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All Stories Filed in Security & Defense
05/23/13 — The Brazilian government says some of the security robots bought to improve public safety during the 2014 World Cup will be ready for the Confederations Cup in June. The company iRobot says the 30 robots would be delivered by the end of the year, along with spares and other support gear. The government confirmed Thursday that some will already be in action in the six cities hosting Confederations Cup matches. The company said Brazil signed a $7.2 million contract, which included the small unmanned ground vehicles which can provide surveillance, bomb removal and other law-enforcement missions. The Confederations Cup is…
05/14/13 — The U.S. Navy launched an unmanned, autonomous aircraft the size of a fighter jet from a warship for the first time today, a development that could herald the end of Top Gun-style piloted air combat missions. The X-47B drone is the first designed to operate an aircraft carrier, which allows it to be used around the world without needing permission to take off from airfields in other countries. But there are concerns about the legality of what has been dubbed America's 'covert drone war'. Strikes cause widespread civilian deaths and operate with only limited oversight, critics say. Aside from its…
05/09/13 — Given the tremendous advancements taking place in the field of robotics right now, the increased use of robot soldiers by the Pentagon seems all but inevitable — drastically altering the way the United States wages war. But the rise of robots will have an even broader impact on the way the…
05/02/13 — While Marines have heaped praise on the K-MAX unmanned cargo system, its future as a potential program of record remains uncertain.Fielded after an urgent request from the military, the Lockheed Martin/Kaman Aerospace Corp. helicopter has been in Afghanistan for 18 months and heralded as a lifesaver.“The performance from this aircraft…
04/23/13 — LONDON, April 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has launched CUTLASS, its latest generation unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), expanding its range of industry-leading capabilities in unmanned systems for the remote handling and surveillance of hazardous threats. CUTLASS has been designed, developed and manufactured by Northrop Grumman in the U.K., and includes significant advances in…
04/18/13 — National Defense Magazine’s Sandra Erwin explored the “physical intelligence” program this week, a research and development initiative launched back in 2009 in order to “to understand intelligence as a physical phenomenon and to make the first demonstration of the principle in electronic and chemical systems,” according to the Defense Department’s original solicitation.…
04/11/13 — In the past, we've seen a variety of robotic arms that can do a variety of things, from chucking cinder blocks across a room to being controlled by thought. But behind the majority of these mechanical feats was a human guiding the robot's every move, step-by-step. That might be fine inside a laboratory,…
04/03/13 — This five-and-a-half-foot robot jellyfish could be the future of Navy underwater surveillance. Seriously. Maybe. Certainly, if a team of engineers from Virginia Tech gets its way. Meet the Cyro, an autonomous robot with eight mechanical legs ringing its metal chassis, designed to mimic the unique, efficient underwater propulsion of a…
03/27/13 — Russian engineers, based at the Central Research Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics (RTC) in St. Petersburg, are developing an integrated control system for a group of combat robots. It includes various robotic platforms for transportation and surveillance purposes — for example, carrying weapons or monitoring levels of contamination. According…
03/20/13 — This is an overview of leading manufacturers of military robots compiled in March 2013 by the Global Robotics Brain. The Global Robotics Brain is a product that business intelligence consultant, Wolfgang Heller, started to keep track of the robotsphere. Inspired by Google's PageRank, Heller asked himself: Could he use a similar approach…
03/13/13 — Effective 21st-century warfare requires the ability to conduct airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike mobile targets anywhere, around the clock. Current technologies, however, have their limitations. Helicopters are relatively limited in the distance and flight time. Fixed-wing manned and unmanned aircraft can fly farther and longer but require…
02/27/13 — The Naval Research Lab has a patented technology that allows a UAV to switch between helicopter and fixed wing modes mid-flight. Call it a transformer UAV, call it Michael Bay's dream drone, or call it the Stop-Rotor Rotary Wing Aircraft, which is actually what it's called. Here’s the description at the…
02/21/13 — Lockheed Martin has completed a successful demonstration for the Army designed to show that its robotic squad support vehicle can be controlled via satellite from hundreds of miles away. In a recent demonstration at Camp Grayling, Mich., the company's Squad Mission Support System (SMSS) autonomous vehicle conducted several battlefield surveillance operations using beyond…
02/14/13 — Edina-based ReconRobotics announced today that it has been recognized as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company magazine. Inventor of the tactical micro-robot and a major supplier of robotic technologies to military units and law enforcement agencies, worldwide, ReconRobotics was ranked 44th on the list of honorees,…
02/06/13 — The Black Hornet is only four inches long (about 10 centimeters), and weighs just 16 grams, but it will happily carry a pan-and-tilt camera that streams video back to a base station. In a military with an emphasis on big expensive robots like predator drones and PackBots, we're starting to see a different…
01/31/13 — Renowned underwater-robotics manufacturer, Bluefin Robotics, has announced it will produce a variation of its Knifefish UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) for the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The Knifefish model is a specialized Bluefin-21 UUV, and will be developed for the Surface Mine Countermeasure Unmanned Underwater Vehicle program. Bluefin is under subcontract…
01/22/13 — The ocean is a big place, and DARPA wants to fill it with robots. All of it. Because rather than having to sendrobots to whatever part of the ocean you want to have robots in, wouldn't it just be much easier of robots were there already? Sure it would! Yes, it's impractical, and…
01/16/13 — Should the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban ki-Moon, get his way, a newcomer will appear in the skies over eastern Congo. He has asked the Security Council to approve unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, for use in the troubled region. Supporters of their use, including the…
01/10/13 — A new study shows that jumping can be much more complicated than it might seem. In research that could extend the range of future rescue and exploration robots, scientists have found that hopping robots could dramatically reduce the amount of energy they use by adopting a unique two-part “stutter jump.” Taking…
01/03/13 — DARPA recently demonstrated emplacing a payload on a UAV using a vision-driven robotic arm. MLB Co.’s V-Bat UAV, which has both hover and horizontal flight capability, made the delivery of a payload using an arm designed to carry up to one pound. The aircraft used a low-cost vision system to…
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