turning a baseball pitching machine into a military drone launcher a team of researchers
from qual tech in NASA's Jet Propulsion lab have settled on a novel way to launch drones in a hurry
shoot them into the air with a baseball pitching machine the technique could allow future US forces
to launch quadcopter style drones quickly and even from moving vehicles u.s. forces
are increasingly relying on drones as a means to conduct reconnaissance drones allow ground forces
to gather information about hard-to-reach places weather behind enemy lines or the tops of nearby
hillsides for infantry in other groups deploying a drone like a quadcopter is no big deal for
mechanized forces fighting from tanks and other fighting vehicles deploying a drone means stopping
getting out of the vehicle setting up the drone and then launching it in the fast-paced reality of
modern combat that's a less than ideal solution a team from Cal Tech in NASA's Jet Propulsion
lab has an inexpensive low-tech way of launching quad copters a baseball pitching machine baseball
pitching machines typically consist of two spinning wheels powered by a motor the baseball
or softball is squeezed between the two moving wheels and then flung outward towards the batter
now replace the baseball with a reconnaissance drone and suddenly you've got a new way to launch
micro aircraft it works like this the pitching machine drone launcher spits the 18.6 sounds
thrown into the air to a height of 10 meters 32 feet a nickel chrome wire heats up burning
through a length of monofilament line essentially fishing line holding the spring-loaded quadcopter
Wings in place the line melts away the wings pop out and the tiny drone is immediately capable of
self flight according to IEA spectrum the drone is capable of flying like a regular drone just one
second after launch the designers chop the launch system as a means for launching aerial support for
emergency teams or for planetary exploration a spacecraft could use this system to unleash
multiple exploration drones as it streaks through the atmosphere the simplicity of the design
ensuring that a system still works after a journey of millions of miles through space a military use
however is obvious a joint light tactical vehicle the Army's new replacement for the Humvee fitted
with a drone launcher could quickly launch several unmanned aerial vehicles without soldiers leaving
their vehicles even tanks and infantry fighting vehicles could operate their own drone launchers
and launch them while on the move the system can eject drones from vehicles traveling as
fast as 50 miles an hour the testerone known as streamlined quick unfolding investigation drone
or squid is 10 inches long extended and weighs 18 point 6 ounces it lacks the ability to carry
a military less useful payload and is simply a proof-of-concept vehicle fortunately the launcher
is scalable and the team behind the effort is working to produce both smaller and larger drones
Nabby launches flatly West cool drone from submarine drones require infrastructure to
function you've got to launch them from somewhere and if you want them back you have to land them
somewhere to an infrastructure as a general rule is not secretive or stealthy which can
cause problems for the military since they like being stealthy as far as the US Navy goes nothing
is still theour than a submarine so turning one of those into a mobile drone launcher like the
Naval Research Laboratory NRL just did it makes perfect sense submarines are already equipped
with ways of sending stuff to the surface from depth buy stuff we're generally talking about
missiles ranging from tomahawks all the way up to ballistic missiles so all you really
have to do to launch a drone from underwater is replace one of those tomahawks with a drone in
a tube firing off and then instead of engaging some sort of rocket motor let the tube surface
and then gently send the drone on its way easy the drone that the NRL used for this test was
an XFC UAS that would be experimental fuel cell unmanned aerial system fired from a Los Angeles
class that is very big nuclear-powered submarine from some unspecified depth once the launch tube
hit the surface it's stabilized floating upright in an electric launch assist system helping drone
get airborne six hours later the drone landed at the Naval Sea Systems Command Atlantic undersea
test & Evaluation Center in the Bahamas it took just six years to take this idea from a concept
to this demonstration which is apparently not a very long time as far as the Navy is concerned
and that's great but we're kind of wishing that the Navy had instead developed something like the
much much cooler corner and a drone from Lockheed Martin it's just a mock-up but that's a reasonably
significant step for a DARPA funded concept to get to cormorant was sadly cancelled in 2008
t to budget cuts but we still think it's one of the most innovative and coolest looking submarine
drone hybrids we've ever seen watch DARPA test out a swarm of drones the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency darkness is experimenting with using a swarm of autonomous drones in ground row
BOTS assist with military missions in a video of the recent test DARPA showed how its robots
analyzed two city blocks to find surround in Sakura mock city building DARPA conducted its
test back in June in Georgia featuring both drones and ground-based robots the demonstration was part
of dharmas offensive swarm enabled tactics offset program which is designed to eventually accompany
small infantry units as they work in dense urban environments and could eventually scale up to 250
drones and ground robots the test back in June was the second of six plan tests which DARPA says will
increase in complexity as they happen over the next couple of years while individual drones can
be useful a swarm of them would be more difficult for someone to eliminate if they don't want to be
seen DARPA thinks that a swarm of drones would help with a complicated environment like a city
where it's hard to see long distances a large group of drones could provide some insight into a
unit's surroundings this is another example of how the military is exploring the potential that human
robot teaming could bring another project DARPA squad X program allows soldiers in the field to
collect a considerable amount of information about their surroundings with the help of the AI drones
and robots the US Army has also begun to test the use of drones for infantry units it recently
issued FLIR drones tiny palm-sized devices to the 82nd Airborne Division's 508 parachute
infantry regiment which can be used to fly ahead of soldiers and send back video and other data the
advantages of drone swarms cut both ways however and the US military has recently been testing out
ways to eliminate enemy drones swarms in June the US Air Force showed off a new tool called
or a microwave emitter designed to take down swarms of drones some of these defensive tools
are already being put to use as well in July the US Navy used a new system called the MRC our lm-80
is a light marine air defense integrated system to down an Iranian drone that came within a thousand
yards the US military has plans to build better swarm drones US military researchers are asking
industry to develop distribute secured entrusted computing for heterogeneous swarms of autonomous
vehicles officials of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Dartmouth in Arlington
Vaughn issued an SBIR STTR opportunity SB o Monday for the distributed secure entrusted processing
for heterogeneous swarms of autonomous vehicles project the project seeks to develop a powerful
scalable distributed computer and software development environment that enables secure
and trusted collaboration and processing across a heterogeneous mix of autonomous vehicles on low
size weight and power in cost swab C commercial off-the-shelf cots computer hardware there has
been significant growth in autonomous vehicles in the proliferation of low-cost sensors and
other Internet of Things ayet technologies DARPA officials point out yet few are designed with
cyber security in mind although US military is taking advantage of these technology advances to
create new and potentially game-changing military capabilities these technological advances also
introduce new attack vectors for adversaries to exploit DARPA is looking for methods to ensure
that trust and security are designed into all aspects of the autonomous capabilities
to include the platform platform autonomy sensors computer processing and communications to ensure
warfighters trust the technologies the distributed secure entrusted processing for heterogeneous
swarms of autonomous vehicles project seeks to create a distributed secure and trusted processing
environment for heterogeneous swarms of autonomous vehicles that makes the most of flexibility while
guaranteeing computational assurance in trust in each node of a swarm this environment could be a
combination of several techniques coupled with formal verification and a discipline language
for secure and trusted computing the development language should enable rapid implementation of
new missions in swarm tactics while significantly reducing the risk of introducing vulnerabilities
the solution should address the encryption and authentication of all traffic among
nodes by capitalizing on commercial encryption approaches it should provide lightweight mesh
work protocols with minimal overhead to reduce the attacked ability and defend against protocol
based attacks it should use open communications protocols but ensure that they are reliable in
an intermittent communication environment and against protocol based attacks it should require
tools that help the developer adhere to best practice for creating secure and trusted autonomy
applications that capitalize on a distributed processing environment the environment in the
language should accept new sensors effectors processors and autonomous flight algorithms
with minimal efforts the language should be open and easily incorporated into higher-level software
tools autonomous vehicles in a heterogeneous swarm should be able to monitor each other for anomalous
behaviors and detect discrepancies that may not be detectable from one platform this project is
accepting direct - phase two proposals only proposers must demonstrate in-depth knowledge
of secure and trusted embedded processing as it relates to AI and autonomous vehicles for this
BA Ayad is the extension of Internet connectivity into physical devices into everyday objects when
embedded with electronics Internet connectivity and sensors these devices can communicate and
interact with other devices over the Internet and can be monitored and controlled remotely
proposers should provide security and trust architecture design documentation with formal
method proofs of security published papers and referred journals detailed descriptions
of prototypes with supporting security analysis or similar evidence of a track record of developing
secure and trusted embedded computing technologies fried or autonomous vehicles