14 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial
Is it still a tiltrotor aircraft if the whole body tilts? The new “Fixar” drone, set to be presented at Russia's MAKS-2019 airshow in late August, is a hybrid of sorts, a quadcopter with fixed wings. With limited moving parts and a flexible design, it's the kind of dual-use technology worth watching and, perhaps, even imitating.
“Many companies and UAV manufacturers will present their aircraft, concepts and models” at the MAKS-2019 airshow, said Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses. “This Fixar UAV is a ‘self-initiated' project by the manufacturer, with the hope of getting attention from potential civilian and military customers at the air show.”
Unlike the more eponymous tiltrotor craft, which switch distinctly from rotor-powered takeoff and landing to propeller-driven level flight, the Fixar instead has its four rotors in a permanently fixed position. The engines remain in position while the whole frame of the aircraft can lean backwards for more traditional vertical flights or stay level to operate as a fixed-wing machine.
While the Fixar's marketing photos show it working in fields of crops, manufacturer IKS also bills it as designed specifically to operate in windy conditions and in mountains, suggesting that the whole machine might have a role in ISR and cargo transport.
“What caught my attention in particular was that the drone can operate in ‘mountainous conditions' due to its unique design,” said Bendett. “In fact, Russian military has been practicing the operation of different UAVs at high altitudes and in high wind — so this Fixar UAV can prove useful right away.”
Like all duel-use platforms, a drone is only as useful as the payloads put on it. Cameras and supply storage are likely options, though nothing yet suggests any new demand on the airframe. An ability to fly fast and from small patches of land without a runway is valuable, but it needs to have a certain range and speed to be a better choice than the baseline low cost and simplicity of civilian quadcopters. A large internal security market might support that and could easily lead to the Fixar in police roles, as well.
“At present, there is no UAV in the Russian military that has characteristics similar to the Fixar, but given a steady rate of UAS acquisition by the MOD — at 300 UAVs per year for the next several years — it's safe to assume that the Russian military is looking to diversify its UAV fleet beyond the workhorses like Eleton or Orlan," said Bendett.
3 août 2024 | International, Terrestre
Through the ARAT task order, CACI will help the Army, other Services, and foreign military partners establish and maintain a state-of-the-art, on-demand environment that provides the most current threat data...
15 mars 2019 | International, Aérospatial
DEBORAH LOYE La jeune pousse française est incubée chez InnoGEX , une structure publique labellisée CERN. Elle dévoilera son produit lors du prochain Salon du Bourget. Ingénieur chez Airbus, Arnaud Violland fait le constat d'une grosse disparité entre la sécurité dans l'aviation commerciale et l'aviation générale. « Cette dernière, qui inclut les hélicoptères ainsi que tous les aéronefs pilotés par un seul pilote, était beaucoup moins bien servie », raconte l'entrepreneur. Fin 2016, il décide de créer une start-up, qui aurait pour mission de pallier cet écart. Deux ans plus tard, Safetyn emploie 10 personnes, dont ses quatre cofondateurs. Réagir au stress La jeune pousse se concentre sur l'aspect psychologique de la gestion des urgences par des pilotes seuls dans leurs cockpits. « Nous musclons cognitivement les pilotes pour qu'ils deviennent de vrais bons gestionnaires de risque », explique le cofondateur et PDG de l'entreprise. Concrètement, Safetyn développe une « box intelligente »qui se place dans le cockpit et propose une assistance au pilotage en situation de danger. Cette dernière prend en compte les paramètres psychologiques du pilote, de sorte à l'assister le plus efficacement. « Nous ne répondons pas tous au stress de la même manière, il est donc important de proposer des solutions personnalisées », explique Arnaud Violland. Le pilote peut en outre être mis en relation avec un assistant au sol, qui connaît lui aussi son profil, et peut l'aider en conséquence. « Cela permet de réduire le temps de résolution du problème », indique l'entrepreneur. Article complet: https://business.lesechos.fr/entrepreneurs/idees-de-business/0600558292284-safetyn-veut-ameliorer-la-securite-de-l-aviation-generale-327787.php
17 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Redwood City, CA – January 15, 2020 – C3.ai, a leading enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software provider for accelerating digital transformation, today announced a five-year agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to deliver C3 Readiness for Aircraft™ an AI-based software application that increases the readiness and availability of aircraft to accomplish their missions. Predicting an aircraft subsystem's risk of failure is essential to the U.S. military's fleet readiness. By using machine learning algorithms to monitor high-priority subsystems for risk of failure and predict the requirements for parts at air bases and depots, C3 Readiness for Aircraft shifts the paradigm from reactive to predictive maintenance. C3 Readiness for Aircraft provides a near real time view of aircraft health for each individual tail number. Using C3 Readiness for Aircraft, maintainers can be made available and prepared for work, and operations personnel can ensure that the right parts are available at the right time and at the right locations. With this application, organizations can substantially expand the use of existing aircraft and reduce the cost and time associated with unexpected maintenance. “Each hour an aircraft is grounded costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars – and approximately $292 billion of the Pentagon's annual budget is spent on operations and maintenance costs ,” said Ed Abbo‚ President and CTO, C3.ai. “Given these numbers, even a fractional increase in aircraft mission capability can save billions. We look forward to building on our initial success delivering solutions that extend the DoD's competitive advantage and support its ambitious plans to implement artificial intelligence at scale.” Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is the DoD organization based in Silicon Valley charged with accelerating the adoption of innovative commercial technologies into the U.S. military to strengthen the nation's security. DIU connects customers with leading technology companies to prototype, transition, and field capabilities within 36 months. DoD has made it a priority to address readiness in the FY2020 Budget so that forces meet a minimum standard. Applying AI techniques helps the DoD achieve this objective rapidly in a cost-effective manner. C3.ai has repeatedly demonstrated its capabilities to DIU to significantly improve readiness for several Air Force units. As a result of a number of successful US Air Force implementations, including the E-3 Sentry (AWACS), C-5 Galaxy, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II aircraft, and expansion to Army Aviation platforms such as UH-60 Blackhawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters, DIU sponsored the current up-to-$95M agreement that allows all the Services and other federal agencies to use C3.ai's software for aircraft predictive maintenance. C3 Readiness for Aircraft operates on the C3 AI Suite™, an integrated software platform that enables organizations to rapidly design, develop, and deploy enterprise-scale AI applications on any public or private cloud environment. The C3 AI Suite allows the DoD to integrate and unify large amounts of fragmented and disparate data, and make those data available for use by machine learning algorithms for insights that improve operations and provide situational awareness. C3.ai's applications are configurable for a variety of capabilities beyond AI predictive maintenance including intelligence data fusion, clearance adjudication, insider threat, improved logistics, supply risk identification, and AI-based operational support. About C3.ai C3.ai is a leading AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. C3.ai delivers the C3 AI Suite for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications in addition to an increasingly broad portfolio of turn-key AI applications. The core of the C3.ai offering is a revolutionary, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically enhances data science and application development. Organizations such as Royal Dutch Shell, ENGIE, 3M, and Enel are currently leveraging C3.ai's enterprise software for greater efficiency, productivity, and reliability. Contact: C3.ai Public Relations: April Marks 650-503-2200 pr@c3.ai View source version on C3.ai: https://c3.ai/us-defense-department-awards-c3-ai-95m-contract-vehicle-to-improve-aircraft-readiness-using-ai/ https://www.epicos.com/article/531552/us-defense-department-awards-c3ai-95m-contract-vehicle-improve-aircraft-readiness