06 May 15. US Navy outlines UAS challenges. The US Navy (USN) has identified a number of challenges and issues that the service will have to overcome as it looks to introduce a wider range of advanced unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). Significant among these is the cultural change that must take place within the navy before UASs are accepted into the force mix, Rear Admiral Mark Darrah, the navy’s programme executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, said at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) 2015 in Atlanta. Rear Adm Darrah explained that there is concern within the service regarding the use of UASs in certain operational environments, particularly on busy carrier flight decks where unmanned aircraft will be taxiing alongside manned aviation assets. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
06 May 15. CyPhy Works, a Danvers-based startup, is launching a crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise $250,000 to green-light the production of a $500 drone called the LVL 1. The company expects to begin delivering the new aircraft in early 2016.”We really have invented a better way for drones to fly,” Greiner said in an interview. A combination of novel software and hardware makes the LVL 1 easier to fly, Greiner says. Unlike most multi-rotor drones, she explains, “it doesn’t tilt forward or backward as it flies, which is what can make flying really difficult for novices.” And a camera integrated into the body, rather than attached to a bracket than hangs from it, means it is less likely to be damaged. Features of the consumer drone include: allowing the user to set a maximum flying height, which is important since federal laws allow hobbyists to fly drones only up to 400 feet; allowing the user to control the drone via a mobile app; and allowing the user to share high-quality photos or videos from the drone via social media while the drone is in flight.
“You can take it out of the box and it’s ready to fly right from a cell phone,” said Greiner, also the co-founder of Bedford-based iRobot, the company behind the popular robotic vacuum cleaner, the Roomba.
Since it was founded in 2009, CyPhy Works has focused on tethered drones for military and commercial use. The tether makes communication impossible to intercept, and it sends power up to the craft so that flight time is effectively limitless. Greiner says that CyPhy engineers wanted to apply some of the software and aeronautical designs from those craft into something that anyone could use — and lose the tether. The company spent about a year developing the first prototype, Greiner said. (Source: UAS VISION/Beta Boston, Boston Business Journal)
05 May 15. MUM-T and interoperability key to US Army’s tactical UAS plans. The US Army is targeting improved interoperability, commonality between platforms, and a growth in manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) as it develops its tactical unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) capabilities.
Speaking at AUVSI 2015 in Atlanta, Lieutenant Colonel Tory Burgess, the service’s product manager for tactical UAS, said that through the introduction of the Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) and Universal Ground Data Terminal (UGDT) the army will achieve commonality in the control elements utilised for its RQ-7B Shadow and MQ-1C Gray Eagle UASs. Lt Col Burgess said that its Universal Operator Concept will see soldiers operating the Shadow able to control the Gray Eagle and vice versa. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
06 May 15. PrecisionHawk has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to advance the research around unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) across rural areas. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced the partnership this morning at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems Conference in Atlanta. PrecisionHawk will be the only UAV manufacturer, joining CNN and BNSF Railway, in this partnership forged under the Pathfinder program, an operational concept validation set up by the FAA to