WASHINGTON: Iran’s threat to strangle oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz has the Navy scrambling to redress its decades-old neglect of mine warfare. Admirals from the Chief of Naval Operations on down have publicly admitted the service is not where it needs to be. “What I find amazing is the amount of interest… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: I walked past a sandy desert, a littoral waterway and a steamy jungle and watched a human-like robot extinguish a shipboard fire, all in about an hour and without leaving town. It was possible because the Navy has opened a new Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) on the grounds of the Naval Research… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The proposition can’t be proven yet, but it’s likely some Marines in Afghanistan who might have been killed or wounded since mid-December by roadside bombs, aka IEDs, are alive and well today thanks to an experimental unmanned helicopter the Corps is testing. Between Dec. 17 and Jan. 12, two remotely piloted but largely automated… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It looks like aerial drones are not the only unmanned systems the Pentagon is interested in arming. The special warfare branch of the Navy’s expeditionary warfare division is eying plans to arm its small fleet of unmanned boats with an long-range missile, branch chief Capt. Evin Thompson said. The missile — known as the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army is inviting the other armed services to join in a demonstration this summer at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah of ground-based sense-and-avoid (GBSAA) technologies that may help win Federal Aviation Administration approval of far larger numbers of military drone flights in U.S. civilian airspace. Mary Ottman, deputy product director for unmanned systems… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: One lesson the Army has taken to heart from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the value — and often the necessity — of aviation to soldiers fighting on the ground. This is one reason that, even as the Army shrinks by a reported 80,000 or more troops under President Obama’s new military… Keep reading →

The Army, eager to get Federal Aviation Administration permission to fly unmanned aircraft in civilian airspace near its U.S. bases for training, has issued a new directive on the subject and will apply for an FAA Certificate of Authorization to operate drones near Fort Stewart, Georgia. “The Army’s unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) represent emerging technology… Keep reading →

WHITE SANDS, NM: Parked out on the dusty plains of the New Mexican desert, the Army Humvee looked like every other combat truck stationed at the service’s sprawling test facility here — except for one big difference. This Humvee was completely unmanned. The vehicle was one of two Humvee being tested under the Joint Improvised… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army is looking hard at a new version of its Shadow aerial drone that can fly much longer and carry more. The Shadow M2, being built by Textron Systems, features a fuselage that is five times bigger than the current version. That bigger fuselage will allow the drone to carry twice as much… Keep reading →

Washington: Necessity is truly the mother of invention, and nothing begets necessity like war. Which explains why some of the most impressive innovations in the ever-evolving field of unmanned aircraft – the unclassified innovations, at least — are emanating from, of all places, the armed service built to fight primarily on land. The Air Force… Keep reading →