10 janvier 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Rafael intercepts drone with newly combined Spyder air defense systems
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems had combined the short-range and medium-range variants of the Spyder surface-to-air system.
14 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial
Is this the first step to military passenger drones?
By: Kelsey D. Atherton
The “passenger drone” is a flying contradiction. It is an autonomous vehicle, with a human inside. Current language has yet to capture this disparity — the weird balance between terms indicating that no human, not even a pilot, is onboard, and the fact that this is a robot people step inside and which then transports them. Regardless of the terminology, the whole category of machine is fascinating: what could people do with autonomous robots they can ride?
On Aug. 4, 2019, Japan's NEC Corp demonstrated its autonomous flying passenger vehicle. With three wheels and four rotors, the craft is informally dubbed a flying car, though like most autonomous flying passenger vehicles it most closely resembles an oversized quadcopter. Long promised by science fiction and technologists alike, flying cars have yet to become a part of daily life. Yet there's something compelling about the drive, and modern attempts can inform what this new avenue for mobility might actually look like.
While the vehicles are primarily designed for urban and commercial markets, any advance in vertical mobility in that space is worth watching for military planners. Taking advantage of commercially driven developments could subsidize new military machines, and it's not inconceivable that, if the technology becomes as prevalent as its designers hope, we could see versions modified like Hi-Luxes to become improvised weapons of future urban warfare.
The most significant development in modern car-sized flying autonomous vehicles is the use of rotors or ducted fans for vertical takeoff and landing. Winged cars, a few of which have been developed, are clunky beasts, awkward on roads and in the air alike. VTOL, though, allows a vehicle like this to operate from helipads or even smaller areas, and to land where people might actually want to go. Freed from the runways and hassles of an airport, VTOL taxis could, for a certain set of extraordinarily well-off commuter, bypass rush-hour traffic. It's a promise that has attracted investment and development from companies like Uber and Bell, as well as multiple others.
While the promise of carrying a person remains the distant dream of such machines, the easier-to-realize more immediate reality will be cargo and logistics, with the possibility of maybe evacuating a human in a pinch. The chief advantage offered by the car-sized vehicles over jetpacks, hoverbikes, jet bikes and flying boards is the stability and interior offered by the larger size.
The technologies that enable vehicles like this are largely the same ones that enable drones at smaller and larger scales. Remote direction, autonomous stabilization, powerful batteries, the ability to maneuver in vertical space and potentially operate in cities, all of this could create a vehicle that provides a capability the commanders of the 2030s, who grew up with drones, might want in a machine.
There is still much work to be done to transform the prototypes from experiments to useful machines. That there are multiple companies on multiple continents pursuing it should be a promising sign for the industry as a whole, and for any military designers looking to piggyback on a drone-like flying car into a new urban battle machine.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/08/08/this-flying-taxi-drone-could-inspire-new-technicals/
Sur le même sujet
-
-
28 septembre 2020 | International, Naval
The Pentagon is eyeing a 500-ship Navy, documents reveal
David B. Larter and Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's upcoming recommendation for a future Navy is expected to call for a significant increase in the number of ships, with officials discussing a fleet as large as 530 hulls, according to documents obtained by Defense News. Supporting documents to the forthcoming Future Navy Force Study reviewed by Defense News show the Navy moving towards a lighter force with many more ships but fewer aircraft carriers and large surface combatants. Instead, the fleet would include more small surface combatants, unmanned ships and submarines and an expanded logistics force. Two groups commissioned by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to design what a future Navy should look like suggested fleets of anywhere from 480 to 534 ships, when manned and unmanned platforms are accounted for — at least a 35 percent increase in fleet size from the current target of 355 manned ships by 2030. The numbers all come from an April draft of inputs to the Future Navy Force Study conducted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. While the number will likely have changed somewhat in final recommendations recently sent to Esper, the plans being discussed in April are notable as they reflect what will likely be major shift in the Navy's future — and the expectation is that a larger-than-planned Navy based on the concepts laid out in the documents will remain intact in the final analysis. Esper himself hinted at that in comments last week. In a speech delivered at the think tank Rand, the secretary called for a Navy of “over 350 ships,” specifically by increasing the Navy's shipbuilding funding account. “In short, it will be a balanced force of over 350 ships — both manned and unmanned — and will be built in a relevant time frame and budget-informed manner,” he said. Indeed, the fleet compositions presented in the inputs broadly reflect the concept of a lighter fleet more reliant on unmanned or lightly crewed vessels that Esper described to Defense News in a February interview. “One of the ways you get [to a larger fleet] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [ships], which over time can be unmanned,” Esper said then. “We can go with lightly manned ships, get them out there. You can build them so they're optionally manned and then, depending on the scenario or the technology, at some point in time they can go unmanned.” The Future Naval Force Study, overseen by Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, kicked off in January after Esper decided he wanted an outside take on the Navy's self-review of its future force structure. The OSD-led review tasked three groups to provide their version of an ideal fleet construction for the year 2045, one each by the Pentagon's Cost Assessment & Program Evaluation office, the Joint Staff, the Navy and a group from the Hudson Institute. Those fleets were war-gamed and the results were compiled into the Future Naval Force Study, which was briefed to Esper earlier this month. Ultimately, the Navy is using the feedback from the study to create their shipbuilding plan and fiscal 2022 budget request, the service said in a statement. “The Future Naval Force Study is a collaborative OSD, Joint Staff and Department of the Navy effort to assess future naval force structure options and inform future naval force structure decisions and the 30-year shipbuilding plan,” said Navy spokesman Lt. Tim Pietrack. “Although COVID-19 has delayed some portions of the study, the effort remains on track to be complete in late 2020 and provide analytic insights in time to inform Program Budget Review 22.” The April documents viewed by Defense News included notional fleets designed by CAPE and the Hudson Institute. Defense News did not have access to the Navy's inputs into the FNFS. Neither fleet reviewed by Defense News, nor the fleet developed by the Navy, will be the final composition reflected in the FNFS. The numbers, however, provide a glimpse of the radically different future fleet likely to be reflected in the final analysis expected later this year. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/09/24/the-pentagon-is-eyeing-a-500-ship-navy-documents-reveal/
-
23 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Le maintien de la BITD, enjeu stratégique pour la souveraineté française
DEFENSE Le maintien de la BITD, enjeu stratégique pour la souveraineté française La question de la résilience et de l'autonomie stratégique de la filière défense française a été examinée dans le cadre du Paris Air Forum 2020, lors d'un débat réunissant Christian Cambon, président de la Commission des Affaires étrangères, de la Défense et des Forces armées au Sénat, le général Philippe Lavigne, chef d'état-major de l'Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace, Patrice Caine, PDG de Thales, et Elie Girard, directeur général d'Atos. Patrice Caine a souligné la bonne résistance de l'industrie de défense : «nous avons été capables de maintenir la continuité des opérations critiques, pour la défense notamment», a-t-il constaté. Thales est «assis sur un socle technologique transverse et puissant, qui s'appuie sur 30 000 ingénieurs et nous permet de servir différents marchés», a affirmé le dirigeant, soulignant que le défi pour la filière est de préserver la base industrielle et technologique de défense (BITD) et ses entreprises de la supply-chain. «Protéger la BITD au sortir d'une telle crise présente des difficultés spécifiques, au sens où les industries de défense de manière générale sont un secteur particulier. On peut imaginer qu'en l'absence d'un volet plan de relance bénéficiant aux industries de défense, les marchés en cours ne vont pas apparaître tout de suite pour soutenir les activités de nos entreprises», analyse pour sa part Christian Cambon, président de la Commission des affaires étrangères, de la défense et des forces armées au Sénat. «Nous attendons une action ferme» a indiqué le sénateur : «nous comptons sur la mobilisation de l'État pour que même s'il n'y a pas de volet industrie de défense dans le plan de relance, on tente de maintenir la LPM». La Tribune du 23 novembre