UAVs with lasers as weapons coming sooner than you might think!


UAV’s using lasers as a weapon, seems ridiculous and undeveloped right? Wrong. I read some interesting information today about how the major UAV airplane manufacturer General Atomics has been working hard on developing a high powered laser to stop incoming missiles and airplanes with nearly unlimited ammo. Striking at the speed of light the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) could cause some serious changes in the way we use our UAVs in the air today. In the past four years the Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA) has given contractor General Atomics $60 million to develop the program. This laser will boast a powerful 150kW ray capable of doing some serious damage.

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Concept of laser weapons used by UAVs
Photo: fastcompany.com
Currently lasers of that strength are too large and heavy to be carried on planes, but are still able to destroy an incoming rocket or plane. This means they can only be outfitted to work on stationary systems as opposed to a moving UAV airplane that needs to be light weight. DARPA says the laser is in the “final development stage,” and has reduced weight at only 750kg. This opens up a whole new array of uses for lasers as weapons. The use of the laser for my concern is with UAVs. These lasers could bring forth a brand new fighting technique and revolutionize the battlefield, again. General Atomics expects the lasers use to be multiplied by using it with their newer Predator drone.

General Atomics believes that the most useful technique for the drones with the laser capability is to fly in a large “swarm.” The units will be integrated to overcome even large defense networks with the only loss to be a few relatively inexpensive drones. These bold claims do of course need to be weighed with other reservations but the outlook is currently very positive. The US Air Force sees drones as crucial to the future but whether or not the Predator will be the drone to do it is still under speculation due to the fact that neither the laser or drone are in mass production yet. Currently Russia, Israel, and other leading nations and arms manufacturers say they are working on their own version of the similar portable lasers, but the US is currently in the lead for developing advanced laser equipped UAVs.

The Sikorsky Cypher UAV



The Cypher, a ducted rotor UAV airplane with a composite shroud structure, fly-by-wire controls, integrated aeronautics, and an aboard mission laptop. This UAV is equipped with a range of payloads, like detector packages, with a weight up to forty lbs. The symmetrical, rounded shroud safely encloses the rotor system, and produces a stealthy signature. The vehicle will operate autonomously per a preplanned mission or below communication system via a data-link  Cypher incorporates a hover capability, 3 hour flight endurance, and its high speed of seventy knots permits flights up to twenty five kilometers.

Flight demonstrations of the Cypher technology demonstrator craft were conducted by the sikorsky craft corporation. Intended for military and civil applications. These demonstrations embrace capabilities like ground and armed service police investigation, communications relay and countermeasures missions, non-defense roles as counter-narcotics, ordnance disposal, forestry, utilities, enforcement and search and rescue.

The Cypher UAV is 6.5 feet in diameter. It combines the potency of a ducted airstream with a homocentric advancing blade idea rotor system. The rotors and also the circular shroud that encloses them can share in providing carrying capacity. Powered by a 50-horsepower category engine, Cypher UAVs are able to cruise at eighty knots, for up to 3 hours, with a ceiling of 8,000 feet. Cypher shares each automatic target detection and fly-by-wire control systems with the Boeing industrialist RAH-66 Comanche chopper being developed for the military.

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Cypher UAV
Photo: paper-replika.com

As an autonomous, or “smart” air vehicle, Cypher holds position and navigates employing a differential world Positioning System. The air vehicle is in a position to fly “hands-off,” rather than being flown directly by a ground operator. It additionally showed a capability to land remotely, camera-directed by its aboard tv, on slopes as high as fifteen degrees. Confined space operations showed it kicking off and landing between obstructions even twelve feet apart.

The enclosed rotor idea developed by sikorsky is safer than exposed UAV rotor systems. The Cypher style, with the rotor system within a shroud, minimizes the hazard of exposed high speed rotor blades to ground personnel. The Cypher incorporates composite structures, bearing-less rotors, fly-by-wire flight controls, advanced aeronautics. It works plainly and utilizes a centralized laptop, known as the vehicle mission processor, for execution of flight control laws, vehicle management functions, direction computations, flight payload management and air vehicle communications.

Cypher’s UAV autonomous flight modes are auto take-off and landing, position hover-hold, altitude hold, rate hold, way-point navigation and UAV return-home. Implementation of the return-home mode permits the operator to command the vehicle back to the first launch location – or the other preset location – with simply a push of the button.

The Cypher vehicle is controlled and monitored from an integrated mobile ground station. The whole mission is planned, operated and monitored from one system manager monitor. Vehicle and payload commands, from the system manager, are relayed to the UAV airplane via a digital telemetry transmission. UAV altitude  mission knowledge, surveillance knowledge and payload video are incorporated into one downlink signal that’s transmitted to the management van.

The air vehicle accumulated over four hundred flight hours at Sikorsky’s Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., and at various U.S.government demonstrations.

In a demonstration at the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) site at Fort Benning, Ga., Cypher flew down streets, landed on a building’s roof and strategically placed varying payloads. For the U.S. Army’s Autonomous Rotorcraft Testbed (ASRT) program, Cypher – with no operator input – searched and tracked man-size targets. For the U.S. Department of Energy, Cypher used magnetometers to go looking and find underground structures and tunnels in Nevada. In Sep 1997, Cypher flew at the Army’s Force Protection equipment Demonstration in Virginia.

Other Cypher demonstrations enclosed flights at Indiana’s test bed for detection of loaded ordinance and also the Army personnel college at Fort McClellan, Ala., wherever the UAV took part during a drug interdiction exercise.

The multi-use Security and surveillance Mission Platform (MSSMP), started in FY’92 because the Air-Mobile Ground Security and closed-circuit television (AMGSSS), was intended to produce a fast deployable, extended-range police investigation capability for a range of operations and missions, including: readying, force protection, plan of action security, support to counter-drug and patrol operations, signal/communications relays, detection and assessment of barriers (i.e., mine fields, tank traps), remote assessment of suspected contaminated areas (i.e., chemical, biological, and nuclear), and even resupply of little quantities of crucial things. The MSSMP system consists of 3 air-mobile remote sensing packages and a base station.

The MSSMP detector packages could operate as transportable complete units, or from air-mobile platforms. the present style of the air-mobile platforms is based on the Sikorsky Cypher enclosed-rotor vertical-take-off-and-landing Unmanned air vehicle. This air-mobile platform carries its detector package from one ground surveillance location to a different, up to ten kilometre from the original station.

A portable mission payload Beta package was developed by a team of SSC engineers and scientists, and a further payload package was integrated onto the Cypher vehicle by Sikorsky and SSC engineers. In May 1996, the system was successfully shown at the military college at ft. McClellan, AL, during a simulated counter-drug operation. The portable detector package mounted on a ground vehicle-of-opportunity and also the Cypher-mounted detector package were both operated at the same time over a similar radio network.

In January 1997, the MSSMP system’s continued role was shown during Military Operation in Urban areas situation at the Dismounted Battlespace Battle Laboratory, Ft. Benning, Georgia. The system showed reconnaissance support with the vehicle flying down town streets, searching through upper- and lower-story windows, providing lookout support prior to advancing troops, and performing observations when landing on the roof of a 2 story building. The vehicle additionally dropped a simulated radio relay on the highest of a building, a miniature intrusion detector in an open field, and carried a customary Army optical device rangefinder/designator as a payload.

The AMGSSS idea grew from NRaD’s expertise with the ground Air Telerobotic System (GATERS) program, initiated in 1986 by the United States Marine Corps. NRaD (then the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC)) was the principle development agent on the system. GATERS consisted of a land-based, Tele-Operated Vehicle (TOV) and the Airborne Remotely Operated Device (AROD). The TOV was developed to perform remote reconnaissance/surveillance with fire and target designation/ranging capabilities. The TOV supported a High-Mobility-Multi-Wheeled-Vehicle (HMMWV) platform while AROD provided mobile intelligence reconnaissance. The TOV used a fiber-optic communications link to produce the required bandwidth in non-line-of-sight operations. The military users did not need to be encumbered with the fiber-optic tethers and preferred that one operator be able to supervise many remote systems.

The AROD was a ducted fan VTOL air vehicle that would easily translate through the air and supply aerial surveillance. The AROD was controlled from a mobile ground control station over a fiber-optic data-link, with a radio link as a back up. AROD had shorter flight endurance and payload capabilities. The AMGSSS idea marries the fast quality and low-data-rate management aspects of VTOL platforms with the long endurance reconnaissance capabilities of the unmanned ground vehicles.


Mariner unmanned aerial vehicle

From my previous posts I’ve shared with you the information of the Predator UAV class. Today I will bring you a variant of the Predator called the Mariner unmanned aerial vehicle. The mariner is a highly successful UAV airplane intended for use as a long endurance maritime and border surveillance missions. This variant can be equipped with extra fuel allowing it to fly on long missions up to 49 hours. That’s 2 whole days, no human would be able to sit in a plane for that long and keep sane. With the ability to carry 800 pounds of internal payloads the mariner also has the ability to carry external payloads up 3,800 pounds providing for multiple missions able to be accomplished from a single UAV. 

mariner uav
Mariner UAV
Photo: dsto.defence.gov.au
The Mariner UAV airplane is designed to meet the standards of the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program (BAMS) since it can provide instantaneous data directly to the system for target tracking and regular maritime surveillance. The Mariner UAV airplane is a top choice for homeland security due to its reliability and cost-effectiveness. The wingspan of this UAV is 88ft with the length at 36ft. It is designed to operate at a ceiling of 50,000ft and a maximum airspeed of 230kts. The predator has moved from a concept to being able to transform into a UAV with the ability to provide surveillance for 49 hours straight, that’s a huge advance in technology and I can’t wait to see what’s to come in the future!

SQ-4 Micro UAV

Today I introduce you to the SQ-4 Recon UAV. British company BCB unveiled this cutting-edge technology on October 16, 2012. This is another of those MAV (Miniature aerial vehicle) type quad-copters I’ve talked about in the past. With the small size of this UAV and its’ ability to fit in the palm of your hand it’s no wonder this UAV is making  news globally. BCB claims this UAV can fly up to 30 minutes on a full charge and can operate up to 1.5miles away from the operator. With 10 ultrasonic sonar modules it can maneuver in tight spaces and can even land on narrow perches out of the operators line of sight. With the motors stopped the onboard cameras can record 8 hours of live video before the UAV has to be recharged. In addition to all this the MAV has infrared LEDs allowing for stealth flight at night and recon in the dark.

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SQ-4 Micro UAV
Photo: bcbin.com
The SQ-4 can be operated by remote control with its onboard camera. An autopilot feature uses GPS for automatic navigation. BCB says it’s easy to fly and can be operated with little training. The UAV can also be configured to automatically return to its start point when the battery reaches 30%. The UAV has the ability to automatically hover at a set point during an emergency and if it is flipped or knocked off course while in operation it has the technology to correct itself. According to specifications the UAV weights about 10.2oz with its extended battery. The SQ-4 has an operation altitude up to 1,300 feet and can fly up to 15mph. At the beginning of the flight it emits a semi-loud 71db but it fades during flight. This is awesome new technology and I have no doubt this will soon become very prominent all around the globe.



Bell Eagle Eye vertical take-off UAV

The Bell Eagle Eye TiltRotor UAV demonstrator had been developed to validate and also refine fundamental flying characteristics and also additionally functional performance properties of the lightweight model Tiltrotor with the possibility for long-term applications to VTOL UAV missions. Scaled Composites had been chosen to style and also also fabricate the composite layout for the two demonstrator airframes, most notably the landing gear, and also to incorporate Bell-supplied propulsion and flight control techniques.

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A full size Bell Eagle Eye
Photo: helis.com

Due to Its twin specifications to each hover and also to launch as a traditional aircraft, the Eagle Eye needed a rather complex constructive arrangement. Its fuel turbine engine (the Allison C20) is mounted within The center body and also really is attached up to a pairing transmission. Disc drive shafts from all the incorporating transmission pass thru The center of the wing and also connect to transmissions at every each wingtip. The wingtips contain the transmission as well as as the actuator used to tilt the wingtip transmission and also rotor assemblies.

The cantilever wing container experiences really diverse constructive loading for the duration of hover and also conventional frontward flight. The extra challenge was actually to make the wingbox a fuel fish tank (wet wing), even while preserving the dried out condition of the transmission disc drive shaft conduits.

The composite sandwich fuselage presented three removable sections; the nose, centre portion and also tail. This became set up to permit for a reduction in general length during the course of transport and also space. The nose portion had been mounted upon hinges allowing effortless access to the avionics as well as other objective equipment. The center piece incorporated the wingbox, fuel tanks engine and also landing gear. Access to The center piece is right through the reduction of the entire top piece of the fuselage. The removable tail was actually attached through a straight forward handy screw sequence. The tail contains several antenna and also actuators for the pitch control surfaces. Every of the hard aspects and also mounts had been setup by Scaled and all of the system components such as the engine, transmissions, oil coolers, avionics, flight control techniques, flaps, and also control surfaces had been installed and also examined for clearance, interference and also easily fit into the fuselage structure before the vehicles happened to be delivered to Bell. Scaled Composites also manufactured and additionally integrated all of the landing gear components for each vehicles.

The structure ended up being in fact static load assessed with the customer’s involvement (and also for their satisfaction). Also available was training to teach Bell’s client (the U.S. Navy) regarding the composite structures utilized by Scaled.

Though the 1st vehicle was actually damaged in a powerful accident, the 2nd Eagle Eye demonstrator happens to be very successful, showing all of the flight stages from hover right through the transition, and also flew to around 165 KCAS in forward flight. The low-cost fast-paced demonstrator program was actually another highly showed demonstration of Scaled’s distinct capabilities.