Bots & Bullets

Compass Technology Group (CTG) has won the Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Award (DMTAA) at the recent Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC). Atlanta-based CTG, an Aerobotix partner and provider of radio frequency (RF) materials measurement equipment, engaged Aerobotix in building its award-winning project – an adaptive radome diagnostic system, which is also the first use of a collaborative mobile robot in Air Force maintenance depots.

Elbit Systems will present the Skylark 3 Hybrid Small Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (STUAS) for the first time at the Singapore Airshow 2022. The Skylark3 Hybrid is equipped with a hybrid propulsion system, both an electric and an internal combustion engine, tripling endurance and offering up to 18 hours of operations, with no change to size or weight.

Lethal autonomous weapons systems demand careful consideration but nightmare scenarios of the future won’t become reality anytime soon, says a UNSW Canberra military ethicist.

For the first time, the Civil Aviation Authority of the State of Israel (CAAI), that operates under the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, has certified an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) for civil aviation, approving it to fly in civilian airspace as any other civilian airplane and not restricting its flight to segregated airspace. 

The DARPA Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program completed a first ever flight of a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter without anyone onboard. Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, completed 30-minutes of uninhabited flight with the optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) over the U.S. Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Later a second uninhabited flight was conducted.

U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Korea teams are using robots to increase efficiency and reduce staff burden in their distribution warehouse. Launched as a pilot program in December 2021, USAMMC-K installed a robotic carrier system the goal of reducing manpower requirements to deliver processed medical supplies from the warehouse’s receiving section to storage and shipping sections as workers fulfill customer requests.

The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) awarded the European leading robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) developer and system integrator Milrem Robotics a contract to provide RAS Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E) Services to the Italian Army.

Eurofighters deployed by the Spanish airforce will receive avionics by Indra with the ability to self-diagnose the status of nearly twenty critical combat aircraft systems. Indra has been awarded the MP C16 R&D project, the use of a system based on AI for predictive maintenance of avionics in C.16 Eurofighter. The contract is worth more than half a million euros.

Amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland has recently conducted a high-energy laser weapon system demonstration while sailing in the Gulf of Aden. During the demonstration, the Solid State Laser – Technology Maturation Laser Weapons System Demonstrator (LWSD) Mark 2 MOD 0 aboard Portland successfully engaged a static surface training target. Portland previously tested the LWSD when it successfully disabled a small unmanned aerial system while operating in the Pacific Ocean.

This year the Defense Finance and Accounting Service expands RPA program saw a shift from delivering simple automations to more value added automations for the Agency. The first twelve bots the Robotics team implemented in 2020 12 were this year joined by additional bots.