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Unmanned Systems Magazine

May/June 2007
AUVSI Members: Click the headline to see the full article and post comments.

Regulars:

• AUVSI Chapter News
  Get the latest updates on AUVSI's Chapters here.



• Column: AUVSI Provides Life Cycle Support Process for Unmanned Systems
  AUVSI's President Lew Goldberg's monthly column



• Column: A New Era of Knowledge
  AUVSI's Executive Director Daryl Davidson's monthly column



• Column: Staking out the Turf
  AUVSI's Chief Knowledge Officer Tom Curtin's monthly column



• News Briefs
  Unmanned systems industry news briefs



• Company News/New Products
  Get the latest updates on company news and new products.



• Technology
  No Need to Choose Between Manned, Unmanned, Company Says

• Unmanned Systems for Search and Rescue Still Face a Tough Climb
  When three climbers went missing on Mount Hood, Ore., last December, the Alliance for Robot-Assisted Crisis Assessment and Response fielded six unmanned aerial vehicles to help with the search.



• Robot Cameras Join Hunt for 'Lord God Bird'
  The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, an elusive denizen of American woodlands so large and magnificent it is sometimes called the "Lord God Bird," is thought to have been extinct for 60 years.



• Getting Civil with UAVs: How Soon?
  Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been very slow to migrate from the military sector to the civil sector, though this situation is beginning to change.



• Unmanned Homeland Security: Get Ready for Growth
  The global homeland security market for unmanned vehicle systems, while small in comparison with the market for their military use, is poised for significant growth over the next decade and beyond.



• New Center for UGVs to Apply Total Life Cycle Approach to Military Robotics
  The US Army's new JOINT CENTER FOR UNMANNED GROUND VEHICLES (JC-UGV) in Warren, Mich., is establishing itself as the new focal point for military robotics and hopes to bring a more holistic approach to UGVs that takes into account everything from basic research to maintenance in the field.



• USVs Will Boldly Go Where Spacecraft Went Before
  Developers of unmanned vehicles that will operate on the surface of the ocean are getting some down-to-earth advice from the creators of spacecraft that operate on the surface of Mars.



• Getting a Leg (or Wing or Fin) Up with AUVSI Competitions
  Ryan Stenson has a vivid memory of the 2003 AUVSI student competition for unmanned underwater vehicles.



• Autonomy in 3D: Virtual Reality Preps Vehicle for Urban Challenge
  Virtual reality has emerged from the laboratory and is being applied to autonomous vehicles with excellent results.



• UAVs in the NAS: An Academic Approach
  A group of undergraduate students from Carnegie Mellon are studying the problem of integrating unmanned aerial vehicles into the National Airspace System and plan to produce a report by May that could help regulators achieve that.



• Soldier Focused: The Unmanned Aircraft System Warfighter Conference
  A record 250 attended the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Warfighter Conference in Sedona, Ariz., in early March, where soldiers came face-to-face with the leadership, trainers and engineers who acquire and develop unmanned systems for the warfighter.



• Unmanned Systems Important for Australian Defence Force's 'Tool Kit'
  Australia's military acknowledged high-level challenges in the roll-out of unmanned systems. Three years after releasing its first unmanned air vehicle roadmap, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) wants to rework the plan giving greater emphasis to networking amid concerns that as more operational systems are fielded, stovepipes may develop.



• AUVSI-Australia Announced at Asia-Pacific 2007 Conference
  During the recent Unmanned Systems Asia Pacific 2007 conference in Melbourne, Australia, AUVSI announced the formation of AUVSI-Australia, a national trade organization promoting the advancement and development of that country's expertise in unmanned systems.



• North Dakota Promotes Unmanned Systems at Second Action Summit
  North Dakota will become the second base for Northrop Grumman's high-flying Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles in the next few years, as well as acquiring General Atomics Predator UAVs, and is promoting its wide-open spaces and technical know-how to try to push further into the UAS market.



• IDEX Reflects Continued UAS Interest
  Abu Dhabi's International Defence Equipment Exhibition (IDEX) is continuing to develop as a major focal point for the unmanned systems sector, rivalling Eurosatory and DSEi as a showcase for new systems.