Friday, November 04, 2016

Terminator Times #22

Drones:




DARPA's ARES drone is preparing for flight, but that first flight has been delayed to next fall.

The US Army has upgraded its Arrow UAV to operational capabilities rather than being just a testbed.

The US Army showed off training with an anti drone weapon.

The USAF drone center suffered an outage according to a report for unknown reasons.

The USAF Global Hawks have been flying over Ukraine for two years now and recently turned on its transponder to let everyone know it was there.

The USMC is seeking an off the shelf VTOL UAV for ISR or so said the original dribbles of news.  it seems the program will be called MUX and will really be a high end VTOL, long range aircraft for ISR, attack and communications.  The USMC wants MUX before the FVL helicopter program delivers.

 The US Navy is standing up the first operational Triton squadron this week.

The US Navy awarded a risk reduction contract to Northrop for the MQ-25 unmanned tanker.

Drones are problem for the US Navy in the littoral currently.

The Pentagon is working on 3d printed swarming mini dronesDrone swarms are going to make combat more like Ender's Game, at least the movie version.  The USMC would like to use the LOCUST swarming tech to hit the beaches before the Marines do.

The Pentagon is also looking at laser armed drones for missile defense.

Airbus is teaming up with DCNS to offer an unmanned helicopter to the French Navy.

Argentina is testing a new UAV prototype.

Industry has presented UAV upgrade options to the Brits.

The British are sorta ducking the question of armed UAV use outside of war.

The Chinese unveiled their QY-1 helicopter drone.

Colombian Navy has established a drone base.

Daesh used a commercial drone to kill Kurdish fighters and wound two French troops.  (more here) This has made some wonder if flying IEDs are the next big threat.  And in some ways, that threat is barely begun.

Daesh is also using drones to spot for artillery.

A Daesh drone was shot down by an electronic weapon used by the USAF.

The German decision on its Heron UAV deal will be soon.

IAI increased its Birdeye 650's endurance.

India is moving closer to buying the Heron TP UAV.

Iran's test sight for its reverse engineered stealth (?) drones from the captured RQ-170 has been geolocated.

Netherlands will upgrade their Ravens and buy two new types of UAV.

The OSCE has had all of its drones shot down in Ukraine.

Russia may use small UAVs for security during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

AeroVironments has unveiled a multi tube launcher for its Switchblade drone/munition.

Leonardo revealed the details of its deal with the USN to equip Firescouts with its flat panel radar.

Northrop is testing a sensor for the U-2 on the Global Hawk

Textron has introduced its next gen drone station.

Textron is also looking for customers for its Aerosonde UAV.

US General in Europe wants anti drone weapons.  

Russia has developed a microwave weapon to take down drones.

Russia, like the US, is working on swarming drone combatants.

Russia is also supposed to be working on a micro UAV for recon.

Robotics:

Aurora Flight Services demonstrated its robotic copilot.  And, no, its not a traditional autopilot.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles:


DARPA's Sea Hunter is going through more testing, especially collision avoidance at sea and testing parasailing payloads to increase sensor range.

The US Navy will use Textron's CUSV for mine hunting in the interim on the LCS class ships.

Nearly 50 USVs are participating in the Unmanned Warrior exercises.

The French Demoed the ESPADON  USV for launching and recovering unmanned platforms.

Unmanned Underwater Vehicle:

The US Navy wants to advance unmanned sub tech and hopefully fold that into its next nuclear sub.

A French industrial team has come together, with the Brits, for a mine counter measures robo boat.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles:

The US Army's squad level logistics bot program is finally going out to bid.

The US Army is pulling unmanned combat platforms sooner.

The USMC wants bots to be the first ones storming the beaches.

Iran has unveiled the first unmanned ground effect vehicle.

Ukraine is developing an unmanned, self driving MRAP-like vehicle.

3d Printing:

USMC is developing 3d printed munitions.

Exercises:

The Royal Navy and US Navy (amongst others) launched the Unmanned Warrior exercises off the coast of Scotland.  More here.

META:

Autonomous warfare is the future?

What unmanned platforms could do for the US Navy. 

Here's what a US admiral thinks of unmanned systems for the navy.

The US State Dept's international drone policy is being criticized.

The first US Marines ashore in the future may be robots.

The US Army is looking at several technologies, including self driving convoys for logistics.

A US Army general listed the priorities for unmanned tech.

One British ex official believes the US Army will have more robot than human soldiers by 2025.

the US Navy is drafting its unmanned tech roadmap.

Boeing is testing high levels of autonomy for future unmanned combat.

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