Boeing s Phantom Works are developing the F/A-XX Advanced Navy Strike Fighter to replace their own F/A-18 Super hornet
Bringing the artificial intelligence inside the cockpit is one major way robots will fly alongside humans in fighters of the future--but it s not the only one.
Aircraft operate in vast empty skies and do so on three axes. Training a car to sense
and avoid other cars#is simpler than doing the same for an aircraft. Still Google s development and prior experience with cars is a strong sign that this work will continue and ultimately yield fruit.
and avoid other aircraft its been slow to implement changes and create a regulatory framework that lets innovation like this happen stateside.
Yesterday the U s. Navy announced the first successful manned & unmanned aircraft flight operations of its experimental X-47b drone.
but successfully integrating both manned and unmanned aircraft into the same flight patterns especially on the confined space of an aircraft carrier is essential for future operations.
but doing so at high speeds in three dimensions on a rocking platform in the middle of the ocean with airplanes worth millions of dollars The X-47b#has earned a pair of nicknames:#
Unlike most drones which have a pilot dictating their every move#by remote control the X-47b is largely autonomous calculating its flight paths.
Here's a short video from the Department of defense showing some of the X-47b's latest flights
the Advanced High performance Reconnaissance and Surveillance Aircraft (AHRLAC) looks like an alternate history version of a World war i fighter.
The pusher propeller design--in which the propellers are mounted behind their respective engines--helps the plane fly slowly, an important task for surveillance aircraft.
The manufacturers boast that AHRLAC is the"first ever aircraft to be designed fully and developed in Africa,
The elevons were used successfully for numerous flights with a hand launch and a ground landing (landing is a particularly dangerous time for hardware).
The elevon must sustain an angle during flight meaning that the aerodynamic force acts on its surface another a common reason for failure in flying robots.
The Antares rocket that was about to send the Cygnus spacecraft on the ISS exploded a few seconds after its launch from NASA's Wallops flight facilities.
As stated by NASA's press conference the flight termination system was activated. This is a remote manual intervention that initiates a self-destruction mechanism
and the video below (shot from a small airplane from a distance) the explosion was huge.
but they are refurbished from US Company Aerojet (and renamed AJ26). It is too early to attribute the accident to these engines
Meanwhile the competition from Spacex and established companies like Lockheed and Boeing is very strong.
and actuation could be applied to various types of high-speed intelligent systems including high-speed robots manufacturing systems aircraft microscope image control for bio/medical applications and human-machine
#Coordinated UAV docking This post is part of our ongoing efforts to make the latest papers in robotics accessible to a general audience.
Small Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) can be both safe and maneuverable but their small size means they can carry much payload
and their battery life only allows for short flights. To increase the range of a small UAV one idea is to pair it with an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can carry it to a site of operation and transport heavier cargo.
Having both ground and aerial perspectives can also be useful during a mission. One challenge is to make sure the vehicles have the ability to rendezvous
The video above demonstrates the use of a coordinated control strategy for autonomous docking of a Aeryon Scout UAV onto a skid-steer UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) from Clearpath Robotics.
and SWARM UAV I am lucky enough to work in the growing civilian UAV industry everyday.
The Projector Droneâ that we have built in Melbourne Australia is one of my favorite in-house projects.
It broadcasts onto it. http://player. vimeo. com/video/98604521our proof of concept build uses a modified DJI F550 Flamewheel kit gets twelve minutes flight time and features its own
We are already working on more sophisticated features including live streaming data gimbal integration ultrasonic sound capabilities and improved flight time.
 It is not hard to imagine a slightly sci-fi future where micro UAVS with similar broadcasting abilities are used to deliver breaking news disaster and traffic management emergency warnings and maybe an advertisement or two.
Overall automotive patents make up around one third of the total not including other types of vehicles such as trucks buses agricultural machinery aircraft and aerospace/defence.
Most of the patents in the UK dataset are in the field of autonomous vehicles includingâ road vehicles unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles.
Deutsche Post DHL Germany'#express delivery and mail company is working with German UAV provider microdrones Gmbh to test various methods of flight (piloted or autonomous) types and weights
and note that Dndrea is the tech wizard behind Kiva robotic warehouse##the video shows a novel fail safe algorithm that allows an unmanned aerial vehicle to recover
and deviations in the ball flight path. ee Mark research paper presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2013.
While Australia is friendlier towards commercial UAV operation than the US this is still a fledgeling industry with many standards
The second system is a wireless video transmitter for the Gopro camera that is often used in model airplanes.
and Aerovironment PUMA have become the first federally certified unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for civilian use in the US.
#The Distributed Flight Array: Modular robots that self-assemble, coordinate and take flight he whole is greater than the sum of its partsâ##a catch phrase that aptly expresses the Distributed Flight Array:
a modular robotâ consisting of hexagonal-shaped single-rotor units that can take on just about any shape or form.
Although each unit is capable of generating enough thrust to lift itself off the ground on its own it is incapable of flight much like a helicopter cannot fly without its tail rotor.
However when joined together these units evolve into a sophisticated multi-rotor system capable of coordinated flight and much more.
otherwise be impossible to achieve on its own â##flight. This modular flying vehicle would then break apart in the air
1) docking (2) coordinated ground mobility and (3) coordinated flight. In accomplishing each of these tasks we would in turn validate our model
and to demonstrate coordinated flight in several configurations. Our goals were too ambitious under the framework of this class
in order to make the vehicle lighter for flight. Its primary limitation however was its inability to demonstrate coordinated mobility for randomly assembled configurations.
We opted instead for constructing the chassis out of laser-cut acetal plastic a higher-powered flight motor and a new propeller.
and thrust generation unit (i e. propeller and flight motor) from scratch but kept most of the power and control electronics the same.
The new flight motor and propeller was tested to ensure that it produced a sufficient amount of thrust
and constructed six complete units for flight. In this revision we demonstrated coordinated flight for a variety of configurations.
The flight controller was computed ahead of time and sent wirelessly to each unit prior to flight. Knowing that the chassis
and thrust generation unit was sound we then went ahead and integrated driving capabilities and intercommunication into the units.
To successfully accomplish this the flight control strategy must minimize the shear forces occuring between interconnected units during flight.
but the most striking feature of the Distributed Flight Array is its ability to fly in an unlimited number of configurations.
What is most surprising is that the units themselves do need not necessarily to communicate with one another during flight.
The only information that a unit needs for flight is its local sensor data and its position with respect to the vehicle centre of mass.
We instead developed a means for automatically computing the tuning parameters for any flight-feasible configuration of the vehicle that would result in best flight performance.
The Distributed Flight Array is currently being used at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich as a modular robotics platform for investigating algorithms in distributed estimation and control.
and to process the images after the flight. This processing now happens when the player visits the highscore table
& aeroplanes that are certified to CE UL and FCC standards. The Walkera Infra X Smart Drone with Crash Avoidance System (CAS) contains a total of 10 sensors 2 Ultrasonic Altitude Sensors on the belly of the drone 8 Infrared Sensors
in order to maintain flight, but this makes it difficult for them to fit into smaller spaces.
the team had to first designate the primary mode of locomotion in this case flight, as the DALER will cover the longest distances this way.
so as to satisfy the constraints of both ground locomotion and flight. The best shape found for these wingerons is a triangular one.
Flight maneuverability requires rapid wingeron movements and low torque, whereas walking requires the opposite conditions.
to force the working point of flight control inside the operating range of the terrestrial actuator,
while not compromising flight maneuverability. A second issue in creating a fixed wing drone capable of walking on the ground is with the morphology, thanks to the different centre of mass requirements for the two modes of locomotion.
but is also able to fly horizontally like a fixed-wing airplane. Following field tests, however, Google scrapped the design,
For fast forward flight, the vehicle tilts to a near-horizontal orientation, resulting in efficient lift production due to the conventional wing design.
hover-capable aircraft such as tiltrotors and tiltwings, the major advantage of a tailsitter is its mechanical simplicity:
and do not provide enough control authority for the hover flight regime. Therefore their area is enlarged by carbon fibre sheets.
A Pixhawk PX4 Flight Management Unit (FMU) runs the onboard control loop that tracks the desired body rates using a rate gyroscope
Robbe Mini Wing RC styrofoam airframe Electronics: Pixhawk PX4 Flight Management Unit Battery: Thunder Power RC G6 Pro Lite 25c Lipo 350mah 2s Motors:
Hacker A05-13s Motor controllers: ZTW Spider 12a ESCS with Simonk firmware Propellers: 5×3 GWS EP-5030 Flap servos:
including unmanned air vehicles (UAVS) due to the capability to disappear from view and leaving no visual,
#NASA's drone is part chopper, part airplane Answer: NASA'S latest drone prototype, GL-10.
it is an innovative new concept for an unmanned vehicle (UAV) from NASA's Langley Research center in Hampton, Virginia.
It has a tilt-wing design that allows for vertical takeoff and landing--similar to existing tiltrotor aircraft like the Bell-Boeing V22 Osprey."
"Successful flight tests have not only demonstrated its hovering capabilities during its vertical takeoff--the way a helicopter does
"During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again.
So far we have done this on five flights, "said Bill Fredericks, one of the aerospace engineers working on the project, in a NASA press release."
"We did lose some of the early prototypes to'hard landings'as we learned how to configure the flight control system.
what we are testing now--would make also a great one to four person size personal air vehicle."
"An additional strength is the UAV's lack of noise inflight, said Frederiks.""It's pretty quiet.
which saw a copy of a Walmart's Federal aviation administration application for drone use. The application would allow Walmart to use drones at its warehouses and around customershomes
Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International airport, the main entry point for flights bringing in international aid since the April quake, was closed anew Tuesday as a precaution.
and bending the arm around water-filled balloons to simulate human organs. Robot Rides Hoverbike, Nuff Said
But robotic landing gear developed for DARPA at the Georgia Institute of technology (Georgia Tech) could better equip these aircraft to land just about anywhere.
The new landing gear features four robotic legs with bendable"knees"that turn a normal helicopter into
the legs automatically move to stabilize the aircraft, according to DARPA officials, who recently tested out the new system near the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta."
and take off from terrain that would be impossible to operate from with standard landing gear,"Ashish Bagai,
what Bagai referred to as"standard landing gear, "which typically features either retractable wheels or fixed skids (the ski-type beams sometimes seen under the fuselage of a helicopter).
Neither of these options works well on uneven terrain, which is unfortunate, because helicopters often need to land
The robo-insect landing gear can handle landings on irregular terrain, even if there are significant obstacles in the way,
During that time, the team took time-of-flight pictures of the distribution of atoms to capture the topology
in collaboration with aircraft manufacturer Airbus, involving a jet engine air inlet that traditionally causes drag during flight.
or rotate down to increase aerodynamics. et say that if it rains, you want to increase traction on the tires,
an airplane flyover that falls far short of capturing the detailed images needed to identify a potential problem."
The custom-made high-speed data transmitters were designed to withstand extremely harsh conditions low temperature and high radiation.""It's not always a smooth ride operating electronics in such a harsh environment,
and twist samples of the composite materials used to build F/A-18s and other aircraft.
the median age of today's active aircraft is 22-23 years old. As F/A-18s continue to age beyond their design life cycle,
NRL's robot could help get aircraft from factory to fleet faster. NRL66. 3 robot applies,
Computations from robot data predict how materials behave in aircraft A snapped composite specimen is one thing;
Khazendar team used data on ice surface elevations and bedrock depths from instrumented aircraft participating in NASA Operation Icebridge,
During that time, the team took time-of-flight pictures of the distribution of atoms to capture the topology
for example, resulted in a temporary grounding of all of Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets, Ceder explains. Others have attempted to find a solid replacement for the liquid electrolyte,
ll of the fires youe seen, with Boeing, Tesla, and others, they are all electrolyte fires.
says Christopher Hughes, a principal engineer at Intel Labs, ut at least to my knowledge, they tend to use physical time.
which will guide how scientists and engineers build aircraft components, for example. The research, led by Jianwei (John) Miao,
when the materials are components of machines like jet engines. oint defects are very important to modern science and technology,
#A Light-Reflecting Balloon Catheter Repairs the Heart without Surgery Harvard-affiliated researchers have designed a specialized catheter for fixing holes in the heart by using a biodegradable adhesive and patch.
the clinician opens two positioning balloons: one around the front end of the catheter, passing through the hole,
The light reflects off of the balloon shiny interior and activates the patch adhesive coating.
As the glue cures, pressure from the positioning balloons on either side of the patch help secure it in place.
Finally, both balloons are deflated, and the catheter is withdrawn. Over time, normal tissue growth resumes, and heart tissue grows over the patch.
As if it weren enough that today cornered malefactors have to worry about night vision goggles, tomorrow thugs may also have to worry about the soft radio glow of wireless routers and mobile communications towers.
At MIT, theye been working on a prototype for a time of flight microwave camera which can be used to image objects through walls,
MIT microwave camera can do 3-D imaging using time of flight in the same way that Microsoft latest Xbox Kinect sensor works.
The time of flight camera sends out bursts of microwaves and then keeps careful track of how long it takes for the microwaves to bounce off of something
including whether it been placed in airplane mode, or set solely to vibration. Using a combination of various bits of information,
#Airware Launches Its Commercial Drone Operating system Drones could save businesses big money by doing dull, dirty,
Airware is out to change that with today launch of its Aerial Information Platform. Commercial businesses can now license Airware Flight Core autopilot technology,
Ground Control Station for dispatching drones, and its cloud platform for customizing missions and collecting data.
the four year-old Airware is perhaps Silicon valley premier drone startup. Airware integrated hardware software, and cloud system lets enterprises customize drones to check on gas pipelines,
survey farm land, inspect cell towers, patrol property, or do search & rescue, Now wel see just how many businesses will pay a monthly subscription for Airware to power their drones for industrial inspections, agriculture management, anti-poaching, and more.
Consumer drone makers are growing fast as quad-copters become the hot new toy for kids and adults alike.
Airware bussed investors, customers, and a handful of reporters from San francisco to an isolated farm in Petaluma, where the startup showed off its platform with a variety of drones built for different use cases.
Following a brief introduction by Airware CEO Jonathan Downey, CTO Buddy Michini demonstrated Airware core technologies:
the Flight Core autopilot system, which provides the brains to each drone that Airware powers,
the Ground Control Station that lets a single user operate a fleet of drones from a Windows laptop or tablet,
and ensure theye complying with flight regulations. Rather than having to pre-program a drone,
Airware can handle the whole process. The goal is to reduce the drone piloting expertise needed to get complicated missions flown.
Drone operators just set up the standard Airware control system enhance it with cloud widgets to customize their drone to the day use case,
Operators can just trace a flight path on a map instead of driving the drone in real-time.
and dig sites using flight plans generated Airware Ground Control Station. Users simply draw out a geofence for the drone to stay within
After several similar demos, Drone America CEO Mike Richards spoke about using his company larger drones with Airware software for missions outside of traditional industrial uses.
It was easily the most exciting flight of the day, launching via a catapult, flying several quick passes around the the whole area,
During this time, Michini explained Airware plug-in system, which lets customers create widgets for the Ground Control Station in the C# programming language.
These widgets are actually the main reason Airware is sticking with Windows for its tablet app.
which will provide a full-on Linux computer for developers to work with in addition to the standard Flight Core autopilot and Ground Control Station integration.
When it rolls out to select Airware partners this summer, this new system will let customers take advantage of more advanced sensor
Airware can roll out new products like App Core without having to find new companies to sell to or upsell its current customers.
Airware costs $2500 per drone per year. But the company doesn have to race to revenue just yet.
Now his company Airware is going to teach them to do our bidding, and even save some lives g
When Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing, Tomnod directed its users to help search for the missing aircraft.
In fact the site couldn keep up with the traffic due to an influx of users looking to help. hrough games,
One of the most controversial part of this law is the so-called black boxes. French Internet service providers and hosting companies will have to install a new system in their infrastructure to filter all traffic.
In addition to the black boxes, there will be a new database of dangerous persons, new devices to record phone calls, FISA-like metadata collection and more.
The research is a combination of work from a student on fellowship at NASA from the University of Michigan and nearly a decade and a half of study on self-healing materials for both aircrafts and spacecrafts.
multi-object tracking radar (MOTR) on a rocket flight next month while formal commissioning is expected to take three months time,
and developed by Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) will be tested next month during a PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch vehicle) rocket flight.
Prasad said Raythaeon, Northrop grumman, Lockheed martin, of the US, Thales, Canada-Europe, Elta of Israel and NEC of Japan have the capability to make such systems.
multi-object tracking radar (MOTR) on a rocket flight next month while formal commissioning is expected to take three months time,
and developed by Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) will be tested next month during a PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch vehicle) rocket flight.
Prasad said Raythaeon, Northrop grumman, Lockheed martin, of the US, Thales, Canada-Europe, Elta of Israel and NEC of Japan have the capability to make such systems.
and will help power modes of transport that cannot be electrified in the future such as heavy trucks or even aircraft.
and will help power modes of transport that cannot be electrified in the future such as heavy trucks or even aircraft.
the clinician opens two positioning balloons: one around the front end of the catheter, and one on the other side of the heart wall.
The light reflects off of the balloon's interior and activates the patch's adhesive coating.
As the glue cures, pressure from the positioning balloons on either side of the patch help secure it in place.
Finally, both balloons are deflated and the catheter is withdrawn. Over time, normal tissue growth resumes s
Following flight, astronauts have four times the risk of herniated discs as the general population.""Given the impact of atrophy on astronauts in space,
This deciding factor comes from his unique, multiple airfoil design, which captures a high level of windflow."
As an engineer with a backround working for major aerospace companies such as Boeing and GE Aircraft engines, Yost founded American Wind and quickly put his skills to work."
and predicts that it could be used in paint applied to airplanes and satellites, however the idea to incorporate it into a wearable technology came from Pinar Guvenc, Inanc Eray and Gonzalo Carbajo, partners of Eray Carbajo,
could be useful for constructing such things as aircraft or spaceship parts. Like the development of SAMS, Dr. Liou explains that for the FGMS it is also a matter of finding the correct cooling rate.
which involved interviews with over 1, 000 professionals operating in fields ranging from food processing to aeronautics,
which permitted its transport inside an airplane. This incidentally shows how little we have begun really to explore the possibilities of 3d printing,
The team inflicted mechanical strain on these silicone muscles during the process by inflating the balloon-like mandrel structure,
and the balloon was deflated, the silicone was able to make an evenly distributed return to its original shape.
Dr Ni said the technology eventually could be used for military applications like making large objects like vehicles or aircraft or even individual soldiers"invisible".
The spacecraft lost contact with the flight controllers shortly after it reached orbit and the capsule was found tumbling.
#AFRL providing cost-effective inspection solutions for turbine engine aircraft Aircraft engine inspections are an essential part of maintaining a healthy and reliable fleet.
AFRL researchers have recently transitioned the Sonic Infrared nondestructive evaluation inspection method for turbine engine airfoils.
Researchers embarked upon this effort to answer a need from aircraft maintainers for a reliable,
and efficient alternative to FPI for whole-field, engine airfoil inspection. According to AFRL project engineer Siamack Mazdiyasni,
Most notably, the increased level of reliability of SIR inspections over FPI means aircraft maintainers can often return engine airfoils to service
The Air force Life cycle Management Center has expressed plans to merge the technology into their automated airfoil inspection and repair initiative.
Studying SIR inspection for engine airfoils is only the first step. Mazdiyasni says future plans include investigating the technology for other engine components including coated parts and fracture critical parts s
This capability supports"materials by design,"a concept that enables the development of unique new materials for function-specific applicability, such as lighter, stronger fiber composites for airplane wings;
He is a professor at Stanford School of medicine and SLAC and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator."
Thomas C. Südhof, a professor at the Stanford School of medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who shared that 2013 Nobel prize with Rothman,
developed by researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus. The new methods dramatically improve on the spatial resolution provided by structured illumination microscopy, one of the best imaging methods for seeing
which will guide how scientists and engineers build aircraft components, for example. The research, led by Jianwei (John) Miao,
when the materials are components of machines like jet engines. oint defects are very important to modern science and technology,
Both these effects change the time of flight of an ultrasound wave through a bearing.
#New Bio-Inspired Ultrasound Sensor Identifies Structural Defects An ultrasound sensor for detecting dangerous cracks in structures such as aircraft engines,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011