Unmanned Systems

The Air Force Research Lab's effort to rapidly field autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles enabled with artificial intelligence may soon have a formal procurement strategy and a place in the service’s fiscal year 2021 budget.

The Defense Department is preparing to send lawmakers findings of an independent technical study on the feasibility of using an unmanned aerial vehicle to launch an interceptor against a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile during the first minutes after launch.

The Navy unmanned aircraft shot down by Iran was evidently a 2011 legacy Global Hawk transferred from the Air Force, not one of the Navy's new MQ-4C Triton aircraft derived from the Global Hawk design but optimized for maritime missions.

The Army is seeking information from industry for a new, long-range reconnaissance unmanned aircraft system.

The Army is preparing to demonstrate in September how robots can work effectively with soldiers during planning and execution processes under its Command of Robotics Systems, or CoRS, program.

The House Armed Services Committee is supporting the Air Force's plans to accelerate the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology program for pairing with such manned platforms as the F-35.

The Army and the Defense Innovation Unit are working on a pre-decisional program to prototype and field over the next 18 months small, expendable scout drones from slightly modified commercial models.

Despite the Navy's efforts to convince lawmakers to make major investments in unmanned technology, House appropriators are proposing funding cuts for several high-profile programs in their fiscal year 2020 defense spending bill.

The Army's unmanned combat vehicle rodeo in Texas included six companies, some of which offered more than one candidate, putting 10 robotic systems through their paces in a technological maturity assessment for the Robotic Combat Vehicle program.