China launches Jielong-3 rocket as commercial missions pick up pace

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  17 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  Helicopter drone loses weight, lengthens endurance, but will the change attract customers?

  By: Beth Stevenson FARNBOROUGH, England — UMS Skeldar has launched a new version of its flagship unmanned helicopter that has a longer-endurance capability, as the company continues its aggressive campaign to promote the system for a number of ongoing international naval requirements. The Skeldar V-200B has a five-hour endurance due to a 10-kilogram weight reduction in the aircraft, something the company claims will up its appeal because of the increased performance and reliability. The new model is now the baseline offering that UMS Skeldar will pitch to customers. UMS Skeldar is a joint venture between Saab and UMS that formed in 2015 to primarily promote the V-200, a UAV that had previously struggled to secure customers despite years of development and marketing by Saab. “It [the V-200B] is almost a completely new aircraft — a new build since the Saab days,” David Willems, head of business development at the company, told Defense News. The "B" model is the result of work carried out under the partnership, he added, and features new GPS antennas and software in addition to the weight decrease, as well as better fuel consumption due to engine modifications. Endurance can be increased, or an extra 10 kilograms of payload can be carried by Skeldar, Willems said. Notably, the way the V-200B has been developed will allow for the drone's industrialization, moving from one-off manufacture, as was the case with the previous variant, to serial production. The Asia-Pacific region is the most active market for Skeldar, Willems says. The company is seeing potential in South Korea, and it has been specifically targeting Australia for some time now, where it is expanding its industrial base to potentially support work transfer. “It is a very interesting time there, and we are building a small Australia ecosystem,” he said. Australia is acquiring a number of types of unmanned systems under ongoing programs, seeking systems such as ship-based UAVs under its Project Sea 129 Phase 5 effort, supporting its aim to operate a comprehensive fleet of unmanned aircraft that includes the Insitu ScanEagle and Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton. Skeldar is most often pitched against Schiebel's unmanned Camcopter helo, a system that has seen more commercial success in both the military and civil markets, although UMS Skeldar has been demonstrably active in marketing its system since the joint venture was formed. A heavy-fuel variant of Camcopter has been undergoing trials in Australia under work that will act as risk-reduction efforts for the Project Sea 129 Phase 5 program. UMS is also active in Germany where it is teaming with ESG to pitch to the Navy for similar requirements to Australia. The company has delivered Skeldar to Indonesia, which has used it to assess operating a UAV of this type, although little news on the outcome of that work has been revealed by either the Indonesian government or the company. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/16/helicopter-drone-loses-weight-lengthens-endurance-but-will-the-change-attract-customers/

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  2 avril 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Défense européenne : arrêtons de déclamer, détaillons !

  (B2) Il ne se passe pas de mois désormais sans qu'un dirigeant en responsabilité au niveau européen ne présente une idée ‘nouvelle' pour faire avancer l'Europe de la défense. En soi, c'est intéressant, cela anime le débat. Mais il serait nécessaire d'en savoir plus. Une foison d'entreprises On a mis en place une coopération structurée permanente. Puis est venue une initiative européenne d'intervention, dérivée d'une idée présentée par Emmanuel Macron il y a 18 mois, en septembre 2017. Ensuite sont venues plusieurs déclarations franco-allemandes (à Meseberg en juin 2018 et Aix-La-Chapelle en janvier 2019) qui ont évoqué une nouvelle solidarité militaire entre les deux pays et un conseil de sécurité de l'UE. Puis sont venues des déclarations de plusieurs leaders européens — tels le Français Emmanuel Macron, l'Allemand Angela Merkel, l'Espagnol Pedro Sanchez — annonçant un projet, « à terme », d'armée européenne (1). Des dirigeants de premier plan. Enfin, Emmanuel Macron a souhaité mettre en place un nouveau traité de défense avec non seulement l'Allemagne mais aussi le Royaume-Uni définissant une nouvelle clause de défense mutuelle et ce fameux Conseil de sécurité européen. Sans oublier le fameux porte-avion commun, que voudrait développer la CDU d'Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Cesser de mettre en bouche et expliquer Il serait peut-être désormais temps que les idées cessent d'être mises en bouche, mais qu'on arrive à saisir ce qu'elles recouvrent exactement. Paris et Berlin n'ont pas tout à fait peut-être la même idée du Conseil européen de sécurité ni de la défense européenne, il serait intéressant que ces nuances soient clarifiées pour que le débat puisse s'engager concrètement. Il serait aussi intéressant d'avoir un peu de cohérence dans tout ce feu d'artifice d'idées merveilleuses. Expliquer : une nécessité démocratique Les responsables politiques devraient prendre l'habitude, dans leurs grands discours, d'accompagner ceux-ci d'une petite notice explicative, détaillant en quelques phrases, comment leurs belles idées doivent être comprises. Cela aurait un intérêt : éviter des incompréhensions, permettre au débat de s'engager, faire avancer les projets. Cela aurait un avantage : clarifier si on est dans l'effet de manche, l'agitation ou le projet, l'action. Cela répondrait tout simplement à une nécessité démocratique. https://www.bruxelles2.eu/2019/03/31/arretons-de-declamer-detaillons/

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  13 juin 2019 | International, Sécurité, Autre défense

  What’s so sweet about sugar cube-sized robots?

  By: Kelsey D. Atherton If there is anything the future is lacking, it's robots the size of Chiclets. Draper, working under a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is creating centimeter-sized robots, for future use in rescue work. The project is named “SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms,” or “SHRIMP” for short. And short is the nature of the game. SHRIMP is based on the 4 cm long, 1.5 g Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot (HAMR), and wants to shrink it down to a single cubic centimeter. That will require microelectromechanical systems, 3D printing, piezoelectric actuators and, this is crucial, low-power sensors. Once all of that is in place, Draper claims the microbot will be able to jump, sense, navigate and control itself. The design will rely on feet inspired by living creatures to give it extra friction on rough and vertical terrain, and inertial measurement to detect where it is on the ground. “The microrobotic platform capabilities enabled by SHRIMP will provide the DoD with significantly more access and capability to operate in small spaces that are practically inaccessible to today's state-of-the-art robotic platforms,” declared DARPA in the proposer's day note. “Such capability will have impact in search and rescue, disaster relief, infrastructure inspection, and equipment maintenance, among other operations.” The exact “how” of what these robots will do in disaster relief, inspection, maintenance or other operations is yet to be determined, and will largely hinge on the sensors that can be fit to the platform. The most useful thing a small robot can do is get into a space and send information back to humans about that space, but that's hardly the only metric to evaluate the platform. As part of the SHRIMP program, DARPA will have the robot designs compete through a series of events modeled after the Olympics. These include high jump, long jump, weightlifting, shot put, tug of war, rock piling, steeplechase, biathlon, vertical ascent — all ways to find out what useful tasks tiny robots can do. There's a world of speculation between a dime-sized robot that can pile rocks and a useful military tool, but the fact that DARPA is invested in the technology as a platform suggests that, should the technology get there, the design will have some unexpected utility. In the meantime, DARPA's interest suggests there's good odds on a future market for sensors designed for dice-sized robots. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/06/12/what-does-darpa-want-with-sugarcube-sized-robots/