Aviation Week reported that “there is more than $500 million for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the fiscal 2008 war supplemental,” according to Dyke Weatherington, the deputy director for Unmanned Warfare in the Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L). However, that money “is in the yet-to-be-appropriated balance of the Bush administration’s $189.3 billion FY [...]
The UPI reports on “the British Taranis technology demonstrator program.” The Taranis “is expected to be the largest UAV built in the United Kingdom as part of the strategic unmanned air vehicle experiment program.” As part of the aircraft’s “autonomy mission system,” defense contractor QinetiQ is building a “reasoning layer” which will “run complex decision-making [...]
Flight International reported that “[u]ltra-long endurance and ultra-fast deployment are the targets of new U.S. programs to demonstrate technology for future autonomous aircraft.” Seeking “to push the boundaries of unmanned aviation to extremes,” the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created projects such as the Vulture program, which calls for the demonstration of [...]
The Financial Times reports that “countries operating in Afghanistan are…acquiring more” unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), according to experts, who explain that “Afghanistan is…a perfect environment for unmanned aircraft” because “[i]ts airspace is uncluttered and the Taliban does not have weaponry capable of shooting [the UAVs] down.” The move by coalition countries follows a move in [...]
According to the Government Accountability Office in its November 2008 report on Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the US Department of Defense plans to spend more than $17 billion from 2008 to 2013 for UAV systems with expanded and new capabilities, and it reprogrammed about $1.3 billion in 2008 funds with congressional approval to increase ISR capabilities, [...]