• Israel's latest UAV -- world's largest -- is no game changer

    On Sunday Israel has unveiled the Eitan, the world’s largest UAV (it has the wingspan of Boeing 737); it will undoubtedly allow the country to look deep inside Iran to provide detailed intelligence, but it is not likely to be a wonder weapon to knock out the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities

  • VTOL, ducted-fan UAV for security monitoring of the London Olympics

    A U.K. company developing a ducted-fan, VTOL UAV says the ability of the vehicle to take off vertically and maneuver around the tops of buildings would make it ideal for security monitoring at the London Olympics and other urban law-enforcement mission; the U.K. start-up says that compared to other UAVs, the Flying Wing can work more aptly against wind gusts, making it suitable for helping troops in mountainous Afghanistan

  • UAVs set to give U.K. defense a lift

    The U.K. government is funding new research aimed at getting permission to fly drones anywhere in Britain, in a move which could benefit defense companies BAE Systems, EADS, and Thales but upset civil liberty concerns.

  • BAE develops a UAV for U.K. police

    BAE Systems, which produces a UAV for war zones, is developing the military-style planes for a consortium of U.K. government agencies; a Home Office-backed project intends to use the drone in time for the 2012 Olympics

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  • NOAA produces images of Haiti for first responders

    The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) is using its geographic surveillance UAVs to help provide first responders on the ground in Haiti with high resolution images of disaster sites

  • China and India pursue anti-satellite kill technology

    The space arms race accelerates, as China and India announced the development of hit-to-kill anti-satellite weapons; the United States has been developing this technology for years – but since the U.S. military and economy are much more dependent on satellites, the United States becomes more vulnerable as more countries acquire anti-satellite capabilities

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  • Councils use CCTV to collect £3 million in “ghost” parking tickets every year

    More and more councils in the United Kingdom use CCTVs to issue automatic tickets for parking violations; throughout England, 265 local authorities collected £328 million in parking fines last year — more than three times as much as speed cameras raked in; motoring groups argue these “ghost tickets” are unfair because motorists do not know they had been fined until afterward, it is more difficult to check signs and mount an appeal

  • A first: UND offers degree program in UAV piloting

    The number of unmanned aircraft systems has jumped from a fleet of about 50 vehicles nine years ago to more than 2,400 in use today; these UAVs need trained operators to operate them, and the University of North Dakota offers the first-in-the-U.S. degree program in UAV piloting

  • Tadpole-shaped dirigible to help in communication, surveillance missions

    Florida company shows unmanned dirigible which will fly at 65,000 and 70,000
    feet; the “Stratellite” will use similar technology to the that used by the
    Graf Zeppelin in the 1930s; homeland security applications include vessel
    tracking and cargo container surveillance; littoral (shore-proximate)
    surveillance for ports, waterways, coastal trails, and urban environments;
    ancillary border surveillance activity, and more

  • Drone security questions raised years ago

    Questions about the security of drone communications were raised years ago; in 2004, U.S. officials raised concerns about Russia and China intercepting and manipulating video from drone aircraft, but the military believed it was facing more pressing issues; officers at the time were not concerned about communications being intercepted in Iraq or Afghanistan because they believed militants were technically unsophisticated.

  • U.S. Army working to encrypt UAV video feeds

    The Army is scrambling to secure the live video feeds from its UAVs from being intercepted by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan; Raven drones will be retrofitted with encryption technology as early as this month; the U.S. Air Force has known for more than a decade that the live video feeds from its unmanned aerial vehicles can be intercepted by the enemy but opted not to do anything about it until this year.

  • Pentagon says U.S. fixed drones hacked by Iraqi insurgents

    Iraqi insurgents, using a $25.95 off-the-shelf commercial application, were able to intercept communication between U.S. surveillance UAVs and the UAVs’ command center; the hacking was discovered when the U.S. military found files of intercepted drone video feeds on laptops of captured militants; U.S. soldiers discovered “days and days and hours and hours of proof,” one U.S. officer said; the same hacking technique is known to have been employed in Afghanistan; the U.S. government has known about the UAV communication flaw since the 1990s, but assumed its adversaries would not be able to take advantage of it.

  • IDF aims for quieter, sturdier UAVs

    The IDF has issues an RFP for a stealthy UAV; the quiet UAV will be attached to battalions in the theater to provide surveillance on a tactical, pinpointed level; also, in an effort to increase its intelligence-gathering capabilities, the IAF will in the coming months establish a new squadron of Heron TP UAVs, called the Eitan, manufactured by IAI

  • Russia wants more Israeli spy UAVs

    Russia tried, but failed, to develop its own fleet of advanced UAVs; it has purchased a dozen UAVs from Israel already, and now wants Israel to sell it the most advanced UAVs in Israel’s arsenal; the Russian publicly say that they will reverse-engineer the technology, and Israel is going along because this the price the Russians demanded for not supplying Iran with advanced S-300 air defense systems

  • CBP readies maritime UAV

    To increase the long-range reconnaissance capabilities over water, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection take deliver of a maritime variant of the Predator B UAV; the Predator B UAV has already proven its value to homeland security over the U.S. land borders and the Great Lakes region