Unmanned Aerial Vehicle « The Aviationist

Hand Signals: the next step to controlling UAVs on aircraft carriers April 4, 2012

Posted by Richard Clements in Aircraft Carriers, Drones.
Tags: aircraft carrier, drones, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Northrop Grumman, Office of Naval Research, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Unmanned Air Vehicle, USS Dwight D Eisenhower, X-47B
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The environment you find on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is constantly monitored. The organized chaos of launches, recoveries and taxi takes place in a totally unforgiving environment for an unmanned aircraft (and for manned planes too…).

According to an interesting article published by Navy Times, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took a very close look at the problem of moving UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) about the deck whilst not endangering crew or interfering to the normal operations and they came up with an ingenious camera and computer that recognises the hand signals the sailors use to guide aircraft about an aircraft carrier deck.

It may be a step that finally makes UAV use on a aircraft carrier possible. “It would be really nice if we had an unmanned vehicle that can understand human gestures” said Yale Song a Ph.D candidate at MIT who developed the system.

“Gesturing is an instinctive skill we all have, so it requires little or no thought, leaving the focus itself, as it should be, not the interaction modality” said Song.

Song’s project which began in January 2009, and was funded by the Office of Naval Research, took him to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, where he learned the hand signals used by the sailors on the flight deck that he used to “train” 20 students 24 signals. The students wore a Yellow Turtleneck and a cranial to replicate the clothing used onboard carriers.

The students performed all of the signals whilst being filmed by Song’s camera/computer combination, which in turn translated their hand movements to stick figures. With this data, Song was able to develop an algorithm that is able to learn how to identify and recognize the signals from people it hadn’t met before therefore hadn’t learned their individual slight variables.

Song said “Based on that training data, we trained our model so that when new data comes in, it has our algorithm to classify the sequence of gestures.”

Song admitted that his system gets the gestures correct around 75 percent of the time, so obviously a lot of more research is needed before this system could be introduced onto an unmanned air system.

According to the Navy Times article, while Song and MIT look into recognizing hand signals, Northrop Grumman has developed a special remote control for moving the X-47B on flight decks by means of a device which attaches to the wrist, waist and one hand. The “yellow shirt” operating the device will have access to a display and will be able to control the aircraft’s throttle, tailhook, brakes and perform several other functions associated with maneuvring an aircraft on deck.

Image credit: U.S. Naval Air Systems Command

Anyway, drone operations automation has already reached aircraft carriers, at least for testing purposes.

An automated landing system, which allowed the X-47’s controllers to take control of an F-18, fly the approach and land the plane onto the flight deck of USS Dwight D Eisenhower whilst the Hornet’s crew makes no input into the plane’s flight, has already been tested. Seen from the outside, the landing looks totally normal. The LSOs still has the power to wave off the landing should they feel that the landing is unsafe or does not meet any other criteria required for a trap landing.

Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com

NASA’s Ikhana MQ-9 drone flies with ADS-B equipment for the first time March 29, 2012

Posted by Richard Clements in Drones.
Tags: ADS-B, Air Traffic Control, Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, Aviation Safety, Federal Aviation Administration, Ikhana, MQ-9, NASA, navigation, NexGen, Next Generation Air Transportation System, NextGen, radar, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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On Mar. 15, for the first time ever at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center a Ikhana MQ-9 unmanned aircraft (modified Reaper) flew with an Automated Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B transponder.

It was the first time that an unmanned aircraft the size of the Ikhana with its 66 foot wingspan and 10,000 pounds take off weight has flown using the aircraft tracking device that all aircraft operating in certain U.S. airspace will have to adopt by 2020 to comply with New Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules.

The tests were part of a project named UAS in the NAS which is shortened for the full name of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System.

NASA launched the Ikhana from Dryden and flew it over the Western Aeronautical Test Range, which forms part of Edwards Air Force Base and China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center. This first flight took some three hours and the new equipment was found to have performed well: the ADS-B enabled NASA the ability to gain much more detailed information which would in theory be given to Air Traffic Controllers and airborne pilots in other aircraft equipped with ADS-B flying with the vicinity of the UAV (even if, currently, only air traffic controllers can see all the aircraft broadcasting ADS-B data in a given part of the sky).

Indeed, the ADS-B system uses a special transponder that autonomously broadcasts data from the aircraft’s on-board navigation systems about its GPS-calculated position, altitude and flight path. This information can be received by ground stations, by other nearby aircraft enhancing situational awareness.

This first flight of the ADS-B equipped Ikhana is the first in many planned flights to gain data whilst doing simulated real world tasks. During this first flight and as part of a collaborative effort, FAA’s William J Hughes Technical Centre in Atlantic City, N.J recorded the ADS-B data and will help NASA analyse the performance and accuracy of the system fitted in the aircraft.

(more…)

New videos show Syrian made-in-Iran drone taking off from Hamah airbase, Syria March 25, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Syria.
Tags: Damascus, drone, Hama, Homs, Ilyushin Il-76, Iran, Pahpad, Syria, Syrian Air, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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Uploaded on Mar. 24, 2012, these videos show the made-in-Iran drone, known as “Pahpad”, taking off and operating from Hamah airbase in the city of Hama, in the west part of Syria, north of Damascus.

Hamah seems to be one of the most active regime’s airbases: a Syrian Air Il-76 offloading some “goods” and several Mig-21 and helos were recently filmed there.

Here’s the video of the departure

The drone flying at low level

Here below some screen dumps which confirm that the drone used by the Syrian regime over Hama, is the same spotted in Homs.

Video: Syrian Air Ilyushin 76 unloading “goods” at Hamah airbase. With several flyable Mig-21s in the vicinity. (theaviationist.com)
First video of a Syrian helicopter gunship attacking rebels near Azaz, northwest of Aleppo (theaviationist.com)
Mysterious drone overflying clashes in Syria could be a new type rarely seen outside Iran. And here’s a new picture (maybe). (theaviationist.com)
Syrian drones spying on rebels: made in Iran UAVs or amateur radio controlled models? (theaviationist.com)
Another unidentified drone filmed over Homs, Syria. Syrian, American or Israeli? (theaviationist.com)

Ryan Aeronautical photo archive traces development of combat drones from the factory floor to deployment in southeast Asia March 19, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones.
Tags: drones, Northrop Grumman, Ryan Aeronautical, Ryan Firebee, San Diego Air & Space Museum, Teledyne, UAV, UCAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Unmanned combat air vehicle
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Founded by T. Claude Ryan in 1934, part of Teledyne from 1969 and purchased by Northrop Grumman in 1999, Ryan Aeronautical company has designed, developed and built some of the most innovative and successful unmanned aerial vehicles, the most famous of those is the Ryan BQM-34 Firebee.

Ryan was a pioneer in aircraft, missiles and unmanned targets, and a photo gallery made available on Flickr by the San Diego Air & Space Museum archive provide a detailed account of the development of the early UCAVs (Umanned Combat Aerial Vehicles) from the desing phase, to the deploymnet in southeast Asia including some rare images of the early sketches, experimental types and testing activities with A-6, F-18 and F-4.

Below you can find a very small selection of images edited by Scott Mahew (thanks for the heads-up!).

The remaining +3,200 images (covering also the Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh, the ST, PT and Brougham series of aircraft) can be found here.

All images: Ryan Aeronautical via San Diego Air & Space Museum archive

New Iranian drone capable of carrying out military and border patrol missions announced. Soon in the Syrian airspace? March 19, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Iran.
Tags: drones, Iran, Karrar, Syria, UAV, UCAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Unmanned combat air vehicle
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On Mar. 17, a FARS News Agency article announced the production of the Shaparak (Butterfly), a new drone that can perform a wide variety of missions, including surveillance and border patrol.

The new robot has an endurance of about 3.5 hours, a maximum operational range of 50 kilometers (31 miles), and a ceiling of 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Powered with a two-cylinder engine, the remotely piloted aircraft is equipped with three digital color cameras to transmit hi-rez footage to the ground control station, and can carry an 8-Kg payload.

The Shaparak is only the last one of a long series of made-in-Iran drones making the news lately.

UAVs believed to be either based on Iranian types or sold by the Tehran regime spying on the rebels activities have characterized the Syrian uprising in the last few weeks. This highlights that, although some were actually much similar to remote controlled scale models than real unmanned aircraft, in spite of foreign sanctions, Iran is continuing building new drones, some of those are successfully exported to local allies.

Noteworthy, the same FARS article traces the recent history of the Iranian industry in the production of UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles).

In Feb. 2011, Iran inaugurated the production line of two home-made Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), named ‘Ra’d’ (Thunder) and ‘Nazir’ (Harbinger), with bombing and reconnaissance capabilities while in Sept. 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled the Karrar, country’s first home-made UCAV during a special ceremony in Tehran during the national “Day of Defense Industry”.

Karrar UCAV (Image credit: Internet)

Syrian drones spying on rebels: made in Iran UAVs or amateur radio controlled models? (theaviationist.com)
Mysterious drone overflying clashes in Syria could be a new type rarely seen outside Iran. And here’s a new picture (maybe). (theaviationist.com)
Syrian Mohajer 4 drone spying on the clashes at Homs, Syria (theaviationist.com)
Another unidentified drone filmed over Homs, Syria. Syrian, American or Israeli? (theaviationist.com)
Iranian indigenous aircraft and micro-drones: Mach 2.5 stealth plane and scale models (with no military significance) (theaviationist.com)

Boeing’s Phantom Eye revolutionary drone eyes its first flight March 15, 2012

Posted by Richard Clements in Drones.
Tags: Boeing, drone, liquid hydrogen, Phantom Eye, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, USAF
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Boeing has recently announced that it has performed some medium speed taxi runs for its latest High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) surveillance drone the Phantom Eye at Edwards AFB on Mar. 10.

A revolutionary design, powered by two liquid Hydrogen fuelled engines pumping out 150 horse power each, which turn 16 foot diameter propellers attached to its huge 150 foot wings. Phantom Eye is designed to operate at an altitude of 65,000 ft for up to 4 days in one mission and has a 450-lb mission payload capacity whilst cruising at a speed of around 200 knots.

Boeing announced the new robot in July 2010 and had initially said that its first test flight would come during early 2011; however, due to technical issues the first flight date has slipped somewhat (and has not been announced yet). Boeing still has a few fast taxi trials to complete before it can start to think about the drone’s first flight, although it was very excited about the data gained from the first run. The Phantom Eye has covered some 4,000 feet at speeds up to 30 knots in this its first powered movement aboard its launch cart system. The latter is a system similar to the one of the WWII Messerschmitt Me163 Komet rocket powered fighter but it is not clear if the new Boeing’s drone uses a deployable skid like the Komet for when it returns to its operating base.

Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com

Image credit: Boeing

America’s Killer Drones Of The Vietnam War (gizmodo.com.au)

The dawn of the robot age: U.S. Air Force testing air-launched UCAVs capable to fire Maverick and Shrike missiles in 1972. March 14, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones.
Tags: AGM-45 Shrike, History of unmanned combat air vehicles, Maverick, Military Science, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Unmanned combat air vehicle
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There is people who believe that drones are quite recent players of modern warfare that were born to conduct what is widely known today as ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance).

This video will prove they are wrong.

It shows early BQM-34A and -34B Firebee test flights by the 6514th Test Squadron of the AF Flight Test Center during a defense suppression program called Have Lemon.

The -34A launched AGM-65 Maverick missiles and GBU-8 Stubby Hobo glide bomb but since it lacked asymmetric flight capability it had to drop a weighted shape from the opposite wing to balance weights. The drone was flown by a ground operator in a remote control van using a nose TV camera: since the weapons were electro-optically guided the operator could switch screen from the “drone view” to the “weapon view” to guide it to the target.

The BQM-34B included a laser designator nose and could fly without the weighted shape. In the video it is shown launching a Maverick and a Shrike missile.

Even if these early UCAVs were ready by the time the U.S. launched the Operation Linebaker I in 1972, they were never deployed because, being camouflaged and hidden, the priority targets assigned to the drones would have been difficult to see, identify and hit.

Anyway, although scarcely “advertised” the U.S. drones in Southeast Asia flew almost 3,500 UAV missions during the Vietnam war, at a cost of more than 550 drones lost.

First European experimental stealth combat drone rolled out: the nEUROn UCAV almost ready for flight (theaviationist.com)
Syrian drones spying on rebels: made in Iran UAVs or amateur radio controlled models? (theaviationist.com)
Another day, another Iranian drone. Tehran reveals the new “A1″ UAV. (theaviationist.com)

Syrian drones spying on rebels: made in Iran UAVs or amateur radio controlled models? March 13, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Syria.
Tags: Ababil, Bashar al-Assad, Global Hawk, Homs, Iran, Mohajer 4, Pahpad, Syria, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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One of the most interesting things of the Syrian uprising, from the military analyst perspective, is the use of drones by the Syrian regime.

Syria had its drone fleet when the uprising started. According to some sources they are manufactured domestically, at the Syria’s Scientific Research Center, even if, according to the images surfaced so far, all of them are a copy of those produced by Iran.

Among the types believed to be operated by Bashar al-Assad forces: the Mohajer 4, the Ababil, (most probably) the Mirsad-1 that Hezbollah terror group has used to violate the Israeli airspace in the past, and, the only one filmed over Homs that could be clearly identified as the “Pahpad” (that is not the actual name of the robot but the short form in Persian for “remotely piloted aircraft”).

There’s another interesting drone that was spotted recently and still has to be identified. It is particularly interesting because it does not look like any of the above mentioned drones (even if a correct identification is impossible because of the extremely low quality of the footage). At first glance, its shape, color etc, recalls those of Israeli or U.S. drones. However, it is quite unlikely that it was not Syrian considered the amount of air defense and anti-aircraft systems believed to be active in Syria: U.S Joint Chief Dempsey recently said that Syrian air defense is 5 times more sophisticated than Libya, 10 times more than in former Jugoslavia (1999) and covers one fifth of the terrain.

Actually there’s also a video of seemingly solid flying object orbiting into a smoke cloud of a burning oil pipe, that someone still considers a drone.

What are these drones doing over Homs?

Depending on the payload they are carrying they can could be eavesdropping into “enemy” communications or helping ground forces to pinpoint rebels by locating the oppositors’ firing positions and directing the shelling accordingly. Noteworthy, such furing support flights do not take place at night suggesting that the loyalist robots can only carry a color/monochrome daylight TV camera.

Rebels have affirmed that they were able to shot down and recover some of these Syria’s made-in-Iran drones. However, even if the shape of the recovered drone recall that of the “Pahpad” or “Mohajer 4″, based on the below video, the downed robot seem to be much smaller that the typical UAVs (whose wingspan exceeds 5 mt).

Here below you can find a screen dump, published by Ynet of another drone recovered by rebels.

Image credit: Ynet

Mysterious drone overflying clashes in Syria could be a new type rarely seen outside Iran. And here’s a new picture (maybe). (theaviationist.com)
Syrian Mohajer 4 drone spying on the clashes at Homs, Syria (theaviationist.com)
Another unidentified drone filmed over Homs, Syria. Syrian, American or Israeli? (theaviationist.com)
U.S. drones and spyplanes involved in information gathering missions over Syria. As in Libya one year ago. More or less… (theaviationist.com)

Another unidentified drone filmed over Homs, Syria. Syrian, American or Israeli? March 7, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Syria.
Tags: Global Hawk, Homs, Iran, Mohajer 4, Pahpad, Syria, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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The one barely visible in the following video is a drone flying over Homs, Syria.

Although, at first glance, its color, shape, etc. reminded me those of the U.S. Global Hawk, believed to be operating over Syria, its sound is the one of a propeller-driven engine. Unless some Israeli Herons, or U.S. Predators or Reapers are already operating well inside the Syrian airspace, this could be another (unidentified) drone belonging to the Assad forces.

Footage in this case is extremely low on quality and, unlike the “Pahpad” spying on the clashes, identification in this case is almost impossible. It could be another “Pahpad” or a “Mohajer 4″ even if it seems to be white/light grey in color, sensibly bigger and it is flying higher (although this could be a distortion of the camera) than the ‘bots spotted so far.

Even if what was flying in the smoke in a previous video still remains a mystery (I suggest you reading all the comments to the post to find some interesting theories) someone has explained that smoke is intentionally created to prevent UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) from targeting activities on the ground.

Thanks to Bjørn Holst Jespersen for the heads-up.

Not a drone nor a bird. What’s that “thing” seemingly orbiting over Homs, Syria? March 1, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Bizarre.
Tags: Bashar al-Assad, drone, Homs, Syria, Syrian Armed Forces, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
9 comments

While seeking for new interesting footage from Syria, to update the yesterday post about the weapons being used by the regime against the opposition in Homs, I stumbled upon this video.

Something seemingly “solid” seems to orbit in the smoke coming from a burning building (an oil pipe according to a comment) at Homs. Most probably it has nothing to do with a drone (too low, it would be operating inside the smoke cloud where visibility is poor, and so on) and it is not even solid.

An optical illusion caused by a strong light? Thermal convection? Anything else that can be scientifically explained?

What’s your opinion?