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Drone proponents prefer using the term Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or UAS for Unmanned Aerial System (latter term includes the entirety of the flying vehicle and the ground-base communications connection connecting the two). Whatever your preferred verbiage is, drones are poised to become a huge global business and the aerial devices are going to have a significant impact across a wide variety of industries. Historically, the military has been the biggest user/purchaser of drones; The Wall Street Journal estimated that the U.S. military spent about $3 billion on drone programs in 2012. And many aerospace companies continue to develop highly...

<p>Over the Next Two Decades, the Machines Themselves Will Take Over the Driving.</p> <p>Caterpillar will have 45 self-directed trucks at a mine in Australia.</p> <p>And then one day, man went the way of the mule.</p> <p>Some 5.7 million Americans are licensed as professional drivers, steering the country's vast fleets of delivery vans, UPS trucks and tractor-trailers.</p>

In the U.S. the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is planning to introduce unmanned frigates for long missions shadowing diesel-electric submarines. The vessels, dubbed Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessels or ACTUVs, are designed to be unmanned, with only intermittent communication from operators on shore or on a ship, and to require no maintenance for months. They will also obey navigational rules and be able to avoid collisions at sea. The three main objectives of the program are to build an “X-ship” that operates without anyone stepping aboard at any point in its operating cycle, secondly to demonstrate the...

- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments. Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2. Phoenix, in addition to shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the northern Mars summer approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life of three months to conduct and return science data....

US Navy Capt. Ralph Alderson, program director of the Joint-Unmanned Combat Aerial System (J-UCAS) program, said right at the start that he would address the elephant in the room. The FY07 defense budget provides zero funding for the J-UCAS, and the newly released 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) calls for the program's "restructuring," as many of the attendees at the Association of Unmanned Systems International's Unmanned Systems Program Review 2006 conference in Washington, DC, on Feb. 8 perhaps already knew, Capt. Alderson said. "Restructuring" would appear to be a euphemism for "canceled," but despite standing at the podium with a...

Florida scientists have grown a brain in a petri dish and taught it to fly a fighter plane. Scientists at the university of Florida taught the 'brain', which was grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a rat embryo, to pilot an F-22 jet simulator. It was taught to control the flight path, even in mock hurricane-strength winds. TWO RELATED LINKS: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1119_041119_brain_petri_dish.html#main http://www.bme.ufl.edu:16080/research/projects/detailproject.php?RP_id=5

Enthusiasm is building at California Motor Speedway in Fontana, Calif., as 21 unmanned ground vehicles prepare to face off against the clock this weekend while traversing 200 miles of rugged terrain. The first-of-its-kind DARPA Grand Challenge, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will pit an array of innovative vehicles against battlefield-like conditions between Barstow, Calif., and Primm, Nev. The event includes an enticing payoff for the top-placing team that completes the course in less than 10 hours: $1 million cash. Race time is 6:30 a.m. PST, March 13. The course — to be revealed just two hours before...

'Internet in the Sky' Will Guide Unmanned Vehicles into Battle :: HOME :: MORE NEWS   'Internet in the Sky' Will Guide Unmanned Vehicles into Battle   Date: April 22, 2002 Contact: David Brown (dbrown@ea.ucla.edu) 310-206-0540 With an increasing number of unmanned vehicles taking up positions on the modern battlefield, UCLA researchers are designing a portable, rapidly deployable network that will allow these robotic agents to communicate. The Multimedia Intelligent Network of Unattended Mobile Agents (Minuteman), a portable airborne network system, will provide local communications for the increasing array of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). This...