Marine BioEnergy is collaborating with a research team at the University of Southern California, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) has provided $2.1 million in funding for a proof of concept. Kelp grows best 100 and 300 meters beneath the surface, or where there are …
DARPA has awarded BAE Systems a $4.6 million contract for its Mobile Offboard Clandestine Communications and Approach (MOCCA) program. The MOCCA program’s goal is to enable submarines to detect other submerged vessels at greater distances, while minimizing the risk of counter-detection. Active sonar, which sends out a pulse of sound — that loud “PING” you …
Engineers have worked made drones the size of a bumblebee and loaded them with even tinier sensors and cameras. Almost every part of a drone has been made smaller, except for the brains of the entire operation — the computer chip. Standard computer chips for quadcoptors and other similarly sized drones process an enormous amount …
Duke Robotics makes the TIKAD drone, which is a drone modified to carry a machine gun, a grenade launcher, and variety of other weapons to fight tomorrow’s urban warfare battles. They are selling the drone to the the US and Israeli military. It is a fully robotic weaponry system to an airborne platform. TIKAD, which …
Phase 1 of DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program concluded recently following a series of obstacle-course flight tests in central Florida. Over four days, three teams of DARPA-supported researchers huddled under shade tents in the sweltering Florida sun, fine-tuning their sensor-laden quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the intervals between increasingly difficult runs. DARPA’s FLA …
Elbit Systems offers a comprehensive range of UAS – from the man-portable Skylark™ LEX mini UAS, through the versatile tactical UAS and up to the next-generation Hermes™ 900 medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAS. Elbit Systems Elbit Systems Reveals at Paris Airshow SkEye WAPS™ – a Revolutionary Airborne Wide-Area Persistent Surveillance Solution for HLS and …
MIT engineers has come up with a much less expensive UAV design that can hover for longer durations to provide wide-ranging communications support. The researchers designed, built, and tested a UAV resembling a thin glider with a 24-foot wingspan. The vehicle can carry 10 to 20 pounds of communications equipment while flying at an altitude …
China is developing a new drone that uses ground effect technology to skim the surface of the ocean, allowing it to fly just eighteen inches off the water. The unmanned vehicle could be a challenging opponent for potential adversaries, some of whom would find it difficult to detect. The new ultra-low altitude anti-ship unmanned system …
U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force academy teams compete in education-focused experiment to pave the way for future offensive and defensive swarm tactics for warfighters. Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other robots have become increasingly affordable, capable, and available to both the U.S. military and adversaries alike. Enabling UAVs and similar assets …
DARPA has completed flight-testing of a sub-scale version of a novel aircraft design as part of its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) X-Plane program, and is proceeding with work to develop a full-scale version of the groundbreaking plane. Developed and fabricated by Aurora Flight Sciences, the revolutionary aircraft includes 24 electric ducted fans—18 distributed within …
Last year Bryan Johnson, founder of the online payments company Braintree, starting making news when he threw $100 million behind Kernel, a startup he founded to enhance human intelligence by developing brain implants capable of linking people’s thoughts to computers. Johnson isn’t alone in believing that “neurotechnology” could be the next big thing. To many …