17 Jul 13. DreamHammer®, creator of Ballista®, the first commercial multi-drone operating system, announced that it has recently completed a series of successful demonstrations with the U.S. Defense Department (DoD) and UAS prime contractors. These demonstrations proved that Ballista’s “out-of-the-box” support of the UCS (UAS Control Segment) architecture allowed it to “plug & play” with current and future unmanned aircraft also supporting UCS within the Defense Department. Ballista, by virtue of its open architecture, already has the ability to integrate with any proprietary UAS, allowing a single operator to simultaneously manage multiple unmanned vehicles. Ballista’s support of UCS now opens its commercial customers to “plug & play” with the U.S. defense market. Ballista comes prepackaged with open and extensible UCS-conforming models, middleware communications and user interface components. These components allow non-UCS-based systems (both legacy and standards-based) to integrate their proprietary hardware and services into Ballista, bringing them up to the UCS standard and allowing them to interoperate with other UCS-based vehicles, sensors and services. (Source: Yahoo!/BUSINESS WIRE)
17 Jul 13. VT MÄK to support UAS and autonomy research at US Navy’s HCIL. The US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) has selected VT MÄK’s products to support unmanned aerial systems (UAS), human-computer interaction research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) environment for autonomy integration at the US Navy’s Human Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL). The MÄK suite of tools, which involves VR-Forces, B-HAVE, VR-Vantage, VR-Link, the MÄK RTI, and the MÄK Data Logger, will enhance the role of human-machine interface (HMI) automation in UAS. In addition, the MÄK products will provide the lab with robust environment and scenario-creation capability, which is needed for the UAS mission simulations. (Source: naval-technology.com)
15 Jul 13. Plans to sell US Reaper drones to France advanced Monday as Congress raised no objections to the contract, Pentagon officials said. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees foreign military sales, had notified Congress on June 27 of the proposed contract, and lawmakers voiced no opposition during a 15-day review period. “Congress did not propose any joint resolution of disapproval. The case can proceed to be offered,” Lorna Jons of the DSCA told AFP. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had announced on June 11 plans to buy 12 Reaper aircraft from the United States, a purchase worth about $874 million, or €670m. An initial two drones, currently in production by San Diego-based manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, are due to be delivered to France by the end of the year. (Source: Defense News)
12 Jul 13. The soon to be released GoPro Zenmuse gimbal for the Phantom will bring fully stabilized aerial video to the average person for the first time in history. The DJI Zenmuse H3-2D Gimbal is another milestone in gimbal innovation, which is designed for the GoPro Hero3. With its high precision, high stability, lightweight, plug and play features, it is widely used in film and television productions, advertising aerial photography, etc. Even if the aircraft is in high-speed flight, it can still stabilize and control the GoPro camera precisely with the highest stability. The precision of control angle is within the range of ±0.08°, so picture or video output can reach the best quality. DJI H3-2D Zenmuse 2-axis Gimbal for GoPro will be available soon. The 2-axis version supports pitch and roll stabilization control. The advent and new availability of direct drive brushless gimbals has changed the way movie makers view unmanned aerial systems. Gone are the days of expensive image stabilization and the frustrations of shaky aerial video. (Source: UAS VISION)
09 Jul 13. The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is planning to lease a class ap