Technology: Military
Decision and Control System UAV
The skies above future battlefields are likely to be filled with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) monitoring the action and homing in on enemy targets. But how do you control a sky full of UAVs, particularly when communications links with the ground are patchy?
Perhaps you don't have to. Yossi Ben-Asher and colleagues at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, say UAVs can control themselves instead.
Aug 28, 2007, 09:47

Technology: Military
TV and cellphone signals may provide GPS back-up
The Robust Surface Navigation programme, funded by the US government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to extract accurate positioning information from "signals of opportunity". These may include television and cellphone transmissions, if satellite signals are unavailable.
Apr 26, 2007, 14:56

Technology: Military
The Dominator Integrated Infantry Combat System with man-packable VSAT terminal
Elbit Systems heads up the Israel Ministry of Defense Integrated Infantry Combat System (IICS) Project which aims to equip soldiers with miniaturised high-tech wearable tools for advanced situational awareness, quicker response and ultimately, increased lethality. The plan is to allow infantry soldiers to be networked into integrated information systems so they can send and receive information in real time, view up-to-the-minute Common Operational Picture (situational awareness of enemy and own forces) and live video from either external or on body sensors and transmit images and information back to command. The company’s Dominator Integrated Infantry Combat System was shown off for the first time last week and amongst a range of extraordinary capabilities, the integrated Globalight man-packable VSAT terminal stands out - it offers broadband communications, two way simultaneous voice, internet, VC. Phone, fax and email communications ANYWHERE.
Mar 26, 2007, 10:27

Technology: Military
Military researching intelligent, secure wireless nets
The US government, corporate and academic researchers are working on a network that would be able to configure itself, intelligently cache and route data, and allow for fast and reliable sharing of data, all while maintaining military-grade security. The project is called Knowledge Based Networking and is under development by the US Department of Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Academic concepts such as artificial intelligence and Tim Berners-Lee's "Semantic Web", combined with technologies such as the Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), cognitive radio, and peer-to-peer networking, would provide the nuts and bolts of such a network. Although the project is intended for soldiers in the field, the resulting advances could trickle down to end users. "Military networks are going to converge as closely as we can to civil technologies," says Preston Marshall, the program manager of DARPA's Advanced Technology Office. Marshall says that current technology is "dominated by wireless access, not really wireless networking." Instead of using access points to connect wireless devices to a wired network, a Knowledge Based Network would be a decentralized MANET.
Sep 17, 2006, 10:25

Technology: Military
A plane you can print
An unmanned aircraft made from "printed" parts rather than traditional machine-tooled components has been unveiled at the Farnborough Air Show, UK. Developed at Lockheed Martin's top-secret "Skunk Works" research facility in Palmdale, California, US, the Polecat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a 28-metre flying wing, weighing four tons. It was designed in part to test cheaper manufacturing technologies. In rapid prototyping, a three-dimensional design for a part - a wing strut, say - is fed from a computer-aided design (CAD) system to a microwave-oven-sized chamber dubbed a 3D printer. Inside the chamber, a computer steers two finely focused, powerful laser beams at a polymer or metal powder, sintering it and fusing it layer by layer to form complex, solid 3D shapes.
Jul 21, 2006, 10:59