QinetiQ North America has been awarded a $16 million contract to provide control technology for launch and recovery platforms that General Atomics is building for integration onto a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. QNA said Tuesday it will assemble and test control software and hardware of the  Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear for the USS John F. Kennedy currently under […] More

Gene Colabatistto, CAE‘s group president for defense and security, has said the company is eyeing new unmanned aircraft programs as it aims for a bigger share of the pilot training services market, National Defense Magazine reported Thursday. Sandra Erwin writes CAE has helped the U.S. Air Force train around 1,500 aircrews a year to operate General Atomics-built Predator […] More

Lt. Gen. Robert Otto has touted the U.S. Air Force’s Open Mission Systems standard as performing well and so he said the service plans to expand the program, Breaking Defense reported Monday. Richard Whittle writes the Open Mission Systems standard is intended to adapt a cell phone application-based model to subcontracts as the service branch seeks […] More

A MarketsandMarkets report forecasts the value of the global unmanned aerial vehicles market to hit $14.9 billion in 2020, with an 8.12 percent compound annual growth rate from 2015 to 2020. The research firm said Tuesday the UAV market’s value reached $10.1 billion this year and North America accounted for about 65.53 percent market share. Technological […] More

The U.S. Army has asked industry about available smaller weapons that the military service can integrate onto its fleet of General Atomics-built MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems, Flightglobal reported Wednesday. James Drew writes the Army’s existing Gray Eagles are built to launch up to four 106-pound Hellfire air-to-ground missiles. “We would like increased range,” […] More

The U.S. Air Force could start to use laser weapons in combat missions within five years, Ars Technica reported Friday. Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle told the Air Force Association Air & Space Conference this week he believes directed-energy weapons pods could be installed in a fighter plane “very soon,” Sean Gallagher reports. “That day is a lot closer than I think a […] More

NASA and three aeronautical technology firms have collaborated to demonstrate the collision avoidance functions of an Ikhana unmanned aerial system at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, California. Ikhana worked to alert a remote pilot or maneuvered itself to avoid approaching aircraft while it flew over California’s high desert region, NASA said Thursday. […] More

A Grand View Research report predicts the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for law enforcement and agricultural activities will put the commercial UAV industry on track to hit $2.07 billion in value by 2022. The research firm said Thursday it found that drone applications in the government sector accounted for more than 40 percent of […] More

General Atomics, Honeywell, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting field tests on a sense-and-avoid system to support unmanned aircraft operations in the National Airspace System, Aviation Today reported Monday. Juliet VanWagenen writes that the government-industry team began the third series of flight tests this summer through the use of live and virtual environments to […] More

A new RnR Market Research report has predicted the unmanned aerial systems market’s value to increase almost seven-fold over the next six years to $4.8 billion by 2021. RnR Market Research said Monday that oil and gas mapping, utility line inspection, package delivery and agricultural applications would account for the majority of sales. The report […] More

NASA and its partners General Atomics, Honeywell International and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting a series of tests under the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System program. The space agency said Tuesday the team will perform tests on several UAS at the Armstrong Flight Research Center through July. Previous tests under the first phase have […] More

The U.S. Army has used a new remote system to demonstrate a General Atomics-built MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, the Army News Service reported Wednesday. David Vergun writes F Company/227th Aviation soldiers managed the unmanned aircraft system’s payload with the One System Remote Video Terminal during a […] More