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Weapons Systems

British Army Completes First Test of Drone Killing Radio Frequency Weapon

British soldiers have successfully trialed for the first time a game-changing weapon that can take down a swarm of drones using radio waves for less than the cost of a pack of mince pies. The Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon (RFDEW) development system can detect, track and engage a range of threats across land, air and sea. Read on to learn more about it.

Application Briefs

Software

MUSHER Demonstrates Manned-Unmanned Aircraft Teaming Applications

Airbus Helicopters and its partners conducted a full scale demonstration of a manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) system developed as part of a project funded by the European Union and code-named “MUSHER.” The demonstration took place in France and Italy from Sept. 30 – Oct. 9, and involved multiple manned helicopters and unmanned systems connected to a single MUM-T network. Read on to learn more.

Application Briefs

Unmanned Systems

Autonomous Air Defense Production

Anduril Industries has been awarded a $249,978,466 contract to deliver advanced air defense capabilities across services for the Department of Defense (DoD). This contract will deliver more than 500 Roadrunner-Ms and additional Pulsar electronic warfare capabilities, addressing the growing threat of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) attacks against U.S. forces. Read on to learn more.

Application Briefs

Unmanned Systems

Enabling Off-the-Shelf Autonomous Naval Warfare

The Navy is actively exploring emerging technologies that enable uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) to extend the range of its communications and electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. Read on to learn more about it.

Articles

RF & Microwave Electronics

Cutting-Edge Drone Killer Radio Wave Weapon Developing at Pace

Delivered by Team Hersa, the Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon can detect, track and engage a range of threats across land, air and sea. The system uses radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside enemy platforms, such as drones, causing them to stop in their tracks or fall out of the sky. Read on to learn more.

Articles

Unmanned Systems

How Next-Generation Edge Computers Will Shape Drone Warfare

Drones – or uncrewed aerial systems, as they are known by the military – have become ubiquitous in most armed forces around the world. Across all domains, drones employ a range of sensors. Read on to learn more about how next-gen edge computers will advance them.

Application Briefs

Aerospace

UAV In-Flight Software Upgrades

During a recent demonstration, Collins Aerospace and Parasanti proved they could use UAVs to install software upgrades on other UAVs to update them in-flight.

Technology Report

Connectivity

UAE Previews Autonomous Future at DriftX

Publicly available autonomous vehicles have been operating in Abu Dhabi since 2021, providing over 16,000 rides covering more than 300,000 km (186,400 miles). If the organizers and supporters of the...

Articles

Manned Systems

Advances in Multi-UAV Operations

As technology matures and operational concepts evolve, MUM-T missions, synchronized flights, and the corresponding required advances in UAV flight control systems will undoubtedly become cornerstones of modern military strategies.

Articles

RF & Microwave Electronics

RF-Cyber for Counter-UAS

Enabling the emerging associated drone-powered economy will require a new generation of counter-drone or counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) to support the growth of safe and secure drone adoption.

Q&A

Unmanned Systems

Q&A: Owl AI Making Better ADAS Systems with Help from Drones

Owl AI has steadily been improving the SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Cost) of the electronics in its thermal camera sensors while also improving capability. The company’s...

Briefs

Electronics & Computers

New Method to Measure Wind Speed Could Unlock Drones’ Potential

Dr. Marc Compere, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus, recently described a new approach to measuring wind effects.

Briefs

Manned Systems

Report on Human Factors Issues Likely to Affect Air-Launched Effects

Air-Launched Effects (ALEs) are a concept for operating small, inexpensive, attritable, and highly autonomous unmanned aerial systems that can be tube launched from aircraft.

Briefs

Aerospace

Assessment of Noncommercial Icing Prediction Capabilities for Army Applications

Historically, smaller Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), such as Class 2 RQ-1B Raven and Class 3 RQ-7Bv2 Shadow, have been restricted to not be approved to fly in icing conditions under the assumption that any ice accretion would cause an unacceptable risk of loss of the aircraft.

Articles

Aerospace

More Airports Test RF as Counter Measure for UAS in Restricted Airspace

More airports are starting to adopt and test the use of radio frequency (RF) mitigation techniques to counter the operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in violation of civilian airspace rules.

Briefs

Unmanned Systems

A Simpler Method for Learning to Control a Robot

Researchers from MIT and Stanford University have devised a new machine-learning approach that could be used to control a robot, such as a drone or autonomous vehicle, more effectively and efficiently in dynamic environments where conditions can change rapidly.

Application Briefs

RF & Microwave Electronics

PHASA-35 Stratospheric Flight

British engineers have successfully completed a stratospheric flight trial of BAE Systems’ High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) - PHASA-35.

Application Briefs

Aerospace

Multispectral Airborne Reconnaissance System

Collins Aerospace has announced the completion of flight testing for the MS-110 Multispectral Airborne Reconnaissance System to enter operational service.

Briefs

Aerospace

Characterizing Motion Prediction in Small Autonomous Swarms

Prior investigations of swarm robot control focus on optimizing communication and coordination between agents, with at most one human control scheme, or with discrete (rather than continuous) human control schemes.

Articles

Unmanned Systems

VITA 90: Small Form Factors for UAVs and Other Space Constrained Platforms

VNX+ has been selected by the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) consortium as a SFF standard to be used for C5ISR sensor payloads in space constrained applications, typical in manned and unmanned air vehicles and spacecraft.

Articles

RF & Microwave Electronics

Ghoul Tool: The Weapon-Mountable Counter UAS Transmitter

As commercial drone technology continues to expand, small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are making it increasingly difficult to secure battlefields and military installations.

Application Briefs

Unmanned Systems

Amphibious Combat Vehicle C4 UAS

A successful test was conducted of the Stalker and Indago small uncrewed aerial systems on an ACV C4/UAS variant.

Briefs

AR/AI

Autonomous Surveillance Technologies Relating to Dismounted Soldiers

The development of the AI/ML applications for dismounted Soldier systems is paramount to defeating our adversaries, such as China and Russia, in future combat.

Briefs

Unmanned Systems

Robust MADER: Decentralized Multiagent Drone Trajectory Planner

For reliable real-world deployment, it is essential that a trajectory planner be robust to both communication delays and dynamic environments.

Articles

RF & Microwave Electronics

Heterogeneous Integration and SiPs Benefit SWaP-C Reduction

Aerospace and defense (A&D) electronic systems are being made smaller but more functional.

Application Briefs

RF & Microwave Electronics

Precision Attack Drone

SpearUAV has introduced what it describes as a “world first,” with its new encapsulated and launch able hovering precision attack drone, Viper.

Briefs

Aerospace

Deep Reinforcement Learning Achieves Multifunctional Morphing Airfoil Control

Uncrewed aerial vehicles are growing in popularity for both civilian and military applications, which makes improving their efficiency an attractive objective.

Briefs

Design

Design and Analysis of a Small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Power Distribution System

This report considers all aspects of design of a PDB to include shape, size, components, cost, voltage regulators, peripherals, and so on.

Briefs

Sensors/Data Acquisition

Optimal UAS Assignments and Trajectories for Persistent Surveillance and Data Collection from a Wireless Sensor Network

To meet the DoD’s vision for future UAS capabilities and lower manpower costs, systems incorporating UAS and standoff components are needed.