Small Military UAV Testing on Mt Washington

On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, the Union Leader posted an article by Sara Young-Knox about the military using Mt. Washington, NH as a testing site for military drones back in 2010 and 2011.  The military choose Mt. Washington, NH because of the unpredictable and challenging weather that can accrue on the mountain.

According to Sara Young-Knox, the testing began in the summer of 2010 by U.S Special Operation Forces wanted to use the highest Northeast peak to practice and gain experience using unmanned aircraft systems or remote controlled aircrafts.

The article in the Union Leader also went on to say, that Mt. Washington, NH was listed as a drone site in two departments of defense presentations in 2010 and in 2011, by Dyke Weatherington, Deputy Director of the unmanned warfare section of the Department of Defense, testing the Raven and Wasp Drones at Mt. Washington, NH.

The Wasp Drone wingspan is over two feet and weights under a pound.  While the Raven Drone wingspan is 4-5 feet and weighs 4.2 pounds.  Both drones primary functions was reconnaissance and surveillance that could sustain altitudes of 100 to 500 feet above the ground level.

First Flight for Neuron Stealth Drone

First successfully flight stealth Drone NEURON Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle demonstrator Istres

the "nEUROn", the technology demonstrator for a European UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle), made its first flight from Dassault Aviation company's flight test base in Istres, France. The nEUROn, a project involving France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and Greece, had rolled out on Jan. 20, 2012, after five years of design, development, and static testing.

With a length of 10 meters, 12.5 meters of wingspan and an empty weight of 5 tons, the first stealth combat drone developed in Europe has a shape that reminds that of the American X-47B. But, unlike the U.S. killer robot that the U.S. Navy is preparing to launch from aircraft carrier, the nEURONn is only a full-scale technology demonstrator (powered by a Rolls-Royce Turbomeca "Adour" engine) for an UCAV and will not be produced in series.

iRobot Founder Now Building Tiny Hovering Drone Spies

Four years ago, iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner stepped down from the company she helped turn into an all-important supplier of the military’s growing arsenal of ground robots. Now today, she’s unveiled the first ‘bots to roll off her new company’s assembly line. What are they? Teeny tiny hovering drones, designed to fly through your window and spy on you.

That’s just one of two robots revealed so far from Massachusetts company CyPhy Works, founded by Greiner after leaving iRobot. We’ve also now got a sense of what Greiner’s been developing for the past couple of years.

The first is Ease, or “Extreme Access System for Entry.” Really, it’s a tiny hover-bot designed for “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.” And it’s small enough — it only has a 1-foot diameter and a height of 16 inches from top to bottom – to fly through windows and maneuver through buildings with its ducted fan engine. In a video released by the company, the Ease can be seen hovering through an abandoned-looking building to a psychedelic funk soundtrack. It can also theoretically stay in the air forever.

“Being able to stay up aloft without constant interruptions to come down and recharge is a critical new capability,” Greiner tells Danger Room. “And with locations where you don’t have a lot of infrastructure.”

The reason is that instead of communicating wirelessly, the drone receives instructions and power through a microfilament cord of spooled copper the width of a fishing line and connected to the robot’s ground control station. And because it’s plugged in directly, the Ease drone should be harder to hack than other drones.

Once launched, a single battery at the ground station can also keep the drone up for 50 minutes, but this could be extended indefinitely by hot-swapping batteries at the control station. And as it is, most small drones that go wireless can’t stay up for very long, because “people have [started] putting more and more sensors and payloads onto them,” Greiner says, which drags on the power supply.

And while the operators are swapping out the batteries, Ease is scanning everything it sees with two high-def cameras and a third, albeit optional, thermal camera. Another purported advantage of the microfilament line is that the operator doesn’t have to worry about losing a wireless signal, say, if the robot moves behind a brick wall. And since the drone is moving in potentially close quarters to obstacles and people, “you really want to make it safe” by using a ducted fan, she says.

The other new drone is the Parc, or “Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications.” Like Ease, it also hovers. But the Parc is designed to fly high and for long periods of time, and resembles a flying bug with four skinny legs and a quadrotor. The robot can hover at 1,000 feet while being powered — like the Ease — by a microfilament line.

And while it’s up there, Parc can carry out “persistent stare capabilities” for up to 12 hours at a time (on one battery) while packing two cameras, one in high-def and another in thermal. And it has night vision and “flies itself.” (Oh great.) The military is reportedly interested.

There’s no word if CyPhy Works has received any orders yet, though. These drones are still prototypes. But it’s probably not far off. The Boston Globe‘s Scott Kirsner estimated the company’s investor funding at $3 million, “much of it from Cambridge-based [venture capital] firm General Catalyst.” But Kirsner also notes that the company has received millions more in federal grants. Which could make those tiny hover ‘bots begin flying into houses and spying on you from above sometime soon.