally to provide ground troops with “situational awareness.” The fleet is getting a digital upgrade that turns each one into a comm relay, effectively extending its six-mile range. Notable Feature: Light and durable, if it crashes, the wings just pop off, and are easily replaced.
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Current: Wasp III (AeroVironment)
Habitat: Anywhere U.S. Air Force Special Ops forces might be lurking Behavior: Weighing in at one pound, this hand-launch flying wing is outfitted with a day and night camera and can be programmed to fly an autonomous mission between takeoff and recovery. It flies 20 to 40 mph up to 500 feet, and is meant to be expendable once it gets its eyes on a target. Notable Feature: Its electric, two-bladed propeller makes it sneaky quiet. Its inventory is classified.
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Current: Desert Hawk (Lockheed Martin)
Habitat: In the realm of British and American troops in Afghanistan. Behavior: Once it’s chucked into the air, Desert Hawk follows pre-programmed coordinates to give troops an “over-the-hill” view, day or night, up to six miles away. At two pounds (with a collapsible 4.5-foot wingspan), it’s easy to transport. Notable Feature: Built of injection-molded expanded polypropylene and fitted with Kevlar skids, the Desert Hawk is as durable as a Nerf.
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Current: MD4-200 (Microdrone)
Habitat: The surrounds of Liverpool, UK, flown by officers of the Mersyside police department’s Anti-social Behavior Task Force. Behavior: The four-rotor design of the battery-powered, carbon-fiber pod, which weighs just 2.2 pounds, allows it to take off and land vertically. Brushless, direct-drive electric motors keep the noise level below 64 decibels, according to the company. Notable Feature: If it loses signal or senses a low battery, it will land itself autonomously rather than crash.
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Current: T-Hawk/gMAV (Honeywell)
Specialist 3rd Class Kenneth G. Takada
Habitat: With U.S. Army infantry in Iraq. Behavior: Looking like a mini Webber grill with four coat hangers for landing skids, the VTOL T-Hawk can zip up to 10,000 feet for up to 45 minutes. At 16.5 pounds its backpackable. Notable Feature: Did we mention the Webber grill?
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