Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2017
The Navys 864 Million Underwater Drones Still Dont Work BusinessWeek
The Navys 864 Million Underwater Drones Still Dont Work BusinessWeek
- Pentagon test data show 24 major failures since September 2014
- Crippled Lockheed drones towed to port seven times this year
Remote Minehunting System
The U.S. Navy?s new Littoral Combat Ship would be ineffective at hunting for mines because an underwater drone made by Lockheed Martin Corp. that?s supposed to find them often fails to work, the Pentagon?s weapons-testing office found.
While mine-hunting is intended to be the primary combat mission of the ship, the drones required to detect underwater explosive devices from a safe distance have failed 24 times since September 2014, according to Navy test data provided to the Defense Department?s Office of Operational Test & Evaluation.
Most recently, the drones failed 14 times over 300 hours in a five-month round of preliminary trials at sea that ended Aug. 30, according to the data. Crippled drones were towed to port seven times, and the intense combat testing required for increased purchases has been delayed. The Navy plans to spend $864 million buying 54 drones from Lockheed, the biggest U.S. contractor.
Frank Kendall, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, has scheduled a Jan. 19 review of the drone?s reliability woes, the latest setback for the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon?s director of combat testing, prepared a 41-page classified assessment dated Nov. 12 for the review.
An independent team named by the Navy also is reviewing the drone program because the service realizes ?reliability performance has not been acceptable,? Captain Thurraya Kent, a spokeswoman for the service, said in an e-mail.
Lockheed?s Response
Lockheed spokesman Joe Dougherty said in an e-mail that the drone ?exceeded or met key performance parameters during a Navy-led development test conducted in early 2015.?? He said the Remote Minehunting System is ?the only system on track for delivery that can fill? an ?imminent capability gap.?
Equipped with a mobile sonar made by Raytheon Co., the drone is supposed to provide the ship with a system that can spot underwater explosive devices without sailing near them, as current Avenger-class mine-hunting ships must do.
?We remain confident the RMS is the most mature system to identify and destroy mines,? Dougherty said. A Lockheed brochure posted online and dated 2014 says the drone ?meets or exceeds all key performance parameters and is available today.
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Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an e-mail Tuesday that the new report ?only furthers my concerns about the testing and reliability performance of the Littoral Combat Ship?s troubled mine countermeasures capability. ?
The Arizona Republican said decisions over the next few months will set the course for U.S. maritime anti-mine capabilities for decades so?there should be no rush to failure.?
Previous Questions
The drone failures add to previous questions about how much value the U.S. will get from what?s now supposed to be a $23 billion program to build 32 Littoral Combat Ships in two versions made by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and Austal Ltd. based in Henderson, Australia. Both versions depend on the drones to detect mines from a safe distance.
The Remote Minehunting System
The Navy spent $109 million buying the first eight drones, spare parts and logistics services from Lockheed in 2005. The drone was supposed to complete combat testing and be declared ready for combat by September of this year. Lockheed stands to gain more than $700 million in orders for the remaining 46 drones. That includes as much as $400 million in February for the next order of 18 that Kendall will review.
Gilmore, the testing chief, found there?s ?sufficient information available, based on testing to date, to conclude? the Littoral Combat Ship ?would not be operationally effective? or maintainable if deployed in combat with the current mine-sweeping modules, Marine Corps Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, Gilmore?s spokesman, said in an e-mail describing the study?s unclassified conclusions.
The system?s ?reliability remains far below what is needed to support? the mine-hunting mission, Rankine-Galloway said. It?s unclear whether the drone ?will ever achieve its reliability goals? of operating 75 hours between major failures, ?but given the history of the program, it may require more design changes than the Navy has been considering,? Rankine-Galloway said.
The Navy?s program to date ?has not substantially grown the reliability,? he said. The conclusion was based on data showing not only that critical mine-hunting systems were unreliable but also that the drone was vulnerable to mines and possessed limited communications capability.
Airborne System
Further, the Littoral Combat Ship?s separate, airborne-based AN/ASQ-235 mine neutralization system currently can?t disable ?most of the mines contained in the Navy?s own real-world threat scenarios,? Rankine-Galloway said. The system, which would be deployed on MH-60S helicopters, is intended to destroy the mines found by the drones.
Kent, the Navy spokeswoman, said the mine-hunting system ?has demonstrated the ability to meet operational requirements.? Still, ?reliability performance has not been acceptable during the most recent? evaluation.
Since September 2014, the drone has experienced 24 ?operational mission failures? blamed on poor workmanship, design deficiencies, wear and tear or training procedures, Kendall was told Nov. 3 in a memo from David C. Brown, his deputy for development testing.
?Considering the focused effort put into improving? the drone?s reliability since 2010, the latest poor performance ?puts into question whether the current? design ?will ever meet the Navy?s reliability requirement,? Brown wrote.
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Friday, September 30, 2016
These drones are coming for your jobs
These drones are coming for your jobs
Career death from above
Hover-commerce hasnt really landed in the U.S. yet, but when it does, these are the gigs that will be disrupted by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
Package delivery could be the (job) killer app of the coming robot air attack. amazon,com, of course, is the elephant in the room, but the packages theyll be delivering will be much smaller than any pachyderm ...
Small packages, huge changes
... and thats perfect, says Amazon, given that 86 percent of the packages they ship weigh under five pounds.
Still awaiting changes in Federal Highway Administration (FAA) regulations that will allow Amazon Prime Air to get off the ground, the package delivery business is nonetheless primed for quite a bit of turbulence.
Theyre in the pipeline
If you have the word roustabout on your resume, youve got some new competition in the job market.
Thats because energy companies such as BP are utilizing drones to inspect pipelines and infrastructure, especially in unforgiving environments like the one highlighted here in a company video from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
Judging by the proliferation of UAV services from companies with names like Microdrones.com and Steadicopter.com, this burgeoning industry will soon be booming.
Film at 11, drones right now
News, weather, and traffic pilots better be planning their retirements now, because an eye-in-the-sky drone army reportedly will soon be snapping up many of their gigs.
And in other news, TV stations that could never afford pricey copters and pilots will soon be in the game, too. The Radio Television Digital News Association calls drones "The latest must-have toys for your newsroom," so the skywriting is on the wall.
Stargaze with the worst of em
Now here are some people we really wouldnt mind putting out of work: the paparazzi.
Unfortunately, while photo drones will put some individual razzis out of work, new high-tech UAVs could make the problem of snooping on celebrities even worse, according to CBS News.
After all, efficiency isnt necessarily a benefit if all youre doing more efficiently is violating peoples privacy rights.
Aerial pizza delivery
Its well documented that robots are trying to take our jobs. Well, the ones they dont take may be done by drones ... at least, if this video of a U.K. Dominos Pizza drone test is any indication of things to come.
Self-flying freight planes?
We all know Google, Apple, and others are racing to develop self-driving cars. Yet while self-flying planes are still quite a ways down the runway, delivery drones like this DHL model on the island of Juist in Northern Germany are a first step.
For now, the packages delivered are small shipments of medicine for the islands pharmacy, but eventually, the skys the limit.
Up in the air, down on the farm
Crop dusters could soon find themselves phased out as new ag technology is phased in. Thats because the FAA is now allowing UAV use for herbicide and pesticide spraying.
Not just for crops
Among the reasons cited for allowing farm drone use are "reduced chemical usage, reduced operator and other human exposure to chemicals, no crop damage or soil compaction and greater fuel efficiency."
Another possible application: security. This 2014 photo shows a drone built to fend off farm thieves and attackers in South Africa.
Construction sites, minus the street harassment
Are flying robots the future of road construction? Trade magazine Equipment World wants to know, and so do we. Turns out the construction industry is already starting to use UAVs on job sites to aid in surveying, aerial inspections, and security.
Book it down under
Because the FAA hasnt yet allowed many commercial drone flights in the U.S., much of the hover-commerce action is overseas, as with this textbook delivery system test from Australian startup Zookal.
Drone inspectors
People who crawl around bridges to do government inspections could be out of a job.
Based on the findings of a study by the FHA and the Georgia Department of Transportation, UAVs would likely do the job more safely and efficiently. Technicians would still need to control the drones ? for now ? but fully autonomous inspector bots are a future possibility.
Drones could go deep
Pilots, surveyors, and engineers could soon face new pressures as the mining industry employs more drones to do all or part of their jobs.
Aerial surveying, safety mapping, and prospecting will all benefit from this technology shift, which could also significantly reduce costs. The website Canadian Mining & Energy notes that drones might work especially well in open pit mines, where hi-def terrain photos could reveal how much material has been moved daily.
Flying assistant for Indiana Jones
Professors hot to advance their research may now have less need for assistants and more need for drones.
In one example from an increasing number of cases involving UAVs uncovering ancient ruins, a professor in New Mexico found a 1,000-year-old village buried in the desert using thermal-imaging drones to see beneath the surface.
"Just a few days work allowed us to do something which would have taken a decade of work," Dr. John Kantner told CBS News.
Cyclone rangers
Best known for exploring planetary bodies such as Mars and Pluto, NASA has also been experimenting closer to home with its Global Hawk drone aircraft. Designed to observe tropical cyclones, as seen in this image of tropical storm Frank, the Global Hawk provides sophisticated remote sensing including radar, HD photography, and data for meteorological analysis.
Big science? Very cool. But thats one small step for a machine, one less job for a pilot.
Real estate photography
Helicopter jocks and the photogs who hire them are on the verge of losing out on lucrative business shooting for realtors, thanks to a creeping infestation of drones.
As noted previously, the FAA has allowed very few UAVs into our airspace, but with new regulations pending, thats about to change.
Beer me, drone!
Minnesota ice fishermen got frozen out by the FAA after Lakemaid Beers UAV was banned from flying the beverages to Mille Lacs Lake. As reported by CNN and others, regulators grounded the hops-hauling drones back in 2014.
Clearly, the brewski-tech pioneers at Lakemaid were just ahead of their time, and we can only hope our meddling government overlords will soon right this lunker of an injustice.
Because, as anyone whos been ice fishing will attest, you pretty much need beer to do the job right. And walking to shore on a resupply mission over the ice and snow is just no fun.
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