US Navy To Fight Swarm Attacks with LOCUST UAV

Via DefenseTech.com 

Snip from a January 2016 DefenseNews story: "The U.S. Navy's LOw-Cost Unmanned aerial vehicle Swarming Technology (LOCUST) is a prototype tube-launched UAV. The LOCUST program will make possible the launch of multiple swarming UAVs to autonomously overwhelm and adversary. (U.S. Navy photo via YouTube)."

USN research teams have run simulations and determined that certain types of attacks would leave Navy vessels vulnerable from small drones flown in good weather from multiple directions simultaneously. LOCUST is designed to address that.

'via Blog this'

USN Counter-UAV Weapon Deployed

The Navy’s USS Ponce is now patrolling the Persian Gulf with an anti-UAV weapon with the official title of “Laser Weapons System.”

The Quartz report quotes NavalTechnology.com in describing the Laser Weapons System: “The system comprises a single laser weapon control console manned by a surface warfare weapons officer on board the USS Ponce, who can operate all functions of the laser and, if commanded, fire the weapon.”

Developed by Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, the Laser Weapons System can also be used against small boat attackers, and ONR is developing a similar weapon for use by the Marines for ground vehicles.

Source: @MatthewPhillips Quartz

Raytheon's SilentEyes: Slave microUAV Concept Still Reverberates

In an August 2004 story, Space Daily reported a successful test of the Raytheon SilentEyes microUAV. In the test conducted at Edwards AFB,  SilentEyes prototypes were "ejected from an MQ-9 Predator." The goal of the SilentEyes project was to enable a high-altitude UAV such as the Predator, to extend its reach by using a lower-cost UAV. The slave UAV could be used to provide high resolution images or other sensor data from lower altitudes. It flew autonomously, but relayed its data stream through the MQ-9 to MQ-9 ground control stations. 

SilentEyes was cancelled, but the project was one of several that has contemplated the use of multiple, networked small and lower-cost UAVs to coordinate data gathering for intelligence, mapping and other applications. Slave microUAVs could be launched individual or as a swarm from air or ground platforms. A goal of these projects has been to leverage R&D in networked robotics.

Raytheon SilentEyes via Space Daily (2004)

New Dictionary Entry: "Drone Shoot" (as in "Turkey Shoot")

Drones Displayed at Navy facility in Maryland (2005) Credit: Navy.mil

In a signoff entry in today's PRI Marketplace, the show cited a report in the Denver Post about the town of Deer Trail selling permits to shoot down drones. The town clerk has already collected more than $19,000 in permits, even though the ordinance has not yet been passed.

Whether the expression "Drone Shoot" applies is debatable, but many low cost drones being promoted for civilian use fly relatively low and at relatively slow speeds.

The proposed town regulation would allow residents to shoot down drones that stray within 1,000 feet above private property -- and pay a $100 bounty. DullDirtyDangerous is unaware of military facilities in the vicinity of Deer Trail that would sponsor such UAV flights. But citizens in the vicinity of Patuxtent River, near which a Northrop Grumman BAMS-D UAV crashed carrying nearly 6 tons of fuel in June 2012, may wish to consult local regulations.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been directed by Congress to integrate UAS devices into civilian aviation by September 2015.

ESPN, NYC Drone Crashes no Sporting Matter [video]

You'd think the spectacle of a couple dozen bulls chasing after humans -- a "bull run" -- would be the visual highlight of this Virginia event. Instead, the first ever Dinwiddie County Great Bull Run of August 2013 featured the crash of an ESPN camera drone into spectator stands.

According to an event organizer quoted in The Verge, the battery for the device failed. It remains unclear why Rob Dickens said that this failure will be common. "It was a freak thing," he was quoted as saying.

The craft was small, and the damage slight, but this sort of incident is unlikely to be ignored by the FAA and others setting up regulations for domestic civilian use of UAVs.

In an unrelated story reported on WNYC radio on 5 September, a man was killed by a remote controlled device. It was not immediately known whether he was the operator, but he was found in a location where RPVs are permitted.

This story and video provided via The Verge.

Sighting: Unhated Drones for Rescue Operations [video]

This story via TechCrunch 

After a natural disaster struck, causing flooding, landslides and devastation in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, pilgrims and residents were isolated. Assessment crews were unable to inspect affected regions, and helicopters were in short supply even when they could be effectively deployed. 

Social Drones is an Indian startup  They have designed (or at least own) what they're calling "bi-, quad- and octocopters." Company engineers told a TechCrunch reporter that their UAVs had been deployed for surveillance and delivery of light medical supplies in the affected areas. Other technology providers were also involved. According to comments posted to TechCrunch, NETRA quadcopters were also used to search for survivors and to assist in rescue operations.

The need is not only for Himalayan disasters. In 2012's Hurricane Sandy, many roads and coastal areas of New York and New Jersey were inaccessible due to fallen trees and flooding. UAVs could have been deployed to assist with damage assessment and to aid in prioritizing rescue and repair operations. So far as DullDirtyDangerous is aware, none were used for this purpose, even though some UAV manufacturers are based as close as Maryland (e.g, UAV Solutions).

In 2007, a DARPA workshop spearheaded by then Program Manager Dr. Kendra Moore was convened to address the issue of stimulating new technologies to assist in relief operations.

The recent and increasing prominence of Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations pose new challenges for the U.S. military. . . These operations involve a large, diverse mix of military organizations, nonmilitary government organizations, regional and international government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, private volunteer organizations, individual volunteers and the local population. . . 

Since the time of that workshop, DARPA has turned to a more straightforward use of UAVs to support a variety of DoD missions, such as with the humanoid ATLAS. 

Analysis

Use of UAVs and other intelligent devices for SSTR and HADR operations may already be occurring more often than the public understands. In order to gain public acceptance for wider UAV deployments in a domestic U.S. climate beset by privacy and legitimacy concerns, wider discussion of beneficial applications is key.

Read more on the Uttarakhand disaster in this video.

Carrier Landing A Significant UAV Achievement -- With Footnote

Northrop Grumman X-47B (credit Wikipedia Commons)

In October of 2012, two Global Hawk UAV's demonstrated an air refueling operation. Impressive, but what's been happening with Navy unmanned programs?

The Navy has hit two significant milestones in its transition to oceangoing UAV operations. 

In November of 2012, the Navy's X-47B was catapulted off a runway at NAS Patuxent River in simulated carrier conditions. Then in July 2013, a Northrop Grumman X-47B landed on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush for the first time. Two such carrier landings were achieved -- a remarkable accomplishment, even if fully anticipated.  Play video below.

A third landing attempt was not attempted. Instead, the machine was diverted to Wallops Flight Facility in nearby Virginia.

According to National Defense Magazine, the project team saw this "soft failure" as a net plus. The system was able to detect its own navigational system problem and notified operators appropriately. Navy Unmanned Combat Air Systems Carrier (UCAS) Program Manager Captain Jaime Engdahl told NDM,

You have to design it with unprecedented levels of reliability and system safety.

The landings were remarkable also for the relatively brief history of the X-47B, which flew its maiden flight in February 2011. 

A post on the software resilience of the X-47B demonstrated in this exercise will appear at softwareqc.com. 

UAV for Cropdusting? Old Hat.

A long-heralded potential use for UAV's is being investigated at UC Davis. As reported in a Gizmag story summarized by Slashdot, U.S. researchers at Davis are considering use of a UAV for cropdusting. Sound far-out? Japan has been doing this for two decades to spray around 40% of its rice crop.

Photo of Yamaha RMax via Gizmag

PBS Frontline "Digital Nation" Lingers Long on Drone Pilots

The Frontline documentary "Digital Nation: Life on the Digital Frontier" lingered long on the subject of drone pilots.  In a series of balanced interviews, the story weaves sensibly between video games, virtual reality training, and way that growing up in a cyber-influenced environment is changing way the world looks to young people and to military planners. Teaching risk to drone pilots who are not themselves directly taking risk by taking fire is one such challenge.  As drone operators must collaborate more fully with ground personnel -- including NGO's as in the case of Haiti in January 2010 -- the equation is changed significantly.  

UAV Platform H: Is Human Factors Engineering up to the Task?

Platform H is a designator being given for human - unmanned military systems. As reported by C4ISR Journal (May 2009, p. 16). The next version of the Apache Longbow will give some crews the ability to control a UAV and fire its weapons. Some of the next generation (634 Block III) Longbows will include a capability for a copilot-gunner to "control a UAV, steer its sensors and order it to fire weapons." Advocates for the new design believe the new communications system that enables this -- called the Unmanned Aerial Systems Tactical Common Data Link Assembly (UTA) -- will limit Longbow exposure to ground fire and extend its targeting range to 40 km.

Some Longbows in theatre in Afghanistan and Iraq already have UAV full-motion video streamed to the cockpits, but it's a one-way proposition, and targeting information is not integrated with the onboard Longbow instruments.

The story's author, Keith Button, relays some doubts from other experts, but says the Army is confident of this approach.

In a simulation conducted in Huntsville in the summer of 2008, crews with a UTA were able to monitor an additional target, reportedly without performance degradation. Button quotes a former F-16 pilot who believes that up to four UAV's can be controlled under routine conditions, but that live fire conditions in the heat of battle require a "one mind, one mission" focus.

I confess to making up the designator "Platform H." But as this evolving technology makes clear, especially as the debate about limiting civilian casualties in so-called"drone attacks" continues to undermine political will to wage a UAS-enabled war, human factors research will be called upon for tough judgements. U.S. military research institutions have a history of strong research in human factors, but investments in that discipline may not be up the task of determining what is possible, safe and manageable with Platform H.